Its finally happened, Rafael Nadal has lost a match at the French Open. Nadal never really got going and his forehand was all over the place. Robin Soderling made the most of Nadal's poor form by bringing out his A-game; he maintained a high tempo throughout the match and played some big shots, and never Nadal any breathing room.
This means that a certain Mr. Roger has been presented with a golden opportunity to complete a career grand slam. I'm sure he would prefer beating Nadal in the final, but I don't think he'll be complaining too much.
If he does win the French Open, should Federer then be regarded as the 'best ever'? Or does Nadal's absence as his opponent prevent that from happening?
It's been a while since I had a links post. Here's stuff to read if you're at home with nothing to do.
The American right-wing has officially lost its shit on this whole Supreme Court nomination thing. Actually, I should amend that. They were never really in possession of their shit; perhaps it is more accurate to say that their level of shit-lostness has just jumped a level. Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has the goods. Krugman piles on. Yglesias has a post that can be roughly translated as: are they fucking serious?
Archie chose to get married to Veronica (courtesy reader Faizaan). Unbelievable. It's not just that Betty is nicer than Veronica. It's that she's considerably hotter too, both face-wise and body-wise. The only way I can explain this decision is that Archie is hoping to get married to Veronica before he murders her for the life insurance money. Given how loaded her family is, I don't even want to imagine how much he collects. He'll probably marry Betty afterward. Actually, now that I think about it, Betty probably set up the entire thing. (Wait a minute -- did I just describe the "plot" of Wild Things?)
An interesting story in the WSJ on the emergence of Spain as a sporting powerhouse with Nadal, Barca, Alonso, the Spanish football team and some dude who managed to out-dope everyone to win the Tour de France (courtesy Nabeel).
The Taliban appear to be spreading their tentacles in Karachi, at least insofar as imposing their cultural and social worldview -- such as it is -- on the women of the city is concerned (courtesy Sarah and Anam). Apparently women are being threatened to cover up or else, and even elite schools (which have historically been co-ed) are being warned to observe these norms. While this story is disturbing to be sure, I wouldn't want to overstate the pervasiveness of this without better data -- a few anecdotes don't constitute a sociopolitical trend. It's still a little worrying though.
After all thetalk about plagiarism on this blog recently, poor old Arif has a couple of sentences directly lifted by The News, as the Mir family continues its long and tenacious fight against good, decent journalism. Good times. I wonder if he'll get an apology, or even an acknowledgement?
Oba lets loose on Kanye West. Laugh out loud stuff.
Schools in the U.S. clamping down on...wait for it...hugging.
Really, really insightful (and hopeful) column by Cyril Almeida on militantism and democracy in Pakistan.
Pakistani consumers will be paying ten percent more for their electricity next year. And so the entirely strange spectacle of citizens paying ever increasing prices for a service they don't actually receive continues.
And finally, a book recommendation. Jon Wertheim, tennis writer for Sports Illustrated, has a book out on last year's Wimbledon final between Nadal and Federer, titled "Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played". Man, he's not joking. It was an awesome match, and widely acknowledged as the best ever. Wertheim weaves together the lives and careers of both superstars in the midst of giving us a gripping account of that day's events. It's got some really interesting details about both of them, as well as the professional tennis circuit in general. I read the whole thing in about two and a half hours. Tennis fans, or even casual followers, should definitely check it out.
I have been deliberating on whether or not to break this piece up in parts. Why? Well, it's 2700 words. That's nine double-spaced pages.
At the end of the day, I decided to have faith in you guys having nothing to do at work, and that you would find it sufficiently engaging to not drift off. Enjoy. _____________________________________________________________________________________
Malcolm Gladwell, the world’s most brilliant writer, and master of the no-shit-Sherlock thesis, recently had his third book published, called Outliers. In it, he debunks the notion that overwhelming success is merely the result of innate talent. To the contrary, Gladwell argues that the social and economic systems within which individuals are embedded in matter a great deal. Individuals, talented as they are, cannot succeed without being blessed with the right circumstances.
So Bill Gates wouldn’t have been a computer super-genius if he didn’t happen to be one of the few people to go to school at a place where he had an exclusive opportunity to sit and stare at a screen all day. The Beatles wouldn’t have been The Beatles if they didn’t have the opportunity to hone their skills night in and night out in Hamburg. Jewish lawyers in New York needed the anti-Semitism of early-20th century America so that they would be forced to work in then-unpopular areas of law, areas which expanded considerably in the 1960s and 70s leaving the same Jewish lawyers in a highly advantaged position. Chinese students are better at math than Americans because their ancestors worked in rice paddy fields (you’ll have to read the book to figure that one out).
The bottom-line for Gladwell is this: individual talent matters, but so does social structure. Or, as Karl Marx put it, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.”
The story of Pakistani cricket from the summer of 2006 to the present has been remarkable in many ways. In those three years, it has enjoyed more drug-related charges (four) than test match victories (three). It has lost its two best players to retirement and the ICL respectively. Few teams have faced greater misfortune with respect to World Cups – it was knocked out of the last one by Ireland, a country that doesn’t play any meaningful cricket, and denied a chance to host the next one by the Taliban, who would rather that no country play any meaningful cricket. From dummy captains to dead coaches, from terrorist attacks to a fading bowling attack, from ball tampering allegations to ball-busting stupidity, Pakistan cricket has lurched from one crisis to another, uncaring to the followers it has taken on this death-ride. Every time Pakistani cricket fans reason to themselves that it surely cannot become any worse, reality bites, and asks them a cruel question: are you sure?
The usual explanations bandied about for these events are usually couched in the language of structures and systems. If Pakistan’s domestic cricket was better organized, we are told, it would throw up better talent. If Pakistan’s cricket board had a constitution and internal elections, it would be better managed. If Pakistan’s players were trained from a younger age, they wouldn’t be so clearly out of their depth when they hit the big leagues.
These explanations are all well and good, but there is something inherently problematic about them. Pakistan’s domestic cricket has always been this badly organized. Pakistan’s cricket board has never had a constitution or internal elections. And Pakistan’s players have only ever received real coaching once they made the national team. And yet Pakistan has, at various times in the last two decades, been arguably the best team in the world, despite these factors working against it.
Why does this matter? To borrow social scientific lexicon, we cannot explain variation with a constant. Pakistan cricket’s systemic chaos has been a near constant. Pakistan cricket’s success and failure on the field has varied considerably. In the last decade alone, it has seen two periods of top quality cricket (1999-2002; 2004-2006), one period of rebuilding a young team (2002-2004), and one unmitigated collapse into oblivion (2006-present). So if the purported cause (“quality of structure”) hasn’t changed, how can its putative effect (“quality of cricket”) have changed so dramatically?
No, structure fails to explain it. If we are to find the true reasons for Pakistan cricket’s decline and fall, we must look elsewhere.
Pakistan’s problem in the last three years has not been with the structure within which individuals operate, but the individuals themselves. More to the point, the problem has been that it has filled particular roles with personalities spectacularly unsuited for them. Three in particular have stood out: Nasim Ashraf, Shoaib Malik, and Shoaib Akhtar.
Nasim Ashraf, during his time in charge, was seemingly intent on challenging George W. Bush for the coveted most-bad-decisions-per-year award, the Buffoon d’Or. In a culture that values personal relationships above all else, he never got on with the players, and never tried to either. He jettisoned people when he shouldn’t have (Waqar Younis as bowling coach) and failed to do so when he should have (Mohammad Asif and Shoaib Akhtar after the first round of drug offenses). In his untiring efforts to sideline the ICL signees, he proved himself to be more loyal than the King; never bothering to note whether or not kowtowing to the BCCI on the question of banning the ICL players was in Pakistan’s interest or not. Instead of speaking softly and carrying a big stick, as Theodore Roosevelt would have exhorted him to, Ashraf spoke loudly but enjoyed little authority – both within and outside the country – because he simply did not win people’s respect. Everybody knew that he was in the position he was for precisely one reason: his close relationship with former president Pervez Musharraf. His time as head of the PCB was marked, above all else, by incompetence and mistrust. It showed.
Contrast that with his predecessor, Shaharyar Khan. Khan’s professional training was as a diplomat – for a period of forty years, he served Pakistan as an ambassador, a high commissioner, and a foreign secretary. This training, no doubt, allowed him to cultivate stronger relationships with stakeholders in Pakistani cricket to a much greater extent than Ashraf. He would know which buttons to push, when to push them, and when to tactically back off – all qualities that a diplomat naturally possesses. He had experience in the cricketing fraternity – he was appointed the team’s manager on the politically charged tour to India in 1999, and managed the side in the 2003 World Cup too. In short, he wasn’t out of his element around superstar cricketers (unlike Ashraf) and knew how to get along with people, because he had done it for a living (unlike Ashraf).
So Ashraf’s reign over Pakistan cricket is the first step toward understanding what has happened in the last three years. Though the PCB has always been a dysfunctional organization, it exceeded its own high standards of ineptitude during Ashraf’s time.
The second key individual we must look to is Shoaib Malik. Now, Shoaib Malik is a good man and a good cricketer. Until he became captain, he always showed himself to be a team player – doing whatever those senior to him asked him to, never being involved in any controversies on or off the field, batting in any and all positions, turning his arm over when a breakthrough was needed on flat wickets, and being Pakistan’s only world class fielder. It is not his fault he was asked to be captain – no, that particular honor belongs to Younis Khan. But it is his fault that he was such a bad one.
Pakistan has always been known for playing an attacking and aggressive brand of cricket. Under the Inzamam-Woolmer regime, they lost some of that style, though that regime’s detractors sometimes overstate the case. But Shoaib Malik took it to another level. It would take one boundary for sweepers to be put out, even against the Zimbabwes and Bangladeshes of the world. Two slips would be a rarity, three a pipe dream. There was little to no innovation in fielding positions. Bowling changes were predictable. Youngsters – Fawad Alam and Sohail Khan must be asking themselves if they accidentally insulted someone in Malik’s family – weren’t given chances to show what they worth, even when they were selected. Pakistan didn’t just become a bad team, they became something much worse. They became boring. A team that prided itself on magnetic and charismatic superstars wreaking havoc with opposition team’s carefully crafted plans suddenly became an Excel spreadsheet: staid and predictable. Shoaib Malik created more EPL fans in Pakistan than Cristiano Ronaldo, Jose Mourinho, Steven Gerrard and Cesc Fabregas combined.
So Shoaib Malik’s bad captaincy is the second clue we need to chart Pakistan cricket’s descent. Under him the team was neither good enough to challenge the big boys, nor bad enough to warrant a complete overhaul and an infusion of youth. He failed to inspire, played favorites – Kamran Akmal, anyone? – and was tactically lost. The result was mediocrity.
Last but by no means in this sordid story is Shoaib Akhtar. There was a period – perhaps two or three years ago – when Shoaib Akhtar was an incredibly polarizing individual. If you walked into a room of ten cricket fans, five would tell you that he was the only savior available to Pakistan cricket, and five would tell you that he was overweight, injury-prone and selfish, and deserved to be booted. There was no middle ground. This is no longer the case. Now, not only is there no middle ground, but there are no supporters left either. Suddenly, that room of ten cricket fans has nine loudly railing against Shoaib, and it’s only nine because the tenth popped off for a smoke, probably unable to handle thinking or talking about Shoaib Akhtar any longer. It is all become a bit much: the self-aggrandizing Ferrari references, the repeated pull-outs on second and third days of test matches, the laziness in the field, the incessant trouble with teammates, the drugs, the scandals, and the injuries – oh, the injuries. After contracting genital warts, Shoaib has seemingly completed his quest to suffer every ailment possible for an athlete; surely there is nothing left for him to accomplish.
It is important, however, to note that Shoaib Akhtar the individual was not the problem, per se. After all, this was the same man who ran through sides, good sides, for fun, who once silenced one hundred thousand Indians in Calcutta by getting Tendulkar first ball, who once possessed capabilities of destruction that no one else could even fathom. Why? Well, he was quicker than Ambrose, got more bounce than Waqar, was more accurate than Lee, and more menacing than Donald. What more do you want?
No, the problem wasn’t Shoaib himself, but the role he was asked to fulfill around the middle of this decade: the senior statesmen. Shoaib thrived as the breakthrough-iconoclast at the beginning of his career (1998-2000) and did fairly well as the up-and-comer stepping up to replace the Ws as the best bowler in the team (2000-03). What he was clearly unequipped to handle was the next logical step, that is, of a position of responsibility; his selfishness, immaturity and stubbornness simply precluded any success in that role. One only needs to imagine Mohammad Asif’s career under Wasim Akram or Waqar Younis’ tutelage to comprehend the difference. This is not to excuse Asif for his bouts of incredible inanity and stupidity, but it is to say that the type of players available as mentors matter greatly for one’s development.
