From the issue dated June 23, 2006 CHECK OUT THE SLIDEHSOW PEOPLE!!!! NOTES FROM ACADEME Rebel General, College President, Gentleman Slideshow: Photographs of Washington and Lee University By LAWRENCE BIEMILLER Lexington, Va. By the time Robert E. Lee reluctantly became its president, five months after surrendering at Appomattox, the institution then known as Washington College had a long history and a striking campus. It traced its origins, somewhat uncertainly, to a Presbyterian boys' school founded about 1749, and with more assurance to a school that existed in a different location by 1773. The pleasing row of colonnaded college buildings that greeted Lee in September 1865 had been finished in the 1840s, complete with a statue of the college's famous benefactor, George Washington, that stood atop the cupola of the center building. Flanking the row were four handsome Greek Revival houses, one of which had been promised to Lee. But the war had left the college a shambles and its once-splendid endowment practically worthless. Most of its hundred or so students had enlisted in the Confederate Army — a company of students and alumni known as the Liberty Hall Volunteers stayed together, despite casualties, throughout the war — and the college itself had narrowly escaped destruction by Union troops. It had survived the war years with a handful of faculty members teaching a few schoolboys too young to fight. The trustee dispatched to seek Lee out and offer him the presidency, Judge John Brockenbrough, did so with borrowed money and in a borrowed suit, and the house promised to Lee was still occupied by a renter when he arrived. Within a few years, though, the college had an enrollment of 400 and a faculty numbering more than 20. The existing buildings had been repaired, thanks partly to the influx of tuition payments, and new buildings had been added — a gymnasium, a chapel, a dining hall. Among academic purchases had been thousands of library books and an orrery — a machine that demonstrated the movement of the solar system's known planets — as big as a small room. Lee had incorporated an existing law school into the institution, started programs in business and journalism, and begun contemplating an agriculture program, all as part of a strategy to add elements of practical modern instruction to the college's classical education. Besides working closely with the faculty, Lee also brought the college to the attention of several wealthy donors, including Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the reaper; William W. Corcoran, a Washington banker; and George Peabody, a Massachusetts philanthropist. He took a personal interest in the progress of every student, at the same time sweeping aside a maze of old rules and regulations and replacing them with a single admonition: Students should behave like gentlemen. Perhaps it was not a surprise that Lee succeeded so well as a college president. Trained as an engineer at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., he was hard-working, thoughtful, articulate, and endearingly modest. A capable field commander, he was also experienced as an educator: From 1852 to 1855 he served as superintendent at West Point. But what is a surprise is how well what is now called Washington and Lee University has preserved his legacy, which survives in everyday interactions on the campus as well as in a small but rewarding museum in the chapel that Lee built. At a time when many colleges struggle to give students any sense of connection to those who preceded them, Washington and Lee seems to do so comfortably and as a matter of course. According to Taylor Sanders, a history professor, the university's 2,150 students feel Lee's influence daily in a longstanding tradition he is credited with beginning — "that at Washington and Lee you always speak to everyone you meet on the campus." And Lee's requirement that students behave like gentlemen is the basis of the institution's honor system, which is administered entirely by students and extends beyond the classroom to cover their behavior in dormitories, on playing fields, and in downtown Lexington. Mr. Sanders also notes that Lee was the first president of the college to allow students to form fraternities, which became an important part of life on the campus: "He knew boys like to join things." The Kappa Alpha Order, a national fraternity founded by four Washington College students in December of 1865, chose Lee as the role model for its members. The Lee Chapel and Museum is a more tangible reminder of Lee's time in Lexington, and it serves an unusual dual purpose. It