The Republic of Dissent

Cancer and Lance

Sugary excerpt from the best article I've on Lance Armstrong's fall from grace written by Robert Weintraub:    

Perhaps I’m wrong, but even as he was winning the Tours, I think most people suspected he had to, at the very least, be keeping up with the Joneses, PED-wise, and was mostly forgiven, pre facto, because unlike the other riders, Armstrong was lucky to be alive, much less racing. The image of his press conference where he shakily announced his diagnosis served as a public inoculation. (...) Ironically, the fact that Americans either didn’t want to know about the science behind Armstrong’s rise, or didn’t much care, enraged the European writers who took pretty much the same blasé attitude with virtually all other champion riders when it came to doping. It was as if the mere fact that an American—worse, a Texan, like George W. Bush—was winning France’s most cherished sporting title sent the local press into hypocritical hysteria.

Weintraub is right. Lance Armstrong became Lance Armstrong because he had beaten cancer. That exploit made people more willing to believe the improbable because he had had already done it once. It is also because he is a cancer survivor that Armstrong is going to make a comeback when he decides to talk. Cancer will always humanize him and make people empathize with him because he once faced death and triumphed.

Sin and crime

From Duleep Allirajah over at Spiked on the fight against racism in English football:

Racist speech is, in other words, a modern taboo. It is no longer seen as the expression of a political ideology but as something more akin to a sin. Anti-racism, by the same token, is no longer a political project but an inquisition against racial name-calling.

Hum, something is rotten in the State of Denmark...I suspect that it is the fact that modern societies are too eager to abdicate the responsibility that they have in educating their members rather than to criminalize all of their shortcomings whether or not they become criminal acts. 

Racism and cultural inferiority

Brendan O'Neill's interesting take on Euro 2012 and the popular meme that both Poland and Ukraine are essentially racist countries:

What the great Ukraine racism panic reveals is the extent to which official anti-racism has replaced racism as the means through which the elite asserts its authority over allegedly backward peoples. Where once the ideology of racism was used to depict Slavs as inferior, now the ideology of ‘anti-racism’ is used to do something frighteningly similar. The only difference is that where earlier generations of Western elitists argued that Slavs were racially inferior, today’s elitists claim they are culturally inferior, that there is an endemic cultural problem rather than a hereditary problem. Yet all that this reveals is that, in an era when racial thinking has been well and truly discredited, talk of problematic ‘cultural traits’ has replaced talk of backward ‘racial traits’ as the preferred method of asserting one’s moral authority over strange, uneducated tribes Over There. Today, weirdly, a people like the Ukrainians is branded inferior not because of its racial traits but because of its alleged racialist thinking.(...)One possible end result of this relentless cultural assault on Eastern Europeans, the depiction of them as racist lowlifes and savages, is that they will respond in kind, kicking against their Western haters by causing some trouble for Euro 2012.

I  don't disagree with O'Neill for too often or rater usually it assumed that racism and other forms of bigotry have to do solely with ignorance and stupidity when it doesn't and when experience sows that it is possible to be cultured and bigoted and to be an anti-racist/non racist and stupid or ignorant.  It is too easy to blame culture or rather inculture and stupidity for racism because it  simplifies the issue by making it being one of morality, of good vs. evil when the reality is more complex which explains why prejudices and stereotypes can survive erudition. 

The romantic Mannschaft

Alexander Osang on the Mannschaft, German football team at the South African World Cup and why its players were the ambassadors of a new Germany:

There was something soothing and liberating about watching this team play, and it was even more soothing and liberating to see the expressions of joy on the players' faces. They embraced each other when Klose, who had been out of form all season at Bayern Munich, finally scored a goal again in the first World Cup match, and the team hugged him as if he had just recovered from a long, serious illness. Klose later said that Podolski wouldn't let him go -- and that it was a nice feeling. They all seemed like boys having a fantastic time on a school outing. Löw thanked the players he substituted, and they thanked him, an act that was not a gesture but an expression of need. Everyone trusted everyone else. The most German of feelings that this team triggered was romanticism.

Having read and listened everything that was written and said about les Bleus, French football team and its South African debacle, I have realized that it is always easy to made footballers representatives/scapegoat of their country's successes or its ills because it is easy and because in both cases, the analogy and the analysis are convenient and so pleasurable for the ones making it weather their intent is to praise or to criticize violently and too often unfairly.