At bottom, Pakistan relied on Shoaib Akhtar and he repeatedly let the country down – whether that is Shoaib’s fault or the fault of those who trusted him in the first place is open to debate. But what is not open to debate is the fact that Shoaib’s antics, his inability to take his fitness seriously, and his me-first-everyone-else-last attitude cast a long and dark shadow over Pakistan cricket. And similar to his namesake and captain, as well as the former chairman of the board, the issue wasn’t the individuals themselves, but that the individuals were asked to do something that they were clearly and openly incapable of doing.
It is a truism that individual talent alone doesn’t guarantee success. But I would submit: it can make a helluva difference. Even if the structure around individuals is decrepit and constraining, talent has a way of rising above such concerns, and making a difference. Imagine Shaharyar Khan in place of Nasim Ashraf as head honcho of the PCB over the last three years. Or Wasim Akram in place of Shoaib Akhtar as the team’s elder statesman. Or Younis Khan (or even Shahid Afridi) in place of Shoaib Malik as captain. Despite the unfavorable conditions that are a staple for Pakistani cricket, there is little doubt that we would not be where we are now. No chance.
That lesson – the lesson that, irrespective of systems and organization and circumstances, simple talent can overcome – is valuable, for it provides a silver lining for us to consider. Imagine, for instance, how difficult a course Pakistan would face if reforming its system would be the only way of getting back on track. Imagine if we followed Gladwell’s blueprint, and had to ensure that the circumstances and structures that facilitate success were put in place before we actually got any. How depressing would that be? How long would we have to wait? Structures cannot be reformed overnight – indeed, that’s what makes them structures: their quality of endurance.
No, what Pakistan needs to get back is simple: one or two diamonds. It’s not a lot to ask for. Realistically, we need one great middle order batsman to break through (Fawad, we’re waiting), one excellent quick bowler (Sohail Khan and Mohammad Aamer, it’s time to live up to the unrelenting PakPassion hype), and one decent opener to partner Salman Butt. You put those three guys around Younis, Misbah, Akmal, Umar Gul, Kaneria, Sohail Tanvir, and suddenly you’ve got a fairly serviceable team. Not worldbeaters, mind, but pretty good. And if Asif comes back, I mean, really comes back – the Karachi/Sri Lanka/South Africa Asif? Well, then.
Ten minutes. Count to six hundred, and you’re there. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
If there is one critical moment from which Pakistan’s tale of woe begun, it must surely be Younis Khan’s “dummy captain” moment. As a result of that madness, Pakistan neither had the captain (Younis, despite his impetuousness, was the best bet) nor the chairman (Shaharyar resigned after the fiasco) it needed. Moreover, it sucked the life out of the entire set-up, leaving the late Bob Woolmer aghast, and in no small way led to the unraveling of the most successful Pakistan team of the last decade. And finally, it led to a fracturing of the team, because all of a sudden, the medium-term captaincy was an open question, and each of Shoaib Malik, Yousuf, and Afridi was a candidate, and lobbied intensely for it. Claims and counter-claims for respect and allegiance were made, and the team simply splintered at the top.
Rumor has it that the reason Younis Khan had his “dummy captain” moment was that he was made to wait for ten minutes outside Shaharyar Khan’s office in the autumn of 2006. Ten minutes. In that time, this too-proud man decided that the wait was an insult he could not bear, and that he would not only walk away in a huff and not meet the chairman of the board, but that he would also walk away from the captaincy for the Champions Trophy. In that instant, Younis threw to waste Pakistan’s carefully laid plans. He had loyally served as Inzamam-ul-Haq’s deputy for almost two years, and had impressed all and sundry with his leadership and man-management skills. He had played the “young, energetic, full of life” ying to Inzamam’s “calm, steely, fatherly” yang faithfully and brilliantly. For once in Pakistan cricket’s tortured history, there was a succession plan; for once, the captaincy would be peacefully and normally transferred from a captain to a vice-captain. For once, there would be no revolts, no back-biting, no politicking, no cliques, no haphazard ascension to the throne.
As soon as I saw the headline 'How a jilted Karachi woman saved Pak-N programme' with Rauf Klasra's byline, I knew I would be blogging about it. The story far exceeds my already high expectations by combining illogic, implausability and a plot that would be rejected by the producers of James Bond for being too far-fetched.
The opening para provides a nice summary of what we should expect:
[A] shocking 30-year-old secret has been exposed. It reveals how a young woman college lecturer, feeling betrayed after a romance with a nuclear scientist of the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), had given a lead to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in 1978, which in turn had led to the dramatic arrest of 12 Pakistani scientists and engineers, planning to sabotage Pakistan’s nuclear sites at the behest of a superpower.
But the fun is in the details.
Brig Imtiaz recalled that as a lieutenant colonel he was posted as chief ISI Sindh in 1978. One day he received a telephone call from the sister of A K Brohi, who was a psychologist in Karachi. She informed him that she was treating a female young patient who was suffering from a disease called “secret concealment” wherein a patient could not be cured unless he or she shared this secret with someone.
So, this girl goes to see a psychologist. The psychologist, who apparently doesn't believe in honouring his patient's confidentiality, tells his sister that the patient has a secret she wants to share. I don't know about you guys, but as soon as I find out someone is keeping secrets my first impulse is to tell the ISI about it.
The lady doctor had confessed to Brig Imtiaz that she had failed to make the girl reveal the secret and thought maybe he could help her.
I doubt the lady doctor was so naive that she wasn't aware how the ISI makes people 'reveal' secrets. So this doctor thought torture was suitable treatment for a patient with psychological problems.
[T]he woman finally told him that she was carrying a very dangerous secret with her but made it clear that she would not share it even if she was killed.
Wow, her psychological problems go beyond "secret concealment" if she thinks it is possible for her to communicate from beyond her grave.
According to Brig Imtiaz, he could have easily picked her up and kept her in a safe house for a few days in isolation to make her reveal the secret but he did not adopt this traditional style of the intelligence officers. For a few days, according to his own version, Brig Imtiaz grappled with the dilemma of whether to wait or to just pick her up and try extracting information through traditional methods.
It's refreshing to see an ISI man willing to admit how routine torture is. Less refreshing is that he needed a few days to decide wheter to torture an innocent, traumitized woman.
It was during these days that one day while on his way to Clifton and driving by the consulate of a superpower, he saw a red colour Mazda car bearing a private number plate going inside at a very fast speed but he never really gave it another thought. But later, when he was sitting with the man in Clifton whom he had gone to meet, all of a sudden, his mind started working and he thought of the same red Mazda car and how it was allowed inside the consulate within a few seconds.
Okay, so you don't want to reveal which country this 'superpower' is. Fair enough, it could be either the US or the Soviet Union (although it doesn't require a particularly high IQ to figure out the superpower in question). And I suppose we could allow Brig Imtiaz to revel in his brilliance as a sleuth.
The woman told him that one day, when Munshi left for his office, he left his safe open. She looked at the half-open safe and could not resist the temptation to check its contents. She was startled to see piles of dollars inside along with some official secret files. These papers were related to Pakistan’s nuclear sites and installations.
Man, is this Munshi a half-assed spy or what. It took the ISI so long to find out he was hiding bribes and classified in a safe in his fucking office. And since he was a nuclear scientist, his office happened to be KANUPP, one of the most highly-guarded entities in the country. And he was stupid enough to leave the safe open with his girlfriend in the office? Brig Imtiaz should be weeping in shame that he only found out about this because the sister of the psychologist of the woman who knew about this got some cheap thrills at the idea of a psychologically-traumatized woman being tortured.
He asked her to help him get a key to Munshi’s suite so that he could himself inspect the stuff. She provided him the alternate key. With the help of a 70-year-old key-making expert Brig Imtiaz managed to open the foreign made safe...
Another dumbass move by Munshi. If you have evidence of treasonous activities hidden in your office, don't give your girlfriend the spare key. And correct me if I'm wrong, but is it normal to give your girlfriend the key to your office? Especially when you have enough shit hidden in there to guarantuee the death penalty.
It was revealed that actually the foreign secret agency had deputed five handlers from Washington to deal with the nuclear programme of Pakistan. These five foreign handlers included two girls, one of whose photos was seen by the heartbroken girlfriend of Munshi which made her jealous and she decided to take revenge.
Oops, we didn't mean to tell you who the 'superpower' was. But it's so difficult to narrow it down from the US and Soviet Union we thought we'd give you a clue by letting you know they were operating out of Washington. And another smart move by Munshi. Keeping the picture of a foreign spy in your wallet isn't going to hurt you down the line. By the way, since all this hapenned in pre-cell phone camera times, how exactly did Munshi get the handler's picture. Did she just hand it over to him or did he bring along a camera to one of their top-secret meetings and got her to pose. You know, just a little token for Munshi to remember her by.
Anyway, the story ends on a happy note, as all the spies are caught and punished and Brig Imtiaz honoured. All in a day's work.
A last bit of advice for Brig Imtiaz. Mike Myers is looking at scripts for the next Austin Powers movie. Give him a call.
It's funny how many myths can die unpleasant deaths in just over two hours. "La Liga is shit, Barca wouldn't be top three in the Premier League, no one defends over there" for one. "Messi can't score against English teams, and bottles it in big games" is another (though how that one got started in spite of his 2006 performance at Stamford Bridge is quite beyond me). "Ronaldo is a more complete player than Messi" was perhaps my favorite one to get debunked (um, doesn't passing, pressing, and vision count toward being a "complete" player?).
Anyway, I'm here to appreciate and analyze, not gloat. I'm not going to say "I told you so" but I would ask people to watch more than 180 minutes of park-the-bus football before judging how capable a team really is. The English media's build-up to this game was quite astounding in the lack of perspective displayed.
Today was a footballing lesson, and I'm sorry, but there's no other way to put it. After their semi-final win against Arsenal, Patrice Evra said it was a case of men against boys. I wonder what he would say after today's performance? How would he describe this?
United were played off the park. They chased shadows the whole game. If you had to select a joint eleven from the teams on the basis of today's performance, I simply don't know which United player would make it. Maybe Rooney in midfield, but who would he replace? Busquets, perhaps, though the kid showed that he can more than handle himself at this level. Maybe Ronaldo, for he had some truly outstanding and threatening moments, and Henry was less than mobile on his return from injury. But Ronaldo would be such a misfit with these Barcelona players, because their mantra is "receive, pass, offer" and his mantra is "shoot, never pass under any circumstances, and try to win the game single-handedly". Evra had a goodish game (except for being caught out with the first goal) but didn't Sylvinho -- at age 36 no less -- have a better one? And let's not even get into discussions about the midfield (just yet anyway, maybe later in the post).
I thought Sir Alex Ferguson made a massive mistake, but it's a mistake, funnily enough, that we should all credit him for making. The mistake was thinking that United could play football with Barca. I have absolutely no idea why he thought this, but he did. So rather than replicate last year's tactics that worked so well, or indeed copying Guus Hiddink's tactics from the semis, United came out of their cage. This was quite silly. But we should be happy that he made this mistake, because for such an important game -- a Champions League final -- we really should not be subjected to snorefests of 10 men behind the ball. Let the two best teams in Europe go at it, and play football, and see which team wins. Why buy all those Ferraris if they're only going to be parked in the garage? Football fans all over the world owe Sir Alex Ferguson a debt of gratitude for that one, even if his team probably beg to differ.
It could, of course, have been slightly different. United absolutely bossed the first ten minutes. I don't think Barca strung together more than three passes during that time, while United had five shots, three of them pretty legitimate chances (the Ronaldo free kick, the Park follow up, and the Ronaldo long ranger). If they had scored there, they could have settled back and absorbed Barca's pressure better. But they didn't, were sucker-punched by Eto'o of all people -- if anyone has watched Barca over the last two months, they will know how surprising that is -- and from then one, were chasing the game. And frankly, United were not good enough to chase Barca.
But I did find United's going off the boil from minutes 11-90 quite puzzling. Were they outclassed? Sure. But they never tried anything different. Not in the sense of different players, but different tactics. One of the great strengths of this United team is the different looks they can give you. But they kept trying the same thing -- try to play through Carrick and Anderson in midfield -- when it was clear that such a gameplan was absolutely futile given the gulf in class between the central midfields. (Random challenge: if Spain play with 10 players in next year's World Cup, but three of them are Xavi, Iniesta and Xabi Alonso, will they still be able to win it?) United could have boofed it up Chelsea-and-Drogba style or Villareal-and-Llorente style and hoped for the best -- indeed, this is when they looked most threatening. But they did not try it nearly enough.
And let's be honest: Pique and Puyol played the games of their lives. I'm sure United fans are asking how it came to be that the the best CB on the pitch was Barcelona's, and moreover, was United's fifth-choice CB last year, if that. And Puyol kept Ronaldo and Rooney in check throughout the game, despite both those stars being much quicker and more agile. He played with so much heart, was all over the pitch, chased everything down, and was a captain's captain. He might not play more than 25 games next year, but if this game is the one he is remembered by when he retires, I don't think he'll be complaining.
