WASHINGTON, D.C. June 23, 2014 - Soccer is a sport designed to break the heart of the toughest of humans. Outstanding play may mean absolutely nothing. Effort to the point of absolute and total exhaustion often gets you nowhere. You can completely dominate a team, outshoot them, out-hustle them, and, at the same time, lose to them. And then you can win when you should lose. Don't ever let anything go to your head. Work endlessly hard, and then work harder. Plan, sweat, give up your body, throw your head into the path of a leather ball moving at fantastic speeds. Fall behind in a contest against great athletes, then spend endless amounts of time giving it all just to catch up while at the same time trying to keep the great athletes from getting even further ahead. Finally, in the heat and humidity of a tropical rain forest, finally, you do manage to catch up after being frustrated at least a good dozen times. On one of these unsuccessful efforts, your guys beat the other teams keeper only to have the shot kicked out by another player. But now you've caught up and everything is going to be alright. But now that you've finally caught up you realize you are now beyond exhaustion and the other team of great athletes, that was ahead, now really starts pushing forward. More offensive players are brought in, and, while you should be able to attack this more offensive team with greater ease, you really can't because your midfielders can barely move. Your team substitutes, getting fresh legs on the pitch. One of them makes a run down the right side, centers the ball but it is kicked off line, but right to one of your players, who passes it to the middle and one of your other guys runs through the ball like they teach in little league soccer and the ball goes in and with time running out, miraculously, you have taken the lead on a most unlikely goal. You allow yourself to think that you have survived this "Group of Death" you were stuck in, you will come out of it and enter the final phase of the World Cup, the one where your team and 15 other national teams will play for the World Championship. Except that soccer is so cruel, so needlessly cruel, cruel to the point of making you ask time and again why it is that you do this or watch this and even take an interest in it. You thought after all that you did, after all the sweat and pain you endured, after you shut down the greatest player in the world, you thought you had won. You were ahead at the end and the game really should have been over. Just a couple of final seconds to get through. Just a couple. A couple of lousy seconds. Your guy has the ball in the other team's end and what could go wrong even in this cruelest of games? Then a player on the other team fouls your guy, who happens to be the smallest guy on the pitch, but the referee, probably in view of the fact that you have taken the lead on a play where a really really sadistic ref might have called offsides, well, the ref doesn't make a call and what could it matter? The other team doesn't have a fast break. Your guy has matched up with this world's greatest player and he's out on the wing which is a good place for him, somewhere where he can't score. Not this time, anyway. A bunch of your guys are dead tired but they are making a final run into the box and the final whistle, well, it should be sounding. Shouldn't it be sounding? Shouldn't it? It should be sounding! Sound the bloody whistle. Sound the bloody whistle! You're so sick from the heat and humidity that you are about to give it up, your guts that is. World's greatest player is way out on the wing and he lays into the ball but it isn't a shot and we know one thing: he isn't in to assists so we are going to win. The ball that the world's greatest player kicked is kind of curling away from the goal and our great keeper is in position so we are going to win. Time is about up and the whistle, well that ole whistle should be sounding. I do now see one of their other good players sprinting faster than our dead tired defender. He is going to get to that curling kick from the world's greatest player but the ball won't be a goal because it just can't. It just can't. That will be the whistle, won't it? The final whistle, meaning the game is over and we won. And how great will that be? The other good player ran fast and at the last he bent over, even as he ran so fast, and his forehead met the ball. That's the whistle isn't it? The final whistle? It has to be, because we can't lose this game now. Well, we can't lose, we can only tie, even if they did get a goal. But they can't. It wouldn't be right. It would be cruel for us not to win. We've done so much and out great goal keeper, he is there where he should be. Right where he should be. Silly of that other team of great athletes to expend so much energy in a game we are going to win. Just silly. Even though the other good athlete met the curling ball and sent it toward our goal. We can't not win. We can't. It wouldn't be right. That's the final whistle. Finally, the final whistle. And why is our great keeper back in the net, picking up some soccer ball?
