The Insurgency in Seattle

For months now, many of us who care deeply about our city ("Civic Seattle") have been trying to put our finger on the pulse of the new administration.  And so far, we can't seem to find a heartbeat.  There may be several reasons for this but local pundit David Brewster (still an east coast transplant after 40 years) recently told that bastion of business and commerce leaders, the Downtown Rotary, what he thinks is happening...and, for the most part, I have to agree.  David and I have worked together for years and he has always tried his best to be the voice of the alternative view. Today, he is using http://www.crosscut.com/ as his mouthpiece and here is an excerpt from his current take on our fair city...alternative or not, there's a lot of truth in it.  Granted, this is local politics but Seattle is on the national scene now and we're not San Francisco 20 years ago. David is making unbiased sense...for once, at least.

"A year ago, probably many (including me) would have felt that Seattle politics was very stable. Mayor Greg Nickels had put together a traditional political coalition of developers, unions, big business interests, municipal employees, and environmentalists, leaving only neighborhood groups and deep-greens on the outs. Then suddenly, voters gave the two-term mayor a pink slip, as he finished third in the primary to two unknowns.

What happened? Nickels was an inside mayor, liked at city hall and good in deal-making but not well connected with the public. Another factor was Obama’s campaign a year before, which drew many young people into politics and trained them in the new, social-media aspects of highly targeted politics. Many flocked to the Mike McGinn campaign, and then on into his administration, which retains the feeling of a youthful crusade, cheerfully defying their unbelieving elders.

“Authenticity” is a key value for these young voters, who are deeply cynical about conventional politics and super-quick at detecting phoniness. Accordingly, Mayor Mike dresses casually, hangs out with young crowds at the Crocodile, and does seemingly outrageous things like dissing Steve Ballmer or ignoring the protocol for state-of-the city addresses. These things send powerful messages of insurgency and genuineness.

McGinn, more than most politicians around here, grasps that Seattle has changed dramatically in the last 10-15 years, becoming a McGinn kind of town. Seattle had been, during the long Cold War boom that greatly favored the region and its economy, a classic "city of the last move." People moved here in mid-career, psychologically considering Seattle a place to settle down, to join civic organizations, to get involved in local schools. They were the ones who took the legendary fork on the Oregon Trail west — the one leading to farmland, not gold fields. And they built, particularly in the 1970s and 80s, an admirably civic-minded culture, what I call Civic Seattle.

Well, Seattle is now a classic "city of the first move." As they do with New York and San Francisco and LA, restless young people move here right out of college. They want to hang out in a cool city with lots of starter jobs and other young people and nightlife. Psychologically, they are not really intending to stay so much as to get launched. Last-move cities build solid middle class neighborhoods, jobs, and institutions. First-move cities draw an irreverent, disruptive, geeky “creative class.” They are the footloose foot soldiers of an innovation economy.

And that’s produced the major fault line in our region and our politics: the tension between an Innovation Economy and a somewhat dispirited Civic Seattle. Bridging this gap is the challenge and opportunity of the day. That’s my theme in this essay.

Thanks largely to Microsoft, this region massively put its eggs in the new economy and the young workforce it requires. The transformation has been especially dramatic and swift in Seattle. Only a generation ago, we were the most middle-class large city in America. Now we are a city with a disproportionately high number of well-educated, young, detached newcomers. We are San Francisco.

Here are a few figures to demonstrate how extreme a case Seattle has become, how far the pendulum has swung.

 Our average household size is now 2.08, well below the national average of 2.61 and lower even than San Francisco’s (2.24).

 The percentage of families with kids is 19 percent, while the national average is 31and San Francisco’s is 18.

 The percentage of non-family or unmarried households is 55 percent, compared to the national average of 33 percent.

 53 percent of Seattle adults have a college degree, highest in the nation and 20 points above the national average of 33 percent.

