Here We Go Again

I am back from the dead, roused from all-consuming ennui by yet another new uniform design from US Soccer. For the first time in US soccer history, the men and women will be wearing the same jerseys, they said. Saints be praised, I said. If the nurse uniforms are history, I'm happy, I said, envisioning both Deuce and Baby Horse sporting some sleek, clean, classy threads.

Then they actually released photos, and my brain went *poof* again.







































The one on top is the women's shirt. Leaving aside, for the moment, the facts that (1) no post-adolescent woman willingly puts herself into wide horizontal stripes because (2) they make her look like an overgrown ten-year-old boy unless (3) she's a giant lesbian who says fuck it, I enjoy looking like a growth hormone-addled barber pole (*waving hand* but not for $149, I don't think), I see a big problem here. Look at the two pictures again and see what's different between them, aside from the marginally visible boobs in the one on top.

When two uniforms are slightly different, we look at the unifying elements for the message of what is official US capital-S Soccer. What do they share? Giant hoops, check. US Soccer crest, check. Sublimated sash, che... wait, what? Yes. Both shirts have a faint diagonal sash running from upper right to lower left (although it looks more like a laundry accident on the home shirts, it's boldly black on the away version). The sash, of course, was introduced to the last iteration of the men's kit to commemorate the 1950 US team that managed to beat England 1-0 in a first-round World Cup match, which was the last US World Cup win until 1994 (and its last qualification until 1990).

Okay, that was a big deal, a ragtag group of scruffy Americans beating the Brits at their own game, although it can't help but also be a tale of nearly a half-century of futility. But whatever. Yay 1950, fair enough. So since both teams are wearing the YAY 1950 sash, they surely must both be wearing something to commemorate the women's team's decades of domination, including two World Cup championships and three Olympic gold medals, right? Perhaps the traditional two stars above the crest, one for each World Cup trophy, just like the Brazilian women wear five stars for their men's side's WC championships?

Ah, no. Checking the pictures very carefully, it appears that they do not. So the official design suite for United States soccer is hoops, a crest, a swoosh, and a sash that's a smudge on one shirt and funereal on the other (black in mourning for the U23 men's failure to make it out of CONCACAF and into the Olympics, perhaps) because we need to remember that the men's team won a game once, in 1950. The women can put stars on their own shirts, but the men don't need to be bothered with them. Because if they had stars, someone might think they were wearing the women's jersey, and that would just be wrong.

Stay awesome, US Soccer.

New Year in the Women's Soccer Calendar Cycle

Wow. It's so hard to get worked up for writing a lather-filled screed about a game that was a giant pile of meh, so let's have a gallon or two of coffee and try to ramp up gradually here.

The US-Mexico Women's World Cup qualifying match exposed the same US weaknesses we have fretted about since 2007 (lack of speed, lack of technical precision, snooze-inducing tactics, over-reliance on Route 1 to Abby's head), but did so in a way that we hope is horrifyingly novel enough to have gotten somebody's attention. You know, somebody else who might be able to do something about the situation.

The 4-4-2 is over. Time for a 4-3-3, a 4-2-3-1, something to beef up the attack. Something with options besides Wambach, who can find the back of the net with her head like no other and is demonstrably tougher than nails (say what you will about her occasionally limited game and questionable past leadership; nobody could watch her standing there with blood pouring from her head and being stapled--stapled!--up on the sideline and not bust out with a well fuck all, go America!). Keep her up there in the middle as an aerial option, but please, please, please, start Alex Morgan and Lauren Cheney up there with her as more mobile, slashing, versatile attackers. Amy Rodriguez is very fast, very very fast, but until the goals are expanded (see: barn, broad side of), she isn't a realistic scoring threat on the international level.

Speaking of scoring threat, any level, Carli Lloyd? Really? Still on the roster at all, let alone starting? Really? Pia, honey, we can put that long-overdue discussion about the merits of wearing a bra on the back burner for now, because we really need to talk about some of your personnel decisions. Lloyd sucks. Trust me on this; I'm a Red Stars fan. Boxx? Oh god. I love Boxxy. But at 33 she's lost a step, and holding mids (remember that position?) need a step. She is perhaps emblematic of a problem where many players appear to be on the roster because, well, they made the roster at some point in the past and you're reluctant to discard people that are past their shelf lives. You can afford one long-long-long-term savvy veteran on the field, if you surround that player with a bunch of young legs, so sure, keep Lil parked in the midfield. Everyone else, though, needs to perform or lose their spots.