accommodates thousands of vacationers and Civil War buffs who come to this small, hilly town eager to see Lee's final resting place, in a family crypt just across from the lower-level room Lee used as his office once the chapel was completed. It also celebrates the university's history, marking not only Lee's contributions but also those of the institution's earliest backers, from obscure Presbyterian preachers to President Washington, to whom Lee was related by marriage. Patricia A. Hobbs, director of the museum, says it has about 60,000 visitors a year. Exhibits include a number of portraits donated by the Lee family, including a Charles Willson Peale portrait of Washington; drawings Lee did as an officer in the Army Corps of Engineers; the trousers of a Washington College student wounded in action during the Civil War; and the letter in which Lee accepted the college presidency — even though he worried that he might still be prosecuted for his role in the war and might "draw upon the College a feeling of hostility" in some quarters. Also on display are a photograph of Lee on his horse, Traveller, and a watch chain fashioned from strands of Traveller's mane. The horse's bones, dug up from his original burial site and later displayed on the campus for decades, are now interred just outside the chapel, near the crypt. Visitors leave pennies and sometimes apples and carrots on the stone marking the site. The museum also displays artifacts from before and after Lee's presidency. A 1798 letter from George Washington, for instance, thanks the trustees for renaming what had been called Liberty Hall Academy in his honor — a move the trustees made after Washington donated 100 shares of James River Company stock that was worth tens of thousands of dollars. The three-story stone building that then housed the academy, by way of comparison, was valued at $3,500. Also on view are pieces of crockery and other items discovered during an archaeological dig at the ruins of that same stone building, which burned in 1803 and left two outer walls that still stand on a hill beyond the football stadium. A more modern artifact is a copy of the 1975 act of Congress restoring Lee's citizenship. The plain, red-brick chapel was designed by an engineer from the neighboring Virginia Military Institute, Col. Thomas Williamson. (A colleague from the military institute, C.W. Oltmanns, designed the spacious new house that Lee and his family moved to — and that is still the university president's house.) In addition to two galleries, the museum includes Lee's carefully preserved office, the chapel proper, and a memorial chamber behind the chapel that houses a large statue of Lee asleep in his uniform on a camp cot. The chapel, which seats about 525, is still the university's largest assembly hall, and it is regularly used for all kinds of university events. "It's an active, living, breathing building," Ms. Hobbs says, but it's also one in which it's impossible not to think about the university's long history. Not everything about that history strikes modern visitors as praiseworthy, of course. Women were not admitted as undergraduates until 1985. Before 1966, the institution had enrolled only one black student — in 1795. A cheating scandal rocked the football team in the 1950s. And Mr. Sanders recalls that in the early 1800s a future United States senator, John J. Crittenden, "was expelled for calling the food slop and attacking the steward with a knife." Plenty of other colleges and universities, of course, have histories nearly as interesting as Washington and Lee's, even if they don't number famous generals among their presidents. But hardly any put their histories on display in any engaging fashion — often the best that can be hoped for is a dry book by a retired history professor, supplemented by portraits of dead presidents in the administration building. Lee's years in Lexington, by contrast, spring to life not only in the university museum but also in a well-researched 1981 account by Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee: The Last Years (Houghton Mifflin), which was assembled partly from papers in the university archives. Lee died October 12, 1870, after a stroke that followed a period of declining health. A photograph in the museum shows the columns of the familiar colonnade wrapped in mourning, and a huge crowd outside the chapel, where Lee's body lay. It's a moving scene, itself as telling a memorial as any man could have. http://chronicle.com Section: Notes From Academe Volume 52, Issue 42, Page A56
Copyright © 2006 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