 Lastly, 31 percent of the Seattle population has lived in the city for five years or less; only Austin, Texas has a higher number, and it’s 32 percent.

Welcome to the Next Seattle. Smart, unmoored, mobile, young, liberal in politics. (Interestingly, the demographic portrait of towns surrounding Seattle is very close to the national norms.) So, Civic Seattle, picture a speeding bicyclist passing you as you sit in your Lexus SUV at a long red light. And maybe giving you the finger.

Such rapid demographic change has finally caught up with our slow-to-change political order. Suddenly coming to power, this new elite finds the fading regime too fond of cars, too slow in addressing climate change, too cozy with established ways of doing things. As one friend in the McGinn shop enjoys telling me, I’m Microsoft. Mayor Mike’s Apple.

In short, Mayor McGinn is no fluke. And his politics,as well as McGinn himself, are likely here to stay. These politics are impatient, oppositional, anti-suburban, deep green. They have only the slightest ties to unions, to big vested interests like the University of Washington or Microsoftor city hall and its rule-bound workers. Just as previous insurgencies used the Pike Place Market and the Commons and the R.H. Thomson Expressway as wedge issues in assuming power and as organizational tools to rally the young troops, so this rising counter-elite uses the deep-bore waterfront tunnel as a big fat symbol of auto-worshipping old-think.

Our version of evolution is more like punctuated equilibrium, where we jump to a new plateau rather suddenly.

A critical question is whether the McGinn insurgency will have staying power, or whether it will provoke a return to the political consensus Seattle has enjoyed since 1970. I’m pretty fond of that old order, having chronicled it and cheered it on for decades. Develop the arts, make a major research university, build a lively downtown, create fine urban neighborhoods to hold the middle class, cherish diversity, rescue old buildings like Town Hall, and keep plugging away at reforming our schools and building transit.

It’s a good record, but viewed by this Next Seattle, it’s not good enough, not contemporary enough. Where’s the extensive rail transit? Where’s the global leadership to a post-carbon economy? Where are the switched-on schools? Where’s the living arts scene, as opposed to a museumized culture? Why, above all, such complacency?

The key issue around which this new politics turns is climate change, and what we can do about it locally and in our daily lives. To its credit, this new political order doesn't want to keep biding its time, accepting tiny gains. Consider, for instance, the longtime goal of Civic Seattle to stop sprawl and build up a high-interaction, culturally rich downtown. The record is not very good. The Downtown Seattle Association recently reported that Seattle has lost 30,000 jobs in the past decade, 21,000 of them from the core city. We are very late in building rail transit, maybe too late. Or look at this measure, the percentage of all jobs in a region more than 10 miles outside of the central business district. Of the 45 largest American cities, Seattle (56 percent outside 10 miles) comes in 10th worst. "

By David Brewster

Trial by fire

Crisis Communications has been part of my professional life for as long as I can remember. On my first corporate job, I walked into a work stoppage (strike to those of us not in a union) that almost crippled an iconic Midwestern manufacturing company. It ended mercifully just before they had to close the doors. NBC’s Jane Pauley was one of the local reporters (before she joined NBC) that I had to speak with every day for months. She was new to the news game and had never covered a strike before. Good thing I knew her from college. For both of us, it was a trial by fire… but that’s the only way to learn this business. It’s strenuous and stressful and even scary sometimes. Like many jobs, you have to have the right temperament to be good at it. Since then, I’ve counseled numerous corporations and their executives, sports stars, politicians, non-profit organizations, two Presidents and the Dalai Lama. I’ve now taught crisis communications at the University of Washington for 20 years. The all-day crisis communication workshop is consistently the highest rated single class session in the year-long curriculum. It’s the day when the students feel the pressure and the stress. They come prepared for anything and, thanks to my role-playing friends, they are never completely ready for the communications challenges they are faced with…because that’s the reality of crisis communications…trial by fire.




