Eschew comparing political horseraces with actual horsy-horseraces:
Not only did an inexperienced stallion named Big Brown just win the Kentucky Derby, but 2nd place went to the filly Eight Belles who collapsed immediately after the race and had to be euthanized. You may recall that Sen. Clinton supported the filly.
April 29th, 2008 by MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
I’m no Bill Simmons, but both as a Jays fan and as a baseball lover, not to mention as a human being, I despise Roger Clemens. His record may show him as one of the greatest pitchers of all time, but, well, his record, not to mention his character, is tainted. And so, when he finds himself in trouble, whether it involves steroids or sex with an underage girl, I experience deep, profound Schadenfreude.
Many of you, I’m sure, know about the steroids issue. Did he or didn’t he? Well, he probably did. (For more, see my post on his ridicule-worthy appearance before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform a couple of months ago.) Seven Cy Youngs, zero credibility. That’s pretty much where he stands now — in terms of baseball history, his reputation, and the law.
But don’t put your Schadenfreude away just yet. There’s more — and it’s juicy. Here’s the Daily News:
Roger Clemens carried on a decade-long affair with country star Mindy McCready, a romance that began when McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer performing in a karaoke bar and Clemens was a 28-year-old Red Sox ace and married father of two, several sources have told the Daily News.
Now, look, what two consenting adults do, well, that’s their business (most of the time — there are exceptions, of course). But, in this case, McCready was 15 years old.
Marcus Dixon, a good and decent young man, gets sent to prison in Georgia for statutory rape and child molestation for having consensual sex with a 15-year old — but he was 18 at the time (and, in the end, he was freed following a favourable ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court and the law that put him in prison was changed).
So if this is true about Clemens — and, of course, he is denying it (she’s just “a close family friend,” according to his lawyer) — then what? Read the rest of this entry »
There are certainly valid issues here, but I doubt that the protests are doing Tibet, China, or the Olympics any good whatsoever. Imagine if all that energy were directed in constructive channels.
NPR: Tibet Protests Stir Chinese Nationalism
Audio for this story will be available at approx. 7:00 p.m. ET
All Things Considered, April 18, 2008 · Internet death threats and attacks on property greeted at least one person’s efforts to mediate between protesters on opposite sides of the China-Tibet issue. The official Xinhua News Agency is urging Chinese to harness their nationalistic fervor for constructive ends.
After the failure of the 1980 U.S.-sponsored Olympic boycott, hadn’t the world learned its lesson about the ineffectiveness of such actions? According to this editorial from the Nederlands Dagblad, things have changed since then - not the least of which is the fact that unlike South Korea, which rapidly democratized in the run-up to the 1988 Games, Beijing has taken a different tack.
The Dutch newspaper opines, “Such wishful thinking has now given way to the harsh reality. Over the past decade, Chinese leaders have decided that capitalism and dictatorship make an excellent pair … The IOC’s pseudo religious rhetoric about the brotherhood of nations doesn’t work anymore, because that now equates with siding with the Beijing regime.”
Not all the global commentary about the Olympic torch relay is serious. Le Monde’s Robert Sole writes in this tongue-in-cheek op-ed, “Yes, clouds are threatening the Olympics in Beijing. But Chinese authorities have just given us some reassuring news: an arsenal is being prepared to make sure that it doesn’t rain during the opening ceremonies on August 8. Twenty-one teams are spread around the capital to watch the heavens and if necessary, launch rockets containing silver iodide into the upper atmosphere to trigger rainfall before it can reach the stadium … After all, you never know what kind of storm the anti-China “clique” might cause. Has it not already tried - by spitting - to extinguish the flame in London, Paris or San Francisco?”
April 12th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
China seems to be coming under heavy pressure with the world leaders threatening to keep away from the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics this summer. The latest on the list is Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations. The Independent newspaper describes this “as capping an extraordinary week of public relations disasters for the Chinese government as it struggles to contain international anger over its policies towards Tibet and Sudan.”
“Yesterday, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing lashed out at the United States Congress for passing a resolution on Wednesday urging China to open dialogue with the Dalai Lama. ‘It is confusing black with white and is vicious-minded of certain members of the US House of Representatives to not only fail to condemn the attacks, smashing, looting and arson in Lhasa … but rather to point the spear at the Chinese government and people.’
