Faux pas

What’s better to watch? (I asked Karin). The Super Bowl, or the Oscars?

The Super Bowl, said Karin, but only because of the comeback ending.

But then the Best Picture winner was announced.

Moonlight won *only after* La La Land had been declared the winner.

Everybody from La La Land was rejoicing upon the stage. Then it was discovered that the presenters had looked into the wrong envelope.

It was one of the most astounding things I’d seen on TV.

Often criticized for neglecting black subjects and filmmakers, the “Academy” had lined up more black award nominees than ever before. Yet somehow it managed to dim the shining moment that belonged to Moonlight, a black filmmakers’ movie.

The true winners looked confused and hurt as they came up to the stage.

The presenters, before opening the wrong envelope, had chided Donald Trump. They’d delivered a sermonette on the importance of The Truth.

I’m glad The Truth eventually wriggled out.

The blunder may not have been anyone’s fault. But it had the symbolic trappings of a most egregious offense, a slip committed by the entire U.S. white mainstream. It looked as if La La Land, a self-celebrating Hollywood musical – a jazz musical by whites – had been in the “Academy’s” heart all along, and Moonlight had not been.

Pity. Up until that fatal moment, it’d been a good show.

NHS

A tranquil, warm week. Tranquil because we were in good health, and because, at IUSB, the tutees were few and not too demanding; and warm enough for short sleeves.

It felt like May. It felt like the school year was about to end. Really, it was alarming.

Some days ago, we ate at Karin’s mother’s house. My mother-in-law is in charge of the National Honor Society at the high school where she works. I told her that when I was in high school, I never was inducted. The first two years of my eligibility, I applied and was rejected, and the last year I forgot to submit my application. Why were you rejected, my mother-in-law said. My attitude, I conjectured. Ah, yes, my mother-in-law said.

She said her school was going to have to expel its valedictorian from NHS because he wasn’t taking the rituals and service projects seriously enough. Expelling him would only reinforce his view of the situation, I told her. Then I said that NHS was basically a snob deal, a way for the “best” people to feel happy about themselves; and that mercifully it had no real impact on people’s life prospects, unlike the college Greek system or charity groups run by the rich.

At our high school we run NHS on merit, clarified my mother-in-law.

Be that as it may, I said, to belong to NHS – even in a chapter in which it is run on merit – is to belong to a larger organization that’s snobby on the whole. Again, like the Greek system or philanthropy. The point of NHS is to prepare youngsters to belong to those awful clubs when they’re adults.

After I went home, I remembered that in my own high school, new NHS inductees were pulled out of bed before dawn and made to wear diapers and bibs all day, i.e., they were hazed, as in fraternities and sororities. But by the time I remembered this it was too late to call up my mother-in-law and tell her. Perhaps I’ll mention it on Sunday when we’re in church together.

The election, pt. 2

The percentages aren’t going to change. A second voting round will take place. I’m glad – not because I want Lasso to come back and defeat Moreno, but because I want the outcome, whatever it is, to be clear to the whole country. Let the whiners have one less thing to whine about.

They sure have been whining the last couple of days. They began to accuse Moreno’s party of election fraud as soon as they saw that his share of the votes would be very close to 40%.

They’ve based their argument on how long it’s taking for the votes to be carefully tallied. What they don’t acknowledge is that it’s normal for this process to take several days in any election, and especially in a close election.

TeleSUR, the Latin American news agency, describes these accusations as what they are: whipping up discontent. (Then again, one might object, TeleSUR is based in countries where there is much sympathy for Ecuador’s ruling party.)

Here are a couple of reports from Britain – trustworthy ones, I hope.

The Guardian.

The Financial Times.

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UPDATE: The next voting round will be held on April 2.

Ecuador’s presidential election

Yesterday, elections were held in Ecuador. The votes are being tallied to see if a second round will be required in the presidential contest. By rule, to be declared the winner after just one round, a presidential candidate must receive 50% of the votes, or else he or she must receive 40% of the votes and outdo the next vote-getter by 10%.

This year, it’s close. As of this writing, the top vote-getters are Lenín Moreno with 39.08% and Guillermo Lasso with 28.43%.

Moreno is the candidate of the ruling party. He served as Rafael Correa’s vice president from 2007 to 2013. Lasso, a banker, was Correa’s closest opponent in the election of 2013.