This was a complete performance by Barca, but I've honestly seen them play much better this year. They were in about third or fourth gear for much of the game, though this probably had a lot to do with (a) Henry not being able to move, and (b) Yaya Toure being played out of position. But it doesn't matter, because they have shown themselves to be the best team in Spain, in Europe, and in the world. Lionel Messi cemented his status as Ballon D'Or frontrunner, though it's quite sad that his reign will be such a short-lived one (if Iniesta doesn't get injured next year, I see no way in which he doesn't win it). Xavi and Iniesta, bless their hearts, leave all of us in awe every time they play together. But talking about individuals cheapens and takes away from what makes Barca so successful. It is always about the team, for without the other players who make up this palette of great talents, they would all go to waste. Remember, for a triangle of passes to work, you actually need two others in the right place at the right time. That fact, more than anything, captures the essence of Barcelona's success.
And Pep? Oh dear, what about Pep? What exactly will he do for an encore? On second thought, that's an uncomfortable question for another time.
Victory is sweet. Justified and beautiful victory is sweeter. And an unmitigated victory -- not marred by bad decisions, close calls, or any cause for complaint by the vanquished -- featuring two teams going into battle and one coming out so far and away superior? Well, surely that is sweetest.
Photo credit: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
UPDATE: I wrote this post in a hurry, so neglected to mention one of the top performers of the night: the ref. Maintained control, didn't let things get out of hand, let the game flow, and made sure that the viewers only ever noticed the footballers and the football, and nothing else. Brilliant performance.
UPDATE II: Comment of the day comes from well into a Guardian thread (somewhere around the 500th comment; yes, I need to get a life or at least go to sleep) by a reader named Mortice:
UPDATE IV: I don't speak either Spanish or Catalan, but I do know a drunk 21 year-old when I see one, and I have to tell you, Messi is drunker than a sixteen year-old girl with conservative parents on her prom:
There has been a massive suicide attack in Lahore, targeting a police building. Estimates of casualties are varied between 10 and 30 at this point, but that number will almost assuredly rise.
Our thoughts go out to the victims and their families.
Lahore has been increasingly targeted in the last three to four months now, as militant violence moves away from "traditional" targets like those in the Northwest and in Karachi toward "less established" targets.
To be quite honest, I'm a little bit surprised that it has taken this long for the Taliban -- presumably the perpetrators of the attack -- to launch a big attack in response to the Army offensive in Malakand/Swat/Dir/Buner. In the past, their response has been quicker and more devastating. There are four inferences we can draw from this delay:
1. It is purely coincidental, and we shouldn't read anything into it.
2. It reflects a decreased capability on the part of the Taliban, i.e. they are weaker than they were six months ago.
3. It reflects a weaker preference to launch attacks against Pakistani civilians, as the Taliban want to stem the tide of public opinion turning against them, i.e. they can still inflict massive violence whenever they want to, but they simply want to do so less.
4. The Pakistani state and security services have done a better job of interdicting and breaking up potential attacks than in months previously.
I honestly don't know which one of those four options is the most likely.
Anyway, please add more information in the comments section if and when you receive it.
I don't want to sound like an asshole or anything, but who knew those people could actually, you know, act? She did brilliantly in the film, which was by far the most psychologically and emotionally displacing film I've seen in a long time.
In its decision overruling the Lahore High Court and the Dogar Supreme Court and declaring Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif eligible to contest elections, the Supreme Court has made a political judgment and seemingly ignored the legal factors at play.
In declaring the Sharif brothers eligible, the Supreme Court has relied mainly on a technicality. Here is the relavent portion of their initial judgement:
The mandate of Article 225 of the Constitution has not been appreciated in the context of the instant cases. This Article places a bar to challenge an election dispute except through an election petition under the law i.e. the Representation of Peoples Act, 1976. In exceptional circumstances, however, the qualification or disqualification of a candidate can be challenged under Article 199 of the Constitution provided the order passed during the election process is patently illegal, the law has not provided any remedy either before or after the election; and the alleged disqualification is floating on record requiring no probe and enquiry.
Here is what Article 199 of the Constitution says with regards to elected officials:
Subject to the Constitution, a High Court may, if it is satisfied that no other adequate remedy is provided by law...requiring a person within the territorial jurisdiction of the Court holding or purporting to hold a public office to show under what authority of law he claims to hold that office
First, I think the Supreme Court is unduly narrowing the scope of Article 199 by claiming it can only be invoked in "exceptional circumstances." More importantly, this judgement shows that the Supreme Court decided what verdict they were going to arrive at and then tried to come up with a way to make this pre-determined verdict sound vaguely legal. Nowhere does it say that this clause can only be invoked if the "alleged disqualification is floating on record and requiring no probe and enquiry." In my opinion, the only reason this language has been employed is that in the Sharif case there is a dispute over a document that would definitevely prove wheter the Sharifs are eligible to stand for elections. The Sharifs claim that they were granted a full pardon by then President Musharraf, while Musharraf contended that he commuted their sentences without pardoning them. Now, since both parties seem reluctant to release the text of the agreement, I think it is incumbent on the courts, as the only competent bodies with the ability to force the production of this document, to hear this case. Indeed, both the Lahore High Court and the Supreme Court have been derelict in not demanding that the agreement be presented to them. Once the text is public, the judgement becomes relatively simple; either the Sharifs are convicts who are not eligible to stand for elections or they have been pardoned for their crimes and are free to stand for political office.
On the presidential pardon, the Supreme Court had this to say:
To allege that it [the presidential pardon] was conditional or qualified pardon required deeper probe which exercise entailed factual enquiry.
On the face of it, this is exactly correct. I just have no reason, other than plain politics, why the court did not undertake this factual enquiry. Isn't adjudacating disputed agreements within the purview of the Supreme Court? Many members of the judiciary certainly seem to think everything else, including the lyrics of pop songs, is properly investigated by them.
Another point I have in relation to this judgement is this sentence:
Realizing the exceptional and extraordinary events relating to unconstitutional removal of Judges of the Superior Courts which in the judgment under review has been described as, ““enforced by a brutal force, by deviating from constitutional provisions,” triggering an unprecedented nationwide movement, culminating in the restoration of those Judges, and during the interregnum, non-appearance of petitioners before the Courts then constituted could neither be termed as contumacious nor reflecting acquiescence, the findings of fact rendered on such assumptions merit to be interfered with in the review jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court is playing politics with this again. So far, they have not ruled on the constitionality of Musharraf's actions, most likely because whatever deal the PCO judges hashed out to ensure their return stipulated that they would not take Musharraf to task. But until they specifically rule on the constituionality of Musharraf's actions, those actions are legal under the law and the Supreme Court certainly has no right to use their supposed unconstitutionality as a factor in their judgements.
All this said, I do think it is patently unfair that the Sharifs are not allowed to stand for election while a vast number of PPP convicts pardoned under the NRO, are eligible (Please note that while I think their disqualification is unfair I do not think it is illegal). There are ways this situation can be rectified within the confines of the law.
1) The Supreme Court can make the NRO non-applicable. Legally, it cannot dissmiss the NRO itself as unconstitutional as the executive's authority to pardon convicts and commute sentences is absolute. But it could declare Musharraf's election to the presidency illegal, thereby making all the orders passed by Musharraf inoperable.
2) The president can expand the scope of the NRO by pardoning the Sharif brothers.
The main problem I had with the Justice Chaudhry Supreme Court is that its members saw themselves as political players, even before Musharraf dismissed them and essentially forced them to become politicised. Their judgements showed that they regarded themselves as policy makers and not disinterested observers whose only job was to enforce the Constitution and the rule of law. The Sharif judgement shows that nothing has changed in that regard.
The brouhaha from earlier today reminded of this piece I read in the NYT a couple of weeks ago. It basically talks about the burgeoning cottage industry of websites and online repositories that feature essays, research papers, solutions to past exams and problem sets.
But as companies with playful names like Cramster, Course Hero, Koofers and SparkNotes are transforming the way undergraduates like Mr. O’Connor study, some professors and ethicists are questioning whether such Web sites encourage cheating and undermine the mental sweat equity of day-to-day learning by seducing students with ready-made solutions and essays.
On Course Hero, for example, students can type in a college name and course number to unearth the previous semester’s particle physics final exam. They can find examples of research papers on, say, the causes of World War I. For homework, Cramster supplies step-by-step solutions to problems in more than 200 college-level math and science textbooks.
I think there is a fine line here between learning from other people's mistakes and actually cheating. With respect to problem sets and computational (i.e. mathy/econy/sciency) exams, I've been in classes (and TAed classes) where the professor voluntarily gives the students material from previous years. This actually serves the students well, by alerting them to potential pitfalls and the like. The only profs who have a lot to worry about in this regard are the lazy ones who refuse to update their exams and problem sets, or the ones who directly lift questions from the course textbook. If you make the system that easy to game, the solution should focus on changing the system, not wringing one's hands at the gamers. Professors need to do a better job of keeping students on their toes.
And honestly, the whole idea of literally downloading and submitting someone else's research paper is a bit of an overblown concern. When you're a professor or a TA, and you're grading students' papers, you have a pretty good idea before you pick up the paper of what you're going to get from a given student. There are some surprises to be sure, but on the whole, it's pretty consistent.
Another point is that every class has its own DNA, with the professor's personal views, readings, organization, and class discussion. Again, you can get a pretty good idea of which papers have been produced by good honest work as a result of the exposure to the class material, and which have been wholly imported.
That said, I completely accept the point that faculty must be more accepting of changing the old way of doing things. One option is to have more take-home exams based on the class reading material, and nothing else. Assign the question the morning the exams are due, have them due back five or six hours later, and voila, the cheaters have no option but to do things the right way.
With more technical stuff (math, econ, physics), I think more quizzes and fewer assignments would be good. A weekly 5-10 minute quiz ensures that you're keeping up with the material, and leaves less room to cheat.
Along with the other three contributors on this blog, I take intellectual property and the issue of plagiarism very seriously. As an academic, and as a decent human being, I always take care to note and credit people when their words help me write or think of something; hell, I even credit readers when they send me articles or photos. There are few things that annoy me more than plagiarism, and our record on this blog in pointing out and shining a light on these issues in the Pakistani media are clear as day for longtime readers.
This morning, at 6:26 am Chicago time, I received the following email from someone called Mayank Chhaya:
Dear Ahsan,
I just happened to catch your blog dated May 17 on Bilawal's presence during the White House summit. I was particularly struck by the comment “And one of the key guests of this summit is acting like it's"bring your son to work"day.”
"I think Zardari mistook this summit as abring-your-son-to-work-day. He brought his son Bilawal to the official meetings and made him sit just two chairs away from Obama, himself being in the middle. I was picturing a conversation between the two in Islamabad before traveling to Washington.
Bilawal: “Abba, Can I also come with you to Washington? I am so like keen to meet Barack Obama.”
Zardari: “Kyun nahi bete, this is your government and your country and your plane.”
Now, it is true that the same phrase ("bring your son to work" day) was used, but to intimate that I had gotten it from this blog, without attribution, is simply untrue. I have never in my life read this blog before today, and besides, why would I not attribute someone for their phrase if I actually did come across it? Which is why I responded with the following email:
Hi Mayank
Thanks for your email. I wasn't aware of your blog or the fact that you used the same phrase as I did. You can rest assured that my use of the phrase had absolutely nothing to do with your use of the same in the past -- it's a fairly obvious joke to make, and I guess Zardari forces us to all think in cringe-worthy terms.
But thank you for sending the email. I appreciate you trying to clear the air.
Best,
Ahsan
In response, I received the following email:
Hi Ahsan
Let's just call it that's that. I see that you are based in Chicago. So am I.
Cheers
Mayank
I considered that the end of the matter.
That is, until now. A few minutes ago, I saw this post titled "The incestuous world of blogs" from this same person as a trackback entry to my post on Zardari. I am reproducing the whole thing for your benefit:
It should not surprise anyone that the blogosphere is an incestuous world. But as an old fashioned, hard-headed professional journalist, who just happens to blog, I take meticulous care to attribute any content that I have not created to its rightful source.
On May 7, the day U.S. President Barack Obama had a summit meeting with Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, I wrote a post along with a couple of pictures which ended thus:
P.S.: I think Zardari mistook this summit as a bring-your-son-to-work-day. He brought his son Bilawal to the official meetings and made him sit just two chairs away from Obama, himself being in the middle. I was picturing a conversation between the two in Islamabad before traveling to Washington.
Bilawal: “Abba, Can I also come with you to Washington? I am so like keen to meet Barack Obama.”
Zardari: “Kyun nahi bete, this is your government and your country and your plane.”
“And one of the key guests of this summit is acting like it's "bring your son to work" day.”
What can I say?
I cannot tell you how much this post angered me. First, Mayank Chhaya emails me, and responds as if he believes my version of the story. He then essentially accuses me of plagiarism (without actually saying so) in a public sphere because I happened to use one phrase that he did, a phrase that does not take a great deal of imagination. Most importantly, Mayank Chhaya appears to be quite dishonest himself, after leading me to believe the matter was closed, and then responding with this broadside.
Once again, for the record: I have never read this blog before today. When I do use other people's words to supplement my own, I always -- always -- credit them. These are the facts and they are indisputable.
