Retiring the Blog

Just a post to say I'm retiring this blog. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to still keeping up with the other Durham and Triangle blogs.

ACC Soccer Tournament

The heck with the ACC basketball tournaments. Beginning Tuesday evening, the men's ACC soccer tournament begins at WakeMed Soccer Park, formerly SAS Field, in Cary. The Demon Deacons of Wake Forest, last year's national champion, are the top seed. Duke is the fifth seed, UNC, the seventh, and State, the eighth.

The Cary soccer park, which is just a mile or so off of I-40 exit 290, is a fantastic place to watch a soccer match. Yours truly was present for the women's final on Sunday between the perennial Goliath UNC and the surprising Hokies from Virginia Tech. UNC won, 3-0, in a game that was, alas, rather uninspired. The ball was in the air far too often, both teams repeatedly kicking the ball downfield to open space and hoping that their player would outrun the other team's player and get to the ball first. In most cases, the UNC player won.

The men's final is this Sunday. Kickoff is at 1 p.m.

Obama Wish

Remember Jimmy Carter?

President Carter, who was in the White House from 1977 to 1981, talked straight to us. He told us we faced an energy crisis that required changes in the way we lived. He acknowledged severe problems in the economy, referring to the misery index, the sum of the inflation rate and the unemployment rate, which, in June of 1980, had reached a high of 21.98. The news was bad, but the expectation was that we would face our problems rather than bury our heads in the sand.

Unfortunately, Americans, and especially the rich, got tired of thinking about problems. Damn it, they said, we want to enjoy life! Let the good times roll! Ronald Reagan got the message, and during his presidency, he sounded one theme, and one theme only: everything is alright, and would be even better with more tax cuts.

This simpleminded wishful thinking was the Reagan legacy, which, until very recently, infected large numbers of Americans. But I am hopeful that our long period of willing self-deceit is over. I am hopeful that President Obama will mobilize Americans to acknowledge and confront our problems. Even the greatest country in the world is not perfect.

Happy to Be Wrong

When Barack Obama was nominated by his party this summer as the presidential candidate, I said he'd be lucky to get 40 percent of the vote in the general election. (In my family, by my estimation, he got perhaps 25 percent of the vote.) When certain of our countrymen and countrywomen went gaga over Sarah Palin, I said it was over: McCain will surely win. As recently as this weekend, despite the polls, I insisted he was not going to win the presidency. Polls do not elect presidents, I said; even the votes that are cast do not elect presidents; as we learned in 2000, it's the votes that are counted that elect presidents, and I could not be confident that the votes that are counted on November 4 will reflect accurately the national will.

"There's no way," I insisted, "America will elect a half-black man with a funny last name, a black wife, and two black children to the White House." But we did. And just because it happened doesn't mean it is not extraordinary. Four years ago, to say nothing of forty years ago, what happened yesterday was unimaginable.

But because it happened, it also shows what is possible. Will this start our country on a new direction for the next forty years? Here is a change I would like to see: our public sector restored to a status equal to the status of our private sector. If, by 2012, I hear Duke students saying they want to work in government, I know President Obama will have made a difference.

Official Election Prediction

Using pollster.com as a point of reference, McCain will win every state that is a tossup (including North Carolina), every state that is leaning Democratic (including Virginia), and every state that is leaning Republican. Obama will win every state that is strong Democratic. In the end, Obama wins by the slimmest of margins, 273 to 267.

Sweeney Todd

What might it signify that the two greatest American musicals of all time take place in--London?

Along with My Fair Lady, the superb Sweeney Todd represents the very best in a musical canon containing some pretty stiff competition. Sweeney is about a London throat-slitting barber and a London meat-pie-making opportunist who--well, let's just say that together they make carne-filled pastries that Dr. Hannibal Lecter would love. Yesterday, Duke University's Hoof 'n' Horn players, a troupe of student actors, completed two weekends of entertaining performances of the Stephen Sondheim musical. Sweeney, with its dissonant melodies and unorthodox and changing time signatures, is a challenging musical to perform, and Hoof 'n' Horn turned in a performance deserving far more than the eight dollars this reviewer paid for his ticket.

Then again, to measure the performance in monetary terms misses the point, for the performances are actually a gift from classmate to classmate, friend to friend. I dare say that the members of Hoof 'n' Horn would have spent the same number of hours rehearsing had there been only one scheduled performance. It was a gift to me too, witnessing the love and gratitude exchanged between the students on stage and the students in the audience. What a wonderful time of life it is, for them and for me.

A Christian Nation

Many Americans claim that America is a Christian nation. Unlike most people I know who profess to be Christians, I read the Bible from time to time, so I have an idea of what a Christian nation would look like. (For the same reason, I know that the anti-Christ will not be a black Muslim man but a sea beast with seven heads and ten horns, thank you very much.) Although I am not a Christian (I'm not a believer, that is), I am sympathetic to a good deal of Jesus' teachings, and the thought has crossed my mind that I would create my own Christian Party and run for office one of these days. Hmmm. I can hear my speech now . . .

"As president, I promise to each and every one of you that I will eliminate the military. We are going to be a country devoted to peace and turning the other cheek, for as Jesus said, 'Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.' Furthermore, I will implement the most progressive tax system the world as ever seen, making sure we dispossess people of their material possessions as much as possible and give them to the poor. For as Jesus said--and say it with me--it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. As your president, I will not let our fondness for riches get in the way of our desire to go to heaven! We will become a nation committed to the care of the weak, the vulnerable, the outcast. 'Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.' . . ."