Krieger? Nogueira? Averbuch? Rapinoe? Until Heath is healthy again, I do not know where the answer lies in the midfield. Back line? Brrrr. LePeilbet is fine. Rampone, I suppose, can still get it done but needs to have some real afterburner speed next to her. Mitts? Not so much. Cox? Maybe.

Keeper? Until Solo is back and demonstrably her old self, what the hell, throw Loyden in there and see what happens. Or Ashlyn Harris, who has demonstrated the ability to stand on her head and pirouette and tap dance all at the same time if it keeps the ball out of the net.

Just change it up, Pia. Jesus. Please. What you've been doing does not work. Player combinations that first fielded ten years ago do not work now. The baffling lack of a short passing/creative runs control game really does not work. Just running full out worked fifteen years ago, but now the rest of the planet has caught up, and we no longer have the monopoly on good athletes who can run circles around everyone else well into their thirties. Now we need great young athletes and tactical superiority just to keep up with Germany, and Norway, and... Mexico.

One and done territory, kids. Lose and the US does not go to the World Cup, which is on the level of the Yankees being mathematically eliminated on May 15. Win and the prize is a two-leg play-in game against Italy, with the last leg on November 27. In Chicago. Fucking hell. Catch the carnage on ESPN2 at 6pm EST tonight.

Another Day, Another Kerfuffle

Hey, brother.

Michigan's assistant attorney general Andrew Shirvell is in trouble for cyber-bullying the president of the University of Michigan's student government, with blog posts calling him, among other things, a radical homosexual activist--excuse me, let me make sure I quote Mr. Shirvell accurately--a RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVIST. I vaguely wondered if there was any chance that this might be yet another tired cliche of a self-loathing homo acting out by attacking a gay person, even though it's been done to death recently (really, Eddie Long, it's so derivative at this point--but the iPhone Under-Armour-in-the-bathroom pics were a nice touch!). So I figured I'd watch the video, and then Mr. Shirvell started talking at 0:24 and by 0:26 my gaydar was completely melted down into the same puddle with my irony meter and I spent the next seven minutes giggling uncontrollably.

Oh, Andrew, honey. You had me at "Well, Anderson..."

I have so many questions. How did this guy manage to get a job in the first place, much less manage to keep it more than a week? As assistant AG? Really? He's really an assistant attorney general? Like, for a state? And he really doesn't think any of his Perez Hilton stylings are the tiniest bit inappropriate for any, you know, actual adult who's decided to pick on a college kid? Oh, wait, that question answers itself.

“Did he think he was just going to get some kind of free pass just because he’s gay or whatever?,” Shirvell said earlier this month with Detroit TV station WXYZ. “I mean, we’re all adults here and so, you know, we’re treating him like an adult with adult level criticism.”

The University of Michigan must be so pleased. As a Notre Dame fan, I certainly am.

Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhh

Sarah Palin, was it not enough to foist your goddamn spawn onto Dancing With The Stars? Did you really have to show up tonight and make me hit the mute button and throw the remote to my partner and jam my fingers in my ears yelling lalalalalalala just in case the mute didn't work and contort awkwardly in the recliner to hoop* the laptop up on my knees to block the TV, running the risk of spraining my spine in order to spare my eyes?

Fuck off, Sarah Palin. I need my mindless entertainment once a week, and you're getting the fuck in the way.

*yes, it comes with a sound effect. It sounds like hoop and comes from the diaphragm.

I'm Just Sayin'

If anybody should appreciate that basic human decency requires marriage equality, it should be a guy whose own parents could not legally marry in 26 of the states in the union when he was born. Somebody like, say, Barack Obama. I'm just sayin'.

If anybody should appreciate that separate does not mean equal, it should be a guy whose skin color would have relegated him to separate, crap accommodations and train cars and water fountains and bathrooms and hotel rooms, if he would have been allowed into one at all, a scant few years before he was born. And it should really be that guy if he grows up to be a fucking constitutional scholar. Somebody like, say, Barack Obama. I'm just sayin'.

