It's good to be a good atmosphere.

I have received lots of pressure of late to post to this weblog again. Lots and lots of pressure. International pressure. Economic pressure. The masses are clamoring for more! Clamoring! To the masses' delight, I have just stumbled upon something that is worthy of scrutiny. Behold an excerpt from a recent article authored by one Michael Lewis on concacaf.com, explaining a Guadeloupean soccer player's trepidation at playing in front of a Kansas City crowd who cheers for him when he plays for the local club team but against him when he plays for his national team:

"It doesn't matter," he said. "At least there's going to be fans. It's good to be a good atmosphere. They could be back us of backing the other team. I prefer to play in a full stadium agains us than in an empty stadiu. I hope some of them will back me, too."

So I guess the message here is members of the press (yes, a staff writer for concacaf.com is a member of the press) can just write whatever the H they want. Just whatever. They can even copy and paste from transcripts of interviews conducted by other members of the press, even if that transcript was translated into English by a foreign member of the press using free web-based software (this is what I suspect happened with the above quote). There is, of course, the possibility that this is a word for word quotation, and that this soccer player just talks this way. But I really doubt it. I'm pretty sure this one's on Michael Lewis. If I made a habit of blatantly half-A-ing my work like this at my job, I'd probably get fired. I wonder how much Michael Lewis makes? Honestly, probably not a lot. And honestly, he probably earns it.