“Mr Brown (British PM) would be among world leaders not attending the opening ceremonies in Beijing. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy is also said to be considering staying away, while Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, had earlier made it clear she would not attend the opening. In the US, all three candidates for the White House, including John McCain, the Republican nominee, have urged President George Bush to decline the invitation.”
Meanwhile Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama does not advocate a boycott of the Beijing Olympics over the Chinese crackdown in his homeland, but says it is for the individual leaders to decide whether to attend the Games. ”I basically wish that their (China’s) world event should take place smoothly.” He said his main message to China was ”We are not against you. And I’m not seeking separation.”
Chinese President Hu Jintao told the visiting Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd: “Our conflict with the Dalai clique is not an ethnic problem, not a religious problem, nor a human rights problem. It is a problem either to safeguard national unification or to split the motherland.”
Mr Hu repeated China’s position that it was ready to meet the Dalai Lama, but only if he met certain pre-conditions, such as desisting from trying to “split the motherland”, “incite violence” and “ruin the Beijing Olympics”.
So if both the Chinese president and the Dalai Lama are “willing to meet” to sort out the problem what’s the hitch? Why don’t the world leaders confront both the Chinese president and the Dalai Lama and decide on the date and venue for the meeting? Why wait?
China has put up an interesting/informative Olympics Games website…click here.
While it is unlikely that Newton noticed it the day he famously observed that apple falling to the ground, like gravity there is another immutable law of nature that goes something like this:
What goes around comes around.
And so it is with George Bush, who finds himself in the awkward if familiar position of having no moral gravitas, in this instance when it comes to condemning the People’s Republic of China for its latest violent crackdown on dissent in Tibet.
There was a time somewhere in the mists of my memory when the U.S., for all of its big-stick imperialist tendencies, did hold an approximation of the moral high ground, so that when a member of that international community of nations acted out against a minority or a neighbor the condemnation of the White House or State Department carried some weight.
No more.
While it should be noted in passing that no one would compare the U.S. to China when it comes to human rights abuses, the abuses sanctioned and committed by the Bush administration — up to and most prominently including the official endorsement of Nazi-like torture techniques and willful disregard for international treaties that protect the dignity and sanctity of life — make whatever protests the White House and State Department lodge against China to be hollow and, in the eyes of the world, downright laughable.
This brings us to the Beijing Olympics.
As I noted here, my bottom line is that the whole thing sucks to high heaven: The Chinese government sucks. The U.S. government sucks. The Olympics suck. And while I hugely admire the Dalai Lama and can forgive his militaristic roots, I would be remiss to not also mention that our gauzy, Hollywood-esque view of Tibet also sucks and is a few mantras short of a full prayer wheel.
Having gotten that out of the way, the fan dance that President Bush, presidential candidates and other bigs are doing over what the response to the crackdown in Tibet should be also is laughable.
At this writing, The Decider has decided to attend the opening ceremony, while Hillary Clinton and John McCain want him to boycott the ceremony but not the Olympics, as if that sends a signal. (Barack Obama was trying out for the Olympic bowling team and was unavailable for comment.)
To add a log to two to this bonfire, recall that neocon guru Richard Perle advocated preempting China’s bid for the 2008 Olympics after a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter collided in what almost certainly was Chinese air space a few weeks after President Bush took office in 2001.
Perle, of course, turned out to be much better at helping start an unprovoked war in Iraq, which triggered the Bush administration’s determined march to the moral low ground, than punishing the Chinese. But then this post is about the laws of nature and cynicism, not irony.
Photograph by Robert Durrell/The Los Angeles Times
With the Olympic torch bound for San Francisco, what is the significance of the protesting that beset the torch’s route in Europe? Olivier Picard writes for France’s Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, “It’s an absolute disaster. A symbolic defeat, politically, ’sportively,’ diplomatically and historically. During this black Monday of the Olympic adventure, everyone lost! The legend, the athletes, China, France, the government, the police, the protesters and even Tibetans. The route if the Olympic flame has become the Way of the Cross for the players and spectators of this event that was meant to be festive.”
Picard concludes, ‘It is a spectacular humiliation for the athletes which alone summarizes the spirit of the host country, which is concerned only with its own prestige. Far from being moved by the protests in the West, it will now reinforce its iron fist over a competition that from the outset, it sought to manipulate. The trap door is closing again.’
April 6th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader in exile, said in India that protests in Tibet contradicted the Chinese “propaganda” about people there enjoying a prosperous and contented life and made it clear that the issue “can no longer be neglected”. While in London the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games torch relay was reduced to “farce and ignominy” yesterday as ugly scenes of protest disrupted this leg of the tour that was billed as a journey of harmony and peace.
