Once again, Russia is suffering from the tainted judgment of non-transparent Western institutions, this time from the World Anti-Doping Agency, which just banned Russia from all international sporting events. The reason for the arbitrary judgment should surprise no one.
Given the kind of responses I hear coming from both sides of the Pacific Ocean, I feel it’s necessary to say something more about what the NBA backlash in China is really about.
The NBA commissioner, both in his interviews in Japan and in his written statement to clarify himself, missed the point of what the Chinese people are actually angry about. It’s not about the freedom of an individual to express his or her personal opinions, but about the bottom line of what is acceptable in societies. In the U.S., you support freedom of expression, but do you support openly racist remarks?
The pigeon flapped in desperation, moving across Melbourne’s lavish Capitol Theatre in fits and starts. It was more alarmed than anything else at the address being given by former Australian football (soccer to some) player Craig Foster. Foster has been beating the drum on one particular message for some time now: that sports can change the dimension of human rights, becoming, as it were, a fertilising agent.
Since the events of 9/11, the Corporatist Sportsworld in general, and the National Football League in particular, have increasingly promoted the brand of American Militarism. For example, if you took a shot of whiskey every time an Armed Services recruitment ad aired during a typical NFL game telecast, you would probably be drunk by Halftime.
When Sahar Khodayari this week set herself alight in front of a Tehran courthouse, she indicted world soccer body FIFA, its Asian regional group, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and their presidents, Gianni Infantino and Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa. Messrs. Infantino and Al Khalifa have been selective in their support for women’s soccer rights. Mr. Infantino was in[Read More...]
One may or may not like cricket – not the worm, but the game – or even, could be someone like a typical Frenchman or woman who doesn’t understand the game, or pretends he/she doesn’t have any clues as to what British men (and now women too) do with a ball, two bats, and six sticks, inserted into the[Read More...]
The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan required major shifts in national resources from civilian to military purposes and contributed to the growth of the budget deficit and public debt. Through FY 2018, the direct costs of the wars will have totaled more than $1.9 trillion, according to US Government figures. Pollution is a serious issue.
In an earlier article in Medium, I wrote about a corrosive sports culture that brings out peoples’ baser instincts- from applauding violence to replacing a plural view of humanity with elemental tribalism. In the piece, I also discussed sports-obsession as an example of the abdication of affirmative citizenship, given the time, money, and mental energy people spend on sports versus civic[Read More...]
Toronto Raptors’ president Masai Ujiri claims to be an ambassador for Africa. But, his embrace of the most bloodstained African leader makes a mockery of any pan-Africanist pretenses.
On July 26 Ujiri traveled to Kigali to visit Rwandan president Paul Kagame. He was photographed next to the ruthless dictator sporting a T-shirt with a small map of the continent. Ujiri posted on Instagram:
Monday morning is here, dawn has broken over the home of the brave and the land of the free. As those first shafts of sunlight creep westerly across the nation they illuminate, one after another, the flags that have risen to half-mast on this, another day of national mourning. The refrain is all too familiar to us now as we come to grips with the body count from the latest mass shooting. On this particular day after we confront the results of back to back slaughters that left over thirty people dead in the space of just over twelve hours this weekend.