great, Isiah fired Larry Brown, and now we get Isiah as head coach...

we know how that goes, even with better teams... UUUUGGGHHHHH

gonna suck for a while now...

ummm, GO METS!

Yeah, that game didn't go the way I wanted it too... ugh... Landon!


From Nytimes.com

World Cup Ends for the U.S. After Loss to Ghana

Fans in New York's Times Square watching the game today. The defeat ended any chance for the U.S. to advance to the next round.

We got the D, time to step it up on O (Landon).... GO USA!!!!*

and Italy... for obvious reasons...

Ok, umm, maybe I should start watching this Dwayne Wayde kid.... I think I missed the bandwagon...

And the five year plan for the Knicks includes Getting Pat Riley as our Coach and GM, and signing Lebron James and Dwayne Wayde. THen we'll have liek more championships than anyone lol

I can dream right??

From nytimes.com:

Hopefully we'll get into this sport enough in the coming years that we can't be made fun of like this... :-)

Devastated By U.S. World Cup Team's First-Round Loss, Nation Grinds To Halt

June 15, 2006 | Onion Sports

NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, and WASHINGTON, DC—With the Dow Jones average down over 600 points, factory productivity in a downward spiral, and workplace attendance down by nearly a third, experts say the U.S. World Cup team's heartbreaking 3-0 defeat at the hands of Czech Republic on Monday has brought life across the soccer-crazed nation to a virtual standstill.

"What happened in Gelsenkirchen has indeed dealt a grievous blow to the morale of the American people," said President Bush, who had promised his constituency a swift and speedy victory in the World Cup this year and whose popularity has taken a 9 percent hit since the U.S. team's loss. "I want the citizens of this great nation, the world's only remaining superpower, to know that I grieve alongside them and urge them to be strong in our hour of darkness, and urge them to return to their jobs and schools despite their heavy hearts."

Mere days ago, the feeling across the nation was one of great joy, eager anticipation, and optimism for the prospects of the most talented American team to ever take the field. It is estimated that over 85 percent of U.S. households were watching the USA–Czech Republic matchup. And going into the game that most Americans have been waiting for, analyzing, and all but living for during the past four years, schools, offices, shopping centers—everything, in fact, except vital services—closed their doors as the game began.

Now, days after the end of penalty time, many of those doors are still closed.

"I take full responsibility for losing the game," said Claudio Reyna, whose shot off the crossbar of the Czech goal as the U.S. trailed 1-0 in the opening half of play has been shown to coincide with a significant bump in the suicide rate, a momentary increase in reports of domestic violence, and a $0.45 increase in the per-gallon price of gasoline. "But we still have games to play in this opening round. I realize that the United States, more than any other country, loves this game. But that is no reason for so many people to cancel their weddings."

The general feeling of hopelessness may be felt across the United States, the nation the rest of the world thinks of as Pelé's adopted home, the land that popularized the term "soccer," and Americans are finding many different ways to voice their despair.

Hundreds of yards of black bunting hung over the head and arms of the Statue of Liberty has yet to be removed by the New York City Parks Department; similar shrouds have appeared on Mount Rushmore, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Hawaii's Pearl Harbor Memorial. Las Vegas casinos are running skeleton staffs at the tables and doubling the size of security shifts, at once worrying over their empty floors and fearing retribution at the hands of World Cup gamblers who bet on the U.S. out of loyalty. And the House of Representatives, which traditionally remains closed throughout the World Cup, called a special session for the specific purpose of introducing a bipartisan bill that would change America's national sport back to baseball.

"This cannot last," said Bruce Arena, coach of the U.S. World Cup team and by extension effectively the second-most powerful man in America, in an address televised simultaneously on every national channel Wednesday night. "We cannot have crops unharvested in the fields, the doors of our churches sealed shut, the Stars and Stripes fixed at half-mast, all because of our dishonorable standard of play. We cannot ask you to forgive our loss to the Czechs, as that must be left to the wisdom of the God of our fathers. We have always been a nation blessed with strength, not only in our love for our soccer teams, but in our love for one another, and we must call on both now if we are to endure these dark days."

At press time, the U.S. team is scheduled to play Italy on Saturday and Ghana the following Thursday, and the National Guard has reported moderate casualties while attempting to contain hooligan activity in the nine largest U.S. cities.

I'll be buying this for sure...

Personality, Ideology and Bush's Terror Wars

The title of Ron Suskind's riveting new book, "The One Percent Doctrine," refers to an operating principle that he says Vice President Dick Cheney articulated shortly after 9/11: in Mr. Suskind's words, "if there was even a 1 percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction — and there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time — the United States must now act as if it were a certainty." He quotes Mr. Cheney saying that it's not about "our analysis," it's about "our response," and argues that this conviction effectively sidelines the traditional policymaking process of analysis and debate, making suspicion, not evidence, the new threshold for action.