To come back to the Mannschaft, it is undoubtedly that its image is new and young, but I wonder whether that visible change is indicative of lasting and profound social transformations within Germany, in other words, if the Mannschaft different because Germany is different or just because it had to change and to adapt to the realities of football to remain the Mannshaft, that is a consistently good national football team.

The allusory and illusory African World Cup

Interesting and informative words from Sanza Tshabalala (first quote) and Ann Berstein (second) on the South African World Cup, the obsession with race and the horrendously stupid and anti-intellectual notion that it was the African World Cup:

The more the African teams were going down, the more I started getting worried about our race relations. I thought, we [Africans] are not doing well otherwise and I thought we would do well in football and it would maybe do something with our pride.
I’m obsessed with race issues. South Africans should be behind African teams. Then I went to see the Argentina-Nigeria game, at Ellis Park. And I see young Indian professionals, white people, all dressed up in Lionel Messi jerseys, and the few of us [who] are supporting Nigeria – probably 2 per cent of the stadium. I sat there thinking, ‘What’s this society going to?’ Because we’re meant to be supporting an African team, aren’t we?

---

Why? Why should we support an African team? There isn’t a black view, nor is there a white view. What’s striking to me, going to a Soccer City game, was that you were seeing very large numbers of this emerging black lower middle class. They could afford to come to the game, they had all the right clothes and they were there. Class is more important now.

This World Cup confirmed my belief  that Africanity/Africanness  is a concept created by those who refuse to acknowledge the complexities and the diversity of the African continent either because it challenges their prejudices and received ideas or because it is more convenient for them to believe that the populations of the African continent, as Conrad's cannibals, are the same and therefore have the same views, the same needs, and the same identity. It would be too inconvenient for Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, the football international governing body, to accept the idea that the South African World Cup was solely the one of a country not of a continent because it would mean taking the risk to have another country on the same continent host the World Cup sooner than in a decade or two. In short, africanity/africanness is about anything but reality for it is an attempt to take short cuts to avoid acknowledging unsettling realities and to be content with bienfaisant paternalism or simply paternalistic humanism.

España, mi corazón

Quick and useless thought: there is nothing as fun when you are on vacation as seeing a team that you enjoy watching get to the final game of the World Cup. I was afraid that the Germans were going to win and that the last match of this dreadful competition would thus become unwatchable. Thus, I am happy to see Spain win today because while watching its team, one still feels that soccer, football is a game that must be fun instead of battle that has to be won. I don't know if Spain is going to win Sunday, but I hope that they try to play their football instead of playing solely strategically and trying to outsmart the Netherlands instead of just outplaying them, which should be enough to win.  In short, I believe that Spain will win Sunday if it isn't afraid of losing its first World Cup final by letting itself believe that it can't win with its football.

Sick of seeing grown men cry

 Gideon Rachman who was in South Africa for the World Cup on how pathetic it is to seen grown men cry over a game:

I am sick of seeing grown men cry. Asamoah Gyan of Ghana was in floods, after missing that crucial penalty against Uruguay. Last night, it was Cardozo of Paraguay who missed a vital spot-kick and then left the field, blubbing. Really chaps - it’s only a game.

My take on the whole thing is that football has stopped being a game long ago to become the last 'hope' or rather the new opiate of the masses especially in countries where politics seem to lead to a dead end and economics is about everything but merit and effort.

Satan and Soccer

The hilarious sentence of the day is from Alex Massie bashing Marc Thiessen's anti-soccerfootball and stupid tirade:

Like Satan, Sodomy and Socialism, Soccer begins with an S. Obviously, then, it's un-American and likely to corrupt these great United States.

Ghana not Africa

Ghana lost yesterday. I had predicted that the Black stars would win if they were capable of ignoring the symbolic "crap" about Ghana representing the whole African continent and some type of imaginary "Africanity." Ghana lost yesterday mostly because the pressure of representing something other than itself crushed its players. Asamoah Gyan, the poor guy who missed the penalty that would have sent his country to the semi-final, thought undoubtedly about all the fluff, about the idiotic and anti-intellectual notion that he was carrying the hopes of 'Africa' on his shoulders instead of calming himself down to remember that Ghana isn't 'Africa'  and the game against Uruguay wasn't another absurd and futile identity struggle.
Next time, because there will be a next time for Ghana, its players should just think of themselves, their country, and ignore the burden of a nonexistent common identity and of a idealized history. Ghana isn't 'Africa' and remembering it can only be productive for it is a liberating reality.