The Times of London reports that more than 35 protesters were arrested in a series of clashes with the police, who had to reroute part of the procession to protect the 80 runners. “Despite nearly a year of planning and the deployment of 2,000 officers, the Metropolitan Police were unable to stop protesters breaking through the security cordon at vulnerable points.
“In West London the torch was nearly taken from Konnie Huq, a former Blue Peter presenter. Two demonstrators tried to douse the flame with a fire extinguisher near Ladbroke Grove, and the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell jumped in front of a relay bus in Oxford Street. The torch was diverted from foot to a bus at St Paul’s to avoid trouble.”
Meanwhile in India the Dalai Lama demanded a probe into the unrest in Tibet by an “independent and respected international body”. More here…
A report from Beijing says that 10 people were wounded when Chinese paramilitary police opened fire on a crowd of Tibetans protesting against limits on a prayer ceremony and demanding the return of the Dalai Lama, witnesses said. “The violence was in a remote town in western Sichuan province on Saturday, where monks at the Lingque temple had been joined by several hundred pilgrims for an annual ceremony, the Torgya, which is meant to exorcise evil elements from society.”
April 2nd, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
Cricket is not only the most popular sport in the Indian subcontinent, it has now turned into a global money-spinner. And now communist China which had banned the game, describing it as a pursuit of imperialist lackeys, is turning to India and Pakistan to gain proficiency in the sport.
“A first consignment of bats, balls and other paraphernalia will be sent to China in a month or two, according to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI),” reports The Times of London.
“To help Chinese youngsters to pick their doosras from their googlies — and even their chinamen — India plans to send coaches from the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, accompanied by umpires and groundsmen. ‘China has already taken to cricket at the schools level in a big way,’ a BCCI spokesman said. ‘It’s time to support a blossoming love of the game’.”
April 2nd, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
“It is increasingly clear that much of the current wave of repression (in Tibet) is occurring not in spite of the (Beijing) Olympics but actually because of the Olympics,” says a recent Amnesty International report. The group also called on world leaders to speak out on the situation in Tibet, calling a failure to address the issue tacit ‘endorsement’ of human rights abuses.
President George W. Bush has said he plans to attend the ceremony but Germany’s Angela Merkel says she will not. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has not ruled out a boycott. An IOC team is currently in Beijing to assess its readiness for the Games.
Meanwhile Voice of America reports that two US lawmakers — Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California and Democrat Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii — plan to co-chair a caucus to help mobilize support for Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and to bring attention to China’s rule over the Tibetan people. More here…
Sidd Finch was an incredible rookie baseball player who was training at the New York Mets camp in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1985. As described by legendary writer George Plimpton in Sports Illustrated, Finch (Sidd being short for Siddhartha, the Indian mystic in Hermann Hesse’s book of the same name) could pitch a baseball at 168 mph with pinpoint accuracy. The fastest previous recorded speed for a pitch was 103 mph.
Finch had never played baseball before. He had been raised in an English orphanage before he was adopted by the archaeologist Francis Whyte-Finch who was later killed in an airplane crash in Nepal. Finch briefly attended Harvard before he headed to Tibet where he learned the teachings of the “great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa” and mastered “siddhi, namely the yogic mastery of mind-body.” Through his Tibetan mind-body mastery, Finch had “learned the art of the pitch.”
Finch showed up at the Mets camp in Florida and so impressed their manager that he was invited to attend training camp. When pitching he looked, in the words of the catcher, “like a pretzel gone loony.”
He frequently wore a hiking boot on his right foot while pitching, his other foot being bare. His speed and power were so great that the catcher would only hear a small sound, “a little pft, pft-boom,” before the ball would land in his glove, knocking him two or three feet back. One of the players declared that it was not “humanly possible” to hit Finch’s pitches.
Unfortunately for the Mets, Finch had not yet decided whether to commit himself to a career as a baseball player, or to pursue a career as a French horn player. He told the Mets management that he would let them know his decision on April 1.
* * * * *
Although the story was unbelievable on its face, Sports Illustrated received almost 2,000 letters from readers in this pre-Internet age who wanted to know more.
On April 8, the magazine declared that Finch had held a press conference in which he said that he had lost the accuracy needed to throw his fastball and would therefore not be pursuing a career with the Mets. On April 15 it admitted that the story was a hoax.
