US Soccer is Wearing on Boltgirl's Very Last Nerve

CONCACAF qualifying for the 2011 World Cup is underway, and in a surprise to no one, we beat Haiti again. Haiti have never scored against us, at least on the women's side, and tonight the US poured in five goals that could easily have been ten. That's fine; I'm actually glad that the score stayed both in single digits and in the bottom half of one through ten, since blowouts don't do anything for either side, nor for the game in general. My problem is with this:

Lori Lindsay goes to the spa plays soccer in a jersey that renders redundant the giant O HAI I'M A GURL sign the Fed would clearly prefer.

What, US Soccer, the holy hell is this? I muddled through the men's World Cup this past summer and those godawful 1950s throwback jerseys with the knowledge that at least the women's side wore sharp-looking shirts. Well, I'm glad the Fed jumped right on it and brought that nonsense to a stop. The clean lines are gone. Now we have weird wraparound piping that makes Wambach et al. look like they're tied into those awkward kimono things you put on before getting your highlights touched up.

The upside is that the level of fug almost keeps me from being annoyed that you can't buy these things anywhere--but, of course, the official US Soccer store will still sell you any permutation of the men's kit you can think of, as well as a Freddy Adu hero t-shirt, just in case anyone's left who still thinks they guy has a future. Or maybe they're banking on people confusing him with actual starter Maurice Edu and buying up all the stock before they have to put it in remainders.

Anyway. The women go at it again on Saturday night against Guatemala, and the match is being streamed on the CONCACAF website, kimonos and all, so give it a look and see what you think. I think I don't like it.

While I Was Away

I swear, you can't leave this state on its own for more than 24 hours without someone forgetting to shut the door and letting the stupid in.

To be fair, there was already a shit-ton of stupid here (Exhibit #1: RealSheriffJoe). Palin's Maricopa County-issued pink panties are just the stupid cherry on the stupid cake.

In other news, it turns out that one of the judges who will be deciding whether Arizona can go ahead and start enforcing the odious SB1070 papers-please law was himself almost deported back in the 1950s when he was a resident alien. Turns out it was just a small series of mistakes on the then-college student future judge's part compounded by an INS officer, but an appeals board sorted it all out and the future judge eventually attained citizenship. Of course, the Daily Star's usual commenting pack of reading comprehension champions are convinced that the judge is a Cuban (Spaniard, actually) draft dodger (he wasn't) appointed by Clinton (by W, actually) who needs to recuse himself right away because he cannot possibly be neutral in any immigration matter now.

This is the same pack that howled about Sonia Sotomayor potentially deciding cases involving Latinas, wise or dull, and about big gay judge Vaughn Walker nixing Prop 8. Corporate lawyer John Roberts siding with corporations in Citizens United, though, was simply jurisprudence. The pack might not have agreed, but it was the decision they took issue with, not the perception that the background of the person making it had any influence on it whatsoever.

What will Arizona do today? I shudder in anticipation.

Jet Setter Goes Jetting

Off to Seattle for the weekend. I hear it may actually rain this time.

Dear Teabaggers

Dear Tea Party Americans:

Let me be the first to admit that I qualify as what you most likely define as an elitist. I have a college degree. In fact, I have a master's degree on top of that. I read a variety of newspapers and works of fiction and non-fiction. I have strong liberal tendencies. I speak and read German tolerably well, can get by in Spanish, and can phonetically read Hebrew even though I don't understand a lick of it. I am a student of the Howard Zinn version of history, not the Glenn Beck chalkboard revisionist version. I spent my college and young adult years in Chicago and have traveled and worked abroad. I hate country music and do not believe that driving a car around in circles for hours counts as a sport, no matter how fuckin' awesome the burnout at the end is. I do the New York Times Sunday crossword in pen. Jane Addams is a personal hero. Oh, and I've got The Ghey.

Elitist to the core.

Be that as it may, I don't want people just like me running the country. I want the people running the country to be smarter and more capable than I am. I want them to be able to grasp complex geopolitical and economic concepts, do a million things at once, and function on very little sleep. I do not want the average American Joe off the street or average Boltgirl off the blogosphere running the government with good old common sense. I want policy analysis with some teeth to it.

I definitely do not want poeple like Sharron "Hispanic? You look Asian to me" Angle and Christine "the First Amendment says WHUH?" O'Donnell anywhere near the halls of power unless they are clutching tourist maps and paying attention for the first time in their lives.

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked him.

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: "You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"

"You actually audibly heard the crowd gasp," Widener University political scientist Wesley Leckrone said after the debate, adding that it raised questions about O'Donnell's grasp of the Constitution.