Having read the blog post in question, I emailed Mayank Chhaya one last time:
Hi Mayank,
I just noticed your blog post basically accusing me of plagiarism. Thank you for not actually taking me at my word. Once again, for the record, I've never read your blog, much less heard of it before today.
You also seem to think "bring your son to work day" is somehow a phrase that only you could have up come up with, a view if true would be utterly nonsensical.
I will be posting a note on this on Rs.5 at some point today, because I am not going to let this baseless (and implied) charge stand. Our choice in using the same phrase is an unfortunate coincidence, but not nearly as unfortunate as the lack of class you have displayed here.
Best,
Ahsan
I stand by every word of that email.
UPDATE: Ok, so I don't stand by every word of that email. Mayank Chhaya just emailed me, and it appears this has been a misunderstanding. Apparently, he wrote this post before our email exchange, and not after. He had indeed taken my explanation at face value. I apologized to him in my email for my strongly-worded email and blog post. I don't believe in deleting blog posts, but I think a correction is as good, if not better. So consider this post corrected: it's all good. I consider this particular matter closed, and would once again like to apologize to Mayank Chhaya for this entire thing.
On a related note, I want to make two points. First, the reasons that I got so antsy about this are twofold. One, having grown up in Pakistan (and as someone who continues to read the Pakistani press very regularly), plagiarism really, really pisses me off. People can search our archives for times when we have dealt with this issue head on (googling "daily times five rupees plagiarism" might be a good start). Second, I am an academic, and we take plagiarism even more seriously than the press does (or is supposed to). An accusation of plagiarism in the academic world can literally end a career.
The second point I want to make is that the internet is a great tool for accountability. Glenn Greenwald had an excellent post on this issue a couple of days ago; I advise you to check it out. But the basic point is this: there's really no place to hide if you're a cheater. You will get found out. Even if sometimes it leads to false alarms (like today), this is a good thing.
How appropriate that the two best teams in Europe meet in Rome, home of the coliseum. The coliseum, as we know, hosted fights between gladiators, vicious and unyielding in nature. How appropriate that more than two thousand years later, we see a modern day version of the same: a fight to the (proverbial) death -- no draws, no second legs, no away goals. One team will walk out of Rome as champions of Europe. And that team will be legitimately be able to call itself the best -- there are no fluke champions this year, no wacky teams getting on a good run and carrying it through the knock-out rounds, no losers crashing the party of the big boys.
Futbol Club Barcelona. Manchester United Football Club. It's on, my friends. It's on. _________________________________________________________________________________
There are two basic questions to ask about this final. The first question is: who should win? I mean that in the most normative way possible. In other words, if everything was right about the world, who would win? The second question to ask is: who will win? To answer the first, we have to think about what we want the world to look like. To answer the second, we have to think about the dynamics of the actual football likely to be on display in three days time.
There is no doubt that Barcelona, for all of our sake's, should win this year's Champions League. If ever there was a club that does things the right way, it is Barcelona. The club is owned by the fans, and subjects itself to regular elections. United, on the other hand, are owned by one Malcolm Glazer, who has helped saddle United with a debt of close to a billion dollars. Moreover, Glazer has followed the Asif Zardari model of leadership, by installing all six of his children on the board of directors for the club.
That's not all. Barcelona's team is constructed from the bottom up, the way football clubs are meant to be organized. Of Barca's best fifteen players, a full eight came through its youth ranks (Valdes, Puyol, Pique, Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets, Bojan and Messi), and some grew up mere minutes from the Camp Nou. Hell, Xavi used to ride the Barcelona metro to games when he first broke into the team.
By contrast, United's starting eleven is likely to feature a whopping one player (O'Shea) who can claim to have been part of United's youth set up -- this a far cry from the Becks/Nevilles/Giggs/Scholes decade.
But most importantly, it is right that Barcelona should win because they have Lionel Messi, and United have Cristiano Ronaldo. As it so happens, while the pair are perhaps the two best players in the world, they are miles apart in class and temperament. One preens, showboats, complains about and to teammates on the pitch, is selfish and petulant, dives, milks faux-injuries for all they are worth, and is generally a class-A asshole. The other is unassuming and humble, never has a bad word to say about anyone (in public), doesn't bitch about getting physically targeted (Ronaldo might have asked for an ambulance on the pitch if Van Bommel had elbowed his face twice in two games in the Champions League), plays with a smile on his face and a joie de vivre that is refreshing to see in a top-class athlete. United fans may counter and say: it doesn't matter what type of person you are, as long as you produce. My rejoinder would be: it might not matter what type of person you are, but what type of teammate you are certainly does matter. In this regard, it really is no contest.
And if ever one needed evidence of the good vs. evil dynamic between Barca and United, one need not look further than their shirts.
Barcelona, who for more than a century had never allowed the logo of a corporate sponsor on the front of their jersey, signed a deal with Unicef as a sponsor. At the signing of the deal, Joan Laporta said: "For the first time in our more than 107 years of history, our main soccer team will wear an emblem on the front of its shirt. It will not be the brand name of a corporation. It will not be a commercial to promote some kind of business. It will be the logo of 'Unicef'. Through Unicef, we, the people of FC Barcelona, the people of 'Barça', are very proud to donate our shirt to the children of the world who are our present, but especially are our future." And unlike most sponsorship deals in which the club receives money from the sponsor, Barca turned the relationship on its head, and agreed to donate one and a half million Euros a year to the foundation.
United, on the other hand, have a slightly different type of sponsor. Instead of backing an organization that has as its mission statement the "realization of the rights of children and women, as laid down in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women", United proudly wear the logo of AIG on their shirts. AIG for its part played an enormous role in the current financial crisis of the world, and decided that the best way to pay penance for those mistakes was giving themselves bonuses in excess of $150 million. AIG is so popular that it is now choosing to call itself AIU Holdings, hoping everyone kinda-sorta just forgets.
I hope I have proven my case. Barcelona are Good. United are Evil. _________________________________________________________________________________
That said, there remains one small problem. Like most things that are intrinsically evil (Dick Cheney, Satan), United are hugely competent. So competent, in fact, that it would be fair to call them the best team in Europe for the last three years. I am not just talking about the trophies they have racked up during that time. No, I base that observation on two points.
First, United's squad is exceptionally talented. Vidic and Ferdinand are quite easily the world's best center-back pairing (club or international football). Ronaldo is devastating in open-play, as well as in dead-ball situations (both initiating or finishing the set-piece). Wayne Rooney rivals Andres Iniesta for the "most roles played brilliantly and faithfully, without complaint" award: you can slot him anywhere in front of the back four (and really, you can probably play him at wing-back too) and he'll do the job for you. Patrice Evra may well be the world's best left-back in the world, as he claims. This team is absolutely and positively no joke.
The second point to make is this: United can beat you in many ways. They can play fast, and they can play slow. They can outscore you, or they can ensure you score less than them. They can play wide, and they can play narrow. They can play brilliant passing football, and they can play long-range over-the-top balls to their front three. They can score from open play, and they can score from dead ball situations. The reason for this is simple: United's squad goes 25 deep. Sir Alex Ferguson can mix and match and play horses for courses depending on which team he's playing, where he's playing them, in what competition, and at what stage. The level of talent at United's disposal is quite breathtaking, to be honest. They have no weaknesses.
Barcelona, on the other hand, do have weakness. The only thing worse than Barca's record in taking free-kicks and corners is being subjected to them. They don't have a Torres/Ibra type of target man, where they can just boof it up in the box and hope for the best. And with injuries (Marquez, Gabi Milito) and suspensions (Dani Alves, Abidal), their back four will be a completely manufactured entity, and could possibly feature three players playing out of position (Puyol at right back, Yaya Toure as a center back, and Keita at left back).
Here's the thing though: man for man, I will go to war with Barcelona's first eleven against United's first eleven any day, and twice on this Wednesday. Here's how I see the teams lining up this week:
-------------------------Van der Sar-----------------------
United are probably going to play very similar to Chelsea in the semis (and United themselves in the semis last year): keep it tight in the back, don't be adventurous, look to exploit Barca on the counter, try to score from a set-piece, and otherwise play it safe and not give Barca any space. But here's the thing: as a Barca fan, United's midfield is simply not as physically imposing at Chelsea's was. I'd rather play against Park/Anderson/Carrick than Essien/Ballack/Lampard, if that's ok with you. Barca struggle against physical teams, but United are not a physical team on the defensive side of the pitch. This should allow Xavi and Iniesta to weave their magic, and that's where Barca's threats really emanate from.
I also expect Messi to be played as a false no. 9, similar to his role against Real a few weeks ago. In that game, Barca effectively made Eto'o a winger, and gave Messi more space to operate (and take advantage of his very underrated passing ability). All this talk about Evra stopping Messi last year is not only nonsense, but also besides the point: he may not even be matched up against him this year.
Though the back four will have an improvised look to it, I have no doubt Pep has been working on them in training. And if Pep lines the back four up the way we're all anticipating, it will at least give Barca a more physical and imposing back four to deal with set-pieces. The one weak link in the team might be Busquets who, let's face it, looked out of his depth against Chelsea. But I'm hoping that experience did him good, and that he's ready to step up. _________________________________________________________________________________
United are an awesome team. I respect them enormously. They have been the best team in Europe for the last three years. I repeat: they have been the best team in Europe for the last three years.
But this is Barcelona's season. I have said it before, and I will say it again. This year, they are a team of destiny. It is simply meant to be. It is simply meant to be that Barcelona win the treble for the first time in Spanish football history. It is simply meant to be that Lionel Messi shines brightly on the biggest stage in world football. It is simply meant to be that Xavi and Iniesta continue to show the world that there's no finer midfield pairing in the world, whether they play for Spain or Barca. It is simply meant to be that Pep Guardiola, that favorite son of the city and the club, in his first season as manager after being a ball-boy, supporter, player, and captain of the team in the last two decades, conquers all before him. It is simply meant to be that in this season of dreams, in this season of magic and wizardry and one-touch one-pass football, that Barcelona, the club that is Mes Que Un Club -- more than a club -- summit the European mountain.
Receive, pass, offer. Receive, pass, offer. It is the Barcelona way, and this year, it is to be rewarded.
Prediction: Barcelona win 2-1.
UPDATE: Charming fellow, that Roy Keane. From Sid Lowe's piece on Pique:
UPDATE II: Man, I love Xavi. He's so -- what's the word? -- earnest in his dismissiveness. Here he is on the Messi-Ronaldo debate, which he doesn't think is a debate at all.
It is the debate that will not go away in the build-up to the Champions League final but the Barcelona midfielder Xavi Hernández has refused to compare Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo because, he says, the Portuguese winger would come off so badly.
Xavi revealed that, as well as Ronaldo, he is a big admirer of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard but insisted that Messi is simply untouchable. "Messi is the best player in the world by a distance, he's the No1," Xavi said. "There is nobody at all like him. I don't want to compare him to anyone because it'll just damage the other player if I do. For me Messi is easily the best.
"All due respect to Ronaldo and all the other great players on the world stage but Messi is proving that he is better than everyone else. The world can see that he's the boss. I've never seen anything like it. In a game, in the training sessions, never. I wouldn't swap him for any player."
Dude just saved a season. Saved a city, in fact. And the reaction of the night award has to go to Stan Van Gundy.
I do have one substantive thought though: didn't Orlando show that they're sort of better than Cleveland in these first two games? I mean, there were periods in the third and fourth quarter last night (as well as in Game 1) where Cleveland's much lauded defense had simply no answer for Orlando's deceptively simple go-to play: pick and roll at the top involving Howard, with three shooters on the wings for open threes if help comes. Cleveland's best five (Z, Varejao, Mo Williams, Delonte and Lebron) are too slow to stop that. But if Mike Brown goes small (playing Lebron at the 4 to guard Rashard), Orlando simply beats them up on the boards. And they really have no one to guard Hedo -- poor old Pavlovic looked so lost out there that I wanted to put my arm around him and tell him that it would be ok. I think if Orlando actually shows up to start a game, rather than just in the second half, they can take this.
Denver-Lakers tonight. Won't be able to watch it, but what a fascinating series it's been so far. Isn't it fun for us to see Kobe and his team struggle so much? Good times.
Our American readers can hasten their long weekend by checking out the best links of the day. Fellow Pakistanis who have to work tomorrow should save them to while away the minutes in their depressing offices.
The new-look Newsweek (reboots seems to be all the fashion with Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation just released) is eviscerated by Michael Kinsley in The New Republic. I don't get what Newsweek is trying to go. It can never compete with quality up-market weeklies like The New Yorker and The Economist yet is wants to do just that. These are dark days for those who love print magazines.
Speaking of Terminator and The New Yorker, Anthony Lane hands it a new one in his review of McG's (whose name and previous work on Charlies Angels should be warning enough) resuscitation of a franchise that was finally starting to work on TV before it was cruelly cancelled. Just his opening is enough reason to fill me with dread:
If you arrived late for “Terminator Salvation” and missed the name of the director, at what moment would you realize that you were not watching a Mike Leigh film? I would nominate the scene in which a rusty tow truck, armed with a wrecking ball, is pursued by a riderless robot motorbike, armed with automatic machine guns. A wrecked car falls into the bike’s path, at which point we are given privileged access to the display screen inside the robot’s brain.
