Liverpool 0 - 1 Wolverhampton

After having had the misfortune of choosing this match to sit down and watch in its entirety (only the second time I have been able to do so for Liverpool this season), I thought I would offer my thoughts on what must surely be one of the most abject performances in Liverpool's Premier League history.

To call them bad would be a disservice to Wolverhampton, who are bad. Liverpool were much worse than bad. In fact, "downright awful" doesn't begin to approach an adequate characterization of their display. Liverpool were found wanting in every single possible component available for categorization. The defending was calamitous. Reina was floundering on crosses consistently and probably should have saved the one goal (he got the angle wrong and was slow to come out). The passing was pathetic. Sadly Javier Mascherano is more capable of unlocking a brilliant pass than any of the members of Liverpool's midfield today and he is a purely destructive midfielder. And on the few occasions when Liverpool got the opportunity to attempt at shot, the shooting was woeful. Raul Meireles, Ryan Babel, and David N'Gog were all culprits in this regard.

And I have not yet begun on Roy Hodgson. I do believe that Hodgson should be given time to fashion the team in his own image. He is, after all, still playing with Benitez's players, but he should not be exempt from criticism for this performance. In the first half, Liverpool were absolutely inadequate. Wolverhampton pressed them high up the field, and I'll bet that Pepe Reina attempted as many passes as anyone else wearing red. To get around a high-pressing defense, a team must play at pace. This is a correction that should have happened at halftime. Instead, Liverpool came out for the second half playing exactly the same. Unsurprisingly, they were punished after catastrophic defending let Stephen Ward score his first ever Premier League goal, and his first goal at all in over three years. And why wasn't Maxi Rodriguez included? He's been one of the few consistently positive performers for Liverpool this season.

And I haven't even mentioned yet that going into this match, Wolverhampton were bottom of the table. They had taken only 1 point out of a possible 24 on the road this season. Wolverhampton were also playing on only two days rest after losing at home to Wigan on Boxing Day. How much worse can it get? Well, Liverpool play sixth-placed Bolton at home before a three game run of away matches that sees them visit ninth-placed Blackburn and eight-placed Blackpool either side of a trip to Old Trafford. If Liverpool play as horribly as they did today, I'd be surprised if they get more than a solitary point from those four fixtures. The pressure is on as well, as West Ham, Wigan, and Wolverhampton, the Ws of the relegation zone, have all won at least one game of the festive fixture feast and Liverpool are sitting just three points above the drop zone.

I simply cannot imagine what the American owners are thinking as they try to make sense of Liverpool's needs. If they watch the footage of today's game, they'll be thinking they need at least eleven new players.

Barcelona 5 - Real Madrid 0

In the game that is more than a game for a club that is "more than a club" (their official motto), things could even have gone better. Messi hit the post with an audacious effort on six minutes, chipping a curling shot over and around a strangely unsuspecting Iker Casillas, only to see the effort rebound of the inside of the post and be cleared. At 2-0, there was a moment when Messi clearly should have passed instead of shot and it would almost certainly have gone to 3-0. And when Xavi rounded Casillas early in the second half, he too, should have squared back across goal rather than attempting to hit a volley from a ridiculous angle.

But Barcelona had to take only some of their chances on a night in which they were utterly dominant. The 98,000 Nou Camp faithful were singing after only 10 minutes as Iniesta's perfectly weighted ball through five Madrid defenders skipped up fortuitously of the heel of Xavi for him to volley delicately around Casillas. The masters of the tiki-taka, as Barcelona's style of play is called, combined in their unique way to go one up on Madrid. Less than ten minutes later, it was some truly awful defending from Ramos and rather uninspiring play from Casillas that led to Barcelona's second. Sensing danger, Ramos followed one of the midfield runners into the box, but in so doing, left Madrid's right flank entirely open. Villa received a 50-yard cross field ball in acres of space, and as Ramos went back out to meet him, Villa danced around him and played in a low cross that Casillas could only parry into the path of Pedro who happily tapped in.

The second half opened at a blistering pace, and after Xavi couldn't finish after rounding Casillas, the same exact ball from Messi put Villa through and he was never going to miss. Three-nil. Three minutes later, instead of a 10-yard ball from Messi, it was a 50-yard ball as he sent Villa in behind a ball-watching Ramos. Villa finished exquisitely, slipping the ball between brave Casillas's legs. Four-nil. Barcelona were content at this point to sit back and resume their monologue with less attacking impetus, although had Bojan not stumbled when played through shortly after his introduction, it surely would have been five. Madrid could produce nothing, though, and Barcelona hit them on a counter late on, Bojan firing in a cross for fellow youth-academy graduate Jeffren to slot home.

What more could one have asked for? Five goals. The first loss for Real Madrid under Mourinho. Mourinho's worst defeat in his managerial career. Ronaldo stymied yet again. 3 goals from products of La Masia, Barcelona's youth academy. 4 assists from youth academy graduates. As Tom Adams wrote on Soccernet.com, "The school defeated the bank." The most expensive team in the history of the world succumbed to the Barcelona monologue in startlingly average fashion.

Surely the euphoric mood in Barcelona has not yet abated. This is not merely a sporting event. It is a battle of the two regions' historical ideologies, with Barcelona providing the leftist resistance to a history of Madrid-based domination under Franco. Everything for which Barcelona stand was repressed by a dictatorship that may have gone so far as to get involved in breaking up the transfer of Alfredo DiStefano to Barcelona so that he would wind up at Real Madrid.

That so many of Barcelona's players are Catalán is not merely a byproduct of a good youth development program; it is partly the goal of the program. Pride in Cataluña is a central tenet of the Barcelona way. Five of Barcelona's players last night were born in Cataluña: Valdes, Piqué, Puyol, Busquets, Xavi, and Bojan. Messi and Iniesta have both been there for a decade and as one admittedly biased Brazilian colleague of mine said, "Messi is more Catalán than Argentinian."

The most telling moment of the night for me, however, came on 31 minutes when Barcelona's coach, Pep Guardiola, held the ball a little too long for the liking of Ronaldo who was attempting to take a quick throw in. Ronaldo shoved Guardiola who, to his credit, didn't go down in a moment of play-acting. It is the only time in my life when I can remember Iniesta getting angry. Iniesta is consistently one of the most fouled players in the game. And he might ask for a card. He might require treatment. He might go down too easily for some fans' liking, but he never gets angry. He is never disrespectful. Well, when Ronaldo shoved Guardiola, the diminutive Iniesta went over and got in Ronaldo's face. He was the first one there verbally abusing Ronaldo, the ever-disrespectful monstrosity of a human, who is undoubtedly 50% larger than the little midfield maestro for Barcelona. The immediate defense of Guardiola, a man who wholly embodies the Catalán cause, by the entire team (Valdes rushed some 70 yards from his goal to get himself involved) is truly indicative of the sense of cohesion the coach as created in the team. They love him for everything he is.

The season is long and the lead is only two points, but Barcelona could not have dealt their most bitter rivals any more of a psychological blow. Valdes had only two saves to make on the night, and in an even more telling statistic, Casillas made only one. A shot-stopping percentage in the teens is never a good statistic for a 'keeper, but Casillas's reputation is such that the statistic speaks more to the success of the Barcelona way (pass the ball into the back of the net) than anything else. Madrid have Valencia at home next week, and the season could quickly spiral out of control for them. Barcelona will surely own the head-to-head tiebreak at the end of the season, and that means that Madrid must now win the league outright.

Barcelona 5 - Real Madrid 0. Absolute Euphoria.

Ethics, Politics, Economics, and Limiting Individual Liberty

Although I am relatively unfamiliar with the field of ethics within philosophy, my simplistic understanding leaves me with the sense that there are two basic approaches. One may either operate with a rules based system or a consequentialist system. The most common example of the former would be the ten commandments. The latter is based entirely on the end outcome of the decision in question. Lest you think this consequentialist system to be Machiavellian, it is not the case that the means are ignored. In fact, the means are also ends in themselves so long as we are treating a consequentialist system seriously.

A prime example of the difference between these two systems can be seen through the famous trolley car problem. In one iteration of the problem, we suppose a trolley car is rolling down the tracks and if you don't do anything, it will hit a group of five individuals. You are standing at a switch, however, and so you have the ability to divert the trolley car onto a different track. Of course, if there were to be no negative consequences of diverting the trolley car, we wouldn't even think twice about doing so, but in this problem, there is one person on the track onto which you could divert the trolley car. Now is where we see the difference between the rules-based thinker and the consequentialist thinker. If the rules-based thinker believes himself unallowed to kill within the bounds of his ethical framework, he will be unable to throw the switch, for this would amount to killing. If he merely allows the events to unfold, he has not directly killed anyone. If he throws the switch, saving five lives but killing one, he has killed. The consequentialist thinker, on the other hand, doesn't even think twice about throwing the switch. He knows that if he throws the switch, he saves a net of four lives. Clearly five alive and one dead is better than one alive and five dead.

Yet although the rules-based thinker may seem to be acting stubbornly in this scenario, we can design many scenarios such that those who operate with the rules-based system and those who operate with the consequentialist system are much closer in number. Imagine, for example, that the only way to stop the trolley car was by pushing a fat man onto the tracks. What about a fat woman? What if the only option were to throw a baby? Suddenly there are many more people saying, "Wait a second. There's no way I could throw a baby under a trolley car to stop it even if it would save five lives."

