And in International News . . .

I promised awhile back to start adding more of an international flavor to my blog. I haven't kept up with international news as well as I had hoped. But then again, I haven't kept up with national news as well as I had hoped, either.

But, reading this book asking wondering just how stupid are American voters has encouraged me again to try to understand international events as well as the economy. So here we go.

First up, U.S. defender Oguchi Onyewu is suing an Anderlecht player over an alleged racial insult, hoping the case will help eradicate on-field racist abuse in European soccer. You know I'm a big sports fan. When I played basketball, one of the things I was best at was trash talk. I really didn't want to get into the dozens, though. Just more generic, "Wave to the ball. You won't be seeing it while I'm guarding you." Just thinking about it gives me shivers! But including someone's race in your trash talk is less King Jamesian than just the regular "yo mama" joke. It needs to be stopped. Racialized insults and condescension has a history and it cannot be tolerated. I understand it's hard to control the fans; but it should quite easy work to put players in check.

Next up, and last for the edition (LOL!) is: President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday threatened to sanction private banks that fail to collaborate with his government's regulations as it moves toward a socialist economy. Now, you probably think Chavez is a demagogic prick, and I'm actually leaning in that direction. But you can't really question the logic here. His issue, as I understand it, is not private banks earning a profit - that's what banks do. It's how the stay in business and "pay" depositors for use of their money. His problem, as I understand it, is banks making sick amounts of money while regular people suffer. And I think if we in the US had the same sort of courage to tell bankers not to screw us, our economy would be doing a lot better how.