These season's 30 Rock was uneven at best and never reached the heights of its Thursday-night counterpart The Office. But an enterprising website has transcribed every word uttered by Tracy Jordan this season, reminding us that his non-sequiters never fail to amuse.
More on the comedy front. Read this seven-page NYT story on Conan and Jay Leno and be thankful that one of the funniest men on the planet is replacing a no-talent hack.
If I could frequent only one site on the internets, it would be The Atlantic's food section. Ideally, you would spend hours reading every article on the site, but if you only have time for one, make it this one on American cheeses.
Since I don't want to be the one dragging Five Rupees out of the gutter, Siasat has all the inside info on the shenanigans of Pakistani ministers on their Washington trip.
And finally, a YouTube video (courtesy reader JE) that makes genital warts seems positvely old-fashioned. Surfer dudes with fake orange tans make a play for a pree-ten boy. Sample lyric: If you get down on me, I'll get down on you.
"If girls realized the consequences of sex, nobody would be having sex," says Bristol, sitting at her parents' lakeside patio table. "Trust me. Nobody."
Right-o.
Anyway, before you start questioning why I'm reading People magazine, please understand that I got to it from a link on this perfectly respectable NYT column on the Britol-Meghan McCain catfight-that's-not-actually-a-catfight. So there.
Seeing how Shoaib's the only one getting bad press, perhaps we should give him a break and focus our energies on our other pace dynamo who's quite the master at swinging and rolling the ball. So Mr. Muhammad Asif, the man who did this to India:
What have you been up to lately? Coaching kids in London, why that's very nice of you, makes a change from you going and making a fool of yourself. Oh wait, what have we here:
I'm going to make this short so I can return to my giggling fits. Of the many injuries Shoaib Akhtar has sustained over his career, this is probably the most expected.
"Shoaib Akhtar has been withdrawn from the World Twenty20 squad and Rao's name has been sent to the ICC as a replacement," a board spokesman said.
An unusually graphic press release from the board said that a three-member medical panel appointed by the PCB had found that Shoaib was suffering from "genital viral warts and Electrofulgration was done on May 12, 2009."
The panel added that "his wound though healing needs further care and treatment for another minimum ten days for the purpose of healing and to achieve skin cover. Medical Board further recommended his re-assessment after 10 days.
He might want to frequent a higher class of prostitute next time.
Chris Lewis has the unique quality of having been intimately involved in two of the most memorable and iconic moments in cricket history. On the wrong end each time, of course, but involved nonetheless.
Here he is getting bowled off what a started of as a wide (0:40):
And here he sets up Brian Lara to break Gary Sobers' record (2:40):
It's time to stuff a healthy helping of humble pie in my mouth. Just over a month ago, I had lost my faith in Roger Federer's ability to be the best - over even a top-three - player. Then, on Sunday he defeated Rafael Nadal. On a clay court. In straight sets. Without having his serve broken even once.
As an aside, I have waited a few days to post this because on Sunday I would have done nothing but gloat and express joy.
First the caveats. The final was played the day after Nadal survived three match points in a gruelling four-hour marathon against Novak Djokovic. And the clay in Madrid is much faster than it will be at Roland Garros next week. But since Nadal was able to beat Federer in five sets at the Australian Open after an even longer semi against Verdasco, I wouldn't discount Federer's victory on these grounds.
Here's why he did win:
1) Federer has always considered himself above the gamesmanship employed by Nadal, who seems to be adjusting a wedgie between every point. Not this time. On Sunday, Federer refused to take the court before Rafa, making him wait a good 40 seconds before he was ready to recieve. I'm sure Rafa has taken note of this, and the next time they play, expect a 10-minute staring contest before the match begins.
2) The toss has always been pointless in Roger-Rafa matches. Federer prefers serving first; Rafa wants to recieve. Finally, Federer made Rafa serve first. This was the first of many signs that Federer is willing to get out his comfort zone if it'll also unsettle Rafa.
3) Keeping the points short. Roger is just not good enough to slug it out against Rafa. Consider this: the final took only five minutes more than the second set between Rafa and Djokovic and was actually shorter than the third set. Federer went for the big winners and he got it right enough of the time to win.
4) Which brings me to my next point. Unforced errors. Federer still made a bunch of them - more than 20 - but as a result of his more aggressive strategy, he compensated with even more winners.
5) Federer also seems to have realized that he is going to lose if he keeps allowing Rafa to hit shot after shot to his backhand. Instead of trying to hit incredible backhands against Rafa's top-spin forehands, he ran around his backhand and went for winners on his stronger side.
6) But none of this will matter in the French Open if Federer is unable to serve like he did on Monday. He was aggressive on his second serve (which excuses his four double faults) and got tons of free points on his first serve against the best returner in the world.
This final has me super-excited about the French Open, which starts next Sunday. The first week should be a relative breeze for Roger and Rafa and I suspect both are more tense about Friday, when the draw is announced. Andy Murray is improving on clay but it isn't much of a threat. Neither will want Djokovic on their side of the draw.
A couple of days back Dawnpublished a story quoting an interview with New Yorker investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that supposedly ran on an Arabic television station. According to the story, which originally appeared in tons of Arabic newspapers and was subsequently republished in Pakistani newspapers and made the headlines of many television stations, Hersh claimed that a death squad, reporting directly to Dick Cheney, assassinated Benazir Bhutto and Rafiq Hariri of Lebanon.
Just a few hours later, Dawn retracted the story and ran a piece where Hersh denied giving any such interview. He categorically stated that he gave no interview claiming Cheney was responsible for Benazir's and Hariri's assassinations. Since no video has turned up of this alleged interview, it would be fair to give Hersh the benefit of the doubt on that point.
But Sy Hersh's denial went a step further, also saying this:
‘Vice President Cheney does not have a death squad. I have no idea who killed Mr Hariri or Ms Bhutto. I have never said that I did have such information. I most certainly did not say any thing remotely to that effect during an interview with an Arab media outlet,’ Hersh said.
‘General McChrystal ran a special forces unit that engaged in High Value Target activity. While I have been critical of some of that unit's activities in the pages of the New Yorker and in interviews, I have never suggested that he was involved in political assassinations or death squads on behalf of Mr Cheney, as the published stories state.’
He is lying. In a speech at the University of Minnesota on March 10 (you can hear audio and read a transcript at the Democracy Now website, which did a segment on his comment), Hersh made the following accusation:
Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination wing, essentially. And it’s been going on and on and on. And just today in the Times there was a story saying that its leader, a three-star admiral named McRaven, ordered a stop to certain activities because there were so many collateral deaths. It’s been going in—under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or to the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving.
Later, in an interview with Democracy Now's host Amy Goodman he said that this assassination ring reported to Dick Cheney, although he does include the caveat that Cheney only approved assassination targets and wasn't actually picking them.
Before any further criticism of Hersh, I should acknowledge that he has been breaking huge stories for about forty years, including the My Lai Massacre and Abu Ghraib. But he has also been spectacularly wrong on many occasions. Just search the New Yorker website for "Seymour Hersh+ Iran" and you will get at least half a dozen stories where he predicted that the US was going to invade the country within a matter of weeks (someexamplesof this). Hersh's book on JFK, The Dark Side of Camelot, was an embarrassment, that, among other things, concluded that JFK had a secret first marriage that had not been annulled when he married Jackie Kennedy. This story in NY magazine is the definitive account of Hersh's deficincies as a reporter.
From Michael Steele, supreme nutter, breathtaking in his low-IQ-ness, and, not-so-coincidentally, RNC chairman:
"Today we are declaring an end to the era of Republicans looking backward," he announced. "The era of apologizing for Republicans' mistakes of the past is now officially over," he added. "The era of Republican navel gazing is over. We have turned the corner on regret, recrimination, self-pity and self-doubt. Now is the hour to focus all of our energies on winning the future."
Yet even as he recommended against looking backward, he mentioned Ronald Reagan no fewer than three times. "For me the Republican Party owes its moorings to Edmund Burke, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan," he said. Buckley died last year, Reagan in 2004, and Burke in 1797.
I have to say: watching the Republican implosion -- probably traceable to the choice of Sarah Palin as veep, and continuing on to the entire party becoming apologists for the Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter crowd -- has been bittersweet. It's obviously great that they're no longer in power, look to be absolutely lost in trying to regain it, are blissfully unaware that it is their policies (and not just their personalities) that are responsible for their landslide defeats in the last two elections, and have become the political equivalent of a headless chicken running around in circles.
But I have that strange sensation when your day has gone perfectly; you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop and have something horrible happen to balance things out. Maybe I should stop being so paranoid and enjoy liberals' day in the sun -- it's not going to last forever, you know.
Take a good, long look at the picture below. It is from the signing of the Simla agreement between the goverments of India and Pakistan in 1972. There are four people in the foreground. The two leaders shaking hands are easy enough to identify -- perhaps the subcontinent's two most iconic leaders ever: Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. The bearded man on the extreme right is Swaran Singh, then Indian foreign minister. And just who do you suppose is the timid-looking young lady between Messrs Bhutto and Singh?
I bring this up because for the life of me, I can't get over Bilawal Bhutto accompanying his father to a high-level meeting with Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai. I know there are more important crises in Pakistan right now (the refugees, the economy, the Taliban), but I can't let this go, even though I probably should. I mean, just look at this picture, sent to me by reader Nabeel from the White House page on Flickr.
I just have one question: WHY IS BILAWAL SITTING THERE? Actually, I have one more question: what does it say about Zardari's priorities that Bilawal is sitting closer to his father and Barack Obama than either Pakistan's foreign minister (Shah Mahmood Qureshi, on Bilawal's left) or Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. (to Qureshi's left)?
I have three principal objections to this nonsense. The first is the most obvious: there is an exceedingly low likelihood that Bilawal is the best-suited person to lead Pakistan in twenty years' time, a role he is quite obviously being groomed for. Is he the smartest twenty year old in Pakistan? No, not really. The most hard-working? Probably not. Is he blessed with a great temperament, or an astounding ability to think clearly in times of crisis? Doubtful. So other than his last -- sorry, middle -- name, there is no rational reason why Bilawal Bhutto should be sitting in on an extremely important meeting with extremely important leaders.
The second reason is the effect it has on the rest of Pakistan's population. Think of someone -- maybe a university graduate, maybe not -- who is interested in public service. This person hails from a no-name family, is smart, has an ability to think on their feet, and wants to serve their country in some official capacity. They study hard, day and night, for the CSS exam. And then this person sees Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who can speak neither Urdu nor Sindhi, and who has shown no talent in any meaningful respect whatsoever, sitting next to Barack Obama. What do you think this person feels? Despair, probably. They think to themselves: why should I bother? Why should I work hard in an effort to serve my country when I'm always going to be beaten out by people who don't deserve it? And, as a result of this thinking, Pakistan loses the ability and enthusiasm of otherwise willing people, who simply drop out of contention. They become an accountant or a newspaper reporter or call-center operator or a cricketer or anything else.
The third reason is the lack of respect with which foreigners and, more importantly, foreign governments treat Pakistan and its diplomats. Go back to the picture above, and put yourselves in Barack Obama's shoes for a minute. You're chairing and hosting a summit that, among other issues, involves the external and internal security of three countries. And one of the key guests of this summit is acting like it's "bring your son to work" day. Moreover, him and his handlers choreograph this absurdly moronic and obvious photo-op with him, his son, and his late wife's book (picture courtesy reader Tan).
So, as I said, you're Barack Obama. You see all this. How will you react? When the same guest talks incessantly about his commitment to democracy, are you likely to believe him or dismiss him out of hand? How seriously will you ever take what this man says as the leader of his country? And, as a corollary, if you don't take him very seriously, and don't respect him at all, how do you think this affects Pakistan's chances of securing important deals and commitments from other states?
There are many issues that are beyond Pakistan's ability to solve. We can not overnight make sure no one in the country goes hungry, or that all children attain at least a primary education, or that basic healthcare becomes a right, not a privelege. But there are some things we can solve, such as the gross levels of corruption, favoritism and nepotism inherent in our political system. To their credit, I don't know off the top my head the names of all of Nawaz Sharif's children, nor Pervez Musharraf's. And yet I feel like I am intimately familiar with the Bhutto's family tree and family history, to the point where I really feel like I should add all of them on Facebook.
What explains that difference? Why does the PPP display a sense of familial entitlement so much greater than any of the other power bases in Pakistan? Where does it come from, and what, if anything, can we do about it?
I've been sitting at my computer for the past hour, wondering how to start this recap. So much happened tonight, I don't know where to begin. Perhaps with Jacob, unseen for so many years, but now ubiquitous. How about the return of the megalomaniac fuck-up Jack Shepherd, whose serenity was never going to last? Or the artist formerly known as John Locke (I totally called it, Locke is dead.)? I guess I'll just take it in roughly chronological order, which means the order in which it aired; I don't have the brains to put all of tonight's craziness in a timeline.
