In the Wink of a Young Girl's Eye

3 Lessons for the Week

1)If you're a celebrity, and during the course of a day you happen to hear that two other celebrities have died, don't fly, don't take any type of prescription medicine, and certainly don't engage in any "recreational chemistry" with the leading Columbian export not associated with Juan Valdez. In fact, you probably just want to, in the words of Ron Burgundy, "lay low for a while".

2)Beginning with the understanding that neither political party can reasonably claim to be THE only party of "family values", I'm pretty sure that if the G.O.P. wants to continue to make that claim in the 2010 and 2012 elections, they probably need to make sure that they inform some of their more prominent leaders that monogamy is usually one of those things that people usually refer to when they throw around the phrase "family values".

I'm a life-long conservative, but there have been a number of points in the last 9 years that I've tried to explain to people that you can be conservative while also daily loathing what the Republican party has become. I'm not sure what the lowest historical ebb is for the Republican party, but the current edition has to come pretty darn close to that mark.

3) As flawed as sports are, they have this capacity to surprise me that I suppose I will always find appealing. Ever since becoming a devoted soccer fan in the last few years, I've read as much as I could about the sport (big surprise there, huh?) and tried to follow the game with a real desire to understand its appeal on a global level.

With that said, in the run-up to last Wednesday's match between the U.S.A. and Spain down in South Africa, I must admit that found myself more interested in a Spanish victory, if only because the Spanish team features a number of Liverpool players that I follow on a much more frequent basis than anyone on the U.S. squad. In spite of that Benedict Arnold predisposition, and in spite my large doubts on the chances of the men in the Red, White, and Blue, I must say that I was quite pleased to see the response they delivered on a cold night in Bloemfontein.

On Sunday, since my Mom will be in town, I don't think I'll be able to watch the Final between the U.S. and Brazil, but given the very positive coverage that Wednesday's victory is receiving in the media, this Sunday's match does feel like a building block towards a more substantial footing for U.S. Soccer in the approach to next year's World Cup in South Africa.