Is there any hope at all that the West will do more than pay lip service to the plight of the downtrodden Tibetan people? Le Figaro’s Beijing correspondent Mével writes, “China has erred on Tibet. The West deluded itself about China - and the Tibetans are likely to pay dearly if their illusions lead them to expect more than dust in the eyes [a show of support] from the democracies.”
Analysis by Mével
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
March 26, 2008
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
The powerful Communist Party machine certainly didn’t foresee this. Beijing wants to make the Games a showcase for its brilliant success. But at the start of this Olympic season, propaganda needs have forced a drawing of the curtain. Chinese television cut off a live broadcast of ceremonies in Olympia, Greece [the lighting of the Olympic torch WATCH ], depriving the images to hundreds of millions of spectators and signaling that support for the Games is far from unanimous. Read the rest of this entry »
March 27th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Social commentators, bloggers, educators and others will have fun with this bit of news: Ultimate fighting — the increasingly popular 21st century sport that combines wrestling, boxing and martial arts — is now expanding to include kids:
Ultimate fighting was once the sole domain of burly men who beat each other bloody in anything-goes brawls on pay-per-view TV.
But the sport often derided as “human cockfighting” is branching out.
The bare-knuckle fights are now attracting competitors as young as 6 whose parents treat the sport as casually as wrestling, Little League or soccer.
The changes were evident on a recent evening in southwest Missouri, where a team of several young boys and one girl grappled on gym mats in a converted garage.
Two members of the group called the “Garage Boys Fight Crew” touched their thin martial-arts gloves in a flash of sportsmanship before beginning a relentless exchange of sucker punches, body blows and swift kicks.
No blood was shed. And both competitors wore protective gear. But the bout reflected the decidedly younger face of ultimate fighting. The trend alarms medical experts and sports officials who worry that young bodies can’t withstand the pounding.
The news article has a parent defending the sport for his kid. It also notes that some things once considered “dirty fighting” in typical fights are banned in the kids version. Sill, ultimate fighting for kids isn’t sweeping the country — YET. But usually once a major news story such as this comes out, it spreads the word.
Tommy Bloomer, father of two of the “Garage Boys,” doesn’t understand the fuss.
“We’re not training them for dog fighting,” said Bloomer, a 34-year-old construction contractor. “As a parent, I’d much rather have my kids here learning how to defend themselves and getting positive reinforcement than out on the streets.”
Bloomer said the sport has evolved since the no-holds-barred days by adding weight classes to better match opponents and banning moves such as strikes to the back of the neck and head, groin kicking and head butting.
Missouri appears to be the only state in the nation that explicitly allows the youth fights. In many states, it is a misdemeanor for children to participate. A few states have no regulations.
Supporters of the sport acknowledge that allowing fights between kids sounds brutal at first. But they insist the competitions have plenty of safety rules.
“It looks violent until you realize this teaches discipline. One of the first rules they learn is that this is not for aggressive behavior outside (the ring),” said Larry Swinehart, a Joplin police officer and father of two boys and the lone girl in the garage group.
And, to be sure, the kids who are doing this version of it are trained by an expert who notes that there are positives:
The 11 boys and one girl on the team range from 6 to 14 years old and are trained by Rudy Lindsey, a youth wrestling coach and a professional mixed martial arts heavyweight.
“The kids learn respect and how to defend themselves. It’s no more dangerous than any other sport and probably less so than some,” Lindsey said.
Lindsey said the children wear protective headgear, shin guards, groin protection and martial-arts gloves. They fight quick, two-minute bouts. Rules also prohibit any elbow blows and blows to the head when an opponent is on the ground.
“If they get in trouble or get bad grades, I’ll hear about it and they can’t come to training,” he added.
On the other hand, the news story quotes Joe Miller, administrator of the Oklahoma Professional Boxing Commission,as saying youth fights are banned in his state and he hopes they will continue to be taboo. Miller contends some of the holds used can be detrimental to young developing joints. But it also quotes an Oklahoma martial arts trainer as noting that the fights are quick and done under the ever-watchful eye of a referee.
The big issue is what it represents.
Is ultimate fighting replacing boxing as we move into the 21st century? If so, kids box…so kids doing ultimate fighting under adult supervision would not be without precedent.
Or, is ultimate fighting in both adults and kids symptomatic of raising/lowering the bar.
You see this in comedy as well: previous generations loved The Three Stooges for violent slapstick comedy. The present generation loves Jackass where they can watch the real thing.
