test blog 8

First of all, it's not a boycott. It's a strike. And a  wildcat strike to boot. When the players on the Milwaukee Bucks chose not to play in the NBA playoffs -- joined by their baseball counterparts, the Brewers, with other teams quickly following -- they became part of a tradition that reaches back to Tommie Smith and John Carlos, to Muhammad Ali, to Carlos Delgado, all the way to the present, to Maya Moore and Colin Kaepernick.  The striking NBA players are part of Black Lives Matter. They are part of the present-day civil rights movement. But they are part of something else, too. They are part of the labour movement. Professional athletes are workers.  They may be wealthy -- though all are not as wealthy as the top earners -- but their working life is perilously short, and throughout history, has been awash in exploitation. If some earn huge salaries today, that's because so many people are profiting from their labour.  Strike vs boycott So why is this action a...

Ali: A Life is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary person. It's an epic page-turner at more than 500 pages. This is simply a fascinating book about an utterly fascinating person. If Muhammad Ali hadn't existed, you couldn't make him up. No fiction character on this scale would be believable. It would be a cartoon. The only athlete who comes close is Babe Ruth -- but Babe Ruth never aligned himself with an outlaw counterculture and made shocking pronouncements about the U.S., imperialism, and racism. Ali was a mass of contradictions. He craved material wealth, yet gave away money as if he had an unlimited supply. He was a self-absorbed egomaniac, but incredibly generous, not only with his money but with himself. He made one of the most important political statements of his generation, one that had profound consequences to his career, one that inspired countless others to follow his path -- yet he never uttered another political statement in his life, and was specta...

Long ago (in internet terms), in the early days of what we then called the Blogosphere, one of the primary functions of blogs was to share other posts and articles of interest that we came across online. Social media has taken over that function -- and much less effectively. How many people actually read links they find on Twitter? While a meme or a short video may go viral, a lengthy think-piece becomes just another passing link in the endless feed. I stopped using this blog to share articles of interest, but sometimes I come upon something that I just can't let go. Then I need to send them out into the world again through wmtc. I have a couple of those right now. Here's the first one. * * * * Maya Moore, currently one of the best professional basketball players on the planet, stunned the WNBA and its fans when she announced she would not play in the 2019 season . Her reasons are even more surprising: Moore  left the game to focus on social justice . Specifically, justice for ...

I have a list of topics I want to write about, and I'm not finding any time when my brain is working to write. So on this topic I'm taking the easy and totally lame way out and posting a Facebook share. And that's fine, because no matter how much time I had and no matter how my foggy brain is functioning, I couldn't say this any better than one Omari Newtown , whose withering sarcasm is both hilarious and dead literate. I never  follow people I don't know on Facebook, but for this guy, I'll make an exception. I don't want to miss a word!

Thank you Alex Cora, Mookie Betts, David Price, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, Jackie Bradley Jr., Hector Velázquez, Christian Vázquez, Eduardo Núñez, and Sandy Leon! These nine players and their manager declined to attend the White House visit purporting to honour the 2018 championship team. The Trump White House could not be bothered to spell the team's name correctly or name the actual sporting event that the team won. The World Series is the oldest professional team sports event in the United States, having been played since 1903. (The Kentucky Derby is older. Hopefully all the horses know that Trump's policies constitute a war on animals , and also boycott the visit.) Earlier this year, the Golden State Warriors (NBA) expressed doubts about a White House visit, and the invitation was withdrawn. Ditto for the Philadelphia Eagles (NFL) after they won the 2018 Super Bowl. However, this silly headline , implying this is "nothing new", is false. Various individual p...

Another awesome athlete protest that I have no time to write about. I can only thank Colin Kaepernick for his courage. Joy of Sox speaks for me:  To Mookie Betts (And Others): The Right To Protest Has Nothing To Do With The Military .

At a football (soccer) match between the Scottish Celtic team and an Israeli team, Hapoel Beersheba, hundreds of Celtic fans defied Scottish law to show their solidarity with Palestine and protest the Israeli occupation. Mondoweiss reports: There could be serious consequences for Celtic thanks to the protest, carried out in front of Israelis themselves. Fines and closures of their fans seating sections are possible, under UEFA rules. And a 2012 Scottish law against provocative political speech at sporting events makes the flag display an arrestable offense, although authorities reportedly did not take the offending fans into custody. There were dozens of them, photographs show. Although the flag politics of the region are contrarian, the feelings of political solidarity are real. “Since at least the late 80’s Palestine flags have been seen at Celtic Park and Celtic fans have shown their support for the Palestinians. Celtic fans have always had a radical history with support for Irish ...

