Category Archives: blog

Emil Guillermo on the coincidence of the U.S/England World Cup match and Philippine Independence Day: A good day for beating back the colonizer!

What a coincidence the U.S. tied its former colonizer at the world’s game 1-1. Or as the NYTimes’ Nick Kristoff tweeted,  the U.S. “beat” England, 1-1….

Of course, the U.S. didn’t. But it’s acceptable underdog-speak. Reminiscent of the famous headline “Harvard beats Yale, 29-29,”  when the improbable tie must be acknowledged with something more than an “attaboy.”  

But I was with Alexi Lalas, the former MLS star, who was unwilling to be diplomatic and on the pregame on ABC forecasted a 2-1 victory.

Why not?

The U.S. can play now.  It’s not like the day of Kyle Rote Jr. and the old NASL.  U.S. players play with the top English clubs now.  Our independence from soccer inferiority  has already been declared.  

So U.S. ”beats” England didn’t come to mind immediately. In fact, the U.S. was lucky the Brit keeper had Teflon mits. Good for pols, bad for goaltenders.  The goal was like a gift from the soccer gods, as if some invisible foot (like Adam Smith’s hand?) nudged the ball to the net, an equalizer by providence.

But that’s it for karmic justice.

 On the day the U.S. faced its colonizer, the U.S. has some other significant imperial baggage of its own.

On June 12, 1898, the Philippines proclaimed its independence from Spain after the Spanish-American War’s battle of Manila Bay.

But the proclamation wasn’t recognized by Spain or the U.S.  

The Spanish took advantage of the communications  lag and before the announcement had ceded the Philippines to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris 1898.  The U.S. had its own imperial designs and made Philippines its first colony. That was all news to the victorious Filipinos and General Emil Aguinaldo.  And with that, the U.S. -Philippine war was begun, and hundreds of thousands of lives, both American and Filipino,were lost.

So you can see how all these years later,  on this day, karma could only carry the U.S. so far.

But now that we’ve tied the Brits, maybe we can all feel better about bankrupting BP and destroying the English pension system!

USA, USA, USA!!!

Emil Guillermo on how non-soccer fans can appreciate World Cup action: The blare of the vuvuzelas makes WC2010 sound like a gastric event. Enough with the tooting. I know you love futbol, but will someone take down the “Honk if you’re horny” sign so we can enjoy “the beautiful game”?

The World Cup is here again. And in the case of West Coast fans, the early bird gets the worm. This morning you got 70 minutes of boredom and about 20 minutes of great soccer. Mexico should have won by at least 3 goals (will give the poster to SA), but instead we ended up with the perfect diplomatic result.

A tie.

Who wears ties anymore?

Ties are good for the kids’ rec and travelling teams, which I used to coach. It caters to the “winning isn’t everything” school of parenting.  But in the World Cup, where soccer zealotry is pumped to extreme levels, a tie is so unsatisfying.  Winning is everything, dadgummit. (A soccer phrase from the Netherlands, I believe).

Still, if you’re a soccer fan, you delighted in little things like when a Mexican wing passed the ball into an empty space behind a South African defender, then outran the defender to the ball. Essentially, Aguilar the Mexican forward passed it to himself. That was like a “wow” move. Too bad his cross to the goal wasn’t converted. 

But the game isn’t about scoring. It’s about the journey, and the displays of brilliant ball handling along the way.

Here’s how to watch the matches: Pray they keep the camera wide enough so you can see as much of the  field as possible. The close ups are good for the sweat. But the way to appreciate the game is to look away from the ball. Don’t follow the ball, follow the empty spaces, and then look to see how the players without the ball suddenly appear to meet a pass into space.

In basketball, a good  guard and a center can play pick and roll all day. In soccer, you can see series of “give and gos” all the way down field. When the passes are direct and literal you won’t see the magic. But when players exploit space and send the ball into the open to a teammate in full run, then you see the beauty and the fluidity of the game. That’s when the magic happens. Like when the South Africans scored the first goal of the cup, the ball was sent into space when Siphwe Tshabalala, #8, found it on a dead run to strike it into the net. 

Text-book use of exploiting speed and space.  Joe Montana to Jerry Rice on a post pattern. Same thing.

Now that’s when when you should blow those darn horns.