I have just finished writing an email to a New York Times reporter named Peter S. Goodman. His article in last Sunday’s Times is better than any textbook I have ever seen on this subject. He’s got great material to work with from BP, Toyota and Goldman Sachs. But he gets under the skin of the public face of those companies. And through the eyes of the internal communications chiefs and several experienced outside professionals, he paints a very vivid picture, good and bad, of the impact of this profession on business today. Much of the interpretation and advice in this article are things I have told clients and even some of you who read these blogs. But it never hits home until it happens to you or until a reporter gets to the heart of it and nails it. Kudos to Peter Goodman for masterfully presenting our business in a way that can be understood by many for what it is…artful communication…and remember there’s good art and there’s bad art. If you have the time, read this and read all of it.  It's what I do.  Enjoy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/business/22crisis.html?scp=1&sq=crisis%20communications&st=Search

Sure, you remember the World Cup...South Africa and those crazy horns

That swarm of bees buzzing on our television in June and July is quiet now. Unless you pull out your own personal “vuvuzela” and give it a toot (I do every once in a while), World Cup Fever is subsiding. South Africa’s big coming-out party was the second event in a year full of world-class extravaganzas for us. It began with the Vancouver Olympics and now we move on to the World Expo in Shanghai, which has already reached a full head of steam.

My good fortune of working on the world stage for many years now has drawn us together with exceptional colleagues and wonderful friends everywhere. And it is those relationships that have guided us into these high profile international happenings. South Africa is perfect case in point.

Twenty years ago, I made my first trip to South Africa. I remember when changing planes in Johannesburg, you had to go through an x-ray machine. Next to the machine, on a steel table, was a grey plastic box like the one’s we’re all used to now for our shoes, laptops, coats and all. The stenciled sign on the box read “Deposit all weapons here”. And the box was perpetually full. Hand guns, knives, machetes, cartridge clips, even steel-tipped darts. Virtually every local that walked through was carrying a weapon of some sort. Unbelievable, I thought at the time! They were handed back to the owner at the other end of the flight…but they were on board with us.

Fortunately, that doesn’t happen anymore. Well past the turn of the century, I made yearly trips to South Africa. I was there just before, during and right after Nelson Mandela was elected president. A few years later, I made the trip to Pretoria. We pulled up, just like Matt Damon in the movie “Invictus” did, to have our audience with the president and his national head of sport at the Capitol. I can still smell the purple-flowered Jacaranda trees in full bloom as we walked in. We were the first international sporting event to be hosted by South Africa after the election. It was an exciting time.

The lasting friendships I’ve made there over the past two decades are very special to me. They have taught me so much about their country and life in a society that we outsiders are still struggling to understand. They’ve exposed me to the beauty of their land, the warm graciousness and hospitality of the people, as well as the sadness, violence and poverty that continue to plague them in many places.

My friends are also very well connected…and so, just as I did in Beijing with the Olympics, when South Africa got the nod, I sent an email telling them that I wanted to share the experience anyway I could. You might guess that they pulled me into all the action from every angle…right down to “tweeting” minute to minute from the stands during several of the matches. As you can see, I’ve even made a personal contribution to their economy by owning every possible piece of World Cup merchandise that was offered at the stadiums.

My insider’s view began with the building of the stadiums, the airports and the transport systems. The locals were skeptical themselves that they could pull it off but the infrastructure came together to make it happen. My good friend in the health care business had three hospitals in her region chosen as FIFA hospitals. During the 18 months prior to the World Cup, disaster plans were developed for all based on the New York City model, post-911. These related directly to the crisis work that we're being asked to do on a regular basis.

I got an intimate look at sponsorships including VISA’s prime involvement. Their link with Castrol put VISA in a position to use ticket promotions at the retail level, which resulted in increases from 40% to 300% in various markets. They were also able to get good outdoor trade exchanges from many shopping centers. However, it was interesting to see that banks, consumer goods and even some other gasoline retailers were able to put ticket promotions together without paying any sponsorship fees by having their customers spend with a VISA credit or debit card. Without the option of offering tickets, MasterCard and American Express were really never able to compete.