Derrick Rose Reggie Bush Davin Joseph Eric Garner

Did I celebrate Michael Sam's coming out on Facebook and Twitter, and forget to mention it on wmtc?? Ack! Social media run amok! The news that a top NFL prospect has come out as gay in advance of the draft is electrifying. The support for Sam among NFL players is awesome. At first, there was a conspicuous silence among NFL owners , but Giants owner Steve Tisch  and Dolphins owner Dolphins owner Stephen Ross  have stepped up. Perhaps more will follow. Here's an excerpt from an open letter to Michael Sam from Dave Kopay, a former NFL player who came out as gay after he retired. Not only am I excited for you, I am excited for the NFL. I know the SEC is thanking its lucky stars that a player like you has succeeded and developed, and it would be a significant thing for the entire sports world and for you to continue on your path in the National Football League. But know that now that you are "publicly out" as a gay man you must focus on doing your job and don't let a...

I started compiling my usual "why I can't watch the Olympics" post, when I read Dave Zirin... and stopped writing. At every Olympics, you can cue the complaints, getting in the way when all we’re trying to do is enjoy a good luge. Yet it took a visionary like Vladimir Putin, a man with the pecs to match his steely will, to finally figure out a way to unite the world and make the Olympics something for everybody. Everyone, thanks to Putin, has something to care about during the 2014 Sochi Games. If you are a person with even the mildest concern for anything outside the five feet in front of your face, then this Olympiad is for you. No matter your cause, no matter your passion, Vladimir Putin has given you something to perk up about. Something for everyone: LGBT rights, labour, the environment, genocide, cruelty to animals, free speech. Read " The 2014 Sochi Olympics: Something For Everyone! " on Edge of Sports, or at The Nation . It's truly priceless. I was h...

I have written a bit about the use of professional sports as a vehicle for war propaganda and militarism, such as when the Harper Government used the Olympic torch relay  to promote its war in Afghanistan. My partner Allan has covered this ground more consistently, since he writes a sports blog. See, for example, his " Thoughts Prompted By The Red Sox Foundation's Association With "Run To Home Base" " and " The National Anthem And The Idea Of Respect ", among others. These are mostly from a US perspective, since that's mostly where Major League Baseball is played. Whether it's endless rounds of "God Bless America," (nationalism being the first stop on the road to war), the honouring of veterans who are always deemed "heroes," or in one case, a plan to distribute dog-tags to kids attending a game ( dropped after protests ), the continuing militarization of sports is a disturbing - yet largely uncontested - trend. When milit...

When I read Stephen Fry's open letter to the IOC , and the continued calls to boycott or move the Sochi Games because of the horrendous and institutionalized homophobic violence within Russia, I couldn't help but think of the Beijing Games. I absolutely understand the uproar over Russia's anti-gay laws, and I agree, of course. But did the same people make so much as a peep when the Olympics were in Beijing? China is one of the worst human rights offenders on the planet, but all I heard during the Beijing Olympics was "Go Canada". I personally boycotted the Beijing Games ( here's why ), then soon discovered that I was done with the Olympics altogether . And certainly everyone who feels disgusted and offended at the homphobia emanating from Russia should personall boycott the games if that's what feels right to them. But Sochi is hosting, and that's not going to change. What can the people who'll be there do? Rosie DiManno has the right idea. DiManno...

Here is the definitive piece on why the NFL team in Washington DC must change its name, written by - who else - Dave Zirin: Enough: An Open Letter to Enough Dan Snyder , at Grantland . Please go and read it .

It has finally happened. A professional male athlete in one of the big US team sports has come out as gay. Someone had to be first, and that person is Jason Collins of the NBA. Thank you, Mr. Collins, for your courage and your honesty! From the Sports Illustrated cover story: I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay. I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, "I'm different." If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand. My journey of self-discovery and self-acknowledgement began in my hometown of Los Angeles and has taken me through two state high school championships, the NCAA Final Four and the Elite Eight, and nine playoffs in 12 NBA seasons. . . . . I realized I needed to go public when Joe Kennedy, ...

