Another then another story about Caster Semenya. First it was a visual impression and suspicion. Then it was blood tests or whatever. Now it is speculation about Semenya’s internal organs and genitalia. Terribly bitter and mean reporting, all of which sucked the joy out of a fabulously exciting performance in Berlin. My remark here, however, is not about how international governing bodies should deal with sexual identity or what counts as sexual identity and so on. That’s another issue and I’m not sure what to say about it, truthfully. Instead, I’m interested in what it means to be someone other than that governing body looking at bodies like Semenya’s. Read the rest of this entry »
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Yet another post topic about which the internet needs no more words: Barry Bonds. I’ve been trying to figure out what to think about the Bonds scandal, which is really just baseball’s so-called “steroid era” bundled into one person at one particular moment. You know, breaking the really big record in baseball, the career homerun record, arguably the only record in American sports that matters. Everyone excited is faking: this is nothing but uninspiring.
I don’t really think the internet needs yet another post on the War in Iraq. Yet, I want to say just a little bit, which is as much about two news stories as it is about a place in the Middle East. What a sad and no-win situation this whole “adventure” has become, no? Sometimes stories converge in compelling ways; today is one of those days. The new issue of the online The Onion is out today and – perhaps unsurprisingly, perhaps surprisingly – its lead-story is too perfectly suited to the online edition of The New York Times.
It’s my obsession in this writing space: the gap between the spectacular play of images and the material reality of those images. It’s actually too easy. We’ve really lost that connection, or, at the very least, we’ve decided that that connection can be set aside without explanation. Sports is an exemplary site, but one shaded by gender issues. Witness Mechelle Voepel’s write up of Chamique Holdsclaw’s sudden retirement. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this week, Charles P. Pierce at Slate.com wrote up some thoughts on LeBron James as “the next Michael Jordan.” Well-timed, of course, given his spectacular take-down of Detroit – honestly, it was a single-handed take-down – and the first visit to the NBA Finals starting last night. I don’t much disagree with the author on assessing The Bron as bluntly non-political, but the very question is quirky. I’ve been trying to sort out my thoughts… Read the rest of this entry »
Is baseball still America’s sport – that is, where we take “America” to be the United States? I think so, especially in light of the new discussion of race and baseball. The new discussion: the crisis (for better or worse, that’s the rhetoric) of falling African-American participation at all levels. The statistics have taken a pretty simple and straightforward trajectory: from 17.25 percent in 1959 (year following integration) to 30 percent in the mid-seventies to 8 percent this season. That’s stark. That’s strange. That’s certainly worth thinking about. What does it all mean? Some thoughts… Read the rest of this entry »