The REAL difference between futbol and football: Soccer hoodlums form organized crime rings, the NFL just recruits hoodlums

A high-level soccer official in Uruguay said recently that the country's organized fan clubs have begun operating like criminal organizations, indicating the evolution of these so-called "barras bravas" mirrors that of their counterparts in neighboring Argentina.  The barras bravas "have transformed themselves into true cartels that even fight for [control of] territory and the criminal activity they are involved in," said Rafael Peña, head of security for the Uruguayan Soccer Association (Asociación Uruguaya de Fútbol - AUF). Peña made the remarks during a hearing before Uruguay's Parliament in early February, reported El País.  Insight Crime

Goes well with fava beans and a nice chianti

Duterte on terrorists: I'll eat their liver.  The Philippine president has warned that he can be 50 times more brutal than Muslim extremists, saying he'd even eat them if they're captured alive by troops.  President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death, but he raised his shock rhetoric to a new level on Sunday when he said in a speech during the opening of a national sports tournament what he could do to terrorists who have staged beheadings and other gruesome attacks.   News24

'Oh, you were serious about that?'

An international rights group says dozens of global clothing companies are not complying with a plan to ensure better safety in Bangladesh garment factories following the deadly collapse of a building four years ago.  Human Rights Watch said in a report Monday that only 29 out of 72 recently contacted companies are releasing information about how they source their products in Bangladesh. It said many brands have held out completely.  Associated Press

How refreshing -- old fashioned cops and robbers violence, no ideologies, no hate crimes...

In case you're new to sarcasm, this still sucks.

Three Seattle police officers were shot and injured during an exchange of gunfire with a suspect, who later died, after a robbery at a downtown convenience store.  Three people are suspected in the Thursday robbery at a 7-Eleven store near Pioneer Square, the city's oldest neighborhood, said Deputy Police Chief Carmen Best.  Associated Press​ 

She's a bad mama-jama -- we just won't say how bad

US won’t reveal ‘mother of all bombs’ toll.  The ear-splitting explosion from America’s “mother of all bombs” has been followed by calculated silence about the damage it inflicted.  U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday he does not intend to discuss damage estimates from last week’s use of the military’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State stronghold in Afghanistan.   WTOP  

Yes, that's why the UN has not been allowed to investigate...

Syria formally asks UN to probe chemical attack.  Syrian President Bashar Assad says the Syrian government has formally approached the United Nations, asking it to send in the experts to investigate the April 4 suspected chemical attack.  Assad said in an interview with the Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency on Thursday that the U.N. has not sent anyone yet and blamed Western nations and the United States in particular for not allowing the experts to travel to Syria.   WTOP

Diplo-what???

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday that Syria had dispersed its warplanes in recent days and that it retained chemical weapons, an issue he said would have to be taken up diplomatically.  The United States launched dozens of missiles earlier this month against a Syrian air base in response to a chemical attack that killed 90 people, including 30 children. It says the Syrian government launched the attack from the Shayrat air base.  Reuters

Numbers may not lie, but sometimes they stun

Where USG money comes from (hint: it's mostly peons!) and where it goes: USAFacts And read this article for info on how this came about (a smart rich dude with time on his hands who wanted to prove his wife wrong about social spending -- he didn't, btw) and how you can use it: Steve Ballmer Serves Up a Fascinating Data Trove

'Now could you just give me all of your personal information -- for your own protection, of course?'

Homeland Security hotline number used in phone scam. A fraud alert has been issued by the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Inspector General after scammers altered caller ID systems to make it appear they were calling from an official phone number. The callers claimed to be from “U.S. Immigration,” told victims they had been affected by identity theft, and then asked victims to provide or confirm personal information. The calls were made to appear as if they were coming from the hotline number for Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, 1-800-323-8603. (The office is the department’s independent oversight arm, and the hotline is used to receive calls about fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement.) “This came to our attention from individuals who had actually been victims of this scam,” said the office’s Diana Shaw. She said the hotline received a flood of calls in mid-March, with the callers asking why they had been contacted and asked personal questions. People throughout the country were targeted.WTOP

'Maybe I will let you send me to Mexican jail, maybe I won't...'

