The World As You Should Think You Know It

Well, gosh, that was a howling success. It appears all I have to do to generate comment is point to some random known occasional reader and issue a request for mockery. I'll remember, my pretties.

Out in the world, there's nothing new. Republicans and their minions lie, big-time. The supposedly liberal media pick up on reactionary themes and pound them into the brains of those who want desperately to believe that what's on television and in the newspaper is true. It's too much to keep track of, the lies and the pandering and the daily offenses to our Constitution and our fundamental shared values and our social contract. A run through a day's worth of Media Matters is a romp through a depressive swamp.

Futbol is only the tiniest bit more encouraging. Four teams have advanced, at this writing, to the knockout round; three were abundantly predictable, one (Ecuador) a surprise that really shouldn't so much have been. Today will yield four more teams, at least three of them no less stale (and, coincidentally, all three among my "sides most likely to wear black leather kit"), and the fourth, almost certainly Mexico.

There. Did you notice that? I worked the word "sides" in there, instead of "teams" or "clubs." Wasn't that naughty of me?

It is encouraging that stumpy little Michael Owen is out of the tournment for the English, not because we wish injury on anyone, but because it will drive the English press mad, I tell you, mad. Stumpy's words aren't gonna help--he's full of abandonment for his national team and of a fervid hope that the injury won't keep him from taking any of Newcastle's money.

And tomorrow, at the ridiculously inconvenient hour of 10 AM Eastern, our own boys will jingo off to meet their fate. Which, by the way, will be either a humiliating 2-0 loss to shortstaffed Ghana, or a 1-0 victory over shortstaffed Ghana as the Czechs beat the Italians by three or four goals. Sure, get your hopes up. Me, I'm staying in the bunker where it's safe.