Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Good Golly Ms. Mali The opening ceremonies for the 2004 Athens Olympics will be broadcast in the USA on Friday night, but the games themselves have already begun. Today, I watched a men's soccer game between Mexico and Mali.  It was shown on Telemundo.  One of the announcers was Andres Cantor, originator of the much-imitated and much-derided cry, "Gooooooaaaaaaal!" Viewers were spared the pleasure of hearing him do this, since the game ended in a 0-0 tie. With their yellow and green uniforms, their dashiki-clad coach, and their melodious names (e.g. Mamadou Diallo), the Malians bring a lot of flair to the game.  It belies the misery in which much of Africa finds itself these days.  I wonder whether there is some African equivalent -- with reference to the IMF and the World Bank -- of what Porfirio Diaz once said: "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States." Before the game, there was much blathering by the announcers about Greece being "La tierra de los dioses" (Land of the Gods) and "La cuna de la civilizacion" (The cradle of civilization). It sounds just as vacuous in Spanish as in English.  It would probably sound no better in Greek either. But will the Greek Gods, in all their munificence, disburse enough drachmas from their treasure troves to rescue the Greek taxpayers from what is shaping up as a financial catastrophe (the latter word survives from classical Greek) of Olympic proportions? 11:29:21 AM