Did you know that...

Nepal has been going through a civil war for eight years?

I like to consider myself fairly informed. Surely, I am not the most up-to-date guy on the block but I know more about the world than your average Joe. But I had no idea that there was a civil war going on in Nepal and that it has been raging for eight years. I read this story in the New York Times.

10,600 people have died and according to the article, tens of thousands of children have been abducted and forced into indoctrination camps by Maoist rebels fighting the government. Democracy was introduced in 1990, and in 1996 the rebels took up arms. Maoists occupy 2/3 of the country and have blockaded capital Kathmandu for months.

It ain't easy being at the top

Working in London, I get a number of light-hearted anti-American forwards. There have been a couple going around the office in the past few weeks, precipitated, I assume, by the reelection of President Bush. The first one was quite funny; apparently it is a modified form of an original piece by John Cleese. It says something along the lines of the Crown will reestablish rule of the United States. The usual stuff: American English vs English English, American football vs world football, etc.

There followed a rebuttal by a witty American. And then there was a children rebuttal to the rebuttal, which was, at best, idiotic.

But let me say something about the sports stuff.

Yes, we play a sport called football which is unlike the sport of the same name that the rest of the world plays. But, Australians have their own football which is not too unlike American football and no one complains about that.

Yes, our football players are covered in padding. But cricketers wear three-feet high bamboo ankle, shin, knee and thigh pads and a face mask and a helmet and finger guards and soccer players wear shin guards yet they cry and flail on the ground every time they get kicked.

Yes, we play a sport called baseball that culminates in the World Series. But, the Major League Baseball gathers the best players from around the world to play in the United States. There are players from many Asian nations and almost every South American, Latin American and Carribean country.

As my friend Josh says, the rest of the world should be happy that we don't play more sports than we already do! Isn't also true that when it comes to sports, the ones that we do play, we win almost all the time? Look at the 2004 Olympics. No one came close to our accomplishments. We had more gold medals than all but five countries had total medals. We are a little less accomplished at the winter Olympic sports, but we came in second in the medals table, winning 34 (next to Germany's 35).

Even in the football World Cup, we managed to scrape by into the quarter finals. I mean, that put us into the last 8. We were grouped with Portugal (who went on to place second in Euro2004) and South Korea (who placed 4th overall in World Cup 2002). I mean, it isn't like we were playing against Saudi Arabia (0-3) or Solvenia (0-3).

All this, and we don't even like soccer! Image what it would be like if we had the entire country playing soccer.

So, scoff all you want. Make your childish little barbs. Take issue with us all you want. I know, deep down, that what really bothers these people is that the US reigns supreme when it comes to producing sports stars and terrific athletes.

The wise, departing words of Tommy Thompson

Hey, thanks, Tommy!

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, announced Friday that he was resigning, and he expressed grave concern about the threat of a global flu epidemic and the possibility of a terrorist attack on the nation's food supply.

"For the life of me," he said, "I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do."