Before or after whatever

Scenery: It's hot, humid, and quiet, but this calme trompeur will not last for it is less than an hour from the game between Ghana and Uruguay... It's amazing to see how all-encompassing sports can be when it becomes about something other than fun, but about identity. I'm sports fanatic, but I wouldn't die for it. In any case, I'm not watching the game for I'm going to bed. I watched too much tennis (Nadal  won!!!) and Brazil lost, which made my day. Besides I know the outcome of the game already: Ghana is going to win. The Black stars will win because they are the better team and because the only thing that can stop them is all the fluff and the burdensome symbolic noise, which may paralyze them and make them believe that they are fighting for something bigger and that football is an identity struggle which can repair injustices or rather fix a country's and  a continent's ills. Thus, Ghana will win if the Black Stars make the temperate choice to play just football and to ignore the chatter about its meaning.

Football as the road to serfdom

Quote of the day from Arnold Kling:

I have my doubts about the case for giving the better team a high probability of losing due to bad luck just for the sake of making the games more interesting. That seems to me like wanting to tax rich people because you don't like people to be too successful. It sounds to me like soccer is the road to serfdom.

Who am I?

I was unapologetically for the US yesterday in their match at the World Cup against Ghana. Somebody asked me how I couldn't support the Ghanaians and I have to admit that I was puzzled by the question because the assumption was that identity is 'racial' and I had to identify with Ghana rather than with the US because I share the color of their skin. My answer was that I have never been to Ghana while I love the US and that I am too cultured and too well read to make the stupid assumption that race skin color trumps everything else including experience. I am proud to say that I wanted the Americans to win against Ghana yesterday and that it broke my heart that they didn;t win. Their loss hurt me because I 'identify' with the American players, because I know America more than I know Ghana and because I love America not in the shallow way people from afar do but in a Tocqueville way: I admire its strength and acknowledging its ills.

In a time, when people are drunk with the disturbing sacrality of race while forgetting conveniently that for everybody, even those with a darker skin color, existence precedes essence, I refuse to follow the majority and to let the past or whatever else define who I am or rather whom I should be.  To quote once more time Hannah Arendt quoting René Char: notre héritage n’est précédé d’aucun testament.

The art of bad referring

It's difficult not to write about the referring at the World Cup for it was so bad today that it affected the outcome of two games with the expulsion of a German player, Miroslav Klose in his team's match against Serbia and the refusal of a valid goal in the US game against Slovenia. It seems that this type of events happen every World Cup because football refuses to allow video by using the argument that it would dehumanize the beautiful game. That is, of course, a bogus argument for the truth of the matter is that to some, particularly those in charge of it in Europe, football is about traditions and conserving them at any cost for modernity is viewed as the enemy and that there is a sense that it is capital is to preserve an authenticity that is illusory at any cost necessary.

In any case, the World Cup is getting better, I just hope that it isn't going to become unfair.

Vuvuzela and monotony

Deaf from all the sound of the Vuvuzela while I'm watching all the world cup game. That said I'm addicted to that painful noise and believe that I'm going to miss it after it is going even though I suspect that it is bad for my health.

I can't believe that Spain lost, but I'm grateful that it was to my new favorite country, Federeland Switzerland. I'm hoping that this world cup will get better. So far, the games have been forgettable. Can somebody please beat Italy, Brazil, and all of  those teams who have won it all so that we have so some exciting novelty or something other than monotonous continuity?The problem is that in football, very few things are offered to you, you need to take them or die with regrets.

World Cup fever

I've finally caught World Cup fever. It took a long time, but I have it. The best thing for me about this World Cup is that I'm not going to watch it in the US for the first time in 16 years !!! It's a pain when you are a soccer football fan to watch the World Cup in the US because Americans don't care and  have other worries while the rest of the world is following religiously what it considers to be the most important sporting event. Thus, even though I'm going to have a working vacation, I can't complain and I'm actually looking forward to the summer: Rafa Nadal is back and I won't have to watch the beautiful game on ESPN, everything is perfect in my small universe.