From opening day to the final match it was “absolutely electrifying…the people, the flags and the vuvuzelas were just impossible to beat,” according to one of my local compadres, “Such a special time in our lives”. Even the personal tragedy in Nelson Mandela’s family could not diminish the enthusiasm of the natives of his country when the cameras rolled for the month-long event. It was an education for the rest of the world. When I met him last in Seattle a few years ago, President Mandela was receiving an honorary degree. I was representing one of our local community colleges and he said to me, “You know that education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” That statement could not be more true than for the power and influence of South Africa’s World Cup.

The championship drew a global audience 7 times larger than the Super Bowl. Futbol (soccer to us in America)is an amazingly democratic game. It can be played anywhere and the pitch (the field) is always level…literally and figuratively. It is a game that helps raise the standards for education and encourages youth to work together. This World Cup did all that and more. It helped free a country from a false impression.

So much was right about South Africa’s World Cup. The people there worked together to make it a huge success. One of today’s greatest players, Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o is quoted as saying “Success is much more than a question of quality…it’s a question of heart.” That’s true of the game and of the South African people.

To Susan, Howard, Ian, Rob, Grant and Margaret, my deepest heartfelt thanks for sharing this World Cup experience with me… for all you’ve taught me over the years…for all you’ve helped me see…for the compassion, friendship and understanding you’ve shown. You have my undying gratitude and love…for you and your magnificent country. YOUR World Cup was a vision of the future for all of us. Ngiyabonga!

Dan Mc

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
Nelson Mandela

And The Tony Award goes to...

The 5th Avenue Theatre is a jewel in America's musical theatre crown. It truly represents the heart and soul of Seattle. My long time association with this institution as a consultant, advisor and board member has been among my most rewarding activities. I have gone through the growing pains, the difficult financial times along with the rebirth, rejuvenation and great successes. Long-time managing director Marilynn Sheldon found Executive Producer and Artistic Director David Armstrong to form the team that has propelled the theatre into the 21st Century. First they brought Hairspray to us and we launched it on to Broadway with great success. Now Producing Partners Kenny and Marleen Alhadeff have drawn us into association with Memphis, a spectacular new musical that has taken Broadway by storm this summer. We walked this completely original production through every step from birth to the New York stage. And now it has won the Tony Award for the year's Best Musical and we are sharing a tiny part in that tremendous success. Muscial theatre brings joy into people's lives. What could be more rewarding. We are so proud to play a small role in the 5th Avenue Theatre family and the production of Memphis. We are honored to hold up our Tony Award for all the world to see. How exciting!

It's been a year...

We had been exploring in York, England, for a few days and stopped in Cambridge on the way back to London. After our obligatory afternoon tea on the River Cam, we headed back to our friends’ home on the bank of the Thames. We’d been there a week and, although the jet-lag was over for us, the car ride made everyone ready for a nap, except me. The radio is always on in their home and I had to listen twice when I heard “Michael Jackson has died.” His much anticipated comeback tour was to begin in London on July 8 so his name was all over the news from the time we arrived.

Michael Jackson’s death was to this generation as Elvis Presley’s was to a generation earlier. Whether you liked his music (and I did) or not, he was an icon of the times. His persona was bigger than life. He had come from being a child star with his brothers to the ultimate pop star in front of our eyes over two decades. Even when things got very weird for him in the latter years, he stayed close to his fans and became quite a philanthropist.

One of Michael’s lasting tributes is the viral effects of the dance from his Thriller video that have permeated our society. Not since John Travolta’s famous disco moves in Saturday Night Fever has choreography moved the public the way Thriller did. It’s one of the all-time You Tube successes from subways and train stations to schools and living rooms. It is the number one music video of all time, according to MTV. I love the version that comes out of nowhere in the Jennifer Garner movie “13 Going On 30”. The movie is pretty sappy otherwise but that scene is a scream!