My hypothesis, and there may be some evidence to support this, is that conservatives choose the rules based system more frequently than liberals do. My first argument for that would be that conservatives are much more religious than liberals, and so they're more used to thinking within such a framework, but really what I'd like to get to today is the economic arguments made by libertarian economists, because I believe that they use a rules based approach to discussing the ethics of government involvement in the economy where a consequentialist approach would be better suited.

Perhaps I haven't fully grasped the libertarian argument, but I believe it generally goes as follows. Individual liberty is the foundation of western society. The government should do everything in its power to avoid infringing upon individual liberty. The economy functions most efficiently when the government doesn't limit the power of individuals or collections of individuals (i.e. corporations). The government exists for the purpose of protecting individual liberty (i.e. ensuring that your person and property are not unduly harmed). The government may, in special circumstances, break up monopolistic entities in the economy. Any extension of the government's power beyond these basic principles would be a violation of someone's individual liberty and, ergo, would be a transgression of its mandate.

How is this system dependent upon rules-based thinking? It takes individual liberty as the only moral good. It then supposes that, excepting limits placed of individual liberty's own protection, any limitation of individual liberty is morally unjustifiable. A rule has been created; thou shalt not limit individual liberty. But this method clearly possesses innumerable problems.

The first problem I see is its disregard for historical context, concretely that we do not currently (nor, many would argue, will we ever) live in a society that tolerates all types of people equally. So long as there is discrimination of any sort at a system-wide level, we must take measures to help those whose individual liberty is systematically marginalized. Yet any compensatory measure, such as affirmative action, will be decried by libertarians as an infringement upon the individual liberties of those who do not suffer from systematic abuse of their liberties.

A second point of concern for the libertarian argument on individual liberty stems from its justification for individual liberty being the highest moral goal. The justification, I believe, is that individual liberty for all to the greatest extent possible is the system which is most fair. This argument only holds if people begin from an equal point. A quick look at American society easily demonstrates that this has never been (and again, many would say never will be) the case. Its not as if most of the poor in this country have ever had the same opportunities as the wealthy. And this is true dating back to the time of the arrival of the first settlers from Europe. The wealthy have systematically exploited the poor for the duration of western civilization. So given that the origin of the wealth of the wealthy is, in many cases, from so long ago that nobody even knows where it came from, and that society has always operated in such a way as to allow this to translate into far greater opportunities for the wealthy, it makes zero sense to suggest that a system which grants as much individual liberty as possible is in any way fair.

So what does the ethical consequentialist point of view have to offer to this discussion? Well for starters, it would take into account some positive effects of the limiting of individual liberty. Say, for example, that a governmental regulation could help alleviate intolerance in American society, but that to pay for the system would cost the wealthy more than it would cost the poor. Well, that disproportionate amount would be decried as libertarians as an affront to the individual liberties of the wealthy. But doesn't the moral good achieved through the limiting of their individual liberties by virtue of creating a tolerant society far outweigh the moral cost of taxing the wealthy more than the poor?

At the end, it inevitably boils down to taxes, and here is where we see the advantages of a consequentialist point of quite clearly. Whereas the rules based system must necessarily argue for a flat tax (any other treatment would be discriminatory and, thus, a violation of individual liberties), the consequentialist system would show that the marginal utility of a dollar to a person with $10,000 is far greater than the marginal utility of that same dollar to a person with $10,000,000. The consequentialist system offers a balancing act between individual liberties and a compensation for the enormity of disparity of opportunity, which results in allegedly equal individual liberties contributing to systematic oppression.

And the libertarians will comment in 3, 2, 1...

David Brooks Should Say Something

David Brooks used to be my least favorite columnist at the NYTimes - at least until Ross Douthat got there.  It had seemed to me, however, that over the course of the last couple of years, while the country has moved farther and farther to the right, Brooks has come to fall, rather than on the right side of the political spectrum, somewhere in the center.  His column today in the NY Times, however should leave readers uncertain as to where his political ideology places him.  

Brooks is critical of what he sees as a lack of psychology, emotion, and morality in liberal economic policies.  And many of his points are good ones.  Our conception of economics is far too rational, calculated, and non-inclusive in its regard for humanity.  But I see this as neither unique to the left nor the right.  Brooks claims that conservatives are now making psychological, emotional, and moral arguments against stimulus or stimulus-equivalent policies, but he seems to have taken an exceptionally generous reading of such arguments and falsely attributed them to only one side of the political spectrum.

Let's take the argument that the national debt is too high, and that it creates an unstable economic environment that discourages investment.  I don't think most liberals would disagree with that.  Neither I nor any of my leftist friends would argue that we should be unconcerned with the national debt.  Liberal are merely suggesting that in times of economic crisis, trimming down the national debt is a secondary concern to fixing immediate problems resulting from the ups and downs of the business cycle.  And if we seek to place the national debt argument in a historical context, as did James Fallows of The Atlantic, it is Republican administrations under which the national debt has burgeoned.  

My concern with Brooks is not that he makes bad arguments, rather that the arguments are incomplete.  He attacks liberals without looking at conservatives, without asking what conservative proposals are on the table.  What is the human component behind the flat tax?  Let's tax the poor and the rich equally.  Or what about a national sales tax?  Equality of taxation negates the possibility of equality of opportunity, a concept which is in itself, a moral argument.  

Has Brooks fallen onto the wrong side of the partisan trap?  I had thought him the one man big enough to stand up and say to the Tea Party, "you guys are psycho."  His critique of liberals in an article entitled "The Two Cultures" leaves that hypothesis clearly in doubt.  

On Greek Life at Dickinson College

Following the panel discussion on Greek Life at Dickinson College, I thought I would offer some reflection about both the event specifically, and Greek Life at Dickinson more generally.

While the event may have served to illuminate some points of the debate for those who had not thought critically about the issue before, this is, of course, contingent upon them having listened. I am skeptical as if the majority of people on either side of the issue found themselves particularly enlightened by the comments made by any of the panelists - not that the panelists were not making good points - rather that the point at which anyone hears criticism in that context, he is likely to shut down the higher faculties of intellectual thought and become defensive.

Being rather anti-Greek myself (for reasons which I will lay out shortly), I found two points to be of particular interest on the other side. First was the argument that the Greek organizations are more different than they are the same. While it is true that non-Greek students very often tend to lump Greek organizations together, I find this argument that the Greek organizations are more different than similar difficult to swallow. The recruitment process, as one questioner pointed out, is the same for all of the traditional Greek organizations. The pledging process and the group philanthropy are also elements in common that apply to few non-Greek organizations, with the exception of the athletic teams, with which Greek organizations overlap considerably, and organizations specifically designed to do philanthropic work. So yes, although non-Greek students should strive to understand the more nuanced role of the Greek organizations on campus, it seems a far cry to suggest that there are more distinctions to be made between the Greek organizations than there are commonalities among the them.

Another point I found elucidating is that Greek students feel at times marginalized by the wearing of their letters. One panelist's comment that people ignore her on days when she wears her letters was disturbing. I would have expected more of my fellow students than to assume that a particular organization to which a student pertains becomes more of her identity than the totality of other interests and affiliations. But there is a certain irony in this problem as well, for I know it to be the case that within one female Greek organization on campus, the pledging process requires that recruits not talk to members of the opposite sex. It is certainly befuddling in this context that while with one hand a Greek organization can be mandating the exclusivity of its members at the same time with the other be upset for being excluded.

Although these points were interesting and important, there were other essential components to the discussion that, unfortunately, I felt were not adequately addressed. The first of these issues is about space. Although this was brought up briefly, it wound up being swept under the table without a good response from the Greek students on the panel. The criticism, which I found to be a quite astute one, was that the type of conversations such as were being had, never take place in a neutral space on Dickinson's campus. When there are discussions that involve Greek students about Greek life, they invariably (it seems) either include practically the whole of the Dickinson Greek community or none of it. And from the array of letters and seating patterns of the Greek students at this discussion, it seems as if that fact has not been understood to be problematic by the Greek community. Surely one must be able to understand that sitting in such groups displaying loyalty to them is intimidating to those not in them, especially when the vast majority of the audience was Greek.

The second point that I felt was not adequately addressed was the fact (I don't believe it can be debated) that Greek culture wields a disproportionate amount of social power on Dickinson's campus. Because Greek organizations have the venues, the numbers, and the money to host parties, they do. And one faculty member was correct to point out that surely this must be the reasoning behind some students' decision to join Greek life. Good evidence of the disproportionate amount of power wielded by Greek organizations is the fact that many students who don't go to parties feel as if they are, in some way, not partaking in the quintessential college experience. That these assumptions about college life are present in students is unquestionable, but the college should be (and is) working to make sure that they go away. I would have been curious to hear the responses by the Greek students on the panel to whether or not they agree that they have a disproportionate amount of social power, and how partying is viewed in relation to the college experience within their particular Greek organizations. Perhaps this post will generate such a discussion.

Other discussion points about Greek Life about which I am not well-informed enough to make a good argument are how these organizations relate to class, race, and sexual orientation. Some statistical information would be useful in this regard. What percentage of students in Greek organizations are on financial aid? What percentage of students in Greek organizations are minority students? What percentage are international? And given the perception that professors apparently have that belonging to a Greek organization is detrimental to one's academic performance, how does the average GPA of a Greek member compare to the average of the student body as a whole?