The South African World Cup and its potential unwanted guests

Predictable difficulties to the beginning of the World Cup in South Africa:

(...)at the last African Union summit Zuma declared that this was not South Africa’s World Cup but Africa’s and that all African heads of state were welcome. It now emerges that 50 out of 52 are said to be coming plus their considerable retinues. Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, may be among them, although there is a warrant out for his arrest from the International Criminal Court, and legally South Africa would be compelled to detain him. Another difficult case will be Robert Mugabe, since Biden and many others will wish to avoid having to meet the Zimbabwean president or shake his hand.

My guess is that both Mugabe and al-Bashir will act as if their most ardent desire is to participate  to what they will claim to be an 'African' party until the last minute. The goal will be to play, as usual, the role of victims, but neither of them will show up. Omar al-Bashir will be too afraid to get arrested and Mugabe won't dare to embarrass Zuma who is a key ally.

However, there is another 'colorful' character that will certainly show up and do everything he can to attract the spotlight: Gaddafi. He will wear his usual pin of Africa and act as if he is the 'African president.'

Football Sunday

The English Premier league is ending today and I'm solely interested because I hope that Manchester United finds a way to get the title for I'm a Chelsea hater. Chelsea represents everything that is wrong with soccer football and sports, which is the idea that money is all that matters. It is a club with no soul. So even though, there is next to little chance that Chelsea won't win its last match and outlasts Man U, I'm watching the game hoping against hope that it loses.

South Africa, the World Cup, reconciliation, and Invictus

David Zirin argues that the Soccer Football World cup in South Africa might have the reverse effects of the 1995 Rugby World, which brought South Africans together as the movie Invictus showed (you can find my review in French of the movie in here):

In a normal month, South Africa has more protests per capita than any nation on earth. But when you factor in the World Cup crackdown, a simmering nation can explode. Over 70,000 workers have taken part in strikes connected to World Cup projects since the preparations have begun, with 26 strikes since 2007. On March 4th, more than 250 people, in a press conference featuring representatives from four provinces, threatened to protest the opening game of the Cup unless their various demands were met. These protests should not be taken lightly, A woman named Lebo said to me, “We have learned in South Africa that unless we burn tires, unless we fight police, unless we are willing to return violence on violence, we will never be heard,” Patrick Bond from the Center Civil Society in Durban said to me that protests should be expected: “Anytime you have three billion people watching, that’s called leverage.” Indeed. There is a scene in Invictus where Freeman’s Mandela says, “I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. I am the master of my fate.” The people of South Africa still consider themselves unconquerable: whether they face apartheid, FIFA, or their current government. But FIFA insists with equal insistence that the World Cup will brook no dissent. In 90 days, we’ll find out who masters the fate of this beloved country.

Invictus romanticized the reconciling effects of the Rugby World cup. In any case, I doubt that the positive effects of that competition were long lasting for the reality didn't change and what saved the day was the fact that Mandela chose not to threat carefully and not to follow the Mugabe example. My view on the matter is that sports bring people together for a short time and can be an integrating and a reconciling tool if politics create a fruitful context and emphasize reconciliation.

In short, the World Cup in South Africa will be undoubtedly be a success (for the spectators and the visitors not necessarily for South Africans), but it is less likely to unify South Africans because of the politics and the political and societal context of their country. One has to remember that Nelson Mandela was the president in 1995 and was so beloved that he could encourage and cement the symbolic of sports. Jacob Zuma isn't Nelson Mandela.