Mexican ex-governor stalls fast-track extradition from Guatemala.  Javier Duarte, the former state governor of Mexico's ruling party who was arrested in Guatemala at the weekend, said in court on Wednesday he would not agree to be extradited until his lawyers were able to study a formal extradition request.  "At this time, I can't agree (to extradition) until the formal extradition request arrives, and it can be studied by my defense team" said Duarte. "This doesn't mean I won't accept it, though."  Reuters

Ditto

Russia denies it is moving troops close to North Korea.  Russian authorities are denying reports that they are moving troops to the border with North Korea over growing tensions in the Korean peninsula.  The Interfax news agency on Friday quoted Alexander Gordeyev, spokesman for the Far Eastern Military district, as saying that the movement of heavy weaponry, caught on film and widely distributed on social media, is part of “absolutely scheduled maneuvers of combat readiness.” Gordeyev said the military hardware was on its way back from drills elsewhere and denied any connection to the tensions around North Korea’s nuclear program   WTOP

Nothing to see here...

No reason to believe gays abused in Chechnya.  Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says the Russian president has no reason to disbelieve the Chechen leader’s assurances that reports of detentions and killings of gay men in Chechnya have no basis in fact.  Dmitry Peskov also told journalists on Thursday that investigators have found no evidence to back up reports by the respected newspaper Novaya Gazeta that police in the predominantly Muslim republic rounded up more than 100 men suspected of homosexuality and that at least three of them were killed.   WTOP

Super-something...

North Korea warns of 'super-mighty preemptive strike' as U.S. plans next move.  North Korean state media warned the United States of a "super-mighty preemptive strike" after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States was looking at ways to bring pressure to bear on North Korea over its nuclear programmer.  U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a hard line with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has rebuffed admonitions from sole major ally China and proceeded with nuclear and missile programmed in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.  Reuters  Perhaps inspired by:  https://www.mightytaco.com/OurFood  (check out the super-mighty taco -- mmmm!)

Shaping young minds, for good or ill

Anger, confusion as Japan revives militaristic edict.  Japan's century-old imperial proclamation urging people to be willing to die for the emperor was consigned to history books until video surfaced showing children in an Osaka kindergarten enthusiastically reciting it.   News24

I had not considered this angle

Trump, the second horseman of the apocalypse

Donald Trump did not even wait three months into his term to show signs that he may be the imperial character referred to in the Apocalypse because he has already put world peace in jeopardy by attacking Syria, and then bombing Afghanistan. He has also said he could attack North Korea. CoLatino

Because Nigeria doesn't have more important things to worry about

Nigeria 'gay wedding' bust leads to charges. Prosecutors in the northern Nigeria state of Kaduna have charged a group of 53 people with conspiring to celebrate a gay wedding.  The accused, arrested last Saturday, have denied the allegations, with their lawyers saying they were illegally detained.  The court released the group on bail and the case was remanded to 8 May.  BBC

Trying something new

Oh, my blog, how I have missed thee.  My grown-up job still discourages writing about myself, but I realized the other day that news headlines are WAY more interesting than my life anyhow.  So I'm going to share some tidbits from here, with a bit of my own snark thrown in -- b/c, ya know, it just wouldn't be my blog without some snark...

So maybe this is it....?

A few years ago, I came across a two-page essay I had written in my junior-year history class.  The grade was an A, but the comment was something to the effect of, 'Surely, Julie, this is too cynical, even for you.  You can't really believe this, do you?'  And a few years ago I looked at that with some blushing and thought, 'Wow.  I was pretty cheeky/sassy/full of it.'

But now, I think that perspective, the one I wrote so long ago while, so full of unfounded (in that I had had little first-hand experience) cynicism may have had the right idea.  I still blush to think about the strictly negative view I took at that time -- I have since come to appreciate small victories in a way that was foreign at that moment -- but I have also come full-circle, through up-close and personal experience, to think that I was not so far off the mark.  But now instead of feeling smart, as I did then, I feel tired.  I do not want to think that I am so often right about the things I know so much about now, from academic study and personal experience.  I take no comfort in my correct assessment.

So I now do the best I can, waiting for a moment to make a difference.  And while things are not at all bad, I am awful enough to wish for more.  But even more often, I wish I could write more.

City Rats and Inappropriate Office Behavior

The other day as I was walking into the building, I encountered some incredibly bizarre elevator etiquette, which reminded me of two other stories I've been meaning to post.