Mr. Suskind's book — which appears to have been written with wide access to the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, as well as to other C.I.A. officials and a host of sources at the F.B.I., and in the State, Defense and Treasury Departments — is sure to be as talked about as his "Price of Loyalty" (2004) and the former counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke's "Against All Enemies" (2004).

The book, which focuses on the 2001 to 2004 period, not only sheds new light on the Bush White House's strategic thinking and its doctrine of pre-emptive action, but also underscores the roles that personality and ideology played in shaping the administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. It describes how poorly prepared homeland security was (and is) for another terrorist attack, and looks at a series of episodes in the war on terror that often found the "invisibles," who run intelligence and enforcement operations on the ground, at odds with the "notables," who head the government.

In fleshing out key relationships among administration members — most notably, between Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush, Mr. Bush and Mr. Tenet, and Mr. Tenet and Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser — it adds some big, revealing chunks to the evolving jigsaw-puzzle portrait of this White House and its modus operandi, while also giving the reader some up close and personal looks at the government's day-to-day operations in the war on terror.

In "The One Percent Doctrine," Mr. Suskind discloses that First Data Corporation — one of the world's largest processors of credit card transactions and the parent company of Western Union — began cooperating with the F.B.I. in the wake of 9/11, providing information on financial transactions and wire transfers from around the world. The huge data-gathering operation in some respects complemented the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program (secretly authorized by Mr. Bush months after the Sept. 11 attacks), which monitored specific conversations as well as combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might lead to terrorism suspects.

Despite initial misgivings on the part of Western Union executives, Mr. Suskind reports, the company also worked with the C.I.A. and provided real-time information on financial transactions as they occurred.

Mr. Suskind's book also reveals that Qaeda operatives had designed a delivery system (which they called a "mubtakkar") for a lethal gas, and that the United States government had a Qaeda source who said that plans for a hydrogen cyanide attack on New York City's subway system were well under way in early 2003, but the attack was called off — for reasons that remain unclear — by Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The book also reports that Al Qaeda had produced "extremely virulent" anthrax in Afghanistan before 9/11, which "could be easily reproduced to create a quantity that could be readily weaponized."

Just as disturbing as Al Qaeda's plans and capabilities are the descriptions of the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror and its willful determination to go to war against Iraq. That war, according to the author's sources who attended National Security Council briefings in 2002, was primarily waged "to make an example" of Saddam Hussein, to "create a demonstration model to guide the behavior of anyone with the temerity to acquire destructive weapons or, in any way, flout the authority of the United States."

"The One Percent Doctrine" amplifies an emerging portrait of the administration (depicted in a flurry of recent books by authors as disparate as the Reagan administration economist Bruce Bartlett and the former Coalition Provisional Authority adviser Larry Diamond) as one eager to circumvent traditional processes of policy development and policy review, and determined to use experts (whether in the C.I.A., the Treasury Department or the military) not to help formulate policy, but simply to sell predetermined initiatives to the American public.

Mr. Suskind writes that the war on terror gave the president and vice president "vast, creative prerogatives": "to do what they want, when they want to, for whatever reason they decide" and to "create whatever reality was convenient." The potent wartime authority granted the White House in the wake of 9/11, he says, dovetailed with the administration's pre-9/11 desire to amp up executive power (diminished, Mr. Cheney and others believed, by Watergate) and to impose "message discipline" on government staffers.

"The public, and Congress, acquiesced," Mr. Suskind notes, "with little real resistance, to a 'need to know' status — told only what they needed to know, with that determination made exclusively, and narrowly, by the White House."