Looking forward to a uncommercialized Tiger Woods

Sandy Levinson offers a unique take on the whole Tiger Woods business and his return to Augusta National to play the Masters:

So my wish for this April season is that Tiger (at least metaphorically) tears Augusta National apart, winning by, say, fifteen or twenty strokes, and then tells Mr. Payne [the Chairman of Augusta National], in no uncertain terms, what he can do with his green championship coat. One of the reasons for ambivalence about Mr. Woods, quite independently of his sexual escapades, is that he has so consistently chosen to serve his corporate masters by distancing himself from any kinds of social or political controversies, including the scandalous sexism of Augusta National. That is, he has been an absolutely terrible role model of "citizenship" (like, to be sure, Michael Jordan, who also preferred to sell shoes rather than to engage in anything that might be called citizenship). Perhaps Mr. Woods will emerge from his treatment not only with a different approach to sex, but also with a backbone that will no longer be submissive to such hypocritical charlatans as Mr. Payne. In any case, forced to choose between Tiger Woods and Mr. Payne, my loyalties are with Tiger, who is by far the lesser threat to Americans children and grandchildren than the members of Augusta National Golf Club for whom Mr. Payne so sanctimoniously speaks.

I have never been able to bend to the American ideal that sports figures ought to be role model or even good people. The only thing that the Woods scandal has changed for me is that it has stopped making wish to know him as a person. That said,sports and business in America are too intertwined for Tiger Woods not be a product and to be Muhammad Ali. However, my hope is that he realizes that he can't be all things to all people and picks a side for after unlike Obama, he has to remain rule  golf for more than 8 years. 

Mocking "Nice" Canadians

Unlike me, there are people such as Patrick West who don't like Canadians, and thus who hated the Vancouver Olympics or rather its ceremonies:

Broadcast on BBC2 on Sunday night, the closing ceremony will probably be remembered for its giant inflatable beavers, which, if not quite satisfying the critics, certainly pleased fans of double entendres. The allusion was not lost on BBC host Hazel Irvine, who seemed on the verge of corpsing every time she had to mention giant beavers. Maybe their inclusion was deliberate, demonstrating that Canadians do have a sense of humour. If they did not notice the innuendo, the Canadians are more straight-laced than I thought. Or maybe Brits like me are just infantile.
(...) I know Canadians feel the need to tell the world what a nice people they are. This probably stems from the fact that when they go abroad they hate being mistaken for Americans. But I don’t know if this earns them any more friends. By doing so, they resemble a kind of needy and neurotic buddy who’s always asking if you like him. America, by comparison, is the kind of mate who raises hell at a party, smashes the furniture, pulls the best-looking girl and then drunkenly whacks you on the back. He’s not a particularly good friend, or a nice person, but he’s fun company nonetheless.
I’m not even sure the nice stereotype of the Canadians is true.

Canadian pride

I have to admit that Canada fascinates me, it reminds of Belgium, another country, which I like a lot, for that reason I find the post from Posthegemony blog  on Canada, Vancouver, Ice Hockey, and national pride super interesting. Sugary excerpt

So one consequence of all the flag-waving and chanting is that Canadians may be a little less smug in the future: they've shown that they can be just as blindly patriotic as (say) their neighbors to the south. As they become more ostentatiously Canadian, they undermine that sense of entitlement that comes precisely from the notion that "ostentatious" and "Canadian" are two words that don't really belong in the same sentence.
The more visibly Canadian they become, the less "Canadian" they actually are.

Well what else can you say than "Oh Canada" and hope that Canada remains Canada. What a bummer would it  be if there were two Americas in the world especially since the US is already great at being America, the 'Hegemon.' After all all nations are exceptional.

Sex in black and white

For some reason, I had the feeling that I could count on Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to expose the racial aspects of the Tiger Woods story. She didn't disappoints me:

The black American comedienne Sheryl Underwood also blasted the randy golfer: "The issue comes in when you choose something white because you think it's better. If you never date a black woman or women of colour you never sample the international buffet of human beings. If you never do that, we've got a problem."
Some black women I know say Woods goes for "the barbies" because he thinks he can pass for white. They come down hard on other black men too – like Seal, Trevor Macdonald, Lenny Henry and all those others who marry white. Cole has raised the same emotions among many black folk. He went for white, always, and so seems to be "self-hating".
There are white people out there who believe Woods and Cole exploited sweet white princesses, used them and tried to control them. It is vengeance for slavery and historical injustice. Back then torture and death were used to emasculate black males whose sexuality was feared, envied and hated by masters. To regain their pride and dignity, to punish their tormentors, black men turned that fear into reality.

I'm at a loss for words. I'm officially speechless.

