This is Boston, Not LI

The Times puts together a nice compilation of the jubilation in bars across America following Donovan’s goal and the victory over Algeria. 

This was on a Wednesday morning. I can only imagine what it’ll be like Saturday afternoon when the US plays Ghana.

I say this as a political blogger.

Theoretically it would be awesome. Engage clashing ideologies in real time. Democratize politics. Democratize democracy itself. It’s equal parts philosophy, pragmatism, and adrenaline-laced combat. And yet …

There really isn’t a clash of ideologies. The Republicans are intellectually bankrupt. (Conservative friends, don’t take that the wrong way. Most of you don’t identify as Republican anyway. And if you do, bear with me. I’ve got a few choice things to say about the Democrats in about a paragraph.) At this point, most of the Republicans are defacto libertarians—so long as it means being against something the Democrats want. Of course, if it comes to the military, the police, drugs, or sex, they wouldn’t want to risk doing anything un-American like being different or criticizing people with guns. The Republicans brought a number of great ideas into the political discourse … twenty years ago. We’ve adopted some. Others have failed or been discredited. The Republican’s box of ideas is empty. They’re just pulling out the distorted echoes of things that used to be ideas. “Taxes can stifle growth” becomes “taxes are always bad.” “It is important to reassure our allies in the Cold War by projecting strength” becomes “we shouldn’t care what our enemies think.”

The Democrats aren’t much better. They spent decades trying to figure out whether or not they were simply Communists without the strength of their convictions. There is still a fair amount of that going on. Acknowledging that capitalism is flawed and that businesses can’t always be trusted often morphs into “If it’s bad for business it’s good for America.” But at least the Democrats have the seeds of something new. Of course, many of the ideas the Democrats are pushing now were initially floated by Republicans. So there isn’t a whole lot of discourse.

Then we have the problem inherent in the medium. Blogs are virtually instantaneous. If you don’t react to something immediately, you’re too late. It’s more a game of whack-a-mole than it is a place for thoughtful discourse. Something happened. Can you react to it the same way all the cool people reacted to the last thing that happened? Can you fit it into the same convenient narrative you fit everything into?

Obama gave a speech on Tuesday. Write something! Was it inspiring (Y/N)? If no, it sucked. Worst. Speech. Ever. (Superlatives are necessary to attract attention on the Internet.) Did it have everything you hoped it would have in it (Y/N)? No? Worst. Speech. Ever. Are there any good one-liners I can post on my blog? Were there cheap digs at the people on the other side? No? Worst. Speech Ever. Was it immediately followed up by the kind of action that will make a real difference in people’s lives? (Follow up? There’s no time for that when you live in the Internet!) Did it communicate the things it needed to communicate to the people? (People? Ewww.)

We’re not sure what we believe or why we believe it—but it’s critically important that you agree with all of it. No wonder political discourse is such a mess.

I sure hope you aren’t tired of World Cup posts, because they aren’t going to stop anytime soon. Check out this really cool interactive schedule for the World Cup, let’s you see each individual team’s schedule, each group’s schedule, each day’s matches, and even the matches that are going on at a specific venue. (For those who don’t know, Eastern Standard Time is 6 hours ahead of South African time, so the USA-England match at 2030 is at 1430, or 230 in the afternoon.)

Well, this is awesome. While I always thought that the bets that cities would make against each other when their teams are playing in a championship game/series were kind of lame, the back and forth here is great. Something tells me this wouldn’t happen if South Korea and North Korea were to somehow meet during the knockout stage.

World Cup in 2 days! USA-England in 3!