This week in The Nation , Dave Zirin reports on some disturbing - and disgusting - behaviour from Israeli soccer fans. Not even in the earliest days of Jackie Robinson’s 1947 historic debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers did Brooklyn’s white fans walk out after number 42 stole a base or hit a home run. The Brooklyn faithful’s love of “Dem Bums” trumped any racism that simmered in the stands. What does it say that sixty-six years later, Israeli fans of the soccer club Beitar Jerusalem have not evolved to postwar-Brooklyn standards of human decency? Earlier this season, Beitar Jersulam broke their own version of the “color line” by signing the first two Muslim players in team history: Zaur Sadayev and Dzhabrail Kadiyev. Predictably, Beitar’s supporters were madder than the NRA in a school zone. Boos have rained down on Sadayev and Kadiyev every time they’ve taken the field or touched the ball. Several members of a team fan club flew a banner that read, “Beitar is pure forever.” Two others at...

As the title says, here are some things I thought about while I was taking a blogging break. ● Marvin Miller died. Miller should be a hero of both the labour movement and baseball history. He should also be in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Anyone interested in the intersection of sports and politics should read his terrific book, A Whole New Ball Game . Dave Zirin interviews Miller here ; Joy of Sox muses on his passing here . During the 1994 baseball strike, I wrote to Miller via the players' union. Within two weeks, I received a reply: a typewritten letter, which included his home address. Something to treasure. ● There's really nothing I can say about Rob Ford, former mayor of Toronto, that hasn't already been said. I just wanted wmtc to join the celebration. Marcus Gee: Rob Ford's self-inflicted downfall ; Toronto Media Coop: Rob Ford's litany of misdeeds . ● Photos from the OUR Walmart actions on the day after US Thanksgiving are here.  OUR Walmart write...

In case you haven't seen this yet, it's 9-year-old football sensation Sam Gordon, the only girl on her Utah football team. Dave Zirin raises the question: why do we assume gender segregation in sports is necessary? The historical perspective, plus the more recent rethinking of the binary nature of gender, opens new vistas. Few 9-year-old girls are described as a “young—very young—Walter Payton.” But that’s what people are calling Sam Gordon of South Jordan, Utah. Gordon has become an Internet sensation after the spread of viral videos showing her shredding Pee Wee football defenses with a series of dynamic touchdown runs. The footage of Gordon has been passed around breathlessly but almost as a YouTube curio, like she’s the 2012 version of the “dramatic chipmunk” or “sneezing panda”. Her rather overwhelming awesomeness, however, raises far more interesting questions: Why do we still segregate so much of youth sports based on gender? Does the practice of doing so actually stunt...

The 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics kick off today, with Opening Ceremonies that are supposed to be completely over-the-top. With a £27 million price tag ($42.5 million Canadian) for those three hours alone, they ought to be. We're told that one billion people worldwide will watch the Opening Ceremonies. I won't be one of them. I used to love the Olympics - the competition, the ubiquitous underdog stories, the feats of seemingly superhuman ability. I was able to tune out the nationalism and concentrate on the athletes. In the 1990s, when I started writing about disability sports, I shifted my focus to the Paralympics. I felt that competition best embodied the true spirit of amateur sport, and that helped me block out the increasingly disturbing issues surrounding the Olympic games. These days I can't enjoy the games at all. I get past the corporatism, the nationalism, and the constant blending of the two into a corporate-fascist spectacle. Right now in London, as th...

I spent some time last night reading reaction to the sanctions against Penn State University set out by the NCAA. (I should qualify that: I was reading the reactions of intelligent, compassionate people. I don't need to read anything written by people who care more about football than child sexual abuse.) If you haven't read about the sanctions, this is a good explanation . Many people are upset, feeling that anything short of the so-called "death penalty" - the complete dismantling of Penn State's football program - is a failure of the NCAA. Although I would have preferred to see the end of Penn State football for five or 10 years, I do think the NCAA sanctions are weighty and meaningful. They force the school to continue to play their vaunted sport in greatly diminished form. As my friend Barry Crimmins said on Facebook, they are "forced to be shitty in public" for a certain length of time, an ongoing public humiliation. Certain aspects of the sanctio...

This is one of the most iconic photos in sports history: the Olympics, 1968, Mexico City. As the Star Spangled Banner begins to play, gold-medal winner Tommie Smith and bronze-medal winner John Carlos, each wearing a single black glove, raise their fists in a black-power salute. Peter Norman, the silver medal winner from Australia, wears a badge in support of their gesture. This moment of silent protest rocked the world. The social revolution - often referred to as the "turmoil" - of 1968 broke through the sanitized, apolitical facade, forcing the public to notice and react. From The Guardian : Anticipating some kind of protest was afoot, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had sent Jesse Owens to talk them out of it. (Owens's four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin themselves held great symbolic significance, given Hitler's belief in Aryan supremacy.) Carlos's mind was made up. When he and Smith struck their pose, Carlos feared the worst. Look at ...