It's Not a Now-or-Never Thing...
The other morning, I was talking to Stephane on the phone as I came into my office building.  I went through security, waited for the elevator, and got on board.  Just before the doors closed, a very tall, very young man jumped (truly) on to the elevator and proceeded to physically barge into me in his hurry to push the button for his floor.  I laughed immediately b/c I was so surprised at being bum-rushed on a State Department elevator, but I was still talking to Stephane, so I looked up at the guy with a clear 'You are a nutjob' expression and pointed at the other side of the elevator door -- where there is a second keypad (i.e., this dude could easily have just pushed a button over there and gotten to his destination without running me over).  He looked at the keypad and looked back at me, still standing sort of close, and said, 'Oh.  Sorry -- I guess I was a little too excited.'  Because I am reasonably sure this person was an intern, I decided not to be too mean and just laughed at him again.

It's Not a Peephole
A few months ago, I was in the ladies room, doing what one does in the bathroom.  I heard someone come into the bathroom and attempt to open my stall door (which was, of course, locked).  Since there were two other unoccupied stalls available, I assumed the person would move on when they realized my stall was occupied.  Imagine my surprise, then, when I looked up to see an eyeball peering through the crack between the stall door and the wall!  The person said, 'OH!  Sorry,' and moved on to the next stall.  Just goes to show that passing a background check is not evidence of being a normal human being.

I Hate College Kids on the Sidewalk, Too.
Late last summer, I was taking my usual route from the office to the Metro, via the GWU campus.  Which really just means I was walking through the streets of DC near my office, but since the campus is in the middle of Foggy Bottom, all pedestrians must suffer the throngs of college kids milling around the sidewalk.  Apparently, the rats suffer, too.  And one of them had had enough.  As I was walking up the street, I saw a young college woman jogging and, just ahead of her, I saw what I thought was a squirrel with a tail problem. As I got closer, I saw that it was in fact a rat, which was sort of interesting b/c I had never seen a rat just out on the sidewalk like that.  The girl jogger kept coming, the rat maintained his ground, and either girl jogger didn't notice the rat, or she thought he would move (I did), but either way, she just kept coming.  Just as she reached the point where the rat needed to move or risk getting squashed, he jumped -- *toward*girl*jogger*.  Not in a rabid, trying-to-bite way, but just in a I-was-here-first-and-I'm-not-scurrying-into-that-bush way.  Girl jogger squealed and executed a highly entertaining series of hops and flails, while the rat gave chase for a good 5 feet or so, much to the delight of everyone except girl jogger.  His job done, the rat finally did scurry into the bushes and, I presume, spent a happy evening tell all of his rat friends what he'd been up to. 

Striking a balance

One of the less attractive aspects of my new job: I am severely constrained in what I can post or otherwise write publicly.  (I am, however, happier than ever that I am not on Facebook -- there are a surprising number of stories of people in this job having issues b/c of things they posted on The Facebook...I mean, we all went through the crazy vetting process and were selected partly because of our ability to be discreet and, ya know, appropriate, but...)  I would say on average, there are no fewer than three moments per workweek where something happens and all I can think is, 'Oh, my gosh, I wish I could write about this!!' but I can't, for whatever reason(s).

I think my response to this rather uncomfortable leash has been to avoid my blog entirely, but I am going to work on getting that balance right, on writing about things that are interesting, but cannot be considered objectionable.  (I imagine that elicited quite a snort from some readers... heh.)
On a better note, I know where I am heading next: Tijuana, Mexico.  Yes, that *is* better than my current DC  assignment.  Well, for me it is, anyhow.  My desire to reconnect with my home country has been more than fully sated and I am ready to get back into other parts of the world.  And since I seem drawn to, er, 'interesting' places, I think TJ will be a nice fit.  Plus, it is right on the water and the security situation is currently good enough to allow us to explore the surrounding Mexican wine country, as well as the Baja California Peninsula (taquerias and tequila on the beach!).  San Diego is only 20 minutes away (when the border is cooperative), so we can also get to know California a bit better, Stephane should be able to find some decent job options, and we will always be able to shop at Trader Joe's!  Oh, and no winter!!  Fabulous.  Now I just have to learn Spanish...