America and its unhealthy need for public apologies

Why does America love apologies especially for behaviors that do not affect its destiny? That's the question I'm asking myself as I'm glancing through the beginning of the Tiger Woods's redemption tour.  I feel uncomfortable and ashamed. I feel like a voyeur whose unhealthy appetite to focus on the lives of others and to live vicariously through them is legitimized by the erroneous acknowledgment that her/her opinion about their private conducts matters when it doesn't/shouldn't. This is just sad. It is yet another proof that modern America society never got rid of its puritanism for only that fact can justify that it divinizes gifted people, then forces them to go through public humiliation/shaming when it realizes that their uncommon gifts are accompanied by incredible faults. What a pitiful circus ! Tiger Woods, please just go play golf, and atone for whatever you need to atone for with the people who know you and who you cared about if you want to, because hey you don't even have to want to be good to be a great golfer.

A bilingual Olympics

André Pratte stressing the importance of the Vancouver Olympics to be fully Canadian by according an equal place for the two languages of Canada, English and French even though Vancouver is not a Francophone city:

Canada has two official languages.
It doesn't mean that all Canadians should speak both, or that the city of Vancouver should become bilingual. It doesn't diminish the importance of the First Nations and of immigrant cultures. Official bilingualism is not a constraint; it is a symbol of the country's unique approach to diversity. Confederation was built on the notion of accommodating cultural differences.
"French Canada can survive not by turning in on itself but by reaching out to claim its full share of every aspect of Canadian life. English Canada should not attempt to crush or expect to absorb French Canada. All Canadians should capitalize on the advantages of living in a country which has learned to speak in two great world languages," declared Pierre Trudeau during the debate on the Official Languages Act, in 1968.
Although we have not always been faithful to that ideal, we have tried hard and succeeded most of the time. The task is exacting; it will never be completed. The work in progress is Canada's destiny.
Therefore, when Canada holds an important international event, French and English should be conspicuous.

I can only subscribe fully to Pratte's sentiments since for it is impossible to even entertain the possibility that French cannot be the equal of English in any circumstance. That said, because I know how French Quebeckers Québécois can be when it comes to language,  I'm maliciously wondering how bilingual and Canadian the Olympics would have been if they were happening in Montréal or Québec city.

Bitter

As a Francophone and Francophile, I'm beating myself up over the fact that I just can't like the Saints. It has a lot to do with the fact that they killed my Favre fantasy. The Superbowl just showed that coaching matters and that sometimes when you are outmatched, you have to be more gutsy and outsmart your opponent, that is what the Saints and their coach did. The Colts thought they had won it in the first quarter and essentially lost when after going for it on fourth down in their second drive of the fourth quarter when they were up by one point, they chose not to go for it again and instead choose to kick the field goal. That turned the game especially since the kicker missed the field goal. Sean Payton was unafraid to lose and that helped him to make wow calls. Peyton Manning got rattled because he never gave the Saints' defense enough respect and lost his patience once his team got down by a touchdown. Wow...I guess I was right for when the game didn't become a blowout, the Saints started to believe in their own destiny and the Colts to doubt theirs. American Football is football, but it can spectacular.

The common tale of a nation divided

Interesting bit from R.W. Johnson's article in the London Review of Books on next year's soccer football world cup in South Africa:

The World Cup, it is everywhere said, will market South Africa around the world, create jobs and be highly beneficial to the country’s development. In fact, it will be very much for the delectation of the well-off. At least in ancient Rome the poor got to see the chariot races and gladiatorial contests, but there is little chance of the same happening here. In practice, one may be sure, it will be the new elite who will flock to the games in their Mercs and BMWs. It is quite common in South Africa for higher civil servants or mayors and councillors from poor areas to award themselves trips to the Olympics or other such international events, often taking hundreds of hangers-on with them, all paid for from the public purse. There is little doubt that the World Cup, being local, will see more of that sort of thing than ever.

Question de main

As France is wondering whether it should be proud of the way it qualified for the World Cup (Soccer, football), it got me thinking whether the United States would be tormented by such a question and agonized over the fact that it got through a major competition because of a mistake by the referee to say things politely. I have no idea. I have the strong suspicions that Italy wouldn't give a damn, but I wonder about the good, old, and moral U.S. of A. Sarkozy was too happy to have avoid the risk that having a whole nation not distracted by football next year could have been for him, that he just rejoiced in the win while praising les Bleus's fighting spirit. Would Obama have done the same thing ?