But of course, during the discussion, the elephant in the room was the question of the continued relevance of Greek Life at Dickinson; and I think this could rightly be extended to liberal arts colleges more generally. If Greek the exclusivity of parties, one of the most problematic components, and the lack of transparency in the affiliation process, another large issue, were to be reformed, what would be left of Greek life other than a collection of friends who did community service together. I challenge Greek students to offer a unique contribution their organization makes to the college community that could not be made through a more transparent and inclusive organization. If such an argument could be made, and I have my doubts, I would be willing to consider that the retention of Greek Life would have value. Of course, the unique contribution would have to overcome the problems associated with Greek Life, such as the objectification of women, the disproportionate social influence, the exclusivity, the lack of transparency, etc.

There are other points to be made, but my goal here is to start a discussion, civil and respectful, that treats some of the harder and more contentious issues pertaining to the continued existence of Greek Life at Dickinson College, so I will leave those additional points for the discussion. The contributions of all are welcome.

More on the Social Sciences

Over the past couple of weeks I have been reflecting substantially on my previous post about the social sciences being the center of knowledge production, and I'd like to expand on that some here today.

In discussions with friends, this map of academic citations has surfaced. I remember seeing this map when it was published in the NYTimes about a year-and-a-half ago, but I didn't make much of it at the time. Another year plus of college, and I'm now in a much better position to assess some of what this means.

The first thing you'll notice when viewing this depiction is that the social sciences are in the center and the hard sciences are around the outside. There are a few points of convergence such as economics, which rests as the outskirts of the social sciences near statistics. There are also some environmental fields such as biodiversity and ecology that rest somewhere between the circle of hard sciences and the inner circle of social sciences. Music lies in such an area as well.

As you inspect this intricate web in greater detail, however, you will notice that some of the traditional academic disciplines are conspicuously absent. Political Science and History, arguably the two most established social sciences, are the two that struck me at first. But then I noticed the unnamed cluster in the middle of the inner circle of social sciences, and this seems like a logical place for both history and political science. It is impossible for these disciplines to ignore any other discipline. History, of course, includes the histories of science, medicine, technology, and the environment, and Political Science must deal with all relevant political issues, which span a similar breadth of academic orientation. And there is no other unnamed group of dots in the map.

Regardless, of whether or not Political Science and History do occupy this central place, I'd like to offer a hypothetical extension of this diagram into a third dimension. In the social sciences, there are articles that are written at the level depicted in this diagram (what I'll call Level 1). These would be articles about topics in these disciplines, such as your basic historical, sociological, anthropological, etc. article. But there is a second level at which these disciplines take place - at the theoretical level. Scholars in the social sciences are consistently engaged in a debate about how best to do research in their field. I believe that ascending to this second level allows scholars to see with greater perspective what is going on in the other disciplines that perhaps they were not able to see before.

Yet at Level 2, there is less interaction between the disciplines, such that sociologists are concerned with how to do sociology, historians with how to do history, psychologists with how to do psychology, etc., etc., etc. How then, do we transcend this second level, and see the interactions of the social sciences on a theoretical level? I believe that there may be a singular answer, the pinnacle of the pyramid so to speak, and that this apogee may well be political philosophy. Political philosophy must combine economic theory, social theory, and historical theory (among many others) to offer a successful view of what holds society together.

Although this view may seem to offer little in the way of consolation for the sciences, I would argue otherwise. The sciences are the frontier of knowledge, extending outwards the base of our pyramid of knowledge. They are likewise the foundation, the established knowledge. Political philosophy is the speculative thinking, to speak in Hegelian terms, that which is a synthesis of our established knowledge in the hard sciences and our theoretical ideas in the social sciences.

I am certain that this thesis I have put forward about the shape and relation of our knowledge structures is controversial, and I welcome your input and ideas.

Why We Know Nothing

What do we know? This question, long addressed by philosophers, represents the penultimate question. The ultimate question being the search for new knowledge. It seems, however, that knowing what we know is the only way of knowing what we don't know. And so to know more must require some attempt to answer the question of what we know. But we are supposed to live in the Information Age, the Golden Age of technology and communication. There is no dearth of information in our time. The internet is a world of information at our fingertips. Yet in many respects although we live with more information than in any period in the history of man, we live with far less knowledge.

I'd like to start with a brief less in the history of American higher education. Following World War II and the passage of the GI Bill, hundreds of thousands of young adults to whom the world of higher education had previously been closed off suddenly gained access to further education. This required both an expansion of facilities (number and size) and faculty (teachers). This expansion continued even after the wave of World War II veterans made use of the GI Bill as their children (the now infamous Baby Boomer generation) passed through the higher education system in even greater numbers. A wave of academic literature was published while the Baby Boomers were in college because the number of professors required kept increasing. But this expansion was never going to last forever. In fact, it has just about stopped.

I was born late to two Baby Boomer parents who were a little on the late side of the Baby Boom generation which places me at just about the end of mini demographic hump. And after years of expanding due to increased demand, our higher education system is now going to have to contract. For the number of jobs there are, we have far too many people graduating with PhD's. Even many students earning a Bachelor's Degree won't need that degree for their jobs anymore. With economic downturn looking to be a more permanent state of affairs than at first imagined and college tuition fees skyrocketing, the passing of the demographic hump, and the realization that maybe a four year college degree isn't the most effective investment, colleges soon will be experiencing a decline in applications.

But our issue with knowledge is largely in part to the faulty system of knowledge production. With far more candidates for academic positions than there are spots to fill, competition has reached mind-boggling proportions. The brochures listing available professorial positions have decreased in size dramatically. No school wants to hire a professor who hasn't demonstrated an ability to be published for her brilliant research. But publishing requires adherence to strict disciplinary guidelines of methodology. The result is that getting published often requires extraordinarily narrow and deep research into a particular field. This in turn results in highly specialized individuals who can tell you about rural goat-herding populations in Bolivia, the mathematical equations to represent sub-atomic particles, or the use of internal rhyming in John Milton, but can't tell you about the significance of those ideas in a larger context. As academia gets to answering the smaller and smaller questions that haven't been answered, it gets further away from answer the bigger questions that require interdisciplinary synthesis.

Where, then, should we look for a solution to these problems? I believe that the social sciences offer a unique point of view in that they are by definition interdisciplinary. As scientific research, in particular, becomes increasingly specialized and scientists increasingly lack the necessary broad view of research across the various fields to create works of synthesis, the social sciences can step in to provide synthesis and relate this research to the social world of the ordinary citizen. As philosophy flounders under the burden of the analytic critique of belief in knowledge, the social sciences can create a new vision of what the world looks like. The social sciences look at the point of intersection between ideas and the material world. The social sciences work to explain cultural phenomena in a way that neither the hard sciences nor the humanities can do successfully - the hard sciences being too rational for the nuanced structure of the human mind and the humanities being not rational enough. The social sciences have yet to have their heyday. The glory has almost always been shared between the hard sciences and the humanities. Let us begin the era of the social sciences. Let us look at life, which is to say culture, and explain it, which is to say learn it, know it. It is with this great question that the social sciences are uniquely prepared to help us. Let us embrace them and become enlightened. Let us finish what the Enlightenment started, for it was in the Enlightenment that the social sciences first emerged as such. It is unfortunate that for so long, they have been unsuccessful (with notable exceptions such as various breakthroughs in economics and psychology) at endowing us with knowledge, but now is their time.

MLS/US Transfer Gossip

I will, in due course, return to my series on my reflections on my European Adventure, but first, a quick bit about MLS and the rumo(u)r mill.

Henry has signed for the Red Bulls, and now it looks like fellow former Barcelona teammate and Mexican international Rafa Marquez will follow. That should help to bring the Mexican-American community in NY out to the matches, and Marquez is a talented player. It looks another good signing.

Ljungberg has moved from Seattle to Chicago where he will join Nery Castillo - a speedy Mexican attacker who is on loan from Shakhtar Donetsk. I don't know if this is important or not. It frees up space for Seattle to sign another big player to join Blaise N'Kufo, the Swiss forward brought in recently and the even newer signing, World Cup semifinalist Alvaro Fernandez

Portugal forward Nuno Gomes has been linked with the New England Revolution. And after signing Deportivo midfielder Julian de Guzman last year, Toronto have signed another Deportivo this year in the form of Mista. I don't know much about Guzman, but Mista's a capable player. He's tailed off from the high of scoring 24 goals in the 03-04 season for Valencia, but he still possesses the touch and vision necessary to compete at the highest level. It's a good bit of business for Toronto.

And then there are the MLS players maybe going to Europe. I already wrote about Andy Najar's potential trial spell at Arsenal which would be awesome, but after a couple of big performances in friendlies against English clubs, NY Red Bulls forward Macoumba Kandji is rumored to be attracting the attention of a number of European teams. He's 24 and in the process of gaining US citizenship so he can play for the Yanks internationally, so it would be great to see him go to Europe.

And of course, there is the never-ending Landon Donovan to England saga. The latest is that he has said he would be interested in a return to Everton. Thank Goodness. That would be an awesome place for him. We'll see if Don Garber's intelligent enough to let him go. He seems to be under the mistaken assumption that keeping Donovan in MLS is the best way to grow the sport in the US. A quick look at Park Ji-Sung's time at Manchester United should be enough to show that a second-tier nation having its best footballer playing with the best of the best is enough to create serious interest in the sport. Let's hope Garber finally realizes this and lets Donovan go to Everton.

