A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

MADIBA'S CUP: A generation ago, apartheid was the brutal, crippling reality for millions of black South Africans. Last week, it was a historical term in the third round of the National Spelling Bee that a kid had never heard before, sandwiched in-between words like "apparatchik" and "perestroika".

As a teen, apartheid seemed like it would never end -- that it just was, and America was powerless to change the situation -- though increasingly artists were trying to make the plight of South Africans visible -- whether through Peter Gabriel's "Biko" and Artists United Against Apartheid's "Sun City," films like Cry Freedom (yeah, I know, another "white guy as the hero of a black man's story" movie like Glory and Mississippi Burning, but still) and of course Paul Simon's transcendent Graceland.

But political pressure worked, and on February 12, 1990, after more than 10,000 days in captivity, prisoner #46664 Nelson Mandela was freed from prison and the edifices of apartheid began to crumble in a remarkably peaceful transition to majority rule. Four years later, he was elected President of South Africa. And despite the poverty and AIDS and badges and incidents of past discrimination which remain apartheid's continuing legacy, today South Africa is free, and today we are here. All in a generation -- days of miracle and wonder, indeed.

Welcome to the 2010 World Cup.