The recent election of Silvio Berlusconi as Italy’s Prime Minister has set in motion against the gypsies, or the Roma as they call themselves, a war on Italy’s gypsies and on immigrants in general. That the gypsies are a problem is hard to deny. They form the bulk of pickpockets and petty thieves across Europe. In Venice in the Plaza San Marcos, I once witnessed a pack of gypsy children simply overwhelm a poor hapless tourist by circling around the women pulling on her clothes and tugging on her hair until she dropped her purse and camera, and they went with their ill-gotten prize.
This past week, the mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, evicted hundreds of gypsies from their camp and sent them packing. They have no where to go. Gypsies are a stateless people though large numbers of them live in Spain, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and primarily in the Balkans. In Italy, they are believed to number about 150,000.
There will be a new European champion with the defending champs, Greece, falling to Russia today 0-1 in Salzburg. The real drama of the day was over up in Innsbruck, where Spanish striker David Villa punched home the winning goal in the 92nd minute to lift Spain over Sweden 2-1 and secure a Spanish place in the quarter-finals joining Portugal, the Netherlands and Croatia. Four more spots remain. One more will be settled tomorrow in the Czech versus Turkey match. More on Spain’s dramatic win in the UK Guardian. For those who do not follow world football, Spain has a tendency to overperform in the opening round and then bitterly disappoint in the later rounds.
Tomorrow’s Matches
Group A returns to the pitch tomorrow. The winner of the Czech Republic versus Turkey will advance, the loser goes home. In the other game, co-host Switzerland meets the Portuguese arsenal. Portugal has already secured its place in the quarter-finals.
For more on the matches and the tourney, please visit Euro2008.
South American FIFA World Cup Qualifiers
While Europe searches for a European champion, the South Americans resumed their World Cup qualifiers to determine the four automatic berths plus the fifth that goes to a round robin elimination against a runner up from North America. In Lima, Colombia stole a point from Peru with a 1-1 tie. The shocker of the day was in Montevideo, where Venezuela also tied Uruguay 1-1. Tomorrow has three games on the schedule with Paraguay hosting Brazil in Asunción, Ecuador visits Argentina in Buenos Aires and Chile takes the hike to the high altitude of La Paz to face Bolivia.
At the start of play today, Paraguay stood atop the standings followed by Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. Venezuela takes the fifth spot.
Update on August 25, 2008: For Senator McCain’s new ad featuring Debra Bartoshevich please visit this page.
Yesterday, I wrote about Clinton Wisconsin delegate Debra Bartoshevich, a 41 year old nurse from Waterford in Racine county, who in following her rights of conscience cannot support the presumptive Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama. Instead, she has stated her intention to support Senator John McCain. The response of Democratic leaders in Wisconsin at first incredulous has now swung to a Soviet-like purge.
State Party chair Joe Wineke, an Edwards backer who is now enthusiastically for Obama, asked Friday night’s opening session of the state party convention to suspend party rules and begin an immediate process of stripping Bartoshevich of her national convention delegate status.
Answering Wineke’s call to “send the message that the Democrats of the state of Wisconsin will never support someone who supports John McCain,” delegates approved a motion to raise the question of whether Bartoshevich, having declared her support for the Republican presidential candidate, meets the requirement that national convention delegates be “bona fide Democrats.”
Wineke says the state party will file a formal challenge with the Democratic National Committee early next week.
Suspending party rules now seems a trend in the Democratic Party. I have saved the DNC the trouble of purging me by resigning my membership of the Democratic Party. Now if I can get them to stop send me emails asking for money, I’d be happier. PUMA PAC gets my political contributions from here on out. And I leave you with this question for the Democrats:
Will they now purge Senator Joe Lieberman from the Democratic caucus in the Senate, because he too supports Senator McCain for President?
The hypocrisy of this is simply too much to take. The more you tighten your grip, the more of us will slip through your fingers. It is time to stand up and be counted. Join the PUMA PAC and help rescue what’s left of the Democratic Party.
It is still too early to assess the dollar amount damage of the floods in Iowa, it is fair to say that number will run into the billions of dollars. At this point, the floods in Iowa are an unfolding human tragedy though thankfully the lost of life has been minimal. It could have been far worse. The Cedar Rapids river flooded a ten block radius of Cedar Rapids. Parts of Des Moines and Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa, are under water. There are flood waters rising across the state. In some areas, rivers are expected to crest at 32 feet. And more rain is on the way.