Michael’s music was all over BBC radio and television that night and we listened and reminisced to it right through my favorite dinner of Julia’s famous cottage pie, which just writing it makes my mouth water. His music is happy. It makes you feel good. It makes you want to dance…and we did, regardless of what the sight of me dancing does for you.

The next morning, we took a nice walk with our friends to the Two Rivers Mall near their home. I stopped in at the Boots Pharmacy and picked up all the London papers to add to my ever-growing souvenir collection. There was even a special section on “How to do the moonwalk.” People were trying it in all the open spaces at the Mall. It reminded me that Michael Jackson was an amazing entertainer. He made us smile. He made us move. He did what entertainers are supposed to do. He moved his audiences.

Throughout the period after his death and then the memorial service and burial, what struck me most was that the weirdness associated with him in recent years was not the topic. It was Michael Jackson’s talent and music and influence and philanthropy that took the front seat. That’s pretty special for an entertainer. It’s pretty special for any public figure.

I can’t do a playlist on my iPod without one Michael Jackson number just to get my feet moving and to put a smile on my face. Even one year later, Michael Jackson lives!

From my friend in South Africa

For twenty years, I have been travelling to South Africa. There have been many changes during that time and almost all for the better. The country is one of my most favorite places in the world. As we watch the World Cup open our eyes to an exciting and beautiful South Africa, I revisit the times that I have tried to explain why we, especially in America, don't fully or clearly understand the ways of that country. Now that I think of it, we are not particularly good at understanding or even trying to understand the ways of other countries. Regardless, a South African friend sent me the following "Open Letter To Foreign Media" this week and it makes my point very effectively. WAKA WAKA! (This Time for Africa!)