My Facebook “friends” who discuss Ecuadorian politics tend to belong to the upper crust, and their aim is to get the socialistic ruling party out of office. They have nightmares of Ecuador turning into something like corrupt, disorganized, impoverished Venezuela. Thus they oppose Moreno. What Lasso stands for is not their focus.

My own views – impressionistic, not scientific – are that Ecuador is a society that needs large-scale economic redistribution (socialistic or otherwise); that although Ecuadorian socialism depends on unreliable, unsustainable revenue from oil, as Venezuelan socialism does, Ecuador will not cast its lot irrevocably with oil as Venezuela has done; and that the ruling party has shown far more competence than any other recent party.

There also is the question of authoritarianism, a charge frequently brought against Correa’s regime. To be sure, Correa has exhibited more than a dash of authoritarianism in his personality. But everything I’ve read suggests that the opposite is true of Moreno. Indeed, he has concerns that are very unusual for a politician. (For a few examples, see this article from 2013.) Moreno seems to exhibit genuine goodness – a quality which, in this age of Donald Trump, the world may finally decide it needs its politicians to have.

I must sleep now. From afar, these are my thoughts.

Some fine performances

Well, that didn’t last long. The young Gabriel Jesus has injured himself. The journalists are saying that he might not play again this season.

Still, I wish to recant what I said about the Premier League’s strikers being disposable. I overlooked the position’s one true genius: Zlatan.

In charisma – in style – in clarity of movement and of thought – he outdoes all the others. Witness how, with minimal effort, he guides Manchester United to victory.

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After nearly a second full week of illness, Karin’s buoyant self has been restored to her. She is now bleating upon the clarinet. She is inspired by Martin, whom tonight we heard perform, in a coffeehouse, with the Romaniacs (Martin played the bass guitar).

Karin has just run out of breath. Jasper is hiding, as he usually does when Karin plays. Amazingly, Ziva is fast asleep. Our two kitties are so very different from one another.

An ill wife; la sub-20; Premier League strikers; N’Golo Kanté

Karin’s been ill. Today I finally persuaded her to stay at home. She works six days each week, and, during her days off, she goes to church and either counts the offering money or teaches Sunday school.

Right now, she appears to be sleeping comfortably, which makes me happy.

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Ecuador’s sub-20 lads finished second in the continental tourney, two places higher than they needed to. The Uruguayans finished first. Their team easily was the best.

The Brazilians, runners-up two years ago in the under-20 World Cup, finished fifth in South America and failed to qualify for this year’s global tourney. In the matches that I watched, they looked simply awful.

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I wonder how the Brazilians would’ve fared if they’d called up their latest national hope, the 19-year-old striker, Gabriel Jesus, who’s been starting for Man City. This young man is quite the sensation. After just a few of his performances in the Premier League, the soap opera has become: What’ll happen to Sergio Agüero? (Agüero is the team’s established goalscorer. For several years, he’s been quite deadly with Man City, though not so much with Argentina.)

Ship him out, says one Yahoo! columnist. Maybe swap him for Alexis Sánchez.

Such drama. In this league, it appears that any given striker is disposable. (Luis Suárez was the last striker who definitely wasn’t.)

There was talk earlier this season of the transcendence of Diego Costa. Then he pouted and got benched a little, and his team performed just as well without him.

Now people are talking about his teammate, Eden Hazard. Hazard is good, but if he were to play for Leicester City, he’d be a shadow of his precocious self (as, last season, he was a shadow; as, this season, all the Leicester players are mere shadows).

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Meanwhile, N’Golo Kanté makes a humble living chewing up the league. He’s like a buzzsaw perched upon a Roomba. Last season, Sir Alex Ferguson said that Kanté was the league’s best player by far. But Kanté’s goalscoring teammates got the accolades.

This season, playing with even more illustrious teammates, Kanté might be named the Player of the Year.

Kanté’s is an up-close style. His long passing is not remarkable. His best passes are like dribbles: they’re short touches. His specialty is arriving early to where the ball is traveling and then shoving himself between the ball and the opponent carrying it.

He excels at this because he’s tiny. He’ll run into a thicket of players and come out with the ball. He likes thickets; he seeks them out; he foresees better than the other players how the ball will carom off the others’ legs.

