I have always thought the Pledge of Allegiance is sort of a crock. I mean, it is a string of phrases that young schoolchildren are taught to recite without even understanding the meaning of what they are saying... how many kids think it is "invisible" and not "individisible?... as some sort of propagandist slogan. The Pledge of Allegiance is no more patriotic than simple acts like voting, oh which, by the way, only about half -- at the most -- of elligible Americans bother to do. It has always struck me as more of a prayer, particularly with it's "under God" phrase, than anything else, and stood as a relic of our society's general inability to truly spearate religion (i.e. mainly Christianity) from our concepts of nationhood, as our founders had envisioned.

I've largely kept these thoughts to myself, because I understand that anyone who atempts to explain these things will be dismissed as unpatriotic without being heard. This, like so many other things, is something people would rather not know about or try to understand, and just go on living in ignorance.

Now the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has made a controversial ruling, based on the "under god" phrase, the the Pledge is Unconstitutional because it violates the Separation of Church and State.

The Ruling is absolutely correct, and to the letter of the Constitution. It doesn't matter what blindly quasi-patriotic grandstanding acts Congess decides to take, or that millions of American will never understand the basic logic behind the decision. Everybody will throw a big shit-fit, in a similar manner as to when the Supreme Court (very correctly) ruled flag burning is protected under free speech, and various reactionary groups, falsely labeling themselves as "true patriots" will probably act to ensure constitutional protection of the Pledge.

I wonder how many people understand the history of the Pledge? I found a brief one here, but I am sure there are many out there. The fact is that the Pledge is extremely contrived, too contrived for my tastes, frankly, and it strikes me as an archaic, naive expression of blind loyalty... the type of oath our country is better off rid of entirely.

If the president, congress, and other so-called "patriots" are so upset about the possible banning of an unconstitutional oath, maybe they should write something that works, or, better yet, reverse the 1954 decision by Congress to eliminate the words "Under God" which are the whole problem in the first place.

But again, such logical reasoning seems to have no place in America, particluar in this post Sept. 11th time frame where we have excuses to replace sound freedom of expression with blind jingoism.

I swear, at some point, I will write up a nice piece about Tyler and me climbing Mt Shasta over the weekend. It's a great story, really...

But more about the World Cup.

Boy, does this all seem... anti-climatic. I've noticed that tends to happen in tournaments (particuarly the NCAA men's B-ball), that after the sheer volume of games in the eraly rounds, all the great plays, close finishes, and "huge" upsets, it gets down to just a couple of games that lack... well, frankly, the games aren't all that great. They've been reduced from "The Beautiful Game" to "just survive... just don't screw up."

Germany has advanced on a string of three 1-0 victories (and can we officially throw out the 8-0 whipping of Saudi Arabia as completely irrevelant to Anything that happened after it. It just seems like that happened last year or something. It's the opposite of an NFL team that lost the regular season opener 35-0 and now finds themselves on the brink of the Super Bowl). Frankly, they haven't been all that great. The USA controlled the middle third of the field all game against them, and it almost seemed like Korea had run themselves out and Germany won by default. Perhaps a bit of justice, though, to see how clearly outclassed Korea was, and to understand, in hindsight, they really didn't deserve to be here (one MUST question what went on in the Italy and Spain games!)

Brazil outclassed Turkey as well, except for their sudden bout of Korea-esque finishing (only one goal! C'mon... maybe Rivaldo needs to consider passing inside 30 yards sometime!), and a rather incompetent game by the Brazilian midfield, who seemed to Want to turn the ball over to the Turks repeatedly, more so when it seemd a classic counter-attack was a touch away.

But, frankly, the two most worthy teams (of the final 8) are Here, to play for the World Championship. It's funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same. After all those upsets, great runs by true underdogs (USA, Korea, Senegal, Turkey -- that was Half the "Elite 8," really something when you stop to think about it!) and, well, lets just say "spotty" refereeing, the two top teams in World Cup History meet for the final.

Brazil is the only nation to play in every World Cup. They have won it four times, this will be their third straight final. Germany had made the final 8 in all but one Cup they have played in (they have only missed one). They have won it three times, and have made the championship game 6 times... this will be their 7th. Shockingly, these two teams have Never met in the World Cup before. That is probably the single most shocking fact to arise in this entire tournament. You could make an argument that perhaps Italy is on par with these two countries in World Cup success, until you consider they won two of their three titles before World War II (they were effectively co-champs with Brazil in '94, playing to a scorless draw after a full 120 minutes in the final. Brazil won on penalty kicks. Unfortunately, the whole "co-champs" thing doesn't work.) Argentina had their chance to "join" the club this year, to add to their titles in '78 and '86, and loss to Germany in the '90 final, but we all know what happened to them.

After that, there is a big drop-off. Uruguay has won twice... in '30 (the first tournament where many European nations skipped it) and '50, but has done Very little since. The only other nations to win are England ('66) and France ('98). Holland is widely consdiered to be the best to never win having made two straight final game appearances in the 70's, and a handful of semifinal and quarterfinal appearances as well (most recently, in '98, they lost their semifinal match against Brazil in penalty kicks), but they were missing this year (which seems unfair given the presence of teams like China and Saudi Arabia).

I guess my point is that this World Cup is a tricky things to win, and like so many other tournaments, it is usually NOT a case of the "best" team winning, or even the most interesting team winning, but the one that "survives," through luck, and often downright boring football. Fortunately, despite their dreary game this morning, Brazil are always interesting, almost always exciting, and have come to define the "Beautiful Game," when they are at their best. Hopefully, they pull the best out of Germany as well, and the match becomes a classic. We can only hope.

Brazil 2-1.

Picture Ofthe Day is back!

My camera returned from Canon today -- and how appropriate it was the day After my Mt. Shast trip, when I really could've used it!