Light Mourning

I'm still trying to get over the Yankees's win and over the fact that I'm going to have to survive their parade tomorrow. Let's hope that they don't do it again next year otherwise, I will just have to stop watching Baseball.

Yankees Hater

Well, as all passionate Red Sox Fans, as soon as the Sox are eliminated from the post-season I become a passionate Yankees hater. Thus, I hope that at least the Angels take the series to Game 7. However, I have the sick feeling that this year might be one of those cursed years when the Yankees are just destined to win it all. It will hard to be in New York  for the day of the parade. The first thing I see from my window is my neighbor's Yankees flag, which I have to fight the urge to burn it.

The totalitarianism of gender

More on Caster Semenya, sports and gender:

As long as there have been women's sports, the characterization of the best female athletes as “looking like men” or “mannish” has consistently been used to degrade them. When Martina Navratilova dominated women's tennis and proudly exposed her chiselled biceps years before Hollywood gave its imprimatur to gals with “guns,” players complained that she “must have a chromosome loose somewhere.”
This minefield of sexism and homophobia has long pushed female athletes into magazines like Maxim to prove their “hotness” – and implicitly their heterosexuality. Track and field in particular has always had this preoccupation with gender, particularly when it crosses paths with racism. Fifty years ago, Olympic official Norman Cox proposed that in the case of black women, “the International Olympic Committee should create a special category of competition for them – the unfairly advantaged ‘hermaphrodites.' ”
For years, women athletes had to parade naked in front of Olympic officials. This has now given way to more “sophisticated” “gender testing” to determine whether athletes like Ms. Semenya have what officials still perceive as the ultimate advantage – being a man. Let's leave aside that being male is not the be-all, end-all of athletic success. A country's wealth, coaching facilities, nutrition and opportunity determine the creation of a world-class athlete far more than a Y chromosome or a penis ever could.
What these officials still don't understand, or will not confront, is that gender – that is, how we comport and conceive of ourselves – is a remarkably fluid social construction. Even our physical sex is far more ambiguous and fluid than is often imagined or taught.

Hummmh...I have to admit that I would love to think that gender is just a social construction, but that a part of me (the manly part) is resisting that assertion, although I believe that it is mostly true. What hasn't yet been discussed is the fact Semenya is in some ways been protected from the humiliations of having her femininity/gender questioned because she is a champion, because she's winning. She has something which others don't have and for now that certain something is shielding in part from the viciousness of  the gender cacophony around. I'm wondering what would be happening to her if instead of bringing joy and pride to South Africa and South Africans, she was bringing them shame. It's sad to say, but Semenya is condemned to continue to be a champion for the rest of her life, which is impossible, otherwise she will become a freak or something worse, right now she is the totem of South Africa, but what happens if, when she stops being superwoman?

S/he, s/him

I haven't discussed the case of the South African runner Caster Semenya because I must admit that I really don't care and because I wouldn't have anything interesting/original/meaningful to say, but Mike Labossiere via Talking philosophy has this long sugary excerpt, which puts it all in perspective:

Semenya, a South African runner, is currently the world’s champion in the women’s 800 meter race. The controversy is that it has apparently been claimed that she is not a woman. The basis of this is that her testosterone levels were tested at three times the normal level. She has also been under observation since her racing ability has made incredible advances in a relatively short time. Since natural improvements are generally gradual in nature, this raised suspicions.
One reply that has been given to the charge that “she is actually a he” is that Semenya certainly seems to be a female.
This sports controversy also raises a controversy over the nature of gender. Presumably Semenya appears to be a female (it has been implied that sort of check has been done). However, there are cases in which a person looks like a female yet is genetically male. This is complete androgen insensitivity syndrome and is more common than one might expect. Such people have higher testosterone levels than “normal” women because they have testes (albeit not descended). I must emphasize that I am not making any claims about Semenya, I am merely bringing this up for the sake of the discussion.
Since human societies are generally built around an obsession about gender identity and divisions, this syndrome does create some difficulties. If the syndrome is discovered when the child is young, there is the option of assigning a gender through the use of medical means (including surgery). In some cases, the procedure is delayed until the child can make his/her own decision.
Sports are, of course, not free from the gender obsession. Of course,  the concern over gender can be seen as quite reasonable. After all, males have a general physical advantage over females and for sports to be fair, males should be distinguished from females. This seems to be morally on par with divisions based on age (like age groups in road races) and weight (like in boxing). (...) Because sorting is and will remain gender based, it seems most reasonable to allow a person with the syndrome to compete as the gender they have chosen (or been assigned). It is not a perfect solution, but seems to be the fairest approach. Naturally, the person would have to be “established” in the gender rather than simply deciding to be, for example, a woman for the purposes of competition after having lived as a male.

