Where We Are This Week 08/18/23
Wildfires in Hawaii, the return of soccer, and how to spot a dog.
One of the developments that amazed me watching my niece when she was younger was how early on she was capable of abstract thought. I remember her identifying an object in real life that she had only seen in illustrations - I don’t recall what it was but that’s irrelevant - and not being sure what actually was going on there. As time went on, it was pretty clear she had honed in on that technique.
I realize now that more specifically, that skill is pattern recognition.
My little girl is doing it, now. She knows that our dog is a dog, and when she sees a cartoon dog in one of her books, she can correctly identify it. She also thinks all bears are dogs, and everything else is a cat. Baby steps, right?
But it’s not just animals, it’s little things you wouldn’t think of - or I wouldn’t think of - like bottles and caps. It doesn’t matter what type of bottle - water, medicine or otherwise - how disparate their appearances are, or what we’re doing with them, she knows that the lid unscrews. She also knows she would like you to unscrew it, and she’d like you to do that now.
I thought that particular mental development would occur a little bit later than it does but - I’m an idiot sometimes - it’s apparent to me now that it’s one of the most fundamental skills we employ as humans. So much so, we do it unconsciously. Our brain is constantly filling in the gaps for what we can’t see or don’t have time to inspect - that’s the same as recognizing a cat in real life and identifying a figurative or representative image as feline.
Visually, that’s great. But where things get trickier is recognizing patterns in human behavior. I think, whether they realize it or not, the powers that be rely on our general inability to discern repeated behaviors when they’re abstracted to different mediums over longer lengths of time so that the status quo isn’t disrupted. It’s only when the deja vu gets too strong to deny that things start to get a little dicey.
But the patterns are there, my friends. From the battle of Thermopile to the Kokoda Track campaign of WWII, from the New York Times lying about the abhorrent conditions of the USSR to the denial of the reality of a ‘lab leak’, the patterns are there.
We just have to know where to look, and more importantly, when to call a dog a dog.
Are you ready for some football?
Are you looking for something to do on the weekends for the next ten months of your life? Are you excited about the inevitable comparisons I will draw between life and sport? Are you champing at the bit for the greatest unscripted televised comedic drama?
Well, do I have great news for you. European football is back.
After a short summer break - which to me feels like an eternity - the 2023-2024 season of association football started anew in earnest last weekend.
Yes, this summer has been replete with the usual suspects, the grand tours of professional cycling and Formula 1, but even as those spectacular events unfolded, my attention was always slightly held by the speculation of the transfer market and the coming football season.
Summer vacations away from football are glorious. It’s a time of speculative splendor where you’re allowed to dream untethered to reality about the fortunes of your football club; where every few minutes there’s a new transfer rumor that sends you into a spiral of conjecture wondering if, this time, one of the world’s greatest players will join the team you support and you can only imagine the successes they will bring. Of course, it hardly ever works out like that - but there’s really no point in sleeping without dreaming, right?
This summer saw the likes of Lionel Messi - of whom some would say, and I might say reluctantly, is the greatest footballer of all time - move stateside to MLS’s Inter Miami. Messi has spent the subsequent weeks reminding all of us of the magic he’s still immensely capable of conjuring and that quite literally, we’re not worthy.
David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney - and even Pelé - all came to the United States in the twilights of their respective, immaculate careers and proceeded to tower above, in stature and talent, the domestic players of Major League Soccer. All of them did wonders for the American soccer brand; at once promoting our upstart league and displaying the giant gulf of performance between North America and Europe.
However, something about Messi coming to Miami this summer feels different. Fresh off his first ever World Cup win, the Argentinian could have played for any club in the world, but instead, the 36-year-old chose to move himself and his family to Florida - of all places - to play for Inter Miami, a club that is owned by the aforementioned David Beckham. Messi’s displays have been so dominating that one of my close friends has been routinely messaging me with highlights so that we can laugh at the absurdity of it all.
But, the other headline of the summer, is the Saudi Pro League. The league was established in the mid-70s and up until 2023, had really just consisted of players from Saudi Arabia or other small-market Arab-speaking countries. Last year, however, four of the founding teams of the league were taken over by the nation’s Public Investment Fund, the monarchy’s sovereign wealth fund.
Since the takeover, the aim of these four teams has been to throw ludicrous amounts of cash at the world’s top players in hopes they’ll ditch the traditional venues of competition for their oasis in the Arabian desert. In deciding to come to America, Lionel Messi turned down a potential three-year, $1.6 billion offer from the Arab league. Kylian Mbappé, maybe the world’s biggest star at the moment, has similarly turned down a deal that is reported to be worth up to $1 billion.
Other footballers haven’t been stalwart, though. The past eight months have seen the likes of Karim Benzema, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ruben Neves, and Riyad Mahrez - among dozens of others - make the move to the Arabian peninsula. I can imagine that the deals that were offered were incredibly difficult to pass up. The money alone would be enticing enough, but I would also suspect that the lure to play high-profile football close to Mecca for the many Muslim players in the world would be hard to refuse.
The investment from the Public Investment Fund is part of a broader initiative by the crown prince, the Saudi Vision 2030. The program is intended to diversify the nation’s wealth instead of being solely reliant on the oil industry; hence the Saudi-led takeover of Newcastle United last year and the Machiavellian commandeering of professional golf in the form of LIV Golf.
Saudi Arabia isn’t the only oil-rich nation looking to expand their influence and portfolio, however. Paris Saint-Germain, the biggest club in France and the current team of Mbappé, is owned by the Qatari Royal Investment Fund. Two years ago, there was an attempt to purchase West Ham United by an Azerbaijani-linked consortium, and even now, Manchester United is subject to an ongoing bid for the club by Sheik Jassim, the chairman of the Qatari Islamic Bank.
