a fine mess.

(Joshua Masayoshi Huff)

Honolulu is abuzz over Beckhamania. Yes, the LA Galaxy may have come in third place (out of four teams) at the Pan Pacific Tournament in Honolulu two months ago, but Beckham's ghost--and sweaty game shirt--still lingers in the Aloha State.

Two boys (and former best friends!) are going to court over who is the rightful owner of the game-worn shirt that Becks tossed to the boys. Both boys claim that Beckham pointed at them. One boy claims it is his because he "held up his Beckham sign for the duration of the game". The other set of parents supposedly got an authentic signed jersey from Beckham via a family member who had access to the Galaxy's locker room at half time...and tried to trade this for the game worn shirt.

I kid you not.

My suggestion? Pull a King Solomon--and whoever begs for the uniform not to be cut in half is the rightful owner. And, like one commenter said--the Advertiser talked to the Galaxy's general manager, Alexei Lalas...couldn't they just have gotten him to ask Becks who he meant to give the shirt?


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One Slate writer is calling for Barack Obama to drop out of the Democratic Presidential Nominee race. Yes, Chris Wilson is aware that Obama is ahead and is not suggesting a Johnathan Swift "A Modest Proposal" recommendation--Wilson believes that by pulling out of the race by saying that he does not want to further hurt the Democratic Party's chances of winning the 2008 Election because of an ongoing battle while McCain campaigns unchecked. By being noble in this sense, Wilson writes, Obama will get the masses (and the political pundits) back on his side and will win the 2012 Election...because McCain will clearly become the favorite in this year's election and Obama will become even stronger in 2012 because of his appeal to young voters--of which there will be more (logically) in the next election.

Our thoughts? It's great, in theory, but Obama wouldn't do it--he's already gone this far. Hillary Clinton is just fracturing the party--the only real hope she has of winning is taking the super delegates, but to hold out that long really is going to hurt the Democrats, because with Hillary's continuously dirty tactics, Obama's own image will suffer (and at the hands of someone of his own party).

It would also be counting one's chickens before they hatched to think that Obama would pose a serious threat to an incumbent president. Middle America is very happy with the status quo, and it's going to be hard to swing moderates off of an incumbent president (not even Dubya him-illogicalidotic-self could do this, mind you...so McCain would really have to make a mess of it to give Obama a real chance in 2012).

My biggest concern is this: If Obama does go on to become the Democratic nominee for President and subsequently loses to McCain (remember, McCain is ALREADY campaigning for the presidency while Obama is forced to continue to fight it out with Hillary "No Campaign Money" Clinton), how much negative publicity will this give him? I feel that losing to McCain would be a bigger blow for his presidential future than losing to Hillary would be.

Thoughts?

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The April 21st issue of the New Yorker was incredibly captivating (a fascinating story on elevators included), but this story, on the architecture of airports, particularly caught my eye.

As a college student from Hawaii, I spend quite a bit of time in airports, and I actually enjoy the experience. I usually walk around airports during my (lengthy) layovers and sketch them out (to the best of my ability, anyway). The massive steel girders always intrigue me, and the idea of airports being this temporary home for people--comforting them after heart-wrenching goodbyes and preparing them for ecstatic hellos--is very poetic.

It is also easily discernible that we at the Collective take a keen interest in architecture, and i was interested in what an architect (or at least one in training) had to say about the airports

Interestingly, the aspiring architect I spoke with wasn't all that concerned with speaking about the airports. Jessica Sano, an architecture major at USC, said that she felt that pictures were already a step removed from actually beholding a site--and that reading a critique of buildings is thus two steps removed.

I replied that the point of reviews, in my eyes, is to distill the world as much as possible because people have neither the time nor resources to go and see everything (the same goes for film, book, and music reviews). If people feel that they would enjoy what is being described in the reviews, then they will take on the subject matter for themselves.

Ms. Sano replied that point of reviews is to judge--that they never give a fair, impartial view of the subject being discussed and that they are by nature subjective. Taste is relative, she said, and the we should try to write objective descriptions--not partial reviews.

With that being said, here is a great picture of one of the airports mentioned--Barajas International in Madrid:




(courtesy koalie.net)


And my favorite feature in any airport I have personally seen--at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport:


(courtesy www.architecture.uwaterloo.ca)


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Cheers...

have a great weekend