All of this speaks to the fact that MLS is now in a position to attract players playing in the best leagues in Europe. Whereas a few years ago, MLS wasn't ever really involved in the transfer window, now at least every day there are foreign players linked with MLS clubs and MLS players linked with top tier clubs abroad. This is the clearest indication possible that the quality of player in MLS has increased significantly. And it's refreshing for American soccer fans to have some connection between the domestic league and the leagues we watch regularly.

And a quick word on Jozy Altidore. Soccernet says he's been linked with two English clubs, Ajax, and Fenebahce. I hope he doesn't go to Turkey. The football's not bad there, but it's off the map. I'd prefer he stayed in England (even at the Championship level) or another Western European league. Ajax might be good, but he would run the risk of not getting first team football there. Luis Suarez is still there, and with a few other decent attacking options, Altidore might not get much playing time. Of course, being at Ajax is a bit of a special situation because they have arguably the best training facilities in the world. Its youth academy is rivaled only by that of Barcelona in terms of the best in the world.

Stay tuned. There's still plenty of time left for some blockbuster deals to go down in this transfer window.

Reflections on my European Adventure

Part 2, Memorable Events

Málaga Club de Fútbol 0 - 2 Fútbol Club Barcelona. What could be a better way to commence than with the witnessing of my favorite team dominate the local boys in what was a year during which they broke the record for points accumulated in the league. Ibrahimovic and Piqué got the goals and it was a night to remember for me.

If that was arguably the most memorable event of the year, then number 1a would have to be watching the last league match of the season in a bar two minutes from Las Ramblas and then going to celebrate with the masses. A group of American exchange students even took their photo with me thinking that I was a real honest-to-goodness resident of Barcelona. Then I headed up to the balcony of the hostel and watched the celebrations from there. Good stuff.

It's impossible to rank most of the rest of these, so I'll just present them. Another one from Barcelona as seeing the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia play Tchaikovsky's and Shostakovitch's 5th symphonies. Of course, it wasn't so much the performance as the venue; the breathtaking Palau de la Musica Catalana makes for as enjoyable a visual experience as possible while one takes in the beauty of the music.

Several days after that came another quite memorable event as the Dickinson group attended Las Fallas, the totally out-of-control pyrotechnic festival in Valencia. I think, to be entirely honest, that between the various explosives devices detonating all over the place, the massive 100-foot papier-mache statues burning, and rowdy crowds pushing in all directions when there was nowhere to go, I was more afraid for my life at Las Fallas than I have ever been in my life. I did still manage to enjoy myself, but I certainly don't feel the need to go back.

If I continue with the traveling theme, Lisbon has to have been the city that most affected me aesthetically. I can never remember having such a positive reaction to the mere sight of a city before. And the personal, culinary, and cultural interactions I had while I was there lived up to the surface beauty. Between the fortresses from the Moorish period, the reconstructed center from the neo-classical period, the remnants of some of the pre-earthquake on the hills, the bridges, and the monastery down the road in Belem, Lisbon has it all.

More traveling makes the list, as the highly memorably night in the desert simply couldn't have been left off this list. Playing silly games with the Berbers until two in the morning when we hiked up a dune to watch the moon rise was awesome (although not being able to sleep due to the cold was not). It all made for a memorable experience, one which was fully worth it, and worth doing again.

Thanksgiving dinner was also memorable if only for the sheer incongruity of eating a family style traditional American meal in Spain with a whole bunch of Americans and a few Spaniards who felt obligated to say polite things about what for them must have been one of the most unusual traditions imaginable. Eating turkey to celebrate some meal that took place about 400 years ago... odd.

Of course, as far as Spanish myth and legend is concerned, nothing could possibly have beaten the bull ring in Ronda. Upon arriving in Ronda one is struck immediately by its near perfection. It seems more like a town invented by a brilliant author than like a real place. No wonder Hemingway and co. were so obsessed with this most enchanting of Spanish villages.

And then of course there are the things that will always be linked to the people I did them with, like drinking Guinness with Braeden in the oldest pub in Ireland (Sean's Bar), or sitting in Brothers cafe in Utrecht debating evolutionary psychology with Jesse, or playing soccer with Stephan and several 12 year old German kids who were as good as I am, or sitting around talking and taking in the Spanish culture with my wonderful colleagues from Dickinson in Málaga. The night at Agape stands out in particular.

Specific places in Málaga that deserve mention: ArtePostre - best cafe around; the kabob stand - best fast food around; the alcazaba, cathedral, and roman theatre all within 500 meters of each other - most diverse cultural heritage within such a short radius; the terrace of my apartment - best view around; the beach - best walking imaginable; the 11 bus - most consistently unpleasant experience; the 20 bus - most inconsistently timed bus. To my fellow pseudo-Malagueños, what stands out to all of you?

More to come...

Reflections on my European Adventure

Part 1, Europhilia

This is the first in an I-don't-know-how-many-part series in which I will attempt to bring coherence to my thoughts regarding my 11-month European adventure.

I recently looked back at my first few posts upon my arrival in Europe, and I was unsurprised to see how sophomoric my views of this continent were. It's impossible to view them as anything other than abject Europhilia. I was in love with this place for no reason other than fresh food, its general place on the political spectrum, and the coffee. But what a neophyte I was! You don't learn a culture on two weeks of vacation. Most likely, you don't even learn a culture in a lifetime. I've spent years in American culture, and I'd say I probably have learned more about it in the year I've spent away from it than in the previous 20 (with a two year hiatus) I spent living it. But here I want to focus more on Europhilia and how my opinion has become more nuanced.

It must be the case that I began to be a bit more realistic in my attitudes towards Europe earlier on in the time I spent here, but the research paper I wrote about racism in football really alerted me to some of the major problems. I had always been aware of the racism, and talked about it with a number of my American friends in Málaga where the lack of diversity was truly startling, even coming from a rather homogeneous background in the US, which I do. But what I found in my research was truly startling - that there was a fascist rally at a football match in December that featured 20,000 supporters of three clubs, none of which were playing (but a Jewish club and a Basque club were), that as late as 2006 there were incidents in Western European countries of fans throwing bananas and making simian at African players, that most teams' supporters sections feature at least one right-wing Neonazi or fascist group, etc., etc., etc. Everywhere I looked the data were more alarming. Eastern Europe, for which there isn't good data, is apparently even worse. More recently, the vitriol of the French public (specifically the right-wing supporters of the party of the Le Pens) at their team's ignominious exit at the World Cup shows how vibrant this racist streak continues to be.

If this understanding of Europe's greater degree of racism was the primary motivator behind my shift away from shameless Europhilia, there were other elements as well including a heightened understanding of the differences between European and American individualism. The US is consistently stereotyped as an individualist society in which each person/family looks out for himself/itself, and I by and large agree with that characterization. The US IS too individualistic, but the myth of European communalism is significantly overblown. It could more rightly be dubbed collective individualism. The rural Spanish farmer has just as much disregard for the urban Spanish lawyer as the rural American farmer has for the urban American lawyer and the small-town German shopkeeper has just as much disregard for the city Germany janitor as the small-town American shopkeeper has for the city American janitor. The difference is that in Europe, because of the greater strength of the unions, the rural farmer cares about other rural farmers and the janitor cares about other janitors. The idea, however, that this translates into some heightened sense of duty to act in favor of the collective good is utter nonsense. The frequency of strikes throughout these countries is high evidence of that.

This isn't to say that the US doesn't suffer from the same issues or that Europe doesn't have many great things going for it. I'm still hugely in favor of the state run system of medicine. Healthcare is a much smaller percentage of GDP in Europe and it's of a higher quality. City planning and infrastructure investment is another area where Europe far exceeds American standards. High-speed rail is now the norm in most of Western Europe, and the airports are newer and more efficient. And of course, the secularization is a treasure. It's lovely to have conversations in which you're not constantly beat over the head with the oddity of not having a standard set of religious beliefs.

And then there's the whole list of stereotypes that educated Europeans harbor about Americans while managing to conveniently overlook the fact that these same phenomena occur in their countries too. Americans are fat. On average we are fatter than Europeans, but not in all regions of the US, just like some European countries are fatter than others. Americans are stupid. There are plenty of stupid people everywhere. Just like those clips of Americans not knowing who George Washington or Abraham Lincoln is, El Intermedio, a Spanish satirical television program found Spaniards who knew nothing about their own country. Americans all eat McDonalds. Guess what one of the most popular restaurants is in Málaga. Americans are loud. Spain just got named the second loudest country in the world (Japan was first).

And yet, despite all of this, I still find something inherently attractive about Europe. I am left thinking that this must have to do strictly with me being able to be comfortable being an outsider. Before, I thought I wanted to be European. Now I realize, I want to be an ex-pat. If I were a European, I would suffer from Amerophilia. I am reminded of an American I met at the economics conference I went to last summer who was married to a German woman. He said to me one day, "the great thing about being married to a foreigner is that she mistakes all your eccentricities for national traits." This is the advantage of being abroad is that your eccentricities aren't important and where you're from is. I know that I would be unusual in any culture, so having this assumed about me from the start enables me to act more freely. This, I believe, is what I find so appealing about Europe. It provides all the accommodations of the developed world and yet I can be accepted as being unusual because I am by nature of my birth.

More to come tomorrow...