- Lost fans have been debating the centrality of Ben Linus versus Charles Widmore for some time now. Are the Losties simply pawns in a larger fight they know nothing about. It never crossed my mind that Widmore and Ben were chess pieces in an even greater rivalry; the one between Jacob and the dude he was talking to. Since we are never given a name for him, I'm just going to call him Loopy, given that he's been searching for a loophole. That ship which Loopy accuses Jacob of brining to the Island: it has to be the Black Rock, right? And the argument they have is at the heart of the show. Loopy thinks that their lives are pre-destined and that fate will ensure the same things will repeating themselves, but Jacob says that the details change, which is where free will comes in.
- The next time we see Jacob he is rescuing little Kate from being turned in for shoplifting. I'm going to break the chronological order a little to talk about the ambiguity of all of Jacob's appearances. He's certainly trying to guide their destinies, but in what way? Is he trying to dissuade Kate from pursuing a life of crime or did he ensure that she thought she could get away with her lawlessness? Similarly, I am unsure if Jacob stopped Said so that Nadia would be killed or if he was trying to save Said from a similar fate. I'm also very curious to find out if Jacob's touch awoke an unconscious (maybe even dead) Locke or if he was just reassuring him.
- Although it makes sense in retrospect, 'Locke' tells Richard that they're going to have to deal with the Ajira people. That was very chilling and was the first time that the character (who is not who we think he is) was so wanton about his murderous instincts.
- I thought the weakest parts of the episode were Juliet's two reversals. First she changed her mind about leaving the Island. I kind of bought that because she's not the type to let Jack just set off an H-bomb. I wasn't convinced at all that she would allow the detonation to go ahead because Sawyer made googly eyes at Kate. That was completely out of character and the damn love quadrelateral led to another decison that seemed to be based solely on plot contrivement. I totally bought that Jack thinks setting off a nucelar device is an appropriate reaction to being dumped by Kate. He really is that type of guy.
- The conversation between Richard and Jack about Locke was brilliant and it left me convinced that Locke was never destined to be anything. The only reason he became the leader of the Others was because he told Richard he would be; it wasn't his destiny, it hapenned because he made it happen. And now we know how well that worked out for the pro-Jacob faction, which I'm assuming the Others are.
- Although not relevant to the master plot, the scene with Rose and Bernard was very touching.
- So, Jacob hasn't been living in the ash-encircled shack for some time, but someone else has. That someone would obviously be Christian Shepherd and Claire. Given what we now know, is it reasonable for me to assume that Chrsitian was lying when he told Locke that he was speaking on behalf of Jacob and that he needed to move the Island. Since Loopy has now manifested as Locke, could he be the one taking the guise of all these people and that he forced Locke to move the Island as part of his plan to exploit some loophole. And who controls the smoke monster: Jacob or Loopy?
- I loved all the callbacks to previous seasons. Sun finding Charlie's Drive Shaft ring, little Kate and her toy aeroplane and an explanation for why Dr Chang had a prostethic arm in the Dharma video we saw in season two.
- Line of the night goes to Locke when he sees the four-toed statue. "It's a very nice foot, Richard, but what does it have to do with Jacob?"
- There must be something important in the guitar case Jacob left for Hurley since he's still lugging it around. Any theories? And why was Jacob trying to bring back Hurley, and presumably the Others, back to the Island? Are they going to fight Loopy in season six?
- The big reveal that Locke is already dead didn't surprise me that much. Frank's reaction after being shown what was in the box made it pretty clear it was Locke. But the implications for this are enormous.
- Ben's little speech to Jacob about his relative insignificance may be the first time we have seen the true Ben, with all his insecurties laid bare. More brilliant acting from Michael Emerson.
- According to forum posters who speak Latin, Richard's answer to, "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" was "All that is good." So Jacob is the good guy, at least for now. By the end of season six I sure that will be far murkier.
- And finally Juliet's death. I find more than a little implausible that she could survive the fall. Or that the nuke could safely land without detonating and yet can be set off by a dying woman throwing a rock at it. But still, where does this leave us for next season? I doubt that these guys are going to be ending up in LA. I'm sure Sawyer is going to blame Jack for Juliet's death, with some justification. Maybe he'll punch him out some more. But I have really no clue where any of the plots are going.
Overall, this season was a blast. Maybe not as thrilling as the end of season three and much of season four but consistent throughout. It's been great analysing these episodes every week and I look forward to doing it for the final season in about eight month's time. Eight friggin months. It's going to be torture.
I thought he did a pretty good job, except for the whole "trying to make Zardari sound like an adroit and cunning strategist when in fact he's a dipshit with no college education, no sense of shame, and no skills whatsoever save an ability to aggrandize power and siphon off cash to foreign bank accounts" bit.
A couple of polls -- one by Gallup and one by the International Republican Institute -- have been released recently. These polls are always interesting reading, though the usual disclaimers about methodology should apply. That said, I strongly encourage you to go through both, and especially the IRI one because it measures medium-term trends (having polled Pakistanis regularly for about three years now), and is much more comprehensive.
A question for our tech-savvy readers. If I'm reading a PDF file (like the IRI report) and I want to comment on some part of it, and to do so I want to reproduce just one page of it as picture, how do I do so?
The military offensive in Swat and Buner is causing a great deal of hardship for the residents of those regions. It is resulting in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the area. To care for these people, and house them, and feed them, and clothe them, is the responsibility of the Pakistani people because, Lord knows, the Pakistani government is incapable of doing anything productive. This responsibility has two dimensions: the moral, and the strategic. I will deal with each in step.
Pakistanis of all stripes should extend their hands of cooperation to the IDPs first and foremost because they are the innocent victims of a conflict which they did not ask for and one which they are not fighting. At this moment, they are helpless through absolutely no fault of their own.
Moreover, it is the responsibility of people who called for military action in these areas to stand up and own up to the consequences of such action. I include myself among this group. Though much of this trouble could have been avoided, as I argued, if the Pakistani state actually stood up to the Taliban before they moved into Swat, rather than after, the fact of the matter is that brute military force has terrible human consequences almost as a rule. As such, since these people are now suffering as a result of policies which we (or I) advocated, it is up to us to do as much as possible to limit the damage done to their lives. To that end, there are any number of places where you can donate goods and money to help the IDPs. For more information on organizations (both international and domestic) where you can donate, click on this post on Kalsoom's blog. For regularly updated news on the IDPs themselves, read this blog which is tracking all sorts of information on the IDPs (how many, from where, what is needed etc).
The people living in these areas have been through absolute hell for over a year now, as the Taliban encroached upon their land, slowly took over, extended their brutal form of "government", and are now being driven out by the Pakistani military. Again, to reiterate, they never asked for any of this.
One thing I remain confident of is the desire of Pakistanis' to step forward and help those in need. Lord knows, we have our weaknesses (irrationality, conspiracy theorizing, not taking responsibility for our actions, to name just three) but one thing we can't be accused of is not caring. The response to the two earthquakes (Balochistan in 2008, the Northern Areas in 2005) was almost entirely in the hands of the common people. People who could barely afford two meals a day for their families were donating blankets and food, and I know this from first-hand experience so please don't dismiss it as some fanciful tale. I have no doubts that Pakistanis as a people will again step forward, but my doubts are centered on whether or not it will all be enough.
Leaving aside the right-thing-to-do logic of caring for the IDPs, there is a strategic logic at play too. Refugees, whether they are from another country or displaced from within their own, are almost always a source of instability. Not in the sense that they cause trouble themselves, but in the sense that people who want to cause trouble have greater opportunities to do so when there is great physical and political displacement: it opens up all sorts of avenues to disrupt and spread chaos, and go undetected. In many ways, the fight against the Taliban today has its roots in the 1980s war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, when the CIA and ISI used the mujahideen to defeat a superpower, and the ensuing refugee crisis. We as a people are paying the price for that period of ineptitude -- both the U.S. and Pakistani governments are to blame for that fiasco -- and we should take care to not repeat those errors.
If any of you have any further information on organizations accepting donations, please fill up the comments section. In particular, those of you who have had really good experiences with some organizations ought to tell us. There is no point pretending that all organizations do an equally good job under these circumstances -- that's simply false. One dollar in some people's hands goes a lot further than others. So knowing where to donate, and where best to donate, is really valuable information.
Since Pakistan has now assumed major-issue status in the global media, there is a lot of nonsense being bandied about. To tackle all these misconceptions would take too much of my time, but there is one issue I wanted to quickly mention: that of the peace deals with the Taliban, and why they were a bad idea.
A few pieces I've read lately (sorry, too lazy to go back and find the links at this time) have basically posited that suing for peace with the Taliban was a bad idea because it challenged the writ of the government in previously "settled" areas, and conceded too much to the Taliban. This is silly. First of all, the very fact that the Taliban had an armed and political presence in the areas by definition meant that the government had no writ in these areas; to use Weber's classical language of what a state is, the government did not enjoy a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Pakistan's sovereignty wasn't challenged by the peace deals but by what necessitated the peace deals. Once the Taliban were in, claiming sovereignty in the face of evidence to the contrary was simply foolish. All the peace deals did was recognize that there was no functional difference between a de facto and a de jure recognition of Taliban power in these areas.
Second, whether or not too much was conceded to the Taliban was a tactical question. In a difficult war, no options -- whether they be military, economic, or diplomatic -- should ever be taken off the table. If conceding Swat, for instance, would end the war forever and ever, and satisfy the Taliban such that they would no longer spread violence and their system of "government" toward other areas of Pakistan, then it would have to be considered a worthwhile option, especially considering the levels of terrorism that average Pakistanis suffered in 2007 and 2008. Of course, residents of Swat would disagree with that claim, but my point is only to suggest that the efficacy of such a concession would have to be judged on how successful it was in winning the larger conflict, and not based on honor-based understandings of "never back down".
The right reason to critique the peace deals, as I vociferously did, was that the Taliban would not be satisfied and would push for more. Indeed, this is exactly what happened -- before the ink had even dried on Zardari's deal which basically signed off Swat and its residents, the Taliban used the area as a push for greater control in adjacent areas. The Pakistani military and civilian leadership was in all probability banking on the idea that the Taliban would stay put for a while, and thus allow them (i.e. the state) time to regroup. This was a severe miscalculation, and sadly one that was all too easy to forsee.
If we assume that it was near-certain that the Taliban would push for more once they got concessions, then we can clearly see why the concessions were such an irrational policy in the first place. Consider a simple framework of two actors, A and B. They are fighting over something -- policy, territory, whatever -- represented by the number 10. Let's say A is presently stronger, so it has 8, while B is presently weaker, and has 2. If B threatens A with punishment that is intolerable to A -- say, by an unyielding campaign of terrorism against A's civilians -- then A can cut a deal with B. It can tell B: look, stop the violence, and I'll give you 2, so that you have 4 and I have 6.
This would be fine in and of itself, except it assumes that B would be happy with 4. The problem arises when B is a bit of an asshole. If B is an asshole, then once it has 4, it wants 5, or even 6. But most importantly, A is now less able to tackle B. Before the concession, A had 8, and B had 2, so A was much stronger. After the concession, the difference in strength was reduced to 6 vs. 4.
This framework perfectly illustrates what has happened in Swat. If the Pakistani leadership had actually stood up to the Talibanwhile they were moving in, it would have been a lot easier to beat them, because the military would have been fighting for the status quo, which is almost always easier to defend. They would have been the 8 fighting the 2. Now that the Taliban have actually moved in, the process of throwing them out is hard. It's a 6 fighting a 4. Instead of defending the status quo, the Pakistani military is seeking to overturn it. Basically, they made their own job harder by waiting. Those hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons who are now refugees in their own country? I promise you they would have had an easier time of it if the military fought the Taliban before granting concessions, rather than after. They are reaping what the government sowed; this is an unfair outcome as well as a wholly unnecessary one.
Stephen Fry has written a beautiful letter to his sixteen-year-old self in The Guardian.
I thought the characters on Lost had daddy issues. Jelena Dokic gave an interview talking about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. He disproved her claims by threatening to bomb the Australian ambassador in Belgrade unless the interview was suppressed.
Well-pitched has a series of hilarious photographs from the post-match ceremony of the the fifth Australia-Pakistan ODI.
Also via Well-pitched is this collection of quotes at Cricinfo from the excitable commentators at the IPL.
I though Twitter was absolutely useless until this American Scene post pointed me in the direction of a former New Yorker staffer who is relating his short career at the best magazine in the world - 140 characters at a time.
American Scene also gives the millionth example of right-wing stupidity run amok. When told that Nazis were detained in the US, Congressman Pete Hoekstra explained that that was okay, while the Guantanamo guys can't be held in the country, because the Nazis didn't "kill three thousand American civilians as they went to work." Here's what American Scene has to say about that:
I’ve never found myself arguing that Nazis were actually pretty harmless, let alone trying to prove my point by asserting that unlike the Nazis, really bad guys kill at least 3,000 innocent civilians. If I ever do, I’ll consider it a red flag signalling that perhaps my argument is absurd.