If anybody promises to be a fierce advocate for a specific segment of society should that segment elect him to the presidency, he really ought to spend more energy fulfilling promises to the people who actually voted for him than placating people who did not and never will vote for him in the first place. He should not tepidly announce that he didn't really like Proposition 8 because it was sooooo divisive, and then trot out an aide to assure the conservative wing that he really really really doesn't think anybody afflicted by The Ghey should be allowed to get married, but should settle for a bargain-bin generic package with some of the same benefits--if individual states decide to do that; heavens, this can't be a federal matter--and be grateful for it.

If anybody pulls that kind of bullshit once, let alone over and over, he can forget about my money and my vote. I won't support someone who's happy to make me a second-class citizen.

I'm just sayin'.

IANAL

I Am Not A Lawyer, but I am a referee, and Koman Coulibaly was crap today in the center of the US-Slovenia match. Sure, the US sucked in the first half, and the defense in particular wasn't alert enough to notice the Slovenian ballboy who apparently snuck into the 6-yard box and nailed Tim Howard's feet to the floor before the first goal, but goddammit, what a second-half comeback by the Yanks, and what utterly fascinating calls by Mr. Coulibaly.

The disallowed goal, in particular, featured at least three Slovenians hugging US attackers who were trying to run onto Donovan's serve, and after Maurice Edu destroyed the ball into the roof of the net, no explanation was forthcoming from the ref other than *shrug* no goal.

Fucking fuck. England need to beat Algeria this afternoon, and then beat Slovenia on Wednesday, and the US need to fucking start the Algeria game Wednesday like the devil hisself is holding a lighter to their Nike Dri-Fits.

Note to the guy in the striped polo at Trident this morning who is a clone of That One Guy who unfailingly shows up to every bar I've ever watched a game in: charging the television while screaming probably won't actually affect the outcome of the match, but please do take one more step forward and see if you can cram your head all the way through the screen, because I suspect having large shards of plasma screen stuffed into your mouth might shut you up, if only for ten or so blessed seconds.

Oh. And By the Way?

Fuck Florida too.

Posting from the Last Bastion of Hope in Southern Pariahstan

Dude, the rest of the country hates us now. Well, at least the parts of the country that have yet to be overrun by racist, anti-government gun nuts, that is, and that hurts me where I live. Fuck. Since I can't go more than a few sentences at a time on the Brown Star Law without completely losing my shit, here is Jon Stewart to lose it for me in a much more controlled and constructive fashion.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Law & Border
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Further required reading is available at the MaddowBlog; to wit:

But if you want to meet the guy who's taking credit for writing the new law, that would be Kris Kobach, a birther who's running for secretary of state in Kansas. His campaign Website brags, "Kobach wins one in Arizona." He's also an attorney for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the legal arm of an immigration group called FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

FAIR was founded in 1979 by John Tanton, who's still listed as a member of FAIR's board of directors. Seven years after he started FAIR, Tanton wrote this, "To govern is to populate. Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night or will there be an explosion?"

For nine of the first years of FAIR's existence, the group reportedly received more than $1 million in funding from something called the Pioneer Fund. The Pioneer Fund describes itself as based "in the Darwinian-Galtonian evolutionary tradition and eugenics movement." For the last 70 years, the Pioneer Fund has funded controversial research about race and intelligence, essentially aimed at proving the racial superiority of white people. The group's original mandate was to promote the genes of those "deemed to be descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original 13 states prior to the adoption of the Constitution."

Arizona has turned into the wettest of right-wing dreams. A bona fide problem (drug smugglers--hello, US drug habits and drug laws--and human traffickers--hello, US economy--kidnapping and shooting people) has become prima facie for every nativist, supremacist, exceptionalist fantasy they can cook up. No no no, the tea partiers have protested, it's not racism, we just want to take our country back. Well, hell yes they do. They fucking want to take the country back to April 12, 1861, and the pretenses are fast falling away.

Offerred Without Comment

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

This Is Not Helping

Oh, for fuck's sake.

A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution.

New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.

Some key words/phrases here may be "male" and "Bay Area." But hey, NYT, don't let the fact that the dataset was drawn from male couples keep you from glossing the sample as "gay men and lesbians," and really, don't let "Bay Area" keep you from leading with the straight-from-Focus-on-the-Family-playbook assertion that monogamy just isn't in the cards for many gay couples across the board. And please don't go in depth about the percentage of hetero marriages that feature cheating by one spouse or the other, but do showcase one straight open-married couple as an illustration of how gay marriage may serve to spearhead a total revamping of all marriage with the innovation of everyone fucking other people--within the rules, of course.