So now, the USA and Germany each have four points. Ghana and Portugal have one point. The first tiebreaker is not what it should be - in my most humble opinion - head-to-head. If the USA ends up tied with Ghana in points, the USA will not automatically advance instead of Ghana even though the USA beat Ghana. The first tie-breaker is goal differential. The German goal differential is four because in their two games they tied Ghana and beat Portugal, 4-0. The USA goal differential is +1, since we beat Ghana, 2-1, and tied Portugal. Right now, Ghana's goal differential is -1 and Portugal's is -4. If the USA either beats Germany or ties Germany, they advance to the final round because they will have either 5 or 7 points, and neither Ghana or Portugal can accumulate that many points with only one game left. Germany will also advance by beating or drawing with the USA. The USA will advance even if it loses to Germany under the following circumstances: If Germany beats the USA, 1-0, and Portugal beats Ghana, 3-1, the USA and Portugal would each have four points. Then it comes down to goal differential. Under those results the USA's cummulative goal differential would be even or 0, while Portugal would have a differential of -2. The USA would advance. A scenario in which the USA would not advance would be if Germany beats the USA, 2-0, while Ghana defeated Portugal, 3-2. Again, the USA would have 4 points and a cummulative goal differential of -1. Ghana would have four points and a cummulative goal differential of 0 or even. Ghana would advance because their goal differential is one greater than the USA. If the USA cannot beat or tie Germany, then you want to route for two things: one, that the USA loses narrowly, by one goal and not much more. You also want to route for Portugal to beat Ghana but narrowly, by a goal or two or three, if the USA only lost by one. Going into the final game our goal differential is 1 better than Ghana's and 4 better than Portugal's. What is the tie breaker if you are tied with a team have the same goal differential? Well, the second tie breaker is total goals scored. Right now Germany has scored six goals, the USA 4, Ghana 3 and Portugal 2. If two teams are tied in points and tied in goals scored, the third tie breaker is, finally, head-to-head. What is the fourth tiebreaker? Picking names out of a hat, and I am not kidding.
Last Thursday I went to Washington - hence the location change - with my two daughters. Jennifer is 28 and Allison is 15. You cannot imagine how wonderful such a day is for a father. My two daughters are a father's dream: wonderful people, very smart, complex beyond all belief, and unwilling to concede anything to anybody. And it is quite apparent that we all love each other very much. That being said, when I am with them I have to fight the urge to just kind of sit back and listen to them talk to each other. I cannot believe all that they know and say. Is every parent like that? We set off Thursday with an agenda of things we wanted to do and in the end didn't get much of anything done. In truth, we didn't try too hard to get any of it done. We walked and we talked. We ended up at the Library of Congress, which is the second place I inevitably go to when here, and I am here a lot. We found a parking place, at length, and started walking. We headed first in the direction of the National Gallery of Art. When I go to Washington, that is where I head first. If the federal government has done one thing absolutely right through the years of my life, it is the National Gallery. There are two great buildings, one classical, one modern, but inside they have one thing in common, and that is the absolute devotion to art. The classical building, generally, houses the National Gallery's permanent collection, a collection which emphasizes paintings of all of the ages. It is a collection so rich and vast and stunning that no amount of exposition or description by me will do it justice. The modern building is devoted to revolving shows, and with four floors of space and a massive feel, there is no show that will not work in these galleries. There are almost always four, five or six different shows or exibits going on at any given time. Sadly, almost always did not include Thursday. I was completely unaware that the modern gallery is closed temporarily for wholesale renovations. Technically, I should say, the building itself is open and a ground floor shop, one of many thoughout the galleries, was also open. I suspect that the powers that be wanted to continue to operate the moving sidewalk that runs in a tunnel between the two buildings. On the classical side of the tunnel and sidewalk is the largest restaurant of the ones at the National Gallery, and even though it is actually below ground, you do not have that feeling at all. A fountain above the restuarant runs down cascading steps that are completely visible to the restaurant and walkways by a huge set of windowns. I know that I.M. Pei, the great architect, designed the modern gallery but I do not know if his work included the design of the Fountains between the galleries or the open steps under the fountain that allow a lot of light to stream in to the ground floor restaurant. For all their complexity, my two daughters are not as enamored by the galleries as I am. I have read about the artists and I have read art history, and I know that makes my devotion to the work there more intense. Jenny and Allison are both voracious readers also, but these days they read fiction and only fiction except for Allison's school reading. Jennifer reads so much that she puts me to shame, and I think I read a lot. When she is in to what she is reading she will read several books in a week, week in and week out. Right now she is working hard and she isn't reading as much as she once did. In the roughest of times Jennifer and Allison bring so much joy to me that I count myself as rich with out anything else. And I apologize for such schmaltzy writing.
