13 January 2003

The Play-Offs

Well, things are settled in the National and American Conferences. Saturday was better than Sunday, plenty of drama in the demise of Pittsburgh and Atlanta as Tennessee and Philadelphia advanced through the Wild Card round to the Championships. On Sunday things were straightforward, both teams with Pirate motifs blowing out their rivals. San Francisco was demolished by the Buccaneers and the Raiders Oakland routed the Jets in The Black Hole in Oakland.

Oakland might be the most intimidating NFL stadium I have ever seen. I took the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to the stadium one time, crossing from San Francisco under the Bay to the grittier industrial port town to the north. The fans are exactly that, fanatics, almost gang-like in their black and silver adorned with skulls. I was standing in a line at the snack bar before the game started and saw a kid flying toward the chain-link fence that surrounds the stadium. He hit it on the fly, banging into it, and then scrambled to the top, vaulting the top bar with gymnastic ease, and then flew down. He landed next to me in a crouch and erupted like a sprinter, accelerating into the crowd and disappearing. Two security guards had almost begun to move before he was gone.

Oakland has serious fans.

The play-offs continue through the conference championships next week and then a brief pause before the Super Bowl. That will happen just at the end of the month, just as Hans Blix hands over a report on the status and disposition of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

And the State Department has dispatched a senior representative, Mr. Kelly, to discuss the Wild Card event currently being conducted in North Korea. This was unexpected, quite out of the blue considering the stylized play with Iraq. Mr. Kelly now says he is prepared to discuss energy issues with the North, probably to defer having an additional away game to conflict with plans for the regular season.

When I was in Pyongyang in 1996 I was escorting Bill Richardson, then a Congressman and freelance diplomat. This week he did his bit by hosting the North's UN mission in Sante Fe, where he is now Governor. He reportedly served them spicy chili-what they call a "bowl of green" in New Mexico. Hotter than Kim-chi. The North Considers Governor Richardson an honest broker, since he has been fair to them in the past.

On that trip to the Hermit Kingdom, I remember walking through their vast public buildings, our female escorts clad in delicate high-waisted chu-sok dresses. Sitting in large conference rooms in the dark, since we realized that for our hosts conservation of energy was paramount, and lived life quite differently than we did. It was purely an oversight that they had forgotten that the West does not conduct meetings in the dark. At least not by plan.

The Northerners are tough, and they have decided to join the play-offs at a time of their choosing. It will be interesting to see how it works out. I feel a little in the dark.