Within the government, he goes on, there was frequent frustration with the White House's hermetic decision-making style. "Voicing desire for a more traditional, transparent policy process," he writes, "prompted accusations of disloyalty," and "issues argued, often vociferously, at the level of deputies and principals rarely seemed to go upstream in their fullest form to the president's desk, and if they did, it was often after Bush seemed to have already made up his mind based on what was so often cited as his 'instinct' or 'gut.' "

This book augments the portrait of Mr. Bush as an incurious and curiously uninformed executive that Mr. Suskind earlier set out in "The Price of Loyalty" and in a series of magazine articles on the president and key aides. In "The One Percent Doctrine," he writes that Mr. Cheney's nickname inside the C.I.A. was Edgar (as in Edgar Bergen), casting Mr. Bush in the puppet role of Charlie McCarthy, and cites one instance after another in which the president was not fully briefed (or had failed to read the basic paperwork) about a crucial situation.

During a November 2001 session with the president, Mr. Suskind recounts, a C.I.A. briefer realized that the Pentagon had not told Mr. Bush of the C.I.A.'s urgent concern that Osama bin Laden might escape from the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan (as he indeed later did) if United States reinforcements were not promptly sent in. And several months later, he says, attendees at a meeting between Mr. Bush and the Saudis discovered after the fact that an important packet laying out the Saudis' views about the Israeli-Palestinian situation had been diverted to the vice president's office and never reached the president.

Keeping information away from the president, Mr. Suskind argues, was a calculated White House strategy that gave Mr. Bush "plausible deniability" from Mr. Cheney's point of view, and that perfectly meshed with the commander in chief's own impatience with policy details. Suggesting that Mr. Bush deliberately did not read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was delivered to the White House in the fall of 2002, Mr. Suskind writes: "Keeping certain knowledge from Bush — much of it shrouded, as well, by classification — meant that the president, whose each word circles the globe, could advance various strategies by saying whatever was needed. He could essentially be 'deniable' about his own statements."

"Whether Cheney's innovations were tailored to match Bush's inclinations, or vice versa, is almost immaterial," Mr. Suskind continues. "It was a firm fit. Under this strategic model, reading the entire N.I.E. would be problematic for Bush: it could hem in the president's rhetoric, a key weapon in the march to war. He would know too much."

As for Mr. Tenet, this book provides a nuanced portrait of a man with "colliding loyalties — to the president, who could have fired him after 9/11 but didn't; and to his analysts, whom he was institutionally and emotionally committed to defend." It would become an increasingly untenable position, as the White House grew more and more impatient with the C.I.A.'s reluctance to supply readily the sort of intelligence it wanted. (A Pentagon unit headed by Douglas Feith was set up as an alternative to the C.I.A., to provide, in Mr. Suskind's words, "intelligence on demand" to both Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the office of the vice president.)

While many C.I.A. analysts were deeply skeptical of the imminent danger posed by Mr. Hussein and simultaneously worried about the fallout of a possible invasion, the C.I.A., paradoxically enough, would become a favorite scapegoat for the administration's decision to go to war against Iraq, thanks in no small measure to Mr. Tenet's remark (quoted in Bob Woodward's 2004 book "Plan of Attack") that the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was a "slam dunk." In this volume Mr. Suskind reports that Mr. Tenet says he does not remember uttering those famous words: "Doesn't dispute it. Just doesn't remember it."

Mr. Suskind credits Mr. Tenet with deftly using his personal bonds with "key conditional partners" in the war on terror, from President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. He depicts the former C.I.A. director as frequently being made by the White House "to take the fall" for his superiors, on matters including the administration's handling of prewar intelligence to the 16 disputed words in the president's State of the Union address, regarding Iraq's supposed efforts to obtain uranium from Africa. Because it was Mr. Tenet "who brought analysis up the chain from the C.I.A.," Mr. Suskind writes, he "was best positioned to assume blame. And Rice was adept at laying it on Tenet."

At the same time, Mr. Suskind suggests that Mr. Tenet acted as a kind of White House enabler: he writes that in the wake of 9/11, Mr. Tenet felt a "mix of insecurity and gratitude" vis-à-vis George W. Bush, and that eager to please his boss, he repeatedly pushed C.I.A. staff members to come up with evidence that might support the president's public statements.