(Today I added a footnote about N’Golo Kanté to my dissertation.)

Super Bowl LI; la Sur Oscura; la sub-20

Every couple of years, it’s said we’ve just witnessed the greatest Super Bowl in all of history. During my own short life, I’ve heard this said of Super Bowls XXV, XXXII, XXXIV, XXXVI, XLII, XLIII, and XLIX … and now, Super Bowl LI.

Certainly, last night’s was a great Super Bowl. But the best ever? I think not.

The first quarter, the teams spun their wheels.

The next two quarters were entertaining – but not compelling. Though we were treated to the occasional brilliant play, it seemed obvious that the Falcons would win, that it was unnecessary to really pay attention.

The contest finally became interesting when the Patriots whittled the deficit to 16. Then their comeback was tremendous – indeed, too one-sided. The Falcons hardly resisted.

The outcome was narrow and, on the whole, the foes were well-matched; but they didn’t exactly “trade punches” throughout the game. It was more like they attempted one bazooka shot apiece.

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Earlier that afternoon, some people who did trade punches – literally – were the members of the Sur Oscura, Barcelona’s famous fan group, during the season’s first home game (against Macará). Due to the violence, the game was suspended by the referee.

The episode is being depicted by the foreign and domestic presses as a shameful one for Ecuadorian soccer. And I agree. It’s one thing when different teams’ supporters fight. When the conflict is within the fan base … well, it’s disgraceful.

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In the last phase of our sub-20 championship, we Ecuadorians have played to a draw against Brazil, scoring two late penalties; we’ve lost on a foggy night, 4 goals to 2, against Venezuela; and we’ve defeated the Argentinians, 3 to 0. (Clearly, these results have no correlation to how we perform at the senior level.) We’ve yet to play against Colombia and Uruguay. Our objective is to finish no worse than fourth, qualifying for this age group’s World Cup.

My fellow tutors; Spotify; Agatha Christie; the Cloth

Today my fellow IUSB tutors were whining about their classmates. Fortunately, Ana & David had gifted Spotify to me, and I’d brought earbuds. Soon I was enjoying sweet respite:

On the day I was born,
The nurses all gathered ’round,
And they gazed in wide wonder
At the joy they had found.
The head nurse spoke up,
Said, “Leave this one alone!”
She could tell right away
That I was bad to the bone.

Then one of the tutors picked up The Secret of Chimneys and made as if to read it. I almost jumped out of my chair. Should I say something? Probably not.

“I was just thinking about that very book!” I said, removing one earbud. “Just now, while walking to work! What an amazing coincidence!”

“I’m reading my way through Agatha Christie,” she said.

“That book is good, but the sequel is really good!” I said. (The sequel is The Seven Dials Mystery.)

“I like this one,” she replied. “It’s one of her earlier works.”

“She wrote, like, a million books,” put in the other tutor. “Have you seen the episode of Doctor Who that has Agatha Christie in it?”

The tutor who was reading Chimneys responded approvingly. Their conversation was thus rekindled. I put my earbud back in. I blamed myself for this turn of events.

“She wrote all her books upon a typewriter,” said the tutor who wasn’t reading Chimneys. (That was the final tidbit that reached me.)

As I again listened to “Bad to the Bone,” my thoughts returned to the possibility of becoming a chaplain. The other day I was on a university website, looking at faculty and staff vacancies, and one of them was for University Chaplain. It struck me that, as an educated, faith-filled person, I could meet most of the qualifications for the job. (I’d just need to get a Master of Divinity degree first.) Another Internet search revealed that there is quite a demand for chaplains.

I recalled that one of my own cousins had been thinking of becoming a chaplain. I, personally, had never much considered taking up the Cloth, but in these hard times, one must be willing to do all sorts of things.

A while ago, I said to Karin, “What if I were to become a minister?” (I’d been reading Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope.)

“No!” she said. She didn’t relish the prospect of becoming a minister’s wife.

“What if,” I said, “I did it as a joint venture with another minister who has a wife? She could do your duties. And the other minister and I could take turns at the pulpit – one week, he’d preach the Sermon, and the next, I’d preach the Refutation.”

Karin didn’t think much of this plan, either.