That's not elitism, Tea Bag Nation. That's the fucking common sense you keep howling about. I don't try to fix my plumbing because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing with home repair once we migrate away from wood and nails. I get Mike from Expert Plumbing to come out and do it for me, because he's excellent and fast. I don't want him writing legislation for me, however, no matter how good he is at sweating pipes together. Putting witchcraft and Hare Krishna-ism and the aversion to wanking aside for the moment, do you think Christine O'Donnell is a salt-of-the-earth common person just like you? Awesome. Good on you. She's cute and perky as all get out. But governing is complex, and hard--just like Barbie always said math is--and it takes more than pluck and a smile. A basic understanding of the Constitution you're sworn to uphold might make a nice start, and since that inherently requires the ability to rub two brain cells together, well, 'nuff said.

love and kisses,

Boltgirl

Stuff on My Mind

1. Rage! At work! Enter my new sunshiny office with caution. If you're preceded by a plate of cookies or bottle of single-barrel bourbon, you stand a better chance of leaving with your head.

2. Sharron Angle! Jesus Christ. I listened to twenty minutes of her debate with Harry Reid tonight before hitting my limit, and now give mad props to Harry Reid for not vaulting over the lecterns and tearing her insipid, insipid throat out before it could vomit up more tripe like "Obamacare" and "legislate from the bench" and "one man one woman."

3. Pinot noir! Did not like! But this Mirassou '09 is quite delightful.

4. Rage! At the gym! Because rehab is not progressing the way I would like. Also I discovered that I really do not enjoy being naked around a bunch of strangers. Worried about homoseckshuals stalking you in the shower? I should be Exhibit One re: keeping eyes so downcast and working so hard to get dressed in a flash that I managed to (a) put my boxers on backwards, then b) turn them inside out while trying to get them off and then back on in a hurry, and finally (c) topple over into the lockers in the process.

5. Mays Counter in Tucson. Go there and eat a lot.

6. Rage! Over DADT! Is the DOJ appeal simply another brilliant move in Obama's brilliant three-dimensional aikido Holmesian chess game that we mortals simply will not understand until the whole thing comes together in a giant fucking explosion of oh, so that's what the fuck he's been doing all this time? Or is it just another unfortunate opportunity to get comparisons between gays and goat-fuckers into the official record? Only time will tell.

7. Rage! Seriously, the work thing has me down, and is sucking the confidence and poise right outta me. I'm back to being the funny-looking kid from the sticks, at least in my head, and IT SUCKS.

8. Well, Mays. Jesus cornmeal-breaded Christ, that place makes everything better. Just get your cholesterol and all that shizz checked before you eat there, not after. Your arteries will protest but your soul will be very, very happy.

In Which the Arizona Governor's Race Gets Even More Stupid

So the guy who lost the Democratic senate primary in Arizona to closet Republican Rodney Glassman (who will be trounced by Maricopa County Republicans voting for John McCain anyway) posted this little nugget Friday on his Facebook:

Is it just because Jan Brewer looks and sounds like a chain-smoker who's been lying out in the Phoenix sun eight hours a day for the last 40 years? I'm more concerned with her lack of mental acuity than the tarballs she hacks up each morning, and actual attributable information is always a plus, but to each his own.

Brewer's puppetmaster, private prisons lobbyist Chuck Coughlin, sprang to her defense with the kind of class that, frankly, we've come to expect: he called Terry Goddard, Brewer's opponent in the gubernatorial race, gay.

Her top campaign adviser blamed her opponent, Terry Goddard, for fanning the gossip and said it was irrelevant.

But then the adviser, Chuck Coughlin, went on to say that if the media are inquiring about Brewer's health, reporters should question Goddard about his sexual orientation.

Remember, Arizona: there are only 20 days left before November 2, and Chuck Coughlin has set the bar for political discourse pretty frickin' high here. Get on it, son!

Shhhhh...

Today is the Boltgirl Heritage Derby, featuring Ireland and Slovakia in a qualifying match for the 2012 Euros, and I am anxiously awaiting to see how Ireland can get screwed over in a football match this time. I hope it at least involves a streaker, a referee payoff, and a duck.

Friday Reading

Need some absorbing reading for your lunch break? We highly recommend this. Then get revenge for all the unhinged e-mails your right-wing brother has been sending you since the last presidential campaign started, and send it along to him and put your phone on vibrate.

The Measure of One Man

My grandfather died seven years ago, and not many days in a row go by that I don't think about him. Sometimes I see him in my dreams when I most need to, and sometimes I'm surprised to see him in my waking hours when I come across someone who shares his mannerisms, or his eyes, or the cadence of his speech.

I saw this on the Maddow Blog this morning, and in John Walker's quiet compassion and measured reason, I saw my grandpa again. Mr. Walker would kick ass even without that--his account of thinking around the biases he was raised to have should be required instruction in our time--but it was a nice little extra on an otherwise gloomy day in the desert.