Because Tennis shouldn't be a religious experience...

I won't be watching Wimbledon this year. Nadal just withdrew. What a shame! Tennis isn't just the same without him. We are just back to a few years ago when it was Federer all the time and when nobody could even managed to give him a fight because they thought he was a Tennis God. I know that Federer got devoted believers and I have to say that I like the guy because it is hard not to be amazed by his grace and his talent  ( I was never able to even watch Sampras), but he doesn't do it for me because Tennis to me isn't about religion, it is about the divine or the sublime, it is about battling yourself, your opponent, overcoming your pain or making him feel the pain. Without Nadal, WImbledon becomes just another boring and apparently larger than life religious temple. Because I hate religious experiences, which are about nothing more than praying for the divine and being in awe of its beauty, I'm skipping Wimbledon this year.

King of Paris

Well, Federer won the French Open... He deserves it for he has shown throughout his career that he is better than Sampras and probably the best player of the last forty years. I have to admit that I have only eyes for Rafa Nadal and that my heart is aching for him right now for I have the suspicion that his body is going to stop him from becoming the best player that he can be. The funny thing  about this French Open is it confirmed the fact that to be adopted by the French crowds one has to do three things: to be the best at what one does, to do what one does beautifully and elegantly, and to be cultured or to speak French fairly well which always give the appearance of intelligence, finesse, and of a great education (when one looks a certain way or possesses the other two attributes).  Those are the reasons why the French crowd in Roland Garros loves Federer and has always believed that he is one of the them. I can't help but thinking how far Obama would be if he learned only a few words of French, but he is ,in the eyes of most of French, Frenchlike since the one thing that he can't do is to speak French.

Sports fever

I'm having a delirious, studious, and sports-centric weekend, which of course, means that it is both exciting and chaotic. I can't wait for tonight's game between the Magic and the Cavaliers even though I think that it is going to be a blowout and that the Magic are going to win to then be swept by the Lakers. What a shame!

The beautiful game

David Post has a great post on Chelsea vs. Barcelona, which explains why there are few things in sports as thrilling as a soccer football game. I have to admit that I was happy about the outcome of the game because I hate Chelsea with a passion almost as much as I hate the New York Yankees. Thus, I was ecstatic to see them lose the way that they did and the behavior of their players at the end of the game confirmed my suspicion that they are disgraceful losers for after all, there is no crying in football especially when the losing team's players had chances not to let the referee 's poor decisions matter by scoring more goals. The great thing about the beautiful game is that those who think that they can only win by uglying it and by killing its soul more often than not lose and do so spectacularly.

So...

As I predicted the Red Sox lost, but it still hurt. I try to soothe my wounds by reminding myself that I have the chance to live in an era when the Sox actually expect to win the World series every year, but it doesn't work, I'm hurting. What else is new? Oh yeah, I watched Colin Powell and all I could think about is how much things have changed in such a short period of time. Six years ago, I believed and respected Colin Powell a lot more than Dominique de Villepin. Today, I respect Colin Powell, but can no longer believe what he says even though I'm still wondering what kind of president he would have made. I like Villepin a lot more because I have realized that there is something there and that his eloquence doesn't hide a lack of substance and of political courage (in that sense, he is in a way the sober person's anti-Obama). Words matter, but they are not a substitute for the beef. It isn't what God says or writes that is important, it is what s/he does or doesn't do and that proves that s/he doesn't exist. So the fall, so far, is looking  frighteningly promising. I have trouble living the realization that good times are coming. Oh, les beaux jours!