Tribal loyalty: Yankees or Red Sox?

On Sunday week, I hope to be at Yankee Stadium, watching the New York Yankees playing the Boston Red Sox.

I have to decide whether I want to be an impartial observer, or get involved and choose a team to support. Supporting a team can be inspired by:

1. tribal loyalty. This is a problem, because I am not an American. I have Irish roots, but so do both the New York and Boston teams.
2. "fair weather friend". If I want to support a winner, it seems that on the Major League Baseball Eastern standings, of the East of the American League Boston is on top and NY is second from the bottom.
3. "cheer the underdog": the Yankees would be my team.
4. support a particular player: I don't know any of them.

I might have to leave it to the day to decide who I support. Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to it.

(On other matters of religion, I had been planning to go to Mass in the morning at St Patrick's Cathedral, but I have been advised that it would be better to go to St Ignatius on Manhatten)

(nostalgia alert...) The good old days of Rugby League

In the "good old days" the Rugby League finals started at the end of August when the weather was starting to warm and the days get longer, (ie now) and the Grand Final was on the first Saturday in September. Happy days.

I was a Balmain supporter and I vividly remember the days of Artie "half a game" Beetson, Keith "golden boots" Barnes and the rest when they played in the 1966 grand final and lost to St George.

Note that colour TV had not yet arrived down under and the national anthem was God Save the Queen. Being 1966, the spectators would have paid for entry in those new dollars for the first time instead of pounds.

More importantly, note that the match was held on a sunny afternoon instead of the dead of night, and there is no advertising on the players' jerseys.

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Then, in my last year at school, Balmain beat Souths, with the help of Len "silver boots" Killeen, field goals from imported Pom Dave Bolton as well as some tactical injuries.
I still remember the joy and relief when Sid Williams, (the half-back turned into a winger) dived in the right hand corner at the Paddington end to seal the match.

Go the Tiges!!! Souths was a much better team, but Balmain managed to sneak a surprise win, always a joy for the winners.

Candidates 2013

The list of candidates in the 2013 Australian election is now decided. You can find them here:
http://www.aec.gov.au/election/who-are-the-candidates.htm

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A bit of nonsense....or is it?

Camino in France

This is the path I intend walking in September, starting from Le Puy near Lyon and going towards the Pyrenees, the start of the Camino I walked last year.
This is still part of the traditional pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela but it not as commonly done today. There are many more people who walk from the Pyrenees to Santiago.

Tugs

It's good to see that they still use tugboats in Sydney Harbour.

Edith Stein

A friend has kindly lent me his shorter breviary and encouraged me to say the traditional morning and evening prayers. I find it difficult to sort through all the options and cycles of prayers, so I have cheated somewhat and used the Laudate app and the Universalis web site.

One immediate benefit if this is to be more aware of the liturgical cycle of feasts and saints' days. This Friday, 9th August is the feast day of St Teresa Benedict of the Cross, otherwise known as Edith Stein.
Her biography is one of the extraordinary stories of the 20th Century. Her feast day commemorates her death in an Auschwitz gas chamber on 9th August 1942, but it includes her Jewish background, her enquiring mind, philosophy studies and her desire to become a Carmelite nun. This desire was delayed for a while because she was persuaded of the importance of action prompted by prayer.

Flat white in the Big Apple

It is apparently true: the flat white coffee is an Australian invention.
According to an article in today's Australian newspaper,

"COFFEE junkies can now order an Australian flat white across New York without fear of facing a blank stare and prolonged withdrawal symptoms.

From the Manhattan neighbourhoods of the East Village, TriBeCa, Chelsea, Midtown and Murray Hill and across the East River to Brooklyn's Williamsburg, Prospect Park and Fort Greene, Australian-owned cafes are changing the way New Yorkers drink coffee.

...

Flat whites - the milky brew whose origins are claimed by Australia and New Zealand - are in the top five sellers of an extensive coffee list, and outsell cappuccinos at Toby's, which opened its first US branch in January last year."

World Youth Day Rio 2013

Mass on World Youth Day (from Vatican YouTube channel)