Iowa Corn Crop 20% Destroyed
Twenty percent of the state’s corn crop has been lost and this means everyone in the United States as well as many others overseas will be impacted. Here’s what Senator Tom Harkin said on Iowa Public Radio on Thursday, June 12th:
Iowa Senator Tom Harkin will join fellow Senator Chuck Grassley Friday for a tour of the floor and storm damaged areas of the state. Harkin says they want to get a first-hand look at the damage and talk with local officials and get their assessments. He says they want to find out what’ll be needed to help clean up, and Harkin says he wants to find out if the things that are in the Ag bill for disaster assistance will work.
Harkin, a Democrat from Cumming, says they hope to get an idea on the amount of aid that will be needed. Grassley says he will see what FEMA can do to be helpful for homeowners and to assess how much will be needed in some kind of emergency legislation to provide help.
“Just like we did in (hurricane) Katrina…we’re gonna help the victims of this flood too,” Harkin says. Harkin says the impact of the flooding is already going beyond the state because of the damage to crops.
Harkin says the futures prices on corn and beans are already going up on a daily basis and are likely to go higher. Harkin says we won’t know the total impact until it’s know how much of the crop can be replanted, and how much will still emerge, “But I think we are in a very precarious situation here.” Harkin says there’s no doubt the flood damage will have an impact on food prices.
Harkin says he’s seen estimates of corn prices as high as nine dollars or more a bushel. “That’s going to be very tough on our pork producers, our cattle and chickens..Iowa we’re the number one egg producer in the country and those chickens eat that corn, and I’m telling you it’s tough, so there’s going to be a lot of fall out from this one,” Harkin says. Harkin says there are conservation measures in the farm bill that if implemented could help ease some of the runoff and erosion caused by flooding.
Iowa Corn Production
In 2006, Iowa corn farmers grew almost 2.1 billion bushels of corn on 12.4 million acres of land. In 2007 they harvested more than 2.5 billion bushels on a record breaking 13.9 million acres. In 2007, Iowa corn growers harvested an average of 182 bushels per acre. That’s pretty remarkable because the grandfathers of these Iowa farmers likely only harvested 50-55 bushels of corn per acre. That 130 bushel increase per acre is due to a few factors: oil-based pesticides and fertilizers and better more robust seed varieties.
Just how much corn Iowa produces is astounding. Iowa has produced the largest corn crop of any state for each of the past 14 years. In an average year, Iowa produces more corn than most whole countries. For example, Iowa grows three times as much corn as a country like Argentina. Still the bulk of that corn is not really for direct human consumption. Very little of the corn you see growing in Iowa is sweet corn. For example, Iowa farmers harvested 11.9 million acres of field corn in 2002 but only 4,876 acres of sweet corn, according to the U.S. Census of Agriculture. Most of the corn is destined for use as corn syrup and feedstock and for the production of corn-based ethanol.
Twenty percent of 2.5 billion bushels means 500,000 bushels have been lost. The loss of such a large of amount of corn will have a ripple effect throughout the food economy. Anything that has corn syrup in it will rise. All pork and chicken prices because corn is the primary feed stock. Last year corn prices rose substantially and in the short time of this year so far corn prices have risen an additional 20% because of worldwide demand for corn as livestock feed, use in sweeteners and to produce ethanol. American farmers are foregoing other grains to plant high cash-producing corn. This monetary incentive has even caused wheat supplies to diminish such that wheat prices are also up 21% and soy prices rose 25% this year. There is no reason now for these trends to continue unabated.
With the Euro2008 and the South American World Cup 2010 Qualifiers in full swing this weekend, the By The Fault Weekend Reader looks at the sport of football (soccer in the United States). Americans fail to understand the game, and that’s unfortunate because football is one of the world’s great unifying forces. Part of the reason I think is that in Europe and in Latin America, one is born into a family and into a soccer club. I have changed my religion. I am still loyal to my clubs. It is in the blood. That experience can be found in American sports with certain teams such as the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs, the New York Football Giants and the Green Bay Packers in particular. New York City until the 1950s with its three professional baseball clubs is perhaps the most anagolous situation. There was a class element as to which team you supported. The Dodgers in Brooklyn were definitely a working-class team before the move to Los Angeles.
Here’s a look at football and politics.
It’s In the Blood
This is an intro to a documentary about football and politics in England as a neighborhood transitions.