A lot of people have noticed that Asif Zardari acts as if he owns the country. But, as this interview he did with Charlie Rose on PBS shows, his use of the singular pronoun may have gone too far:
The Soviet world was on our border. The Kalashnikov culture, the other negative creations of that war, have affected my growth. So I haven't with been able to grow according to the demand of my population, according to the demand of my times. So my 14 to $20 billion worth of export is not enough. I should have been an $80 billion export country by now if I didn't have this challenge in my neighborhood, if I didn't have the security risk, if I didn't have challenges of my wife being assassinated, of my brothers being killed, of my hotels being blown up. This all brings in weaknesses. And those weaknesses need shoring up. So that's the shoring up that we are hoping to negotiate with the world and bring in and [unintelligible] offer friends of a democratic Pakistan, being able to get much more help, to be stable in the next five years, to not want any help, not warrant any help. For instance, I want access to your markets on a specific [unintelligible] facility whereby I can produce and come into your markets and give more jobs to my people. The idea is to employ the youth, take away the youth, which the negative forces would take, and convert them -- convert them into positive human beings working for themselves and have pride in themselves rather than being used as for the force by this force called the Taliban.
Dude, keep up the pace of your wife's first two terms and you will be exporting $80 billion from Pakistan to your bank account in Dubai.
Also be sure to check Jon Stewart's takedown of Zardari from last week:
The security forces also distributed pamphlets in various areas accusing the Taliban of playing in the hands of anti-Pakistan elements. ‘They are the same as Jewish forces who are against the existence and security of the country and wanted to create disturbance in the region,’ read a leaflet.
How did we forget to compare them to the Indians and the American crusaders?
The penultimate week of Lost is usually the least exciting of the season. Character development and shocking twists give way to making sure everyone is in the right place for an action-packed finale. There was a lot of that in 'Follow The Leader' but there were also enough cool moments not to make it an entire waste of time.
- Jack's pretending he's the leader again, vowing to finish off Faraday's job of setting an H-Bomb off. Jack has had plenty of dumb ideas before but this one really takes the cake. In typical Jack mode, he hasn't actually thought about what he's trying to do. He just thinks setting off the bomb will ensure the crash never takes place. At least this time he isn't being blindly followed by Kate.
- I've asked this question before a million times but I must ask it again. What game is Ben playing? Is he heeding Smokey's advice and warning Locke that he might have to contend with Richard, or is he just playing them against each other. My bet is on the latter.
- Also interesting is that Ben has never met Jacob. Recall in season three that Locke was able to see Jacob while Ben wasn't. And Jacob's words to Locke were chilling: "Help me." Could it be that Jacob is some kind of sage who has been captured by the Others? And why would Locke want to kill him? I guess the Island told him to but why would the Island want Jacob dead?
- Priceless exchange between Dr Chang and Hurley, which led to Hurley confirming they're from the future. "There was no Korean War," indeed. Nice to know that Chang didn't abandon his wife and Miles; he only kicked them out because his son from the future told him to.
- Richard, probably because he has seen everything there is to see on the Island, has never seemed flustered. When Jack tells him he wants to detonate an H-Bomb, there is no change of expression on his face. But when Locke tells him that he died, we see the first signs of surprise. Also note that when Richard saw Locke he said that something about him was different. Locke explained this as his new-found confidence but I sense Locke isn't really alive. I think he's like Christian and Claire.
- We also found out what Eloise meant when she said that for the first time she doesn't know what's going to happen next. Thanks to Faraday's diary everything has been mapped out for her. Now that he's dead, this has all changed.
- Oh man, the return of the dreaded love triangle. When Kate got on the sub my heart sank. Please Lost, don't waste any time on this. You only have one short season left.
- I think it's pretty well established by now that the Leader of the Others is a figurehead. The true power lies with Richard, 'the advisor". He's more like Dick Cheney than Tom Hagen.
- When Richard tells Sun that "I saw them all die", is he lying. Richard has generally been truthful, so my guess is that he thinks they died in the H-Bomb, which they will somehow survive.
Mushtaq Elahi, a government school teacher, died on February 10, 2007 but continued to draw his salary Rs21,718 for a month and 20 days after his death, The News has learnt. Moreover, he managed to get a bank loan of Rs106,819 after he passed away.
These are the exact type of lending practices that led the American and global economies to tank. Haven't we learned our lessons?
Second, a man in Rawalpindi had his car stolen and went to report to it the police, but the sub-inspector was in no condition or mood to meet them. Why? Well...
Dr. Hafeez appeared before the RPO and complained that his car was stolen and he, along with SHO (Civil Lines), Rawalpindi, visited the Tariqabad Police Post for registration of an FIR, but ASI Khalid Mehmood (duty officer) was absent. On a query, the night ‘moharrir’ informed that he was on patrol. According to the complainant, the ASI was present in the premises of the Tariqabad Police Post in a drunken condition therefore he refused to meet them.
Third, Tauqir Zia thinks a career switch would serve Shoaib Akhtar well.
Former chairman Pakistan Cricket Board Taqir Zia said that ‘Rawalpindi Express’ Shoaib Akhtar should retire from cricket now and it would be better if he focus his attention on coaching of young players.
The thought of young players having Shoaib Akhtar in a position of responsibility above them makes me shudder. Is there any job out there for which Shoaib Akhtar is less suited to than coaching?
Divine intervention. That can be the only explanation for today's events.
In the preview to the Champions League semi-finals, I picked Barcelona to beat Chelsea -- despite my rational self urging me not to -- because I believed they were a team of destiny. To quote Slumdog Millionaire, it is written.
Count 'em, three penalty shouts, two of them stonewall (the Pique handball, and the Alves-Malouda tug of war in and around the box). Numerous chances on goal, all but one cleared by the much-maligned Victor Valdes. A ludicrous red card on Abidal, leaving Barcelona with ten men, down a goal, away in the second leg of a Champions League semi-final. A Chelsea defense so resolute that Barcelona managed a grand total of zero shots on target in the first 93 minutes.
And yet...
Barcelona are going to Rome, not because they were the better team today but because it was Right. Over the one hundred and eighty minutes, one team played to win, the other not to lose. Why else would Chelsea have played so timidly with a goal and a man advantage, at home no less, when Barca were tired as hell? Were Barcelona lucky? Hell, yes. But how many times have Barcelona been the better team and lost, or gone out? Too many to count. Once in a while, it's truly joyous to be on the other side of an unfair result.
And make no mistake, Chelsea played close to a perfect game today, except for the ball-less display after the Abidal red. Drogba, when he wasn't auditioning for a role in the latest Die Hard, was a monster -- quick, powerful, direct. Malouda was a constant threat down the left, and kept Alves deeper than Guardiola would have liked. And the defense, as it was last week, was enormously successful in keeping Messi from dominating -- shadowing him with three players any time he got close to the ball, it was up to Messi's teammates to take advantage. They could not, because Chelsea were too organized.
One also has to question Guardiola's tactics and lineup. As we all know, he had a very difficult decision with both Marques and Puyol out: who to play centre-back? The first option was to slot Sylvinho in at left back, and slide Abidal over. But Abidal has been terrible as a CB for France, and Sylvinho is 35 years old and not very quick. The second option was to keep Abidal on the left, and play Caceres, an earnest and enthusiastic tackler, but one prone to rashness and the occassional brain-fart. I actually favored playing Caceres -- on a hunch more than anyting -- because I thought in a sink or swim type situation, he would swim. And he would have the pace to hang with Anelka and Drogba too.
As it happened, Pep went for the strangest option which was to slot Yaya in the CB role, and play Busquets. As soon as I read the team-sheet, I was worried. First of all, it doesn't matter that Yaya is one of the three best defensive midfielders in the world -- he's not a CB, and you can't simply construct one in such an important game. Second, it would mean that we lose Yaya in the Yaya role, where he does more than break up tackles; at his best, Yaya is a strong driving force, and gets many of Barca's forays started. Busquets, for all his potential, can not and could not play that role. And because of Yaya not playing the Yaya role, Keita was lost too -- not knowing where he was supposed to be or what he was supposed to do. In effect, in trying to plug one hole, Guardiola created three. I hope that he sees that the Yaya-as-CB experiment was a failure, and plays Caceres in the final.
Speaking of which, while there will be plenty of time to preview that game, do you think I might get a shot at playing wing back for Barca? Abidal is out, as is Alves (which might not actually be the worst thing in the world, to be honest). I guess Puyol might play right-back and Sylvinho will play on the left. But I really, really hope Guardiola doesn't get any funny ideas about playing midfielders in defensive roles. Roll the dice with the back four, and play the regular Yaya-Iniesta-Xavi-Henry-Eto'o-Messi front six, and see what happens.
One important point to make is that Barcelona simply never gave up. They played hard -- really hard -- for the full length of the game. Iniesta was simply immense, as were Pique and Valdes. And Messi had a pretty good game too -- he just needed his teammates to step up (ahem, Eto'o). Give them credit. They kept playing and playing and playing. And when the equalizer finally came, I was hugging people I didn't know. I honestly celebrated like I scored. How perfect that it came from Iniesta's boot, the player who along with Xavi, represents all that is good and holy about Barcelona?
For a long time -- about 183 minutes to be precise -- this year's semifinal seemed like a torturous re-run of last year's. And then God, wearing red and blue no doubt, intervened. Commiserations to Chelsea and their fans, who frankly don't deserve the disgraceful thugs Drogba and Ballack to be representing them. Football can be cruel sometimes. But it can also be wholly blissful and joyous.
If it had been in the fifth minute I would have hit it into the stands but I struck it with my whole soul and it went in the only place it could.
UPDATE II: The Essien goal was basically a carbon copy of Zidane's famous goal against Bayer Leverkusen a few years ago, the only difference being Essien was about five yards further away.
UPDATE III: While we're talking about penalty shouts and the like, please have a look at this. Let's just say the refereeing was horrible and both teams were victimized, and leave it at that, shall we?
Mr. Zardari’s presentation, however, left some members confused and disappointed, according to a person who attended the meeting. He said little about how the Pakistani government planned to regain momentum in the fight against the militants. And when he asked for financial assistance, he likened it to the government’s bailout of the troubled insurance giant, American International Group.
The obvious follow-up question would be to ask if Zardari plans to skim a $165 million bonus off the top.
Update: And Zardari continues the begging in an interview in Salon:
What are you hoping will happen during your visit with President Barack Obama?
That is a million-dollar question. And I am hoping the answer will be billions of dollars, because that is the kind of money I need to fix Pakistan's economy. The idea is to request that the world appreciate the sensitivity of Pakistan and the challenges it faces and to treat us on par with General Motors, Chrysler and Citibank.
He might have used better examples. Bush gave GM and Chrysler $17 billion in bailout money but Obama has refused to give them anymore and Chrysler just filed for bankruptcy.
UPDATE (from Ahsan): Reader Nabeel sent me this photograph. Please check out the person on Mr. Zardari's left.
I can't tell you how much this dynastic bullshit pisses me off.
I am so used to seeing injustice and unfairness in this world that I am often at a loss on how to react when justice is served.
Michael Savage, hateful fascist, has been banned from entering Britain. In doing so, he joins a small and select list of Russian mobsters, Hamas leaders, Israeli settlers, and white supremacists, for "fostering extremism or hatred."
The really funny part? Savage's reaction:
Savage told The Chronicle that being included in such a crowd is no laughing matter -- and he is now preparing legal action against Smith, he said.
"This lunatic ... is linking me up with Nazi skinheads who are killing people in Russia, she's putting me in a league with Hamas murderers who kill Jews on busses," he said. "I have never advocated violence ... I've been on the air 15 years. My views may be inflammatory, but they're not violent in any way."
He said he has been defamed and endangered by the British government action. "She has painted a target on my back, linking me with people who are in prison for killing people," he said. "Does she not think people might hunt me down?"
I will let you, loyal readers of Rs.5, judge whether or not Savage's views cross the line from "inflammatory" to "violent". In 2004, as the Abu Ghraib torture story was breaking, he had this to say:
Lately, as the Iraq torture scandal has dominated the headlines, he has taken to calling Arabs "non-humans" and has called for the U.S. to kill "thousands" of Iraqi prisoners and nuke a random Arab capital.
And:
Savage moved on to another of his favorite topics: bombing the bejeezus out of Iraq. Just a few days before the Uncensored event, he'd been ranting on the radio about dropping fiery death on civilians throughout Iraq and the Middle East. "I don't give a damn if they hide behind their women's skirts," he foamed. "Wipe the women out with them! Because it's our women who got killed on 9/11! And it's our women who are gonna get killed tomorrow unless we get rid of the bugs who are destroying us!" Tonight, Savage continued to elaborate on this disturbing vision of how to win the war in Iraq. He said he fantasized of being woken up by the sound of B-1 and B-52 bombers flying over his house on their way to the Middle East. Imagining bombers overhead at 4 a.m., he gushed about these nocturnal missions, "It's better than an orgasm -- it is an orgasm!"
