perfidy

I love cable television. I love that we live in the future.

I am about to watch a world cup soccer match between Mexico and Iran. There are a dismayingly large number of people in America today willing to believe that the populace of one of these nations is conspiring to overrun us and tekurjobs, and the other is full of people all working in concert to make New York into a glowing crater.

Both those assertions are, of course, bullshit. Bigotry and economic illiteracy aside, the United States does need to get a handle on all the people who want to come to this country, but not by sealing the borders tight. And surely there are many nuclear engineers in Iran working on things that mean bad news for us. But the main body of the populace of each of these countries are just people like people everywhere.

Right now, as I watch the Mexican announcers on Univision flip out as Mexico prepares for its opening match against Iran, all I can see is a bunch of people really happy to be from where they're from, and ready to pin their national pride on a silly game. Some of you may know that I spent some time in Guanajuato as a teenager, and really dig Mexico as a nation, as a people, and as a state of mind.

I love that I can watch Mexican world cup action in Spanish, get the flavor of their fanaticism, soak in the love of the game, and launch myself off the couch screaming "GOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL! GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAL!" in support of my peeps to the South. And given that the USA is hard pressed to make it out of the first round in a group that's absolutely stacked with talent including a juggernaut of a Czech team and the Italians and Ghana besides, I might as well go ahead and throw my Cup support behind nuestros vecinos del sud.

¡Luchemos! ¡Luchemos! ¡Vencermos! And similar sentiments!

[wik] Advertisements for Nexium (the purple pill) are just as silly in Spanish.

[alsø wik] Latin American soap operas are priceless entertainment.

[alsø alsø wik] Mariachi music is oddly compelling. Much like polka, which I find to be a balm to the hung-over mind, mariachi is somehow comforting yet energizing. I clearly have brain damage.

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] Aside to Buckethead: you should know that I've started playing pickup soccer at lunchtime, hence my sudden interest in the game. I have realized that it's as poetic as baseball and as exciting as football. The only drawback, the one thing that seems wrong to this American mind is this: no professional sporting event should ever end in a tie.

[see the løveli lakes...] Strikeouts, as Crash Davis said, might be fascist, but ties are socialist.

[the wøndërful telephøne system...] Unlike my esteemed coblogger Patton, I love our freedom. And I hate ties.

[and mäni interesting furry animals...] Patton likes ties, value-added taxes, international condom-size harmonization standards, national shoe production quotas, and Volvos.

[including the majestik møøse...] Iran's national anthem is quite lovely. I have no idea what the words are.

[a Møøse once bit my sister...] Evidently, the lyrics in English run

Upwards on the horizon rises the Eastern Sun,
The sight of the true Religion.
Bahman - the brilliance of our Faith.
Your message, O Imam, of independence and freedom
is imprinted on our souls.
O Martyrs! The time of your cries of pain rings in our ears.
Enduring, continuing, eternal,
The Islamic Republic of Iran.

So there you go.

[No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"] Wait'll you get a load of the lyrics to the Mexican anthem! Iran is all about submission to Allah and martyrs: Mexico's is about fucking rivers of the blood of their enemies.

CHORUS:
Mexicans, when the war cry is heard,
Have sword and bridle ready.
Let the earth's foundations tremble
At the loud cannon's roar.

May the divine archangel crown your brow,
Oh fatherland, with an olive branch of peace,
For your eternal destiny has been written
In heaven by the finger of God.
But should a foreign enemy
Dare to profane your soil with his tread,
Know, beloved fatherland, that heaven gave you
A soldier in each of your sons.

CHORUS

War, war without truce against who would attempt
to blemish the honor of the fatherland!
War, war! The patriotic banners
saturate in waves of blood.
War, war! On the mount, in the vale
The terrifying cannon thunder
and the echoes nobly resound
to the cries of union! liberty!

CHORUS

Fatherland, before your children become unarmed
Beneath the yoke their necks in sway,
May your countryside be watered with blood,
On blood their feet trample.
And may your temples, palaces and towers
crumble in horrid crash,
and their ruins exist saying:
The fatherland was made of one thousand heroes here.

CHORUS

Fatherland, oh fatherland, your sons vow
To give their last breath on your altars,
If the trumpet with its warlike sound
Calls them to valiant battle.
For you, the garlands of olive,
For them, a glorious memory.
For you, the victory laurels,
For them, an honoured tomb.

CHORUS

So, I guess the lesson is, never date Mexico's sister.