“The combination of freedom and mutual understanding can foster a unique level of trust,” Mr. Quirk, of Oakland, said.

“The traditional American marriage is in crisis, and we need insight,” he said, citing the fresh perspective gay couples bring to matrimony. “If innovation in marriage is going to occur, it will be spearheaded by homosexual marriages.”

Open relationships are not exclusively a gay domain, of course. Deb and Marius are heterosexual, live in the East Bay and have an open marriage. She belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and maintained her virginity until her wedding day at 34. But a few years later, when the relationship sputtered, both she and her husband, who does not belong to the church, began liaisons with others.

Fuck. Seriously? This is yet another example of why science--even lowly social science--shouldn't be reported by newspapers. Because Prop 8 types will blow right through the details of the study sample and the inclusion of anecdotes from a completely different population than that dealt with in the study and say see, just like we always told you: homos can't keep it in their pants, lesbians either probably, not that we're keeping score, and they're going to change marriage to mean we all have to let our wives fuck somebody else. Phenomenal stuff, that, with impeccable timing as Perry v. Schwarzenegger heads into closing arguments.

Continued Moments in WTF-ery

It's cold and dark when I have to get out of bed in the morning now, which I do not want to do in general and not at all now that we put the flannel sheets and extra blankets on, making the bed more of a giant warm marshmallow wrapped in a flannelly cloud cocoon that I DO NOT WANT TO CRAWL OUT OF EVER, plus judging from the interesting odor in here something appears to have died in my office overnight and it wasn't just dreams of weddings and rings and fabulous parties in New York.

Humph.

So I'm spending my smoking breaks today--since I don't smoke--finding bits of marriage-related right-wing fuckery and posting them here. No fumar aqui, pero fumo cueste lo que cueste. Forthwith, courtesy of Joe.My.God.:

In a Christian Post article about an upcoming biography of Saddleback megachurch Pastor Rick Warren, we learn that Warren freely admits that when he married his wife, he didn't love her, was not attracted to her, and had "no feelings" for her at all. But he married her anyway because the marriage had been arranged. By God.

Good for you, Rick! Congratulations on your loveless arranged marriage! Fucking hell.

A Marriage Parable for Our Time

Keith Bardwell is a justice of the peace in a state where, despite contentious debate and strong public sentiment opposing such pairings, a formerly banned type of marriage is now legal. He recently refused to issue a marriage license to a local couple, the law be damned, citing concerns for any children the couple might wish to raise and his certainty that their kinds of marriages don't last. In fact, he's done this four times in the past two and a half years.

Sigh. We've heard this plenty of times in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California, haven't we?

Except that we haven't. The couple in question is straight and male-female, and the state in question is Louisiana. So what about these two people triggered JP Bardwell's won't-someone-think-of-the-children lobe, with a touch of you-people-can't-stay-married palsy? Oh. The woman is white. The man is black. And no way in hell are they getting married under Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell's watch.

But don't get the wrong idea about Bardwell! He's not a racist! Look, he says so himself:

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

See? He has piles of black friends! He even lets them use his bathroom! How can you call him racist?

Bardwell clarified that conversations with both black and white people, and his own observations, have led him to conclude that mixed-race children aren't accepted by either blacks or whites. And that their parents don't stay married for long. The only thing lacking in his argument is the citation of the passages from Leviticus forbidding interracial marriage; otherwise, it's a spot-on simulation of arguments we've heard from other people--including, sadly, county clerks and other people whose job descriptions include "issue marriage licenses to qualified couples"--who rail against gay folk seeking marriage equality.

Hey, I have gay friends. I just don't want them to be allowed to get married because gays screw everything that moves so they'd probably just get divorced anyway and oh dear god people will make fun of their kids.

Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay, the most recent couple to be denied by Bardwell, plan to file a discrimination suit. I suspect the repercussions will be very, very interesting should the court find that perceptions about a certain class of people's ability to form lasting pair-bonds, and predictions about society's treatment of any children they might raise, have no bearing on those people's rights to enter into a marriage contract. I only wish Bardwell had tossed in a religious objection as well, but we can't have everything.

On Second Thought, Schadenfreude Pretty Well Sucks Too

Seriously?

We all now know that President Obama this evening will give some federal agencies the right to give some federal employees some benefits at some time in the future. The problem, as one reader writes, is that federal agencies already have that right, and in fact, are already providing the benefits.

Yeah. That presidential memorandum that fiercely extends some (taxable as income) benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, so bravely signed with such fanfare at 5:45 pm last night? It turns out we had those benefits already.

I would really like a good reason to not make this my fucking masthead. Next: Obama signs memorandum guaranteeing gays the right to breathe a heady nitrogen-oxygen mix. But only for the duration of his adminstration. Also, the right to celebrate Christmas or Chanukah and maybe Eid if we mind ourselves.

@boltgirl: OMG grassleys on teh twitter

Seriously, Chuck?

Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to call on Congress to enact legislation to reform the health-care system.

Grassley responded by texting, "Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."

A short time later, Grassley sent, "Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL."

Mr. President, Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of the great state of Iowa, wishes to inform you of his displeasure at your directive that he speed up the legislative process whilst you look at the Louvre with your lovely wife and daughters, for this order is forcing him to desist from his own salubrious rest and refreshment, instead resulting in him workinWKEND, so WTF, bitchez?

In other news, Sen. Grassley's response to the pending Chrysler-Fiat merger was HELLA NOES, and he also notified Sen. Specter that he now PWNS ur ass and no UR MOMZ a NAIL LOLOLOLOLOL.

My Real WTF Moment

Olbermann's getting on my nerves more often than not. Tonight's WTF Moment was busting on Bush for reading too many books during his administration. Granted, the man was apparently ripping through them at a rate prodigious enough to suggest that other duties might have been neglected, but maybe that early bedtime was set up to accommodate his history book jones, and after spending eight years bashing Bush's apparent lack of intellectual curiosity, it's disingenuous to criticize him for reading too much history, for crissakes. That none of it seemed to sink in is another matter entirely.

Anyway.

My WTF moment came this evening, which is Day Five of a fucking sinus infection that has completely put me on my ass, which came on the heels of a groin pull, which came on the heels of sore knees, if knees have heels, which came on the heels of a perpetually spasming deltoid and triceps, which came on the heels of an inflamed rotator cuff, which came on the heels of another goddamn migraine, and my stress levels are through the roof. It goes something like this: I officially lost twenty pounds, have been eating healthy home-cooked meals rather than going out, have been working out like a maniac, have largely eschewed alcohol other than the occasional glass or two of red wine, and have even been dutifully drinking more water, and after all that have officially felt like shit for about three months solid now. WTF?

I mean, seriously, WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK? The outcome was supposed to be the exact opposite of what it's turned out to be, and I'm pissed. Gimme a taco and a beer. All this health is fucking killing me.


Please, Jesus.

Oh, Distress

I keep reminding myself that Obama cannot be all things to all of his supporters, but over the past few weeks it's been difficult. On the one hand, Sonia Sotomayor. On the other, Guantanamo staying open. On the one hand, a promise by the press secretary that Obama has a strategic intent in play of planning to eventually someday probably ask Congress to think about repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell if they get a chance, on the other, yesterday's reduction of the whole shebang to a lame-ass punchline at a fundraiser. Oh, wait. Maybe those are actually both fingers on that other hand, and maybe they're both being jabbed in our direction a la a newly crabby Susan Boyle.

A gaggle of sign-waving protestors milled around outside The Beverly Hilton, the sprawling hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. They must have caught the president’s eye when he arrived at the hotel from an earlier stop in Las Vegas because he relayed one of their messages to the crowd.

“One of them said, “Obama keep your promise,’ ” the president said. “I thought that’s fair. I don’t know which promise he was talking about.”

The people in the audience – who paid $30,400 per couple to attend – laughed as they ate a dinner of roasted tenderloin, grilled organic chicken and sun choke rosemary mashed potatoes.

The gaggle of protestors were pretty clearly displaying their dismay at the failure of the campaign-promised repeal of DADT to materialize, but maybe Cadillac One was zipping past them too quickly for Hopey to read the signs, or maybe the forcefield distorted them. Maybe it's all a carefully calculated setup for the complete package of homo-friendly initiatives rumored to be launched on Stonewall day, because gosh, doesn't elation feel extra good after several weeks of blind rage?

Meanwhile, the defenders of marriage are driving me to distraction. On my Facebook news feed? Really? Get bent. Luckily, Rob Tisinai's wonderfully modulated voice and measured delivery gave me a bresh of fresh, rational air. From Joe.My.God.:

Unfortunately, Yes. Yes, We Do.

Nail, meet hammer; watch your head.

Ehhhhrrrmmmm Huh?

Sam Schulman lays out the "best" case yet against marriage equality. Isaac Chotiner dissects it for you at The New Republic. Boltgirl retreats to the cabinet for a single-barrel bourbon.

Obama: Let Bygones be Bygones

Hmm. Ah...

President Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for harsh, painful interrogation of terror suspects Thursday, even as his administration released Bush-era memos graphically detailing — and authorizing — such grim tactics as slamming detainees against walls, waterboarding them and keeping them naked and cold for long periods.

Obama said he wanted to move beyond "a dark and painful chapter in our history."

So the people who conducted activities best described--especially by one-time candidate Obama--as torture are getting a free pass. Because... well, apparently because Bush administration lawyers wrote memos saying the techniques were A-OK, that, say, subjecting a person to controlled drowning right up to but not crossing the line into actual death is not torture because it does not result in "severe pain or suffering." Apparently it tickles so much that people decide to talk just to stop the laughter, and that's why the CIA was so desperate to keep it on the list of approved extreme interrogation measures.

Jesus. Well, okay, so now we have a bunch of torturers exonerated because "I was just following orders" is now back in vogue as a bulletproof excuse. Is this simply the opening gambit in a larger gameplan to go after the people who wrote the memos? Or the people who asked other people to write the memos and then signed off on them? Or possibly their boss, or their boss' boss? Because after making so much noise on the campaign trail about Bush ceding the moral high ground with his torturefest, issuing get-out-of-jail-free cards is kind of a bad idea, isn't it?

Obama disagreed, saying in a statement, "Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

Really? Really, Barack? Please tell me that was just a very unfortunate choice of words and not an accurate representation of your--or, more saliently, your Justice Department's--viewpoint on the last administration's war crimes. Nothing will be gained? Nothing will be regained. Like our standing in the world and the trust of our allies. Or our national integrity. We have already laid blame for the past, so in that sense you're right in not seeing the need for more resources to be spent in that direction. Making amends for the past and bringing to justice the people who led us down that path? Lots and lots will be gained by spending time and energy in that arena. Some stuff you can let slide. Other stuff you need to exact retribution for. Please don't think for a moment that you can pass off the torture doctrine as belonging to the former category.

Aaaaiiieeeee!

Wow, this has not been my morning for WPS news. Not even close.

Puma unveiled the new uniforms for the league this past week, which I paid attention to only long enough to decide that (1) I like the Red Stars' Chicago flag-inspired jerseys, and (2) I cannot afford 70 bucks to buy one, even if I could get past the girl-cut that wouldn't fit my shoulders anyway. I did not pay attention to the point that my head needs to explode until this today. The story is here.

The WTF factor comes here:



Hey, what's up with the goofy shorts?





Wait a minute...





Skorts?

Uh, excuse me? Hi, we're the WPS, the last chance for pro women's soccer to be taken seriously in this country--seriously comes with a huge grain of salt, of course, since, you know, we got the double whammy of both "soccer" and "women" going here--so we need to do everything exactly right. Hey, I know! Let's put the girls in skorts! It'll be just like A League of Their Own! And we should get Rosie to be a spokeswoman, because that will tie in with the theme and totally bring all of America on board with us!

Jesus fucking Christ on a Triscuit. In a skort. I mean, at least they won't be wearing them during games, but why Puma thought it even needed to offer them as an option to some of the teams for wear "to and from the field, after practice -- and if a player really wants to, they can wear it on the field, too, in training or warm-up"--confuses me and pisses me off just a little. Here, honey, button this wrap onto your shorts to cover up so you look like a lady on your way to and from practice where you will be running and sweating your ass off. And feel free to leave it during pregame warmups until the last possible second, okay? Because God forbid someone should see you and forget you're a girl. Or see your muscular quads.

The Red Stars did not go with this option. Thank you, Chicago.