I wanna be a goshawk.

Another Day, Another Kerfuffle

Hey, brother.

Michigan's assistant attorney general Andrew Shirvell is in trouble for cyber-bullying the president of the University of Michigan's student government, with blog posts calling him, among other things, a radical homosexual activist--excuse me, let me make sure I quote Mr. Shirvell accurately--a RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVIST. I vaguely wondered if there was any chance that this might be yet another tired cliche of a self-loathing homo acting out by attacking a gay person, even though it's been done to death recently (really, Eddie Long, it's so derivative at this point--but the iPhone Under-Armour-in-the-bathroom pics were a nice touch!). So I figured I'd watch the video, and then Mr. Shirvell started talking at 0:24 and by 0:26 my gaydar was completely melted down into the same puddle with my irony meter and I spent the next seven minutes giggling uncontrollably.

Oh, Andrew, honey. You had me at "Well, Anderson..."

I have so many questions. How did this guy manage to get a job in the first place, much less manage to keep it more than a week? As assistant AG? Really? He's really an assistant attorney general? Like, for a state? And he really doesn't think any of his Perez Hilton stylings are the tiniest bit inappropriate for any, you know, actual adult who's decided to pick on a college kid? Oh, wait, that question answers itself.

“Did he think he was just going to get some kind of free pass just because he’s gay or whatever?,” Shirvell said earlier this month with Detroit TV station WXYZ. “I mean, we’re all adults here and so, you know, we’re treating him like an adult with adult level criticism.”

The University of Michigan must be so pleased. As a Notre Dame fan, I certainly am.

Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhh

Sarah Palin, was it not enough to foist your goddamn spawn onto Dancing With The Stars? Did you really have to show up tonight and make me hit the mute button and throw the remote to my partner and jam my fingers in my ears yelling lalalalalalala just in case the mute didn't work and contort awkwardly in the recliner to hoop* the laptop up on my knees to block the TV, running the risk of spraining my spine in order to spare my eyes?

Fuck off, Sarah Palin. I need my mindless entertainment once a week, and you're getting the fuck in the way.

*yes, it comes with a sound effect. It sounds like hoop and comes from the diaphragm.

In Other Words

John McCain, referencing the Defense Department's OMG what if the Marine in the next bunk haz Teh Ghey survey, says we absolutely need to hear from people in uniform before we decide to stop axing Arabic translators for the sole reason that they are cunning linguists in more than one way.

The Air Force, in blessedly futile arguments that Major Margaret Witt should not be reinstated to her job as a flight nurse for a medevac team, says the opinions of people in uniform don't matter a rat's ass.

Her attorneys, led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, insisted that Witt was well respected and liked by her colleagues, that her sexuality never caused problems in the unit, and that her firing actually hurt military goals such as morale, unit cohesion and troop readiness. Several members of the squadron testified to that effect and said they would welcome Witt back to the unit.

Lawyers for the Air Force said such evidence was irrelevant.

Military personnel decisions can't be run by unit referendum, they said.

They need to get on the same page here, because it at this point it looks like The Ghey is subject to referendum, but only when the overwhelming response comes back the way they were hoping. And given the wording of many of the DOD survey questions, the response they're fishing for is pretty clear. I am very curious about what the official reaction might be if even that survey ends up showing that most military people really don't care about team members' orientations as long as they do their jobs.

The Day in Sports

In volleyball news, last night the Philadelphia Independence downed the Boston Breakers and advanced to Sunday's championship match on a sweet kill by middle hitter Danesha Adams. Oh, wait, I'm getting a correction in my earpiece from my producers... Ah. It appears that the Breakers-Independence matchup was actually a soccer game--that would explain the nets being at the ends of the field instead of in the middle--which means that the game-winner was actually a Thierryffic hand job instead of the header Adams and the rest of the Independence decided to celebrate only after it was apparent referee Kari Seitz was calling for a kickoff from the center circle rather than a restart for Boston out of their own goal area.

Then Alex Scott had a OMG I CANNOT BELIEVE THE NET IS THAT WIDE OPEN I BETTER JUST LIE DOWN moment and whiffed from the six and that was that. I have done that before. You welcome death. Poor AS; can't imagine the plane ride back to England is going to be a whole lot of fun for her household.

Well, at least this way Philadelphia get to be the sacrificial lambs for Marta and the Supremes this weekend and Kelly Smith can get a jump on fixing whatever she did to her knee this time around. Frozen peas ease almost any pain, love.

Easy Way Out

Ah Christ, apparently those of us afflicted with The Ghey got shit on again in various ways today. I nicked all these from Joe.My.God because he's way more together than I am today. Also, I love Al Franken, even when he makes me cry.