As I alluded to earlier, I’m not convinced that these investments from Arab states are solely intended to diversify their investment portfolios. While I do recognize that’s a positive side-effect of the purchases, these are predominantly what’s known as ‘sportswashing’ ventures and part of a larger effort to shift global opinions of the states to a more favorable light by capturing some of the most beloved institutions in the world, and relocating the cultural hub of the modern world further East.
Football is never without a compelling storyline, it’s just that this year, the narratives are going well beyond the lines of the pitch - but that’s to be expected as the sport continues to be injected with cash and markets globalize.
But what heartens me, is that there is a whole host of players that aren’t interested in turning into footballing mercenaries, and have elected to fight for glory and passion in the European theatre. Sure, English football isn’t without its own terrible oligarchic owners and it’s not as if they’re playing for a pittance in Europe, but there’s still palpable magic in those stadiums on any given weekend.
Football is best when it is oriented to the spirit of competition and never ceases to inspire those who follow the beautiful game. First and foremost, has always belonged to the people, and as long as the supporters, the managers, and the players commit themselves to those principles, no matter who’s paying the bills, it always will.
Wildfires in Maui
I’m not going to pretend that I understand the full scope of what occurred in Hawaii over the past week while wildfires ravaged the town of Lahaina, Hawaii on the state’s second-largest island.
The fires began on August 8th and continued through late this week; the Lahaina fire specifically, according to the US Fire Administration, has already gone down as the deadliest wildfire disaster in the last century with a death toll already over 100 lives and an estimate of over 1000 citizens still missing.
What is clear, however, is how distant, figuratively and literally, the 50th state is from the mainland. When trying to ascertain what actually happened, what were the successes and failures of the local and federal government during the crisis, it seems as if the information is getting partially lost at sea in the Pacific somewhere. As the news rolls into shore, you can’t help but shake the feeling that it’s coming from a foreign country. And judging by our federal government’s response to the disaster and the suffering of our fellow Americans, they’re treating it as such.
After the wildfires had raged for several days, President Biden, while lounging on vacation on Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, was asked about the rising death toll on the island. To which Biden responded glibly, “No comment.”
Biden’s response is forgivable when you realize he was in a hurry to get back to Camp David to wrap up a meeting with representatives from South Korea and Japan so that he could take his second successive vacation in Lake Tahoe, Nevada this week. It was only after his holiday plans sparked a public outcry that the president slightly altered his plans. President Biden is currently enjoying his stay in Lake Tahoe but will cut it short so that he and the First Lady can visit Maui on Monday.
As an aside, should presidents even get vacations? It seems to me that commander-in-chief ought to be the most grueling, unforgiving four years of a person’s life. You can rest when you lose re-election.
It was also announced that residents of Lahaina that were displaced by the fires would be receiving a one-time relief check of $700. If that sum wasn’t a slap in the face to the thousands of people in Hawaii that have lost loved ones, their homes, and their jobs, let me give even more context to the ‘relief’ effort. On August 10th, the Biden White House requested that Congress send another $40 billion to Ukraine in financial aid earmarked for ‘disaster relief.’
Let’s go one step further. That sum of money would be enough to give over 57,000,000 people a $700 check. Lahaina is a community of about 13,000 residents.
It goes without saying that no amount of money could assuage the grief felt by those who lost friends and family members, but, clearly, a fraction of that payment would do wonders in restoring the community that saw over 2,000 buildings destroyed by the fires.
And this is to say nothing of the immediate response by the local and federal governments. The caveat to my interpretation of how the events unfolded remains that my vantage may be obscured by an ocean and the majority of a continent - but even still, the disaster response appeared to be ramshackle and calamitous.
Emergency sirens never sounded, fire hydrants quickly ran dry, I’ve read reports of evacuation routes being blockaded, those fleeing were directed back towards the flames, and thousands of residents were rendered homeless with nowhere to go. Meanwhile, Hawaii Electric, the company that supplies electricity to the vast majority of the island knew years ago of the wildfire threat their utilities posed but failed to act; focusing instead on a shift to renewables.
The official reason why the emergency sirens didn’t go off was that the officials in charge wouldn’t have wanted civilians to mistake them for a tsunami warning and head to higher ground. Okay, fair enough. But it highlights the issue that in a time of increased drought and wildfire, there was no actual plan in place to deal with an evacuation.
It’s not clear what exactly started the wildfires but speculation has increased that Hawaii Electric’s equipment may have played a part. Videos have surfaced showing power lines sparking and catching grasslands on fire. The company identified this problem back in 2019 as wildfires in the region have been continually increasing, yet, failed to place any level of serious investment in mitigating those dangerous conditions. This is as much of an example of a corporate failure as it is a failure of government oversight.
If we’re honest with ourselves, however, governmental response to a disaster is par for the course at this point. From Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and the chemical spill in East Palestine, government preparation and response have been abysmal. If our leadership can’t accomplish one of the main tasks we ask of it, it must beg the question why have it at all?
Where institutions have fallen short, the people, as always, have stepped up. Local firefighters battled flames on the frontlines as their own homes burned down, nearby islands with impoverished communities have forged a nonstop supply line of goods and supplies to those in need, and residents have taken responsibility for their community and are heading up the distribution of necessities to their neighbors.
The government may disappoint, but the people never do.
You can donate to aid the victims of the Hawaii wildfires here.
To a better next week.
Cheers,
~FDA