Boca Juniors versus River Plate
Boca Juniors is a working class team and the team of Italian immigrants to Argentina. River Plate is an elite team. Here is some of the affection that they don’t have for each other. Boca fans are known as “La Doce” or the twelth. Boca’s fans are legendary. While all footballers are a bit crazy come game time, La Doca are a realm apart. I went to a game in La Bombonera (and I root for River) but this game was against Estudiantes and I had a blast. I learned all their songs and they didn’t mind having a Colombian in their midst because one of their best players, el Chico Serna, was a Colombian. Boca Juniors has won more South American championships than any other club. River has won more Argentine titles.
River Plate is the uptown team and they play at Monumental in Buenos Aires. While I root for River in Argentina, Boca has better songs.
Once Caldas
It is no doubt the greatest upset in South American club history. In 2004, Once Caldas, the team from the small city of Manizales in Colombia’s coffee-growing region won the continental title, Copa Libertadores by beating Boca Juniors of Buenos Aires, the most storied club in South America. Once Caldas was just the second Colombian club to win the title though the other Atlético Nacional de Medellín has won the title twice. Manizales is a city of 500,000 people, Buenos Aires a city of 3 million and over 12 million in the metro Buenos Aires area. You can imagine the delerium.
Football and Globalization
The distant U.S. attitude about soccer suggests a deeper truth about world politics and America’s relationship to the world. The US has chosen to isolate itself in many areas from the rest of world and that distance perhaps leads to a chasm between the United States and the world. The US doesn’t understand football, the world doesn’t understand the United States. The argument from The Globalist.
Spaniards Prefer Football to Sex
A recent poll of Spaniards found that Spaniards prefer watching La Liga to sex. The poll from May 25, 2008 is in the UK Guardian.
Football in Spain — The Nationalism of its Regions
There are five major languages spoken in Spain. Castillian is the largest of these but the others have speakers in the millions. After the Spanish Civil War, Franco attempted to corral the use of regional tongues and impose Castillian on the other regions. With the dictatorship hard and heavy, regional languages and nationalism found their greatest inspiration on the pitch. Every time el Barça took the field, it carried the aspirations of the Catalanes, Celta the hopes of the Gallegos, Valencia the dreams of Valencianos while Racing Santander and Atletico Bilbao took up the Basque cause. Here’s more on Spain’s football divide from Center Holds It.
The website in English for my favourite Spanish team, FC Barcelona.
Here is the Saturday, June 14th, 2008 edition of interesting reads from around the world.
Kandahar Jailbreak
Up to 1,000 prisoners, including 400 Taliban militants, on the run in Afghanistan after a dramatic assault on the main prison in Kandahar. Perhaps Karzai can use some of his $20 billion in aid that he just received to upgrade Afghanistan’s security forces. More on this from the UK Guardian. This is, frankly, just embarrassing.
Ethiopia Appeals for Aid
The UK Guardian reports that Ethiopia has appealed to international community for $325m (£167m) in aid after drought and crop failure more than doubled the number of people needing emergency assistance to 4.6 million. Poor rains have affected much of southern and south-eastern Ethiopia since last year, significantly cutting harvests. The shortage of local cereals has sent prices soaring, while the cost of imported food has also risen sharply because of the global food crisis and increased fuel prices.
Brazil Purges Its Voting Rolls Temporarily
Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court has temporarily suspended the voting rights of 1,866,020 registered voters in 24 states on suspicion that not all the registered voters are eligible. The disqualification came under a court decision adopted in September 2007 as it found that the total number of voters registered exceeded 80 percent of local population. The big numberled the court to review their qualifications. In July, following investigations on the data base, the electoral court will release the lists of eligible voters for the municipal elections slated for October. According to Brazilian electoral law, people above the age of 16 are eligible to vote. The country now registers 130,013,937 voters nationwide. In other news from Brazil, Oil Voice reports that Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned energy ginat, has discovered another oil field in the Santos Basin off Brazil’s southeastern coast.
Germany’s Angela Merkel Enjoys A Positive Image Der Spiegel finds that a new international survey shows German Chancellor Angela Merkel enjoying a more positive image abroad for her foreign policy than most other world leaders.
Sino-Indian Tensions
The Asia Times reports that India has reopened its Daulat Beg Oldi airfield in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir after a gap of more than four decades. Located a stone’s throw from Aksai Chin - a part of Jammu and Kashmir province that has been under Chinese occupation since 1962 - the Daulat Beg Oldi airfield will improve India’s logistical support to its troops deployed along its 4,057-kilometer disputed frontier with China.
