Columnist Nick Green has written 100 Percent Soccer
since 2005. A
native of England, he began writing about soccer in
the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat
in the stands for one in
the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home
Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas
USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer.
Married to a long-suffering soccer widow, he has a cat
named Pele.Not Quite 100 Percent
On the day after the Daily News, the Daily Breeze and Long Beach Press-Telegram announced major layoffs and restructuring, its effect on this blog (carried on all three newspapers' Web sites) should be noted.
Galaxy beat writer Billy Witz, an employee of the Daily News, was among those laid off, following former Chivas USA beat writer Ivan Orozco out the door. Ivan left a few weeks ago to join a new newspaper in San Diego County. That leaves the Los Angeles News Group of MediaNews without any soccer beat writers, which in addition to the three papers already mentioned includes the Pasadena Star News, the San Bernadino Sun, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the Whittier Daily News, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Redlands Daily Facts.
Also gone: Lori Stassi, the online editor at the Breeze, who was responsible for the technical support of this blog as well as others. Lori built this blog, uploaded photos and edited links, but more importantly championed blogs and multimedia on the Breeze Web site. In fact, she was busy updating the links to the right of this page just before she left (check out the new North American Soccer Reporters Web site and the blogroll, a list of blogs I check daily.).
She will be missed.
Perhaps it's apt to note that, as Lori departed, the page hits on this blog have set a new monthly record in hits.
Thanks for your support in a time of convulsive change in the newspaper industry.
Comments
Mr. Green:
I saw a couple weeks ago that you claim that Maykel Galindo "idolizes" the late throat-slashing, murderer Che Guevara.
I find that hard to believe.
We Cubans have suffered under the totalitarian dictator Castro and his henchmen, of which Guevara was one.
To say that Galindo idolizes his oppressor, is either a lie, a misunderstanding on your part about what Galindo said, or it reveals that Galindo is a very morally confused young man.
Nick replies: I actually used the word "heroes." But I think you're taking the word too literally and I probably should have used a different term. I believe Maykel simply meant he identified with some facets of Guevara (and Al Pacino's character in "Scarface") because both had to fight - as he does as a Cuban defector - to survive.
Here's a link to the column you're writing about.
It's obvious Maykel is no fan of Castro or his "henchmen."
Posted by: Tony Garcia | March 5, 2008 10:33 AM