In the days after 9/11 Mr. Bush defended the embattled C.I.A. chief to angry congressmen, and at that point, Mr. Suskind writes: "George Tenet would do anything his President asked. Anything. And George W. Bush knew it."

This guys is great, I remember him (I think) from 2002...

From the Times

True Grit: U.S. Withstands Ejections and Italy to Stay Alive

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany, June 17 — When this strange and exhausting and potentially rewarding game had ended in a 1-1 tie with Italy, the United States playmaker Landon Donovan fell onto his back, seemingly unable to take another step.

Several teammates bent over, drenched in sweat, drained of energy and emotion. Victory had not been achieved Saturday, but as important, defeat had been avoided.

In a classic underdog effort, the United States kept its hopes alive in the World Cup with a redeeming and defiant performance against a three-time winner of the tournament. The Americans played the final 43 minutes with only nine players, two having been disqualified for committing harsh fouls.

Italy put a ball into its own goal and also had a starter ejected for a viciously thrown elbow. But the Italians still played with a man advantage throughout most of the second half. Yet the Americans would not yield with a withered lineup.

"This was a total team effort," United States goalkeeper Kasey Keller said. "Those guys bled today for our country and our team."

That would include Keller, who made two diving saves in the final 20 minutes to preserve the tie.

"This reflected who we are as a national team," said Sunil Gulati, president of the United States Soccer Federation. "A lot of heart, a lot of fight and trying to play as well, not just fighting hard."

And now, after Ghana upset the Czech Republic earlier, 2-0, the United States has suddenly bettered its position to advance beyond group play of the 32-team tournament. The Americans (0-1-1) will reach the Round of 16 if they defeat Ghana (1-1) on Thursday and if Italy (1-0-1) defeats the Czech Republic (1-1).

If the United States advances, its likely reward would be a second-round match against the five-time champion Brazil. At this point, the Americans would be more than happy to move on after a lifeless opening defeat to the Czechs, 3-0.

In that match, the United States appeared to play in a confused and aimless state while being humiliated. On Saturday, the Americans were vibrant and cohesive and, finally, impenetrable, when Italy held the advantage in players but not in gritty resolve.

Against the Czechs, the Americans merely had players running around the field. On Saturday, they coalesced into a team and forged a tie in archetypal style, with competitive spirit, fitness and togetherness.

"Our guys played with a lot of heart and certainly redeemed ourselves from Day 1," said Manager Bruce Arena, who had harshly criticized some of his players after that loss.

The United States opened Saturday's match in a defensive posture, intending to counterattack against the Italians. But plans began to change in the 22nd minute, when midfielder Pablo Mastroeni brought down Francesco Totti, Italy's playmaker. The Italians were awarded a free kick from 26 yards. Midfielder Andrea Pirlo drove the ball low, and forward Alberto Gilardino ran past defender Eddie Pope, slamming the ball into the net with a diving header.

Usually, there is no better team at protecting a 1-0 lead than Italy. Its classic defensive posture is known as catenaccio, or door bolt. Once that door is shut, most often it remains locked. Not in this match, which quickly grew rough and eccentric.

In the 27th minute, midfielder Bobby Convey took a free kick from the right flank for the United States, and Italy defender Cristian Zaccardo tried to clear it with a volley. Perhaps he grew distracted by forward Brian McBride lurking behind him, but Zaccardo badly mis-hit the ball with his left ankle. It corkscrewed into the Italian goal, stunningly tying the score, 1-1.

"A goal is a goal," Convey said. "It kept us in the World Cup. We deserved it. We took it to them."

Reeling, Italy lost its composure. In the 28th minute, the ball bounced high in the American half of the field and, as he chased it, the Italian midfielder Daniele De Rossi threw a wicked elbow into McBride's left cheek. Blood streamed from McBride's face — the cut later required three stitches — as the referee, Jorge Larrionda of Uruguay, pulled out a red card.