________________________________________
by Peter Davies 09/06/2010 09:09

Dear World Cup visitors,
Now that you are safely in our country you are no doubt happily realising you are not in a war zone. This may be in stark contrast to what you have been bracing yourself for should you have listened to Uli Hoeness or are an avid reader of English tabloids, which as we all know are only good for wrapping fish ‘n chips and advancing the careers of large-chested teens on page three.
As you emerge blinking from your luxury hotel room into our big blue winter skies, you will surely realise you are far more likely to be killed by kindness than by a stray bullet. Remember that most of the media reports you have read, which have informed your views on South Africa, will have been penned by your colleagues. And you know what journos are like, what with their earnest two thousand word opuses on the op-ed pages designed to fix this country’s ills in a heartbeat. Based on exhaustive research over a three-day visit.
Funnily enough, we are well aware of the challenges we face as a nation and you will find that 95% of the population is singing from the same song-sheet in order to ensure we can live up to our own exacting expectations.
We are also here to look after you and show you a good time. Prepare to have your preconceived notions well and truly shattered.
For instance, you will find precious few rhinos loitering on street corners, we don’t know a guy in Cairo named Dave just because we live in Johannesburg, and our stadiums are magnificent, world-class works of art.
Which is obviously news to the Sky TV sports anchor who this week remarked that Soccer City looked ‘ a bit of a mess’. She didn’t realize the gaps in the calabash exterior are to allow in natural light and for illumination at night, and not the result of vandalism or negligence.
The fact that England, the nation which safely delivered Wembley Stadium two years past its due date, is prepared to offer us South Africans advice on stadium-readiness should not be surprising. The steadiest stream of World Cup misinformation has emanated from our mates the Brits over the past couple of years.
If it’s not man-eating snakes lurking in Rooney’s closet at the team’s (allegedly half-built) Royal Bafokeng training base, then it’s machete-wielding gangs roaming the suburbs in search of tattooed, overweight Dagenham dole-queuers to ransack and leave gurgling on the pavement.
In fact what you are entering is the world’s most fascinating country, in my opinion. I’m pretty sure you will find that it functions far more smoothly, is heaps more friendly and offers plenty more diversions than you could possibly have imagined.
In addition to which, the population actually acts like human beings, and not like they are being controlled by sinister forces from above which turns them into bureaucratically-manipulated robots.
Plus we have world’s most beautiful women. The best weather. Eight channels of SuperSport. Food and wine from the gods themselves. Wildlife galore. (Love the Dutch team’s bus slogan: “Don’t fear the Big 5; fear the Orange 11”).
Having said all that, Jo’burg is undoubtedly one of the world’s most dangerous cities. Just ask those Taiwanese tourists who got out of their hire car to take close-up snaps of tawny beasts at the Lion Park a few years back. Actually, ask what’s left of them. And did you know the chances of being felled by cardiac arrest from devouring a mountain of meat at one of our world class restaurants has been statistically proven to be 33.3% higher in Jozi than in any other major urban centre not built upon a significant waterway? It’s true. I swear. I read it in a British tabloid.
Having recently spent two years comfortably cocooned in small town America, I’m only too aware of how little much of the outside world knows about this country. The American channel I used to work for has a massive battalion of employees descending on World Cup country. It has also apparently issued a recommendation to its staff to stay in their hotels when not working.
Given that said corporation is headquartered in a small town which many say is “best viewed through the rear-view mirror”, I find the recommendation, if it’s true, to be utterly astounding. In fact I don’t believe it is true. Contrary to the global stereotype, the best Americans are some of the sharpest people in the world. The fact they have bought most tickets in this World Cup proves the point.
Of course I have only lived in Johannesburg, city of terror and dread, virtually all my life, so don’t have the in-depth knowledge of say, an English broadsheet journalist who has been in the country for the weekend, but nevertheless I will share some of my observations gleaned over the years.
Any foreign tourist or media representative who is worried about his safety in South Africa should have a word with the Lions rugby fans from last year, or the Barmy Army cricket supporters (lilywhite hecklers by day, slurring, lager-fuelled lobsters by night). They managed just fine, just like the hundreds of thousands of fans who have streamed into the country over the past fifteen years for various World Cups, Super 14 matches, TriNations tests and other international events. Negligible crime incidents involving said fans over said period of time.
Trivia question: which country has hosted the most global sporting events over the past decade and a half? You don’t need me to answer that, do you?
In addition. Don’t fret when you see a gaggle of freelance salesmen converge on your car at the traffic lights (or robots as we like to call them) festooned with products. You are not about to be hijacked. Here in Mzansi (nickname for SA) we do a lot of our purchasing at robots. Here you can stock up on flags, coat hangers, batteries, roses for the wife you forgot to kiss goodbye this morning and a whole host of useful merchandise.
Similarly, that guy who runs up as you park the rental car outside the pub intends no malice. He’s your car guard. Give him a buck or two and your vehicle will be safe while you refuel for hours on our cheap, splendid beer. Unless someone breaks into it, of course.
We drive on the left in this country. Exercise caution when crossing the road at a jog-trot with 15 kilograms of camera gear on your back. Exercise common sense full stop. Nothing more. Nothing less. If you want to leave wads of cash in your hotel room like our Colombian friends, don’t be surprised if it grows wings.
Bottomline. Get out there and breathe in great lusty lungfuls of this amazing nation. Tuck into our world-class food and wines. Disprove the adage that white men can’t dance at our throbbing, vibrant night-clubs. Learn to say hello in all eleven official languages. Watch at least one game in a township. You will not be robbed and shot. You will be welcomed like a lost family member and looked after as if you are royalty. Ask those Bulls rugby fans who journeyed to Soweto recently.
With a dollop of the right attitude, this country will change your life.
It’s Africa’s time. Vacate your hotel room. Join the party.
Waka waka eh eh.

"No Futbol!"...YES, WORLD CUP!!