The Bastardization of our Founding Fathers' Enlightenment Values

I'll take a break from my footballing passion today to write about something that may well be interesting for a greater number of my readers. As those of you familiar with the American political situation of the last decades are well aware, the political right has consistently turned towards the "Founding Fathers" (a term ripe with patriarchal connotations in and of itself) to justify this, that, or the other thing. My pretext for examining the (ab)use of the Founding Fathers as a political tool is a brief article from the Lexington blog at the Economist.

The article, which rightly seeks to relegate American Exceptionalist political rhetoric to the annals of the linguistic archives stated the following in reference to the United States: Its 18th-century founders had no doubt that they were embarking on a daring experiment inspired by the highest ideals of the Enlightenment. But what were these Enlightenment ideals and how were they expressed politically? The average layman is right here to mention John Locke and Montesquieu and their influence on the creation of our government, but this is still a very vague notion of Enlightenment ideals. Voltaire, arguably the most well known Enlightenment thinker didn't favor democracy at all; he had a rather greater affinity for enlightened despotism and spent several years as an adviser to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. Thus, it would be folly to suggest that there was one dominant ideal of political philosophy among the philosophes of the Enlightenment.

Although I suspect, at the risk of being disingenuous, that the author here has intended this reference to the Enlightenment to mean John Locke specifically, we could take a more generous approach and look at some dominant principles of the Enlightenment. Frequently, when we think of the Enlightenment, we think of progress, rationality, and individualism - in essence, a mathematical/scientific approach to the world. I have just written an essay that supports this idea. I argue that after the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, a political rationalism replaced a fatalistic optimism as the guiding approach to viewing society. (For now I'll spare you the 13 pages of philosophical argumentation.)

But what do I mean by political rationalism? In my paper, I provide two practical examples (in addition to the philosophical writings of the philosophers in question). First is the Marques do Pombal, the Portuguese minister who wielded Richelieu-like powers (with less malevolence) during this period. After the massively destructive earthquake in which it is estimated that roughly one third of Lisbon was destroyed, he embarked on an audacious reconstruction project and based the center of the city on a grid-like pattern around several plaza's and the main Praça do Comércio on the bay. In Spain, although there was far less damage caused by the earthquake, the cost was still significant, and Pedro Rodriguez de Campomanes who would become the Economy Minister in 1760 ordered that a census of the damages be conducted in every Spanish city and town from Barcelona to Cádiz. In both of these countries, these rational policies coincided with the increasing secularization of people's day-to-day lives as government gradually took control of the vital life processes (life, marriage, and death).

And from these examples it easy to see where the Founding Fathers saw themselves as upholding "the highest ideals of the Enlightenment." They believed that government should act rationally in providing services for its citizens. Additionally, they created a secular state. But what is the political right who purports to be following the ideals of our Founding Fathers arguing for? They want more God (and explicitly a Christian one), and they want to block the implementation of or remove altogether rational government programs. I find it difficult, especially in the case of religion, to see where these pundits (Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etc.) get the idea that they are following the wishes of our Founding Fathers.

Of course, there's another problem altogether, a meta-level problem. Supposing our Founding Fathers were firm believers in political rationalism, then they never would have wanted pundits to be asking the question "What Would our Founding Fathers Do?". "It's a ridiculous question," they would say. "Why would one base his political considerations on what a bunch of pseudo-philosophers said over 200 years ago? What relevance would their writing have to contemporary society? And one would one find it obligatory to uphold some interpretation of their desires? Wouldn't it be better to always do what is in the best interests of the country?" Political rationalism requires a historical perspective only insofar as that historical perspective helps identify what policies to implement for the benefit of society in the present. All emotional sentiments should be left out of politics.

Not only is the political right out of touch with what the Founding Fathers actually believed in, but it is committing a meta-level fallacy by making an appeal to authorities who wouldn't have believed in making such an appeal. Thus, if I were to make an additional proposal to the proposal for the abstention of American Exceptionalist rhetoric in politics by the authors of Lexington, I would propose that the "ideals of our Founding Fathers" cease to be used as a justification for whatever policy. For one thing, if you're using this phrase, you've probably not understood what the Founding Fathers said anyway, and even if you had it right, they wouldn't want you to be using them as your justification for doing something anyway.

Thoughts on a Summer of Change at Liverpool

Well, after a season that can be described as nothing short of catastrophic, it was easy to surmise that Liverpool would undergo serious changes this summer. The first bit of business was the signing of Roy Hodgson to replace Rafa Benitez. I believe Benitez is one of the two or three best tacticians in the game, but a people manager he appears not to be. Add that to the untenable situation with the board room and something had to go. While I would have preferred that something to be the American owners (who may yet be on their way out), a bit of change wasn't necessarily a horrible idea.

Hodgson has a proven track record. He's immensely experienced and he is evidently very persuasive. Add to that the fact that he knows how to get the best out of his players and spend well with a frugal budget and he looks to be just the right candidate for Liverpool's managerial job.

Let's have a look at some of the players leaving Liverpool this summer. Fabio Aurelio is off. Emiliano Insua heads to Italy. Riera is leaving, probably to Eastern Europe, Benayoun has left for Chelsea, and thankfully Philip Degen has been told (two years too late) that he is surplus to requirements. Mascherano and Torres are question marks, but I'll deal with them later. Of course, Voronin has left as well thankfully.

And the players in are Milan Jovanovic, in a deal negotiated by Benitez, Jonjo Shelvey, Danny Wilson, and Joe Cole. Jovanovic and Cole came in on free transfers, as their contracts at their respective clubs had expired. Shelvey is in from Charlton, and is supposedly a talented young midfielder. Wilson is another young one, but he was essential in Rangers's title defense last term. And of course, persuading the Londoner Joe Cole to come to the Northwest over Tottenham and Arsenal must represent something of a coup for Hodgson.

So how does that leave the squad looking?

GK: Pepe Reina, Diego Cavalieri, Charles Itandje, and Peter Gulacsi

LB: Jack Robinson

CB: Jamie Carragher, Danny Agger, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Martin Skrtel, Danny Wilson, Dani Sanchez Ayala, and Martin Kelly

RB: Glenn Johnson and Stephen Darby

CM: Javier Mascherano, Steven Gerrard, Alberto Aquilani, Lucas Leiva, Damien Plessis, and Jay Spearing

AM: Joe Cole, Maxi Rodriguez, Ryan Babel, Dirk Kuyt, Jonjo Shelvey, and Nabil El Zhar

F: Fernando Torres, Milan Jovanovic, David N'gog, Dani Pacheco, Nathan Eccleston, and Krisztian Nemeth

Left Back and Forward seem to be the trouble spots. The left back listed here, Jack Robinson, isn't even 17 years old yet, and hardly good enough to be even the second string left back for Liverpool. Maybe Hodgson expects Agger to back up the left back position, but that seems a risky proposition for me. At forward, only Torres is proven. Ecclston, Pacheco, and Nemeth are still acadmey players, although Pacheco has seen a bit of first team action and looks talented enough to play at that level. Another forward is essential, though, unless Hodgson notices (as have most Liverpool fans) that Babel is actually much better as a center forward than as a winger. But if he moves Babel up the field, there will be a shortage of attacking midfielders, unless Gerrard or Aquilani also move up the field, but then there would be a shortage of defensive midfielders. For this reason, another top notch forward is a must, and another midfielder wouldn't hurt. And if Torres or Mascherano go, that could fund the transfer of three or four highly talented players. We'd be sacrificing a bit of quality, but increasing the depth of the squad wouldn't be a bad thing.

Well, that's all for now. I'll report back with any other big deals later in the Summer. The players linked with a move to Liverpool so far have been Valencia midfielder Ever Banega (he would be an excellent pickup), Nice forward Loic Remy (don't know anything about him), and out of favor AC Milan forward Klas Jan Huntelaar. There has also been talk that Brede Hangeland could follow Hodgson from Fulham, but that seems a bit excessive given the plethora of talented center-backs already at our disposal. Dempesy was similarly linked. Paul Scharner of Wigan was as well (wouldn't be my pick).

Donovan to Man City?

Well my previous post became obsolete within about three hours from posting as Roberto Mancini, who's in the US as part of City's pre-season tour suggested that they were looking closely at Landon Donovan and had sent a scout to watch him at each of the four US World Cup matches. Now I'm as anxious as the next American fan for Donovan to be playing in Europe, and especially England, but there are several reasons why signing for city would be a horrible idea.

1) He wouldn't play regularly. Although many of these players are going to be leaving City before the season, here's a list of their current attacking options: Emmanuel Adebayor, Craig Bellamy, Carlos Tevez, Roque Santa Cruz, Jo, Felipe Caicedo, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Vladimir Weiss, Adam Johnson, David Silva, and Steven Ireland. Of those, Ireland, Jo, Caicedo, and Bellamy probably won't be there. But I don't think Donovan would play ahead of Johnson, Adebayor, Tevez, or Silva. And City will probably not play more than three of them at the start of any match. So Donovan, in the event City are behind, would be the second option off the bench.

2) Donovan plays better when there's not so much pressure on him. Donovan was excellent in 2002, but in 2006 with everyone expecting him to lead the US to World Cup glory (well maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but he was expected to be awesome), he rather flopped. His successful move to the Premier League last season was with Everton who were well down in the table when he arrived. The only pressure was to avoid relegation, which they had no trouble in doing whatsoever.

3) Likewise, a smaller club would be better for Donovan. He talked about how he had a nice relationship with David Moyes and how he felt that club really cared about him when he was with Everton last year. That's not something he would be able to get at a big club like Man City.