Emil Guillermo on the GOP’s sex change and California’s Twin Towers of Estrogen: Welcome to Cattyville

The vote in California was a seismic repudiation of conservative Steve Poizner and the male-dominated angry white voter mentality that has given us a stream of hate rhetoric for decades now.

Poizner won zero counties in California with his hard-ass, polarizing  anti-immigrant ads. In a state where the minorities are the majority that takes some real political smarts.

The winning approach is softer and female. But no less vicious and deluded.  It’s the GOP’s sex change, if you will. Why not? Steve Poizner in a dress couldn’t attract a winning margin with the LGBT vote.   

The new archetype is in Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.  Meg and Carly: The angry white female. It’s the revenge of the dumped CEOs. The GOP’s new look.  An enraged white guy like TomMcClintock is so yesterday, to borrow the phrase “Carly” used to dump on Babs’ retro hair-do the other day. Meanwhile, pull up a chair and hear what “Carly” thinks of your look.

Get used to such exchanges. Welcome to Cattyville 2010.

By the time it’s over, Jerry Brown will seem like the only adult in the room.

Emil Guillermo on the California primary vote: Does anyone have time for democracy anymore? Plus: The GOP’s Twin Towers of Estrogen

We just had an election in California, and once again, in my humble polling place, we had more poll workers than voters.

If Justin Bieber were there, then we’d have a crowd. And then the state’s future  would be dictated by the tastes of 12-year olds—which might be an improvement.  They know what it’s like to live on an allowance.

Still, just 23.4 percent voted in San Francisco.  Los Angeles County was lower yet at 19.6. Maybe if we could jump up those numbers by allowing voting while texting AND driving the state’s numbers would go up. Voting by IPhone? There’s got to be an app for that.

Who voted the most? Little Sierra County, northeast of Sacramento, population around 4,000, had a turnout of 73.3 percent! (I’m  checking if a few goats weren’t allowed to cast ballots to pad those numbers).

I imagine there’s not much to do in Sierra County but wait for an election to have an excuse to get out of the house.  Does that mean those of us in slightly less rural areas have too much to do to value democracy?

We show up when it counts, of course. Like for a general election when the presidency is at stake. But all politics is local, remember. This is the stuff that hits home. And not many showed up.

 MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

The big lesson in California is that money is still everything in politics—if you have more than $30 million. That’s roughly what Steve Poizner spent on his campaign and he didn’t win one county.  So let’s  revise the adage. You need almost $100 million to be victorious like Meg Whitman, the GOP’s first female standard bearer to run for governor of the state. She along with Carly Fiorina, who won the GOPs senate race, are the party’s new public face: The twin towers of estrogen.  You can talk about diversity if you’d like, but Democrats have had women, gays, lesbians, Asians, Latinos, blacks for years. Why praise the GOP for something it should have embraced a long time ago?

But here’s why you should be suspicious: Anytime you hear someone say they want to run “California like a business,”  run away. Fast.

That’s not what we need in this state.  Arnold’s already tried and look what he’s done.

After Tuesday, the state finds itself with two failed CEOs who have used their parachute money to enter politics (remember, they’d still be CEOs if they were really successful).They now want to do something useful with their lives besides make money.  They think because they ran a business, they can run a government.

As Arnold found out, it’s trickier than it looks, mostly because government isn’t about dollars and sense nor bottom lines and profits. It’s still about people and services that make up a community.

A CEO of a major corporation, whose trick  to raise revenue  include off-shoring, laying off older workers, and generally trimming human beings to show profit, just doesn’t have the skill set for the kind of government that fosters community.  But whose to stop the vanity of Whitman and Fiorina who have the money to put their business  skills to the test.  You want to be the guinea pig?  

Tell me how smart it is to spend nearly $100 million for a 4-year job?  Where’s the fiscal responsibility in that?

PUBLIC FINANCING and MCLEOD

The only way to get good people to run is to eliminate money as a factor. And unfortunately, Prop.15, which called for a public funding experiment failed.

 Money is the reason why American Filipino Rod McLeod’s run for Superior Court judge in San Francisco was notable.  Spending less than $2,000, he was trying to buck the trend in an office that should be above money. His opponents , however, spent about $100,000 each.

McLeod took the high road and finished third.

It counts. But what does it mean with just a 23% turnout?