Poll says Obama incapable of leading the United States
Most Americans do not need to be told of this conclusion. They know it by the headlines. Not only are there an unusually large number of crisis boiling, but almost every one is tinged by the United States abject failure to do its duty, to lead, to save. Most Americans know that in most cases this does not mean using military force. It means leading from a position of strength, and leading from a standpoint of moral sureness that it is both our heritage and history. No, we aren't always right; we are told that daily by a lot of people who have no right to say anything. Take any world crisis: Ukraine, Iraq, the right thing to do. Whatever you thought of the multiple invasions of Iraq, most Americans knew that in all cases our intentions were good. You don't see American soldiers leaving with the spoils of war packed in their duffle bags. But Obama has turned all of this around. He apologizes for everything America does. When evil arises and threatens, Obama cowers, not because he fears the evil, but because he doesn't want America seen as the knight in shining armor. America cannot play that role anymore because it is not a good thing. This is a central far left belief and like so much of far left dogma, it is nonsense. And yet people who believe and accept it combine that with a moral smugness that says they are better and smarter and everybody else should shut up. It is stunning to me how terrible of a President Mr. Obama has been. I say stunning, because I never imagined that he would stick so absolutely to his leftist beliefs when they were obviously not working and would devastate the party at the midterms of his second term. I have gone on at length about the moral outrage of Obama even running for a second term, and of the moral outrage of an electorate that would elect him a second time despite his miserable term. I don't know if, objectively speaking, his second term is actually worse than the first term, or if the press and citizens have finally woken up enough to realize how inept he is. A Leftist to the core, he had no chance to succeed. A leftist is charge of these United States is a definite prescription for abject failure and Obama has not disappointed those who thought he would stick to his Leftist Anti-American beliefs. I thought once it became apparent he was failing miserably he would change, that his ego would demand it. But he is incapable of being an American and a President simultaneously.
After losing Friday night in the most gut-wrenching fashion: a walkoff homerun, I thought it would be a long weekend for the Orioles in New York, and I was 100% wrong. They won Saturday and Sunday with ease, getting outstanding starting and relief pitching and moving back into a tie with both the Yanks and Blue Jays in the loss column. Here are the up-to-the-minute American League East Standings:
1. Toronto Blue Jays: 42 wins, 35 losses, .545 pct
2. Baltimore Orioles: 39 wins, 35 losses, .527 pct, 1.5 games behind
2. New York Yankees: 39 wins, 35 losses, .527 pct, 1.5 games behind
4. Boston Red Sox: 35 wins, 41 losses, .461 pct, 6.5 games behind
5. Tampa Bay Rays: 31 wins, 46 losses, .403 pct, 11 games behind
American League Wild Card Standings:
1. Los Angeles Angels: 41 wins, 33 losses, .554 pct, +2 games ahead
2. Baltimore Orioles: 39 wins, 35 losses, .527 pct, even
2. New York Yankees: 39 wins, 35 losses, .527 pct, even
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3. Seattle Mariners: 40 wins, 36 losses, .526 pct
4. Kansas City Royals: 39 wins, 36 losses, .520 pct, 0.5 game behind
5. Cleveland Indians: 37 wins, 39 losses, .487 pct, 3 games behind
6. Minnesota Twins: 36 wins, 38 losses, .486 pct, 3 games behind
7. Texas Rangers: 35 wins, 40 losses, .467 pct, 4.5 games behind
8. Boston Red Sox: 35 wins, 41 losses, .461 pct, 5 games behind
9. Chicago White Sox: 35 wins, 41 losses, .461 pct, 5 games behind
10. Houston Astros: 33 wins, 44 losses, .429 pct, 7.5 games behind
11. Tampa Bay Rays: 31 wins, 46 losses, .403 pct, 9.5 games behind
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