4) The players at Everton are nicer. Who would you rather have as a teammate, Emmanuel Adebayor or Mikel Arteta, Richard Dunne or Kolo Toure, Nigel De Jong or Jack Rodwell?

5) Who wants to play for the richest club in the world? Maybe opportunists, but for people who care more about football than about money, it's not the place to be.

Transfer News Stateside

With the rumor mill churning full force at the moment and a fair share of summer signings having already taken place, it can be difficult to break all the news and speculative news down in a coherent manner. What I'll attempt to to do here is to present the stories most relevant to American soccer.

1) Thierry Henry, a Red Bull. It's true that "The Big Apple" doesn't have quite the same ring as "The Eternal City" and that no nickname ever generated for Red Bull Arena will ever hold a candle to the "Theatre of Dreams" but Henry has chosen a journey across the pond in place of a move to any number of big name European clubs that might have wanted to catch his signature. There's no doubting he's not the player he was at Arsenal, but he's still a fantastic forward, and his experience and skill will certainly help the Red Bulls. His combination with Juan Pablo Angel could bring a resurgence in the dreaded strike partner, a phenomenon whose decline I mentioned in an earlier post.

There's been a big debate as to whether Henry's signing is actually a bigger on than David Beckham's. I'm inclined to say they're probably about the same. At the time of their respective arrivals, they were both about the most marketable player in the game. Henry (outside of Ireland) seems to be almost universally respected. He's handsome, he's articulate, he's the face of the anti-racism campaign in football, and he's a great sportsman. Beckham has many of the same attributes and was arguably the most popular player in the game at the time of his signing. So it's a big deal, and now there's a rumor that Ronaldinho could be coming as well.

One wonders if all MLS clubs will be able to attract such big name players. While one can understand Henry wanting to go to NY or Ronaldinho/Beckham wanting to go to LA, it's difficult to imagine Raul wanting to go to Columbus, OH or Ryan Giggs wanting to go to Kansas City. It could create a lasting imbalance in the league, but we'll wait and see. But Guillermo Barros Schelotto has been the best designated player in MLS so far, and guess where he's playing? Yup, Columbus, OH.

2) Bob and Michael Bradley, England bound? In the weeks since the World Cup, there's been a lot of speculation about Bob Bradley's future. The European consensus is that he seems to be a rather competent manager and there's been talk of him going to Fulham since Fulham boss Roy Hodgson has left for my beloved Liverpool. I think it would be great for an American manager to manage in a top league in Europe, but I have to say that I'm a little skeptical about Bradley's ability to compete at that level. So much is different in the US, and Bradley has now been out of club football for four years. Of course, if here were to go and sign Michael, that would be awesome for Fulham because they'd be getting one of the most promising central midfielders in the world, and it would be great for the US because Bradley and Dempsey would be playing together regularly. The only speculation I've seen on Michael, however, is that he could be headed to newly promoted Blackpool. They'll be expected to prop up the rest of the EPL this year, but that could be the best place for Bradley to be, as he'll be assured of regular playing time.

3) New team for Bocanegra. Carlos Bocanegra has changed teams in France. He's moved from Rennes to Saint-Etienne.

4) Bornstein headed south of the border. It has been announced that Jonathan Bornstein will be headed to UANL Tigres in México at the end of this MLS season. Bornstein's mother is Mexican so that is the only logical explanation for his move south when after his World Cup performance many of us where hoping he'd move east about 6,000 miles. Hell, Liverpool are without a left back and Bornstein is certainly superior to Philip Degen (who thankfully has been told to find a new club by Hodgson)

5) Andy Najar to get a trial at Arsenal. The 17 year-old D. C. United youth academy product will have a trial at Arsenal at the end of this season. He's been one of the revelation's of the year in MLS (I've even heard about him while being here in Europe), and it looks as if one of the first youth academy products not to go through the national center in Bradenton, FL will be headed to North London come November or December. Let's hope he impresses Arsene Wenger and gets himself a contract at England's classiest club. He looks a good one for the future, assuming the US can get him to play for Uncle Sam instead of Honduras, the country of his birth.

6) Freddie Ljungberg set to leave MLS? He's not even played two full seasons, and Seattle has to be the best environment to play in as an MLS player (they have some 20,000 season ticket holders), but there is now speculation Ljungberg could head back to the old continent. Surprising, given former Arsenal teammate Henry has just come stateside, but who knows?

7) This one sounds pretty ridiculous. A year after making one of the dumbest purchases in their club's history in the form of Oguchi Onyewu, AC Milan are looking to sign another American in the form of Clint Dempsey. Well, he did sink the dagger in Juventus last year (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9ILYWOAMX0) to put Fulham in the semifinals of the Europa League, but is that really good evidence he can make the grade at Milan?

Well that's the wrap for now, and that Giggsy has said he wouldn't be opposed to a move to the US after his playing days at United are done. Another classy player would be a good thing for our still humble league.

World Cup - Thoughts on the Americans' Performance

Well the commentary on the United States's performance at the World Cup has ranged from utter disappointment to sheer ecstasy. When I talk to Europeans or South Americans they always say something like "well done" or "you must be pleased with their performance" and when I talk to other Americans (who actually follow the sport) they tend to say something like, "it's pretty disappointing" or "we should have done better." I agree... with both.

Before the World Cup, I said that the US should hope to get out of the group, and that that was a realistic expectation. Anything further should be seen as a bonus. Well that's just what happened. And if we look at our play throughout the tournament, it can't be said to have merited much more than an octavo-final appearance. We played badly against England and escaped with a draw. We beat Slovenia despite playing a horrible first half, except that the referee got confused and it wound up being a draw. And despite being stifled by a defensive Algeria side for 90+ minutes, we managed to scrape out a late goal. I agree that our play in those three games merited an appearance in the knock-out stages, but it didn't merit much more than that.

So then where does the disappointment come from? It comes primarily from two unfortunate elements of the seeding system for the World Cup groups and the understanding that because of that the US will most likely never again have such an easy path to the late stages of the world's biggest sporting event. Given the way the seeding for World Cups works, the US has virtually no chance of ever being the top team in its group. A combination of playing in CONCACAF, where the teams are weak, and the fact that a team has to do well in the World Cup to become one of the seeded teams means there is likely to be very little turnover in terms of who the seeded teams are. The only chance the US have of being seeded is if they host the tournament, but by then the seeding system will most likely have changed so that the host nation is excluded from being seeded. After all, from now on, the host nation will have to go through qualifying.

The other bad bit about the seeding is that the US is always selected from a pot that includes North America and Asia - the two weakest footballing continents (although they both fared better than Africa at this World Cup). This means that the US and Mexico are always drawn in a group with one of the top 8 teams plus one European team and one team from Africa or South America. Four years ago we got Italy, Ghana, and the Czech Republic (then ranked 2nd in the world). The year before that we were lucky to be drawn with the hosts but we still had to play Portugal and Poland. Imagine if that group had included Brazil or Argentina instead of South Korea! The US could never play a team like North Korea or Honduras (the two weakest teams at this Tournament) in the first round. It also means we would have to pull an massive upset in the first round (as we did this time because of the 2nd tiebreaker), or have a massive upset happen in the opposing group, to avoid a seeded team in the 2nd round.

What makes this year disappointing is that not only did we pull a massive upset in the first round this year, but there was an upset in the group containing our would-be quarterfinal opponents that saw France go out and Uruguay win the group. It meant that after the group stage, we were the highest-ranked team in our corner of the bracket. If it weren't for an England goalkeeping error and the inability of the Slovenian back-line to hold a two goal lead, the US would never have made the second round. We need help from the draw to get through to the second round. The only times we have done so in the modern era have been with incredibly easy groups (1994 when we were seeded as hosts, 2002 when we were with the hosts, and 2010 when we got the weakest teams from both the European and African/South American pots).

So it is a success that we got out of the group stage, but given the particular situation of this World Cup, we can be disappointed that we didn't make it into the later rounds. Now for my top performers for the US at the World Cup.

6 of the Best:

6. Jozy Altidore - He may not have scored but he did everything else. He hit the post against England after making Carragher look like a buffoon. His hold up play was excellent throughout, and the combination of pace and power presented real problems to opposing defenses. He assisted the second goal against Slovenia and won the foul that lead to the third (disallowed) goal. He was also instrumental in the winner against Algeria, playing the ball into the box that eventually popped out to Donovan.

5. Johnathan Bornstein - Started games three and four and was excellent. He is much maligned among Sam's Army (the name of the US MNT supporters' group), but he was super-solid defensively and even managed to put in a few good crosses. He was particularly good in the game against Ghana.

4. Maurice Edu - Only Bob Bradley knows why he didn't start against Ghana. If he had perhaps the US would have played Uruguay in the quarterfinals. He looked to be every creative midfielder's worst nightmare, always popping up in the right places to win the ball. Of course, he did score that infamous non-goal as well. The US looked 10x more comfortable when he was on the field, and he freed up Michael Bradley to get forward (see the equalizer against Slovenia).

3. Tim Howard - If it weren't for him, the US would have been down several goals against England, and we wouldn't have kept a clean sheet against Algeria. He may not have hit top form, but he showed how great he is by doing fantastically well while being far from his best.