First, John McCain splits a nut claiming that shit that happens doesn't actually happen.

Then Al Franken gets choked up.

And then, just for fun, a Saxby Chambliss staffer picked the wrong day to tell us all to drop dead.

Mercy, that's a full day right there. Why do I do this, again?

Feeling the pressure to post, to maintain my ZZ-list status in the blogging world.

I got nuthin'.

Maybe in a day or two. I'm still a bit boggled by the empty house.

Taking Leave

The morning and early afternoon in Seattle were sunny and pleasant. We had breakfast on a cafe patio and walked a few blocks to the grocery store to stock him up on ramen and Cheetos. As the clock ticked away into late afternoon, the clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped. We went halfway up the hill to the parking deck and I hugged him and said goodbye and walked away alone in a cold, steady rain.

Triple digits and a too-empty house await in Tucson tomorrow. This is how whatever comes next begins.

Gone Fishin'

I am in Seattle for the week, getting the boy settled in to his new college home. There is so much goddamn good food here I could weep--but I can't stop eating long enough to sniffle, so there you go.

Posting will resume somewhere around the 20th, although the odd food photo might show up from time to time.




















Takoyaki from Wann-Izakaya. Holy shit.

In Retrospect, I Suppose the Vests Should Have Tipped Me Off

Washington state GOP House candidate Hans Zeiger, a while back:

The Girl Scouts allow homosexuals and atheists to join their ranks, and they have become a pro-abortion, feminist training corps. ... If the Girl Scouts of America can't get back to teaching real character, perhaps it will be time to look for our cookies elsewhere.

Future homosexual atheist pro-abortion feminist in training.

The most amazing thing to me about this is that Mr. Zeiger was actually a punk-ass teenager when he posted this to the Interwebs, rather than the bitter 60-year-old he apparently channeled while typing. And seriously, looking elsewhere for your cookies? Can Safeway give you something better than Thin Mints? I don't think so.

Friday Fulminations

Why are the media giving the out-of-control, tantrum-throwing toddler of a minister in Florida so much power? Have none of these people ever been the parent of a three-year-old? Ignore.

Speaking of ill-parented children, I am still pissed about the Johnston-spawning Palin spawn mucking up my Dancing With The Stars, as a cautious foray into the ABC message boards indicates the presence of a rabid audience that is determined to tie up their cell lines, landlines, e-mail, and any unattended phone in the vicinity to OMG VOTE 4 BRISTOL and keep her on into perpetuity. And I so wanted to see Margaret Cho eviscerate the poor little thing with a smile.

In other news of questionable taste, my high school alumni group is in a kerfuffle because a Native American historian across the street at Notre Dame noticed that the school's mascot is an Indian, and has asked the diocese of South Bend to look into making a change. My reaction was wow, I can't believe they managed to hang onto the Indian this long, but judging by Facebook comments, the larger reaction is OMG TRADITION POLITICAL CORRECTNESS BUT NOTRE DAME'S MASCOT IS A SHORT IRISH GUY AND NOBODY COMPLAINS MUSLIMS QURAN !!!!!11!!!!!!111CHEEZITS!

The school board apparently checked with the Pokagon band of the Pottowattomie a few decades ago and got the okay to use the word "Indians" and a single image of a guy in a Lakota-style headdress (in northern Indiana, go figure). I do not know if the current Pokagon leadership have been consulted--although the band's education coordinator graduated in my class and, very not surprisingly, has so far declined to weigh in on a comment thread in which a bunch of mostly white people are insisting that it's not at all disrespectful to let a white kid in fringed pajamas and face paint hop around a basketball court at halftime, or for a bunch of white kids in the stands at a football game to do the Florida State/Atlanta Braves tomahawk chop. Or that it's no more insulting to Native Americans to call our team "Indians" than it is insulting to some curiously unspecified group to have nearby Mishawaka High School call their teams "Cavemen," or, inexplicably, insulting to... Catholics? martyrs? that the New Orleans NFL team is called "Saints."

If the Pokagon really think "Indians" and the logo and the Florida State-style spear on the football helmets is a nice tip of the hat to their culture, then I don't have a problem with it. If they'd like to set new guidelines ensuring a respectful appropriation of their ethnic group and cultural artifacts, I'm all for that too (maybe retiring the old "Indians, St. Joe Indians, whoop whoop!" cheer would be a good start? I'm just sayin'). And if they decide that all the half-assed good intentions in the world about honoring some vague notion of Native American nobility and courage through a 1950s caricature of a chief just don't cut it any more and put the kibosh on the whole thing, I'm okay with that as well. They're knocking down the old school building pretty soon anyway and moving to a new campus downtown; when it's over, it's over.