Albissola Marina is a nice little seaside town on the Italian Riviera. We had hoped to reach Nice before nightfall but after a long, hot July day on the autostrada, where your foot constantly cramps up from pushing down on the gas pedal trying to keep up with the traffic, we were ready for a break and there was Albissola Marina. A delightful pensione, just a block from the beach, had a very nice room for us. We checked in quickly, took a beach stroll and then a nap before dinner. When we came downstairs, the reception room/bar was empty. We called out but no answer. It was a short walk to an inviting restaurant with a screened-in porch for dining. After a considerable wait, a young woman came out and begrudgingly took our order. There were no other diners and no sight of any traffic on the sidewalk or the street outside. Strange, we thought, but maybe this was another one of those European “siesta” times that we hadn’t experienced.

The meal was excellent and so was the pitcher of house wine that always seems to match the food perfectly. The young woman warmed up a bit as the evening went on but she was still a little grumpy. I finally put the sign language aside and, after a brief look at my phrase book, in my best pidgin Italian, I said, “Where are the people?”. This got no response at all. Then I asked, “Is there something wrong here?”. Two words came back, “No Calcio!”. “Calcio?,” I said. “Futbol…No Futbol!” she responded as she walked to the screen door and pointed down the street. I still didn’t get it. So we paid the bill and started walking down the empty street in the direction she had pointed. It was dark by then but it was still a very weird feeling as we walked along. A block and a half away, we heard a muffled cheer…then another…and another. In a very large house with a big front porch, we found virtually everyone who lived in Albissola Marina. The 21-inch, black & white television was sitting precariously on the top of a bookcase. THE soccer match was on television and the whole town was watching. Young and old, they all were squinting to catch every move as Milan played Amsterdam in something called the European Cup that was leading up to the World Cup in West Germany the next year.

This was my first real encounter with the power of soccer around the world. It’s football everywhere else and what we play on the gridiron is American Football. From my stuttering Italian conversation with some of the local revelers in the big house, I found that this was the only television in that part of town, that “calcio” is the Italian word for soccer and that the young woman from the restaurant had said “No Futbol!” because she was lamenting being the one left behind to work while the rest of her family came to watch the match. (Milan lost, by the way.) Soccer is indeed the world’s game.

Flash forward to today. We’re lucky here in Seattle to be a soccer town. Many of us know the game, follow it closely and even play, as long as our bodies hold together. The Sounders FC have become the darlings of professional soccer in this country and no youth or school soccer programs come close to those we have homegrown here. In my travels, I have been fortunate to see soccer being played in every corner of the world. For almost twenty years, I have been travelling to South Africa and I have made many wonderful friends there. This is their moment and South Africans are feeling the pride and jubilation. Sport is bringing us another world-changing spectacle. We saw it in Beijing with the Chinese…and then in Vancouver for the Canadians. My friends from the veld are well-connected in sports circles and they have brought me into the loop with the local organizers of these games. I’m “skyping” my opinions on a regular basis and still hope to be there before this momentous month is over.

The African continent and South Africa in particular has always been a mystical and spiritual place for me. As the players of Bufana Bufana, the South African team, came down the ramp into the stadium this morning and took the hands of school children, you could sense the emotion. Seeing our good friend, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has grown so close to Seattle and its people, cheering in the stands with that beautiful smile of his was truly heart-warming. Sadly missing was the heart of South Africa, 91-year-old Nelson Mandela, also a great friend to our community. In spite of a personal tragedy in his family, his message to the country came through loud and clear…these games must go on.

So put on your rally scarf. Grab your vuvuzela (we used to call them stadium horns but vuvuzela is so much more fun to say.). Get ready to toot and cheer because these games are happening…now! I told my good friend in the UK this morning that he’d better start practicing his Ugly American cheers because there will be no holds barred when the USA and England play tomorrow. British Petroleum be damned!!! It’s World Cup Fever…catch it!