March 26th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
I have been arguing in this blog that if world leaders were to shed their impotent stance on pressing/critical world issues, even the arrogant (etc.) President George W. Bush can be persuaded to see the light of reason and prevented from taking unilateral decisions that endanger world peace. The recent mounting pressure on China to behave itself in Tibet is a case in point.
Close on the heels of Nicolas Sarkozy’s threat to boycott Beijing Olympics (as also the European Union’s similar threat), President George W. Bush was finally shaken out of his slumber and he made an urgent phone call to the Chinese president Hu Jintao to urge the latter to resume negotiations with the Dalai Lama, the exiled-Tibetan spiritual leader.
The AP White House correspondent reports: “In a telephone call with Hu, Bush ‘pushed very hard’ about violence in Tibet, a necessity for restraint and a need for China to consult with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the White House said.
“After days of silence by Bush as other world leaders raised their voices, it marked a rare, direct protest from one president to another. As if to underscore how pointed Bush was, the White House said he used the call to ’speak very clearly and frankly’.” More here…
The European leaders are more strident in their criticism of the Chinese action in Tibet. The NYT reports: “In London, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France told a joint session of the House of Commons and the House of Lords during a state visit that Britain and France shared a responsibility to urge the Chinese leadership to respect human rights and cultural identity.
“That goal could only be achieved if there was ‘true dialogue’ between China and the Dalai Lama, he (Sarkozy) said, a day after hinting that France might boycott the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing this summer.”
“The president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, on Wednesday invited the Dalai Lama to speak to European Union legislators and questioned whether European leaders should attend the opening.
“Following the lead of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who met with the Dalai Lama last fall, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain announced last week that he would meet with the Dalai Lama when the spiritual leader visits London in May.”
It is time that world leaders, and the UN, begin to send similar strong signals to the Bush administration that US should begin to undo the damage it has done to world peace by its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that Bush need not wait until next year when he would be replaced by a new president. Thus leaving a legacy that a man can take a wrong decision/action, but is also has the guts to remedy the situation.
Because of the Big Three, 550 American baseball games a year are broadcast on television here. About 300 of them are carried without commercial interruption, allowing Japanese viewers to gaze between innings at their beloved stars as they sit quietly in the dugout or stand around on the field. These players, unlike their American counterparts, are rarely caught on camera spitting, picking their noses or scratching themselves in manly places.
March 23rd, 2008 by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor
The middle games today were fantastic. My friend from Georgetown is mysteriously missing — yesterday, she was very eager to mock me for the Duke game….
- How about Stephen Curry? Shut down entirely in the first half, he came alive in the second to lead Davidson in a thrilling comeback over Georgetown.
- You know what that game reminded me of? The one between Louisville and West Virginia a few years back — where WV was shooting the lights out of the building but the Cardinals hung in and were able to come back and win? Same thing here. Georgetown was at one point shooting 70% from the field. But Davidson managed to hang around and weather the storm, and once Curry found his stroke, it was their night.
- Inferiority complex alert: With 1,700 students, Davidson is even smaller than Carleton. But we struggle in D3, and they’re a D1 sweet sixteen team? Ouch.
- Memphis is a lot of fun to watch, and I love their athleticism. But they’re not going to go much farther in the tournament with that type of abysmal free throw shooting. They have discipline problems too (though their unbelievable bench depth helps mitigate the latter).
- I’m surprised Tennessee eked out its game over Butler. Not because I originally expected Butler to win, but after they came from way behind to send into OT, I thought the Volunteers would fold. Give them credit for showing a lot of grit to steady the course and pull out the game.
- Also in the Butler/Tennessee game — that might be the first time I’ve ever seen where a team didn’t get its first lead of the game until overtime.
- There was so much excitement going on that the network never once flipped over to Western Kentucky/San Diego, even as that game too featured a surprising comeback by the southern California squad. Can’t say I blame them — Butler/Tennessee and Georgetown/Davidson really were more exciting. But it just goes to show how many great games happened today.
- Texas’ win over Miami was the other game of note today. The others — UNC over Arkansas, Villanova over Siena, and Louisville topping Oklahoma — were all rather one-sided affairs.
Sweet sixteen is next. Anybody think any double-digit seeded teams will make it another round? Davidson (10) seems to have the best shot against Wisconsin (3), but also still hanging out are Western Kentucky (12) against UCLA (1) and Villanova playing Kansas (1).