2. Landon Donovan - He's the main man in attack and he showed he's capable of supplying the attacking impetus for the entire team. While Dempsey went missing for long spells at this tournament, Donovan was always looking for the ball, making good passes and surging runs. Three goals to boot, and you have a captain's performance at the World Cup finals. He must certainly captain the team in four years' time.

1. Michael Bradley - According to the more understandable Capello Index (the Castrol Rankings are just ridiculous), Bradley was the 12th best player in the group stage of the World Cup. I fully agree. He was everywhere. He not only covered an enormous amount of distance, but he won balls, made great passes, disrupted opponents' attacks, and when he played without Edu at his side, was the only calming presence in the middle of the park. He's got at least two more World Cup's in him, and at only 22, hopefully a long career in Europe as well. If Pops takes the job at Fulham, he could well make the move, and I would expect him to be a huge hit in the Premier League, as he has been in both the Eredivisie and the Bundisliga up 'til now.

5 World Cup Flops:

5. Oguchi Onyewu - He was at his imperious best against England, but after a dismal display against Slovenia, he was rightly benched. Against the better teams that play an aerial attack, he's great. Against anything else, he's out of his depth.

4. DaMarcus Beasley - A whopping 13 minutes through four games plus extra time show just how far he's fallen in the pecking order. One of the huge hits from eight years ago, he knows looks a fragile technically incompetent winger. No wonder he's managed to fall out of favor even in the Scottish Premier League.

3. Francisco Torres - The 45 minutes he saw on the pitch were 44 more than he deserved. He was absolutely horrid throughout and looked a far cry from the speedy, creative, bright player he was throughout World Cup Qualifying. We'll hope it was the nerves and that his national team career can get back on track. If he can get it back together he'll be good in the future, but he was a disaster at this World Cup.

2. Robbie Findley - My cries of dismay as he was announced as part of the starting lineup for the Ghana game turned out to be well-founded as he spurned the best chance of the first half. Appropriately substituted at half-time, it was one more half than his play had merited. He showed his utter lack of anything but pace throughout the entire tournament and it's a wonder what Bradley ever saw in him. He may be better than Ching, but that doesn't mean he actually should have ever been on the field.

1. Ricardo Clark - It's difficult to have a much worse World Cup than Ricardo Clark. He was responsible for the England goal after 5 minutes, and responsible for the Ghana goal after that same amount of time. He also managed to get himself booked. He lacked control, passing, positioning, and game intelligence - in other words, pretty much everything. I suppose Felipe Melo is about the only person who has a case for having had a worse World Cup, but even he had an assist and played four decent games.

For a More Normative World: In Defense of Intellectualism

Frequently economic crisis breeds hatred, and this current economic downturn has exhibited that tendency to frightening proportions. Particularly worrisome has been the islamophobic sentiment being expressed be even center-right political parties in the US and Europe. The recent debates on both sides of the Atlantic about banning the burqa have illustrated that this troubling tendency has reached new levels. Fortunately, the media has not been standing idly by and letting conservatives brand all Muslims as fanatical ideologues. Martha Nussbaum has written two articles for the new philosophy blog on the New York Times website (The Stone) detailing the faulty logic behind the arguments presented in favor of burqa bans. (Here are links to part 1: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/veiled-threats/ and part 2: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/beyond-the-veil-a-response/)

But as you may have guessed from the title of this post, I'm not writing about burqa bans or islamophobia today - at least not directly. Rather I wanted to build off of one paragraph in the second Nussbaum article. Here's Nussbaum's point: "I am not saying that all religious activities ought to be respected. Equal respect, in my view, is rightly directed at the person, and the core of human dignity in the person, which I hope Amy will agree all these people still have. Respecting their equal human dignity and equal human rights means giving them space to carry out their conscientious observances, even if we think that those are silly or even disgusting. Their human dignity gives them the right to be wrong, we might say." (Amy is a commenter on Nussbaum's article.) Her point here highlights a key problem with contemporary American society: our belief that acceptance must be non-normative.

Nussbaum is responding to critical comments about her first article arguing that defending the veil is a pardoning oppressive religious practices. This is a logical misnomer that is ubiquitous in our constant self-esteem-boosting society. People make the mistake of seeing cultural relativism and cultural realism as a two-sided question. If I believe that people should be able to engage in whatever religious practices they desire (with the typical qualifications such as that they in no way harm other people) then I am saying that all religious practices are equal. And the reverse, that if I practice one set of religious practices, I am condemning all others as foolish superstition. The first of these is obviously ludicrous. Certainly, we do not believe all religious practices to be equal. We do not sometimes pray to Allah and other times pray to a Christian God or a Jewish God. We do not partake in African tribal rituals and Amerindian tribal rituals intermittently. The reality of the situation is that the latter of the two beliefs I presented is much closer to the truth. We all believe our particular religious to be much closer to the Truth than those of others, and this is natural. If we didn't think our own practices were the most sensible, we'd change them. Our actions indicate a normative judgment on our part. The problem is that an explicit verbal statement of said normative non-verbal action is now taboo in our society.

Unfortunately, this plague of anti-normativism has reached such depths as to be readily apparent in the mind of 8 year-olds. My wonderful cousin, when I tell her "ewwww, you like broccoli" responds, "Alex, that's just your opinion!" She's right, it is just my opinion. That's not necessarily the issue. The real issue is the significance of it being "just my opinion." Since it's just my opinion it can be treated dismissively. This is not a castigation of my cousin. She's wonderful. And I was similar at that age. Rather, it's an indicator of how far society has moved towards full acceptance of passive totally non-normative interaction.

The real issue with this mode of thinking is that it represents an extremism of egalitarian attitudes towards ideas. You have an idea. He has an idea. We all have ideas. Some of these ideas are totally aesthetic, such as the aforementioned gastronomic example, but others are very much based on evidence of one variety or another. It may come as a surprise to those of you long removed from academic circles, but a strong egalitarian non-normative streak is impeding the thoughtful expression of ideas so essential to educative environments of all varieties. I remember quite frequently in high school students who complain about teachers and insist that a teacher had "given" them a bad grade because she didn't agree with them. While this still happens occasionally at college, it is limited to a smaller group of students.

The rational explication of any opinion (expressed in opposition to the opinion of someone else) is greeted (outside of the most cordial of relationships) as a personal affront. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I believe that joining the military is morally wrong because it is an institution that takes people's lives. (This is totally hypothetical.) It might be appropriate for me to discuss it among my close friends, but the expression of such an opinion in a public setting would be seen as potentially offensive to military personnel and their families. But why?

This is where I return to Nussbaum's beautifully articulated point about respecting the human dignity of others. In no way does my argument that joining the military is morally wrong attack the human dignity of soldiers. I am not saying that they are inferior human beings. We are all human, and insofar as we are human, we are all equal. (Here one could make an animal rights argument if desired. I'm not attempting to make a statement one way or another about animal rights.) But society views normative statements that are critical of someone present as a personal attack when alternatively, they should viewed as windows to debating the relative merits of the various ideas. And isn't this supposed to be the environment of a college campus after all - one in which the free expression of ideas can take place unimpeded? That it has invaded college campuses reveals just how far this non-normative streak in American culture has come. It's time we took our own normative stand against non-normative extremist egalitarianism.

World Cup Villains

10. The French National Team and Government. Half the team wouldn't pass to Gourcuff and Govou in practice. Domenech changed the captain three weeks before the tournament. Anelka launched an expletive-ridden tirade at Domenech at a sensitive moment. The FFF removed Anelka without consulting Domenech. The players went on strike. Assistant coaches quit. France went home with one point. Henry has been called to meet with President Sarkozy. What a joke!

9. Kim Jong-Il. He hired Chinese fans to go to the World Cup and pretend to cheer at set points via instructions from the group leader. Truly pathetic.

8. Robert Green. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Was it the worst goalkeeping blunder in World Cup history? Quite possibly.

7. Felipe Melo. Appropriately jeered as he got off the plane in Brazil after their second-half implosion against the Netherlands, Melo has to go down as the primary protagonist of Brazil's self-destruction. He scored the own goal (albeit with some suspect goalkeeping from Julio Cesar) that gave the Netherlands a lifeline and then proceeded to get himself sent off for a stamp on Arjen Robben after Sneijder had put the Dutch ahead. Down a goal and with a man less, Brazil never looked much like getting back in the match.

6. Jorge Larrionda. Already famous in America for his pathetic display during the USA-Italy match four years ago in which he showed three red cards inside of 50 minutes, the English will now have his name forever etched in their indelible record of World Cup disasters. The red card for Pablo Mastroeni's (he's American) tackle four years ago was considered a make-up call for an "error" (which had been the right call) committed earlier in the half. The inexplicable decision not to award Frank Lampard's goal off the underside of the crossbar can be considered nothing but a make-up call for England's goal against Germany 44 years earlier in the World Cup final. Pathetic, truly pathetic

5. Roberto Rossetti. As if the Italian's ignominious departure at the group stage was insufficient to demonstrate the country's importance to international football, Roberto Rosetti (who's actually not to blame, it's his linesman's fault, but I can't find his name anywhere) and his crew decided they had to win Italy some headlines some way, so they decided to allow arguably the most offside goal of all time.

4. Koman Coulibaly. Responsible for the worst refereeing blunder of the tournament when he mysteriously disallowed an 88th minute goal which would have sealed a dramatic comeback win for the United States against Slovenia, his has to go down as one of the worst blunders in World Cup history.

2/3. Mark van Bommel and Nigel de Jong. After I spent 15 minutes debating which was actually the worse of the two, I decided to just put them together. De Jong's obliteration of Xabi Alonso's rib cage via some martial arts technique previously unwitnessed on a football field has to go down as one of the worst challenges in World Cup history. That he got away with it makes him that much more villainous. Mark van Bommel, on the other hand, may be the tournament's most consistent villain. Fouling every chance he got, including a vast number of cringe-inducing challenges (see the 1st half tackle on Andres Iniesta), complaining constantly to the referee, diving, and pretending to have great sportsmanship the whole time solidified his place in the top three.

1. Luis Suarez. It can't be helped. For those of you who say that he was doing what any player would in his situation, you're right, up until the point he starts celebrating the missed PK hysterically and gives a press conference affirming that his is the "real hand of God." If he hadn't been a prick throughout the tournament, maybe he could have gotten away with the most outlandish move since Maradona's "original (now) hand of God," but his constant remonstrations with the referee and persistent diving ensured he would be number one on this list.

0. The most important villain of all has to be FIFA/Sepp Blatter. With a communication department that is strikingly reminiscent of some Orwellian "Department of Information" and a knowledge of public opinion that approaches the incompetence of Sarah Palin, there can be no debating the tournament's primary villain. Everything was lovey-dovey in the glazed-over eyes of FIFA. It was as if someone had pumped nitrous-oxide into their luxury box before the first game and forgotten to turn it off. The officiating was brilliant (NOT, see previous entries on the list), the tournament showcased the great skill of the world's best players (The best players tanked and the skill on display was really rather minimal compared to some World Cup's in the past), and the tournament was a success for South Africa (which may be true up until now, but what they're going to do with the stadia in the future while they're paying off massive public debt remains to be seen). Blatter is nothing short of a humbling-bumbling idiot, who's pig-headed unwillingness to keep the sport modern betrays his fundamental conservatism. It's high time football got itself a competent leader, and hopefully this World Cup goes some way to demonstrating Blatter's mindset has reached the point of being an anachronism.

World Cup Goals - Top 10 and Team of the Tournament

10. Landon Donovan vs. Algeria. Few times in the history of the World Cup has a country had the chance to celebrate passage to the next round at such a belated stage. Not only did he both set up and finish the goal, but its importance is undeniable. I'll stay out of the debate about what it means to American soccer and leave it to everyone else to make a fools of themselves, but I think it has to go down as the greatest goal ever scored (with all due respect to Joe Gaetjens). I fully admit to being biased, but you're reading MY blog after all.

9. Fabio Quagliarella vs. Slovakia. His chipped shot from 25 meters took everyone by surprise including Slovakian goalkeeper Mucha, not that there would have been anything he could have done about it anyway. When the ball's placed that perfectly, "you don't stop those."

8. Keisuke Honda vs. Denmark. Honda was so great that although entering the tournament as Japan's "star player" most people weren't even talking about him. Now that the tournament's over, a whole host of top clubs around Europe are looking to sign him up. His free kick showed his technical ability, but with an equally impressive work rate, he looks a good pickup for whomever gets him.

7. Mesut Özil vs. Ghana. Technically perfect from a difficult position, Özil's strike showed why he was one of the silkiest players at the the tournament. With the deftness of touch that reminds one of Berbatov, a eye for the pass almost as good as that of Xavi, and technical finishing of a quality Rooney could only dream of at this World Cup, Özil showed why he deserved to make the team of the tournament. Unfortunately, there just wasn't enough space to include him.

6. Carlos Tevez vs. Mexico. What can you say, the ever-working Man City forward showed why he is one of the Premier League's most feared attackers with a thunderous strike from close to 25 meters. Straight into the top left corner.

5. Maicon vs. North Korea. Maicon pulled out his best impression of former Brazilian full-back Roberto Carlos, albeit from closer in and with the other foot with this surprise strike to put Brazil ahead against North Korea. A great strike from a classy player - everything you want to see in the World Cup's list of top goals.

4. David Villa vs. Hondruas. Granted, Honduras didn't field the best defense at the World Cup, but they only conceded three times, and one of them was to a wonder goal from the newly acquired Barcelona man. After he burned half the Honduran defense, he proceeded to score while losing traction with his plant foot and sliding to the ground. Great goal from the tournament's best forward.

3. Iniesta vs. Netherlands. Okay, so it's not a beautiful goal. It wasn't perfectly passed or perfectly finished, but the little man from Albacete, as soft-spoken as he is short, scored the most important goal in the history of a nation, thereby creating one of the most memorable moments of World Cup history. My hair stands on end just thinking about it. A more euphoric moment Spain has perhaps never had, thanks to the diminutive and humble Barcelona midfielder.

2. Siphiwe Tshabalala vs. Mexico. What a way to open the World Cup. It was an edgy affair this game that had all the looks of a nil-nil snooze-fest until Tshabalala, brilliantly played through by I don't remember whom launched a rocket into the top left corner. Breathtaking. And everyone outside of Mexico was celebrating.

1. Gio vs. Uruguay. This was a truly impossible shot. Appropriate that the last goal Van Bronckhorst will ever score is the goal thousands of players hope to score once in their lifetimes. From an impossible angle and an exceptional distance, he left the goalkeeper absolutely no chance as the ball sailed into that same top left corner. Stunning. Absolutely stunning.

Team of the Tournament:

GK. Saint Iker Casillas. After the Chile match I was calling for Pepe Reina. After the Paraguay match I decided it might be okay to go with Casillas. After the Germany match I was thinking Casillas was okay. And after the final, I think Casillas is probably the best goalkeeper in the world. TWICE, he beat Robben (dirty Dutchman #3) when he was clean through on goal. The penalty save against Paraguay and the stop of Kroos's sitter rank among a host of the best saves of the tournament. On the bench, I'd take Nigerian keeper Vincent Enyeama. His performance against Argentina was the best of any goalkeeper in any match at this World Cup. If I were taking a full 23 man roster, the third goalkeeper would have to be Robert Gr... okay that was a bad joke. How about Kiwi 'keeper Mark Paston. He turned in three excellent displays.

RB. Maicon. He consistently looked like the best player for Brazil. The goal against North Korea was fantastic, but his leadership and solid play both defensively and offensively throughout helped to carry a Brazil side that struggled to make a big impression. On the bench are Phillip Lahm and Sergio Ramos.

CB. John Mensah. Big, strong, steady, imperious, he was excellent for Ghana. Calmed a young team from the back.

CB. Carles Puyol. What can you say? His goal took Spain to the semifinals, and a team that doesn't give up a single goal in the knock-out rounds can only lose on penalties. Puyol is one of two players on Spain's team who know how to play the hard way (the other is Busquets), and Spain needed all of his steeliness to win the tournament. On the bench, I'll take Diego Lugano, Arne Friedrich, and Antolin Alcaraz.

LB. Fabio Coentrao. His marauding runs up the left flank were about the only thing that made Portugal look good offensively. He displayed more attacking talent than a certain Cristiano Ronaldo at the World Cup, and it didn't hurt that Portugal only gave up one goal the whole tournament. I don't know if there's another left back who stood out. Bornstein was excellent for the US, but he only played two games. Capdevila was solid for Spain, but he was probably the worst member of their starting 11. Boateng was good for Germany, but he didn't play all the time. Maybe Fucile for Uruguay. He seems a decent choice as a backup.

Holding Midfielder: Bastian Schweinsteiger. Playing against Spain in the midfield is difficult. When the rest of your midfield goes missing it's nearly impossible, but Schweini did a fantastic job against the world's best team. He was also the creative impetus against Argentina and Uruguay when Özil would go missing for long spells. Sergi Busquets and Michael Bradley make my bench.

CMs: XavIniesta. They are inseparable and are the most lethal combination in all of footballdom. It used to be that you talked about strike partners; they've turned it into midfield duos. The creativity of the two is unmatched, and their combination for the Villa goal against Portugal and the Puyol goal against Germany, in addition to Iniesta's tournament-winning extra-time volley against Holland means that both have to make my list. Sneijder and Boateng (the Ghanain one) make my bench here.

RAM: Thomas Müller. It's pretty difficult not to include the tournament's golden boot winner in the team, and that's the case here as well. While his five goals alone weren't enough to win it, his three assists put him over the top. Who knows what Germany might have been able to do against Spain if he hadn't have been suspended. I doubt they would have done much more, but it does lead to speculation. From having never having been capped eight weeks ago to being the tournament's golden boot winner, his rise has been nothing short of meteoric. Robben's on the bench with Landon Donovan, although I would have preferred to have left Robben off.

LAM: Robinho. I'm sure it won't be a popular choice, but Robinho was the only "flair" player to do anything for Brazil at this tournament. His goal against Holland was excellently taken but his assist for Elano to score what would be the winner against North Korea was even more impressive. With Kaka having lost anything resembling form, it was down to Robinho to provide the attacking impetus, and he did so with great aplomb. Gervinho and Andre Ayew make the bench.

Forward: Diego Forlan. He carried Uruguay to the semifinals with the help of Luis Suarez's handball. He was voted best player of the tournament even a non-admirer like me has to admit he was excellent. I don't like him, but he'll start on my all-tournament team. David Villa is relegated to the bench where he'll join Luis Fabiano, Miroslav Klose, and Samuel Eto'o, who did everything he could while being played out of position.

Anyway, I still have a bit more to write about the World Cup before I get into transfers and the forthcoming season so stay tuned.