Referees have been warned in particular to curb elbowing. De Rossi was ejected, leaving Italy to play with 10 men for the final 62 minutes. But the United States' advantage did not last long. Seconds before halftime, Mastroeni slid violently into Pirlo and also drew a red card.

Arena said he believed that Larrionda was making up for the red card against Italy. But the officials' guidelines call for red cards for two-footed cleats-up tackles.

Two minutes into the second half, Pope tackled Gilardino from behind, drawing his second yellow card and a mandatory ejection.

Pope thought he reached the ball. Arena said he believed teams sometimes gained an edge from the referee because of their reputations. But Larrionda was quick and adamant in his decision.

"They are what they are," Arena said of his players' ejections. "Two red cards in the span of five minutes is pretty harsh."

Larrionda was barred for six months in 2002 by his country's soccer federation for unspecified "irregularities." Two days before the suspension, he had been chosen to officiate at the 2002 World Cup, which he was then forced to miss.

For the final 43 minutes, the Americans would have to survive with only Keller in goal and eight players in the field.

Knowing it would have voluminous space in which to operate, Italy brought Alessandro del Piero off the bench and charged after the Americans with three forwards. Arena countered with defender Jimmy Conrad, then the speedy midfielder DaMarcus Beasley.

Arena had criticized Beasley for lacking effort against the Czechs, but Beasley atoned Saturday by sprinting into the penalty area in the 65th minute and drilling a low shot into the net. The Americans began to celebrate, but McBride was clearly offside as he stood in front of goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, and the goal was nullified. Mc Bride later said he was offsides and had shielded Buffon.

Italy kept attacking in waves, but Keller batted away a volley by Del Piero, then parried his 25-yard blast. Defender Oguchi Onyewu cleared the ball out of a dangerous scrum and headed away a threatening corner kick.

"When you play down a man, you're a wounded tiger," Conrad said.

Three minutes of stoppage time were added, but even then, Italy could not manufacture another goal. And, finally, it was over. This was not a victory for the United States on the scoreboard, but somehow it felt more satisfying than a tie.

"There's no way you train a team to play 10 against 9 for 40-something minutes in a World Cup," Arena said. "Our guys did a tremendous job."

The Americans have four days to recover before they face Ghana. "We're where we want to be on Day 3," Arena said. "We want to be alive. Who knows what can happen?"

After Saturday, almost anything seems possible.

Determined McBride Galvanized U.S. Team

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany, June 18 — When forward Brian McBride went to the sideline Saturday, having taken a vicious elbow in the face, the blood covering his nose and left cheek was worrisome but familiar.

"I've seen it many times," United States Manager Bruce Arena told reporters Sunday after the team returned to its World Cup base in Hamburg. "It didn't surprise me. I did think there was a chance he had to come out. You never know if there's some kind of facial injury."

McBride has needed a number of operations to repair broken bones in his face. It is an occupational hazard for a forward in soccer. He eventually received three stitches below his left eye, but played all 90-plus minutes in a bruising and ultimately satisfying 1-1 tie against Italy.

The United States will reach the second round if it defeats Ghana on Thursday and Italy defeats the Czech Republic.

McBride ran ceaselessly during Saturday's match, in which three players received red-card ejections and the United States forged a draw despite having only nine players available for the final 43 minutes. By the final whistle, McBride's head and feet had been involved in two of the game's determining and controversial plays.

The debate continued Sunday about the decisions made by the referee, Jorge Larrionda of Uruguay. Arena offered a fairly evenhanded assessment, saying he believed that FIFA, soccer's world governing body, probably considered that Larrionda had done "a good job."

At the same time, Arena said he believed that World Cup referees had punished some fouls with excessive harshness and inconsistency.

One red card that brought no disagreement Saturday was the one issued to the Italian midfielder Daniele De Rossi for elbowing McBride in the 28th minute. The hit, Arena said, "could have broken his face."

Marcello Lippi, Italy's coach, called it De Rossi's "umpteenth stupid mistake." After the match, McBride said that De Rossi had apologized and that the matter "is now finished."