"With the [Latino] population that has emerged, since they breed like rabbits, in many cases the whites will become a minority in their own nation... The white people don't breed as often for whatever reason. I guess many homosexuals are involved. That is also part of the grand plan, to push homosexuality to cut down on the white race"
On student volunteers distributing food to homeless people in San Francisco:
Discussing student volunteers distributing food to the homeless in San Francisco, Savage declared that "the girls from Branson [school] can go in and maybe get raped... because they seem to like the excitement of it. There's always the thrill and possibility they'll be raped in a dumpster while giving out a turkey sandwich".
In an incident that got him fired from MSNBC, he told a caller, "Oh, you're one of those sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that?"
On his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage claimed that autism is "[a] fraud, a racket. ... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' "
Then, a few weeks ago, Mr. Savage uncorked a cascade of invective about Islam. Among his on-air comments: the Koran is “a book of hate”; some Muslims, at least, “need deportation”; and adherents of Islam would do well to “take your religion and shove it up your behind” because “I’m sick of you.”
Savage, I must emphasize, is free to say whatever he wants. But hateful speech should invite public shunning. This is a start.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has announced it will observe May 12 as a black day to condemn the violence that Karachi witnessed in 2007, DawnNews reports.
The MQM Rabita (coordination) committee member Dr Sagheer Ahmed has said that they will bring the perpetrators of the violence to the surface.
According to MQM sources, Haq Parast Aman Jirga met the members of MQM Coordination Committee, requesting them to observe 12 May as a black day as 14 workers of the MQM had also been killed.
My instant reaction is that this is just plain dumb, and the whole commemorating May 12 bit certainly is, but the reference to the Haq Parast jirga makes sense (even though I do think that they're trying to be ironic here). In the areas where the MQM commands the most influence it pretty much functions like a tribal jirga. Its good to see them admitting as much.
A lesbian sex scandal hits the Pakistan cricket team as PCB official Azra Parveez accuses two other officials, Shrin Javed and Ayesha Ashar of using sexual favours as the basis for team selection. Here is the accompanying ESPN story. My favourite bit:
A source close to Miandad, who is in Dubai, said the former captain had even refused to get involved in the matter as he was embarrassed by the points raised by Parveez in the audio tape.
Apiece in Dawn caught my eye recently, for making the point that investigative journalism in Pakistan is wholly absent:
Whistle blowers and investigative journalism, two parts of a whole, have sadly never matured in Pakistan. It’s not the journalists who are the weasels; it’s our leaders because they don’t like to expose others for fear that their own mega millions rattling in their cupboards may come out. Or we lack the wherewithal (read money) to whistle up the blowers necessary to produce ‘breaking news.’
Au contraire, ma soeur! Perhaps you have not borne witness to Ansar Abbasi's relentless push for justice...with regard to Farah Dogar's exam scores:
ISLAMABAD: The two samples of Miss Farah Hameed Dogar’s answer sheets reveal another aspect of scandalous jacking up of her marks.
[...]
After this correspondent secured the question papers of Physics II and Urdu for the Federal Board HSSC-II Examinations 2008 and compared the same with the two samples, as reproduced in the IHC judgment, it is also revealed that the judgment pointed out a wrong answer for the Physics II answer reproduced in the verdict.
On page 13, the judgment said: “On visual examination of Physics-II paper, answer to question No 5(b) is given below: - “No, the plates of capacitor is not of different sizes; however to decrease the electrostatic factor a dielectric medium is putted in between them.”
Then the judge wrote: “The examiner crossed the question and awarded zero mark. Later on, he gave one mark. On re-evaluation (re-assessment), another mark was added.” It means that in this particular question of the paper, the candidate got two marks.
The question paper, however, shows that the above answer pertains to XIV (b) of Q.2, which reads as: “A capacitor is connected across a battery: (b) Is this true even if the plates are of different sizes?” It carries total one mark as part XIV, having three sub-parts — a, b and c — had total three marks. Against the answer reproduced above, the candidate, when reassessed, got two marks against the part that carried only one mark. It means even if Miss Farah’s answer was 100 per cent correct, she would not have got more than one mark, but she got two.
Horror of horrors! For those who need some backfround info on the insane Question 2, subpart XIV, subsubpart (b) story, click here and then here. Brilliant stuff all-round.
Anyway, this got me thinking. Where is the investigative journalism in Pakistan? I know there are some severe structural impediments to digging real dirt -- and no, Mr. Abbasi, exam scores don't count I'm afraid -- such as lack of money and a notoriously insular and cabal-like political elite. But it's not as if money isn't pouring in now, and which country doesn't have cabal-like political elites? The U.S. has Deepthroat, India has Tehelka and we have exam scores. No, seriously. Why are so many of the big political stories in Pakistan (BB's Surrey estate, Zardari giving permission for drone attacks in secret) broken by foreign media organizations?
I know we have a few Pakistani journalists in the audience. So perhaps they can enlighten us, because I'm at a loss to explain this.
Goddamn, this is bad journalism. The New York Times manages, at once, to:
1. Scare the crap out of people 2. Provide no evidence for why people should be scared 3. Write a headline which doesn't convey the most important point of the story
Let's start at the beginning, with the scary headline:
Pakistan Strife Raises U.S. Doubts on Nuclear Arms
Hmmm. What, pray tell, are these doubts, and what, pray tell, are these doubts based on? Let's see if we can find out.
...senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.
Ok. So "senior American officials" are worried something bad will happen to/with Pakistani nukes. Is there any reason to believe so? Well, the next paragraph seems to believe not:
The officials emphasized that there was no reason to believe that the arsenal, most of which is south of the capital, Islamabad, faced an imminent threat. President Obama said last week that he remained confident that keeping the country’s nuclear infrastructure secure was the top priority of Pakistan’s armed forces.
Now, forgive my naivete, but shouldn't that be the end of the story? If "there was no reason to believe that the arsenal...faced an imminent threat", shouldn't we have to not read further? I honestly don't understand. How can the nukes be a worry if they're not a worry?
But the United States does not know where all of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are located, and its concerns have intensified in the last two weeks since the Taliban entered Buner, a district 60 miles from the capital. The spread of the insurgency has left American officials less willing to accept blanket assurances from Pakistan that the weapons are safe.
Oh, I'm sorry! Gosh, why didn't you just say so? You mean all we have to do to allay your concerns about this is release top-secret and confidential information that not even all important elements of the Pakistan government are privy to? You mean Pakistan's "blanket assurances" would mean more to you if we treated "senior American officials" like "senior Pakistani officials"?
Pakistani officials have continued to deflect American requests for more details about the location and security of the country’s nuclear sites, the officials said.
Aww, poor babies! Maybe you should have asked more nicely?
Some of the Pakistani reluctance, they said, stemmed from longstanding concern that the United States might be tempted to seize or destroy Pakistan’s arsenal if the insurgency appeared about to engulf areas near Pakistan’s nuclear sites.
Yes, and on the basis of this article, what an ill-founded and irrational "longstanding concern" that is.
The rest of the piece bandies about things that may or may not happen to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, without any evidence to suggest that any of those possibilities is even remotely likely. But don't believe me, go read the piece yourself.
At the end of the day, this is the bottom line: the headline, and the scary quotes, suggest one set of facts about the safety of Pakistani nuclear weapons. The actual evidence presented suggest something entirely different. What are the odds that the headline and the scary quotes aren't the things that remain embedded in people's minds?
UPDATE: I've very kindly thought of an alternate headline for the piece:
Pakistani Nukes Not Really A Problem, But We'd Feel A Helluva Lot Better If They Told Us Where They Were...You Know, Just In Case
UPDATE II: More nonsense from the NYT on Pakistan. Please read this comically reductionist piece and, in particular, cast your eyes to this breathtaking paragraph:
Pakistan has several selves. There is rural Pakistan, where two-thirds of the country lives in conditions that approximate the 13th century. There is urban Pakistan, where the British-accented, Princeton-educated elite sip cold drinks in clipped gardens.
This will be news to urban Pakistanis, who, by and large, are desperately poor and lack real housing, clean water and the knowledge of the fact that their next three meals are guaranteed. And even the elite, which I suspect is what this writer is talking about, are hardly educated -- let alone Princeton-educated. They've generally made their money from (a) connections, (b) land, or (c) the military, none of which require a fancy foreign degree. It's unbelievable that this stuff actually makes it to their pages.
The New York Times: All the news that's fit to print, and caricature.
Where do you start? How can you capture the essence of these 90 minutes -- so positively orgasmic, jazz-like in its improvisational creativity, a cool and calm dismantling of Real's title hopes the likes of which we are likely to never see again -- in mere words? Barcelona today made the world a better to live in because they created art so pure and rhythmic that we are all better off for it.
Was 6-2 a fair result? Perhaps, though it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Real had an average keeper in between the posts instead of Casillas. The man made about seven or eight awesome saves -- even as a Barcelona fan, I shudder to imagine what the scoreline would have looked like with a second tier keeper. Could Barcelona actually have scored ten? I am not afraid of answering: yes.
There were so many positives to take away from today's game that it was hard to keep count -- not including the obvious fact that, for all intents and purposes, the title race is over. Everyone played perfectly. It really is impossible to pick out any one player who stood out. Messi had two goals, an assist, about four run-around-half-the-Real-teams, and a couple of audacious attempts that mere mortals would not have even been able to conceive, let execute. Henry scored the all-important equalizer (yes, it's easy to forget that Barca actually were down a goal) and added another for good measure in the second half, and was a constant threat down the left flank. Xavi was epic -- he had four assists and, as usual, controlled the middle of the park. Iniesta continued his rich vein of form. Hell, the two centre-backs each scored for good measure, and Puyol's kissing of the captain's arm-band after his header gave Barca the lead will be the indelible image of the game. Pique, in addition to the goal, just kept on showing that he should be considered one of the world's elite defenders at this point. Even Eto'o, who failed to score, played a massive role with his work-rate, his drawing of defenders in the box, and his ability to switch with Messi to the right flank.
But speaking about individuals almost cheapens the entire exercise. As is the norm when Barcelona are at full flow, the whole was more than the sum of the parts. The team played together, and it was obvious from the first whistle that they had put the last couple of weeks (the uninspiring 2-2 draw with Valencia, and the rugby match with Chelsea) behind them. To come to the Bernabeu, with a once twelve point lead cut to four, with all sorts of pressure on them, and to deliver that kind of performance? Six goals, 63% possession, allround dominance? Just unbelievable. Credit Guardiola for the verve and enthusiasm with which Barca approached the task.
One thing to keep in mind was that after a long time, Barca actually looked threatening from set pieces. Not EPL-top-three threatening, but threatening nonetheless. The Puyol goal obviously proves the point, but Dani Alves also forced an excellent save from Casillas from distance. With the exit of Deco and Ronaldinho, this has been Barcelona's weakest link on the offensive side of the pitch. And while it still remains a relative weakness, it was nice to see at least the promise of a goal or two.
Barcelona now will be going into the Chelsea game with a lot of confidence, and four days of rest. Whether or not they beat Chelsea remains to be seen. But based on today's performance, Chelsea will have to play out of their skins to deny them. Remember, a score-draw gets Barca through, and unless Chelsea come out with another 4-4-1-1 (which is what they did last week), you have to imagine Barca will score.
But forget about the Champions League for the moment. Today was a glorious performance, and -- at the risk of jinxing us -- it has brought the La Liga title back to the Camp Nou.
If any of you read the free subway tabloids papers on the way home from work as I do, you've probably heard this bit of news. The revelation that France's First Lady Carla Bruni has a sex tape that was recently stolen has the masturbatory world reeling with anticipation masquerading as shock.
You have to love the British Press, with their nudge-nudge-wink-wink-pinch-pinch libelous level of innuendowhich fools precisely no one. In the story I read, four little bits of information were set out.
Bruni used to date an elderly philosopher before leaving him for his eldest son who is incidentally also a philosopher. This story is so French.
The ex-wife of the elderly Actor dude hates Bruni for being a "husband stealer".
The tapes were stored at the eldest son’s brother’s house, for safe keeping (and occasional viewing). More Frenchness.
The thieves knew were the stuff was, nothing else was stolen. 'Neighbors' regard the theft as "suspicious" because "It's almost impossible to get into any of the flats here".
So yes. Draw your own conclusions.
For a similar example of how the British press like to say whatever they want without actually saying anything, and how that makes things appear even worse, please observe the following video.
I tried for about fifteen minutes to come up with a witty or clever heading for this post, but then I realized that nothing could be funnier than the cold truth. Please check out this story in the Guardian. This has to be the funniest part:
Another witness, Mark Robinson, 44, said the couple carried on until police intervened. He said: "The officers told them to stop and the sight of the uniforms seemed to snap them out of it. They were unsteady on their feet and the guy pulled his trousers up and helped the girl put hers back on.
"The Japanese tourists were comparing their videos."
I eagerly await the release of said videos on Youtube (I already searched for "queen's lawn sex video" and nothing of note turned up).
Anyway, for some reason, this story reminded me of this Mr. Bean bit:
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