Arena and McBride also agreed that Larrionda had accurately ruled McBride offside on an apparent goal by midfielder DaMarcus Beasley in the 65th minute.

Even though McBride was beyond the final Italian defender, he might not have been whistled offside if he had not been involved in the play. But he admitted that he screened goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and had to raise his foot out of the way of Beasley's low shot, distracting Buffon.

"I don't disagree with it," McBride said of the offside call. At the time, Arena screamed on the sideline about the nullified goal, "That's impossible." Sunday, though, he called the decision correct.

Arena also did not dispute a red card issued to midfielder Pablo Mastroeni for a two-footed cleats-up tackle of Andrea Pirlo. It was a judgment call, Arena said. He criticized Mastroeni for committing a foul in the final minute of the first half while being far from the ball and in the Italian half of the field.

"It was a poor error in judgment," Arena said.

Mastroeni will have to sit out the game against Ghana. So will defender Eddie Pope, who received a second yellow card two minutes into the second half for tackling Alberto Gilardino from behind. Pope said he thought he got the ball. Although Arena agreed that a foul had been committed, he questioned whether it deserved a yellow card.

"I think fouls are being punished too harshly without warnings," Arena said. "Sometimes, it's just a foul; it's not a yellow card. I think it's just gotten excessive in the World Cup."

He mentioned the case of Ghana forward Asamoah Gyan, who received his second yellow card of the tournament Saturday for taking a penalty kick prematurely in a 2-0 victory against the Czech Republic. Gyan will not be eligible to play against the United States.

"That's excessive," Arena said. "I think that's wrong; a great player like that is out of an important game for his team. I think there's been too much of that."

While Gyan sits, McBride will be looking to score in his third World Cup. No broken bones were reported as a result of the elbowing. In fact, McBride said he did not even feel much pain. After repeated operations — including plastic surgery — to repair shattered cheekbones, McBride said: "I don't have a lot of feeling in my face. My nerves are all dead from the surgeries. You get hit and you get back up."

With the United States down to nine players for most of the second half, McBride became ubiquitous. He challenged the Italian defenders, drifted back to help in the midfield, even retreated to the back line occasionally to cover when a defender made a run forward.

"McBride never stopped for 90 minutes," Arena said, adding that he did not use his third substitution because he did not think Eddie Johnson or Brian Ching were experienced enough to contribute the necessary resourcefulness that McBride provided.

"He's a warrior," Arena said.

At 6 feet 1 inch, McBride is often not the flashiest player on the field, but he is considered indispensable. He has scored 30 goals for the national team. Yet Arena has often said that McBride is most appreciated for plays that only his teammates notice.

"He keeps balls alive, makes the extra effort, wins balls in the air," Arena said. "We scoop up the second ball and we're in the attacking half of the field. He's not a forward that stops once the ball turns over. He's active in defending. He competes in every play in his part of the field. When you have 10 players who can do that at the same time, you have a team."

And so it was no surprise Saturday when McBride chased a high bounce only to be whacked by De Rossi.

"He's got a few titanium plates in his face already," goalkeeper Kasey Keller said. "So you know he's going to stick it in places where most people would prefer not to."

funny shizzle!

Non cheapo guys... where are you? - 27
Reply to: pers-172838804@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-06-18, 3:15PM EDT


I'm really sick of dating cheap guys. I make my own money and don't need someone else's, but I keep dating men who think it's ok to 1) steal cable because the cable companies are "evil" anyway 2) buy a sweater, wear it for a day, and then return it 3) claim he is in the military so he doesn't have to pay full price for movie tickets. !!! It really turns me off.

I have scruples and morals, am fit, gainfully employed, college educated, and not bad to look at. I think it's meaningless to say that I'm "attractive" when looks are entirely subjective. I'm confident in my appearance and will send you pictures, and you can decide for yourself. If you have manners, are college-educated, and think it's egregious to not tip the waitstaff because they were late in serving you, then I want to meet you. Please don't be racist either, because that is a turnoff to me as well.

* this is in or around Boston
* no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests