Monday, December 26, 2011

A Holiday Thank You

As one of the many, many people who spent part of Christmas day on the road travelling to a holiday gathering, I'd like very seriously and gratefully to take this time to thank the many convenience store, gas station, and food service employees for everything that they do. Their sacrifice in having to spend significant portions of their holiday away from friends and family, often for inadequate compensation and in potentially hostile working conditions, helps make possible the freedoms that the rest of us enjoy.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

College Bowl Rankings 2011-2012

This proved to be fun last year, so, with the first bowl game of the 2011-2012 getting started as I write this, I’m going to offer my rankings of this year’s college bowls, based on their appeal to me as a follower of college football. I’ve purposely not read the bowl game rankings that appear in places like here, here, and here until after I’ve compiled my list. Based on experience, I’m sure that my list is going to differ substantially from the ones I just referenced.

And so, without further ado, here are my 2011-2012 college bowl game watchability rankings from 1 to 35:


1. Baylor v. Washington – Really glad to see Robert Griffin III win the Heisman. He’s typically very fun to watch.

2. Northern Illinois v. Arkansas State – Two words make this very appealable to watch: Chandler Harnish. Add in an Arkansas State team that played very well and there’s a reason this is near the top of the list.

3. Air Force v. Toledo – As a Bowling Green alum, I don’t like to root for Toledo, but I have to admit they’re a good team and they’re enjoyable to watch.

4. Michigan State v. Georgia – My second alma mater, the Spartans, has been a very enjoyable and exciting team to watch. Meanwhile, the excellent season put together by Georgia with their coach on the hot seat helps as well.

5. Ohio v. Utah State – Utah State could have easily ended up with three more wins, with all the last second heartbreaks they’ve suffered, starting with the first game against Auburn. They’re a fun team to watch, and Frank Solich has consistently has good Bobcat teams at Ohio. Oh ... and Ohio's quarterback is the son of former major league baseball player Mickey Tettleton ... and he's pretty good. That's worth watching alone.

6. Boise State v. Arizona State – Realize that if these two teams had played up to their potential, this could have been a BCS game. As it is, Boise State is very worth watching, and though Arizona State is my third alma mater, which draws me to the game, this particular disappointing team actually hurts this game in the rankings. A bit better of a Sun Devil team and this is in the running for number one on this list.

7. Southern Mississippi v. Nevada – This is a very good Southern Mississippi team that ended Houston’s run at perfection. Nevada’s worth watching, too.

8. Wyoming v. Temple – two teams worth watching … and I’m watching them right now as I post this.

9. Louisiana Lafayette v. San Diego State – ditto Wyoming and Temple (except that this game isn’t on yet).

10. Western Michigan v. Purdue – Western Michigan looked very strong in the first half of the season, but then I’m not sure what happened to them. I could take or leave Purdue and their 6-6 record, but I can remember some other recent MAC vs. Purdue bowl games that have been memorable, which helps this game.

11. Houston v. Penn State – Case Keenum is the draw here. Given all that’s happened at Penn State, I’m not very interested in watching their football team. Penn State against any number of other teams and this game would be near the bottom of the least. That says something for Keenum’s appeal.

12. TCU v. Louisiana Tech – TCU is an outstanding team.

13. LSU v. Alabama – Despite what those who myopically believe the more points the better say, I’d argue that that first game between these two was a very exciting game. It was also a good reason why we should bring back the tie and get rid of overtime. This rematch should also be interesting.

14. Georgia Tech v. Utah – Starting to lose some luster starting here. Utah brings this game up the ranking. Georgia Tech is, well, “meh …”

15. Virginia v. Auburn – Kudos to Mike London on the job he’s done at Virginia. I don’t care much for Auburn, but supporting London makes this worthwhile.

16. Oregon v. Wisconsin – I tend to have an inherent dislike for Wisconsin (hmmm … I went to Michigan State … I wonder why …), but after the two MSU-Wisconsin games this year, I have to admit that Wisconsin is worth watching, especially with Russell Wilson and Montee Ball. So, let’s make a deal and be willing to watch this one.

17. Louisville v. N.C. State – Not overly drawn to this but for an interest in supporting Charlie Strong

18. Cincinnati v. Vanderbilt – Starting to get kind of boring here … and I’m only halfway through the list … uh oh …

19. Oklahoma State v. Stanford – This makes it to the bottom half of the list despite some appeal of Stanford’s Andrew Luck … Blame that on the desire not to watch Oklahoma State.

20. California v. Texas – I kind of like Mack Brown, but his Texas teams the last two years seem kind of sleepy, as do the Cal Bears.

21. Missouri v. North Carolina – I’d rank this lower, largely because of North Carolina, but I’m not sure what below this deserves to go higher.

22. South Carolina v. Nebraska – Oh God, still thirteen more to go and we’re already at this snoozer …

23. Clemson v. West Virginia – Seriously! This made it up to number 23. This is good evidence that there are too many bowl games. Unfortunately, since this is a BCS game, this and some of the ones below it would be far from the chopping block, and some of the games I’d want to see (like Air Force v. Toledo and Ohio v. Utah State) would end up getting cut. So, in other words, because of the power of the likes of the SEC, Big Ten, Pac-12, and Big 12, we need 35 bowl games so that people like me can get the bowl games we want to see. Warped logic, I know, but thus are the lovely wonders of our kind of capitalist system …

24. Arkansas v. Kansas State – I don’t mind watching Kansas State, but Arkansas really hurts.

25. Rutgers v. Iowa State – Really boring, and would be lower, but for the fact that stuff below this has major negative appeal, while this one’s just very plain.

26. Texas A&M v. Northwestern – I don’t mind watching Northwestern, but here’s the deal on Texas A&M: a few years ago, they ran afoul of the need to interview minority coaches in order to get “their man” in white guy Mike Sherman. Now, they’ve fired Sherman and are on the hook for a buyout to Sherman. To their credit, they’ve hired Kevin Sumlin as Sherman’s replacement, and maybe that will be a reason to watch them next year. For now, though, they’re still on the naughty list.

27. SMU v. Pittsburgh – Ditto game number 25. No interest in seeing either of these teams much at all.

28. Wake Forest v. Mississippi State – Same here. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

29. BYU v. Tulsa – I have heavy disinterest in seeing BYU. Too bad for Tulsa, because they can be enjoyable to watch.

30. Oklahoma v. Iowa – See last year’s bowl list for some of the reasons why Iowa has a reserved place in a special level of dislike for me. Nothing has changed that. Add in that the thought of watching Oklahoma sounds almost (note, I did say almost) as bad as watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and, well, the stuff below this must be REALLY bad.

31. Florida State v. Notre Dame – And it is. Yuck, yuck, yuckety yuck yuck yuck. You know what? Change each of those initial “y” letters to an “f.” That’s how I feel about this game.

32. Ohio State v. Florida – I actually kind of like Urban Meyer a bit—probably because of the outstanding job he did in two years as head coach at Bowling Green. And I understand his thinking in coming out of retirement for the Ohio State job. So, maybe I’ll start to be a little more willing to watch Ohio State in the near future. Note that I said “watch,” not “root for.” I think anyone who graduated from or works at a state university in Ohio other than OSU should have a healthy anger at the way that OSU sucks resources from everyone else, all the while acting like they should have every right to do so, with their “the” Ohio State University crap. Still, I like Meyer a bit. That said, he isn’t the head coach yet … and we all know he’s not at Florida anymore. So, while I feel a bit for Luke Fickell, this game would be tough to watch, especially with Florida as Ohio State’s opponent. That they’re both 6-6 makes it even worse, though I will note that before the season started, I pegged Ohio State to go 4-8, which very easily could have happened had the Buckeyes lost to Toledo and Wisconsin, which very easily could have happened. So, 6-6 for this Buckeye team was actually not bad.

33. FIU v. Marshall – While I know this list is about football and not men’s basketball, that the Athletics Department at Florida International hired Isiah Thomas still feels very icky. And it makes me not want to watch their football team, even though their game against Toledo in last year’s bowl season was kind of entertaining. Marshall does nothing much either way for me.

34. Michigan v. Virginia Tech – Okay, now we’re down to the bottom two, both of which are making a statement by being here. For this one, I know, I know. This looks like a Spartan fan dogging on Michigan by ranking this game next to last. I understand, but I really believe that’s not the case. I’m happy to give props to the Wolverines this year. They played well, and they had an excellent season (which, by the way, I saw coming when I looked at the schedule in August). However, this team does not deserve to be in a BCS game over Boise State, and neither does Virginia Tech. For that matter, Kansas State has a beef against both Michigan and Virginia Tech as well. So, while this is not the most unwatchable game in terms of football excitement, I will be making a point not to watch it because of the injustice that it represents.

35. UCLA v. Illinois – Going from 6-0 to 6-6 by losing your final six games is pretty putrid, all arguments about the ease of Illinois’ first-half schedule aside. A good team would have found a way to win one or two of those final six (like against Ohio State and/or Northwestern, for instance). The Illini didn’t, and that’s why Ron Zook is out as head coach (again, though, with a buyout, which is problematic; I’m getting to be of the “you signed the coach for the number of years you did, so you’re stuck with him” philosophy—something that also applies here to UCLA). While I kind of like Zook, and I think he got a bad rap at Florida, his departure from Illinois is good for me as a Bowling Green fan, since it means that Illinois poached a good coach from Toledo. Still, this isn’t an Illinois team that seems worth watching. That said, at least they, at 6-6, have the right to be here. UCLA had to petition the NCAA for something they did (or didn’t do) not to count so they could get in with a 6-7 record, which is supposed to be not allowed. It seems inappropriate for the NCAA to rule in this instance that a conference championship game shouldn’t hurt a team when in other instances (like Houston losing its undefeated season and a chance at a BCS game, Michigan State getting its third loss of the season and a fall in the BCS rankings that helped pave the way for Michigan to make it to a BCS game instead, etc.) being in a conference championship game does hurt a team. Screw that hypocrisy. While I’ll be rooting for UCLA to lose just because of the embarrassment on college football’s books in having a bowl team that finished 6-8, I refuse to watch this game.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Still Despicable

Last night, Duke University men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski became the winningest head coach in Division I men's basketball history when his Blue Devils defeated the Michigan State University Spartans 74-69 at Madison Square Garden. Since the game--and indeed, even before the game--the accolades have been pouring in. I, however, will not be joining in the chorus celebrating Krzyzewski, and it's not because he defeated one of my alma maters and rooting interests to get his 903rd, record-setting win. Frankly, after their participation in the Carrier Classic last Friday night, I'm not sure I care that much about how the MSU Spartans perform.

Rather, as I wrote about on this blog in March 2010, I find Krzyzewski rather despicable because of his response to the actions of Abar Rouse, who, while serving as an assistant coach for Baylor University's men's basketball team, recorded Dave Bliss concocting a detestable cover-up for the shooting death of one of his basketball players. I'll point you to that post rather than rehashing it here again.

What I find particularly interesting here is the juxtaposition of Krzyzewski's win against the situation unfolding with Penn State University football. As USAToday reported today, 59% of respondents in a poll suggested that the football program had become too powerful at Penn State. Meanwhile, as some have suggested, recently fired head football coach Joe Paterno may have become so big as the head of that football program that he arrogantly thought he called his own shots. Yet, in Coach K, we may be seeing the same kind of pattern developing. Now, that's not to say that Krzyzewski has been directly complicit in the kind of horrible situation in which Paterno has been. However, the kind of lack of sensitivity and moral judgment reflected in Krzyzewski's comments about Rouse lead to me think he is very complicit in the broader culture that helped produce the situation at Penn State. Meanwhile, given Krzyzewski's lack of good judgment in the Baylor situation, I'd want to be really careful about perpetuating the sense that he and his program are more important than the university for which they work and more important than the many other individuals who are affected by what happens at that university. Still, that's exactly what the commemorations of Krzyzewski's 903rd victory appear to be doing.

I don't blame Coach K for what happened at Penn State, but I do think that, especially given his reponse to the situation at Baylor, the kind of adulation that puts his college basketball program on a level akin to Penn State's football program shows that we haven't learned much from what happened at Penn State.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Staring on Veterans Day

I suppose many who read and/or hear what I have to say on this blog, on The Agon, and in other outlets would easily characterize me as being anti-military. Indeed, I'm sure to folks like Ed Rollins, I fall right in line with "many in the academic world ... [who] don't like our military."

Well, I would respond two-fold to such a charge. First, if one defines the military as a war production machine that places an emphasis on the development of weapons of violence, which I think happens too often in the kinds of spectacle that accompanies much done to "honor" the military, then yes, I will gladly stand as charged. As someone who wishes for a world with less violence, then I'm happy to be characterized in opposition to an institution that is defined by violence.

On the other hand, I would also respond by arguing that the military does not need to be defined so broadly and deeply in terms of violence. I recognize that physical action in the name of defense is, in all likelihood, a necessary protection for a nation. Yet, defense can take many forms, a good variety of which do not involve the development of weaponry and the proliferation of violent action, while they do involve diplomacy, dialogue, and imaginative means of defending one's own nation without causing harm to others. Insofar as we see and represent the military along those lines, then I am supportive of the military and very willing to commemorate the contributions that our military institutions and the individuals who work within those institutions offer.

With that in mind, on this holiday of Veterans Day, which unlike days like Independence Day, is designed to commemorate the military, I am planning to watch what might be my favorite “military movie”: The Men Who Stare at Goats.

While I can understand why and how many folks might not find the film entertaining, I like it for a number of reasons. For instance, I’m sure that part of the appeal of the film is that I saw the film for the first time shortly after my mom died, and it prominently uses the Boston song “More Than a Feeling,” which I quoted in my eulogy at my mom’s funeral. So, I connect on a very personal level with the film’s use of that song. I’m also sure that the film appeals to me as a Star Wars fan through all of its intertextual references to the film series, starting with its use of Ewan McGregor as its lead actor.

However, it also appeals to me because it offers a sense of imagination with which I identify. While meant at least in part as comedy, it offers possibilities for the development of human capacities along metaphysical and mind-expanding lines, a lot like The Force in Star Wars. I find these possibilities both fascinating and hopeful, and so I enjoy how the film presents them.

Meanwhile, the film presents these possibilities in connection with the U.S. military, as objectives that might be explored and developed in the name of defense. And, in that regard, it potentially challenges the overly hyped, overly generalized, and very dangerous celebration of the military for its use of violent force. To me, that seems like a much more appropriate text for commemorating the military on Veterans Day than things like this, which ask us to stare in shock and awe at dehumanizing spectacles of power.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

25 Years Ago Today -- You Don't Gotta Believe

Do you remember what you were doing exactly 25 years ago today (October 26)? I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing because it was one of the most formative moments, if not the most formative moment, of my life as a sports fan. I was in Queens, New York, in the house owned by my dad's longtime friend John Schunke and his wife, Eileen, watching Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. My brothers were there with me, as were John and Eileen's two young children and a babysitter. My mom and dad, along with John and Eileen, though, were not. They were at the game.

We were all Mets fans, and when the Mets made it to the World Series (for the first time in 13 years), the Schunkes were able to get tickets to Game 6. None of us knew, of course, at the time that this would become one of the most memorable games not just in baseball history, but in U.S. sports history in general.

I'm sure most of you know the story of the game. Tied at 3-3 after nine innings, the Boston Red Sox took the lead with two runs in the top of the tenth. Then, the first two hitters for the Mets in the bottom of the tenth were retired, leaving the team that had won 108 games that season down to one out, and eventually one strike, against one of the most storiedly cursed teams in Major League Baseball history, as the Red Sox had gone 68 years since their last World Series championship. Indeed, the scoreboard at Shea Stadium flashed for a moment "Congratulations, Boston Red Sox, 1986 World Champions." But, that congratulations to the Red Sox would have to wait another 18 years. The Mets rallied back with that one out left to score three runs, with the winning run of Ray Knight scoring as Mookie Wilson's groundball to first base scooted through the legs of Bill Buckner. The Mets would go on to win Game 7 two days later and, of course, take the championship in the process.

I've come to realize in recent years that I think this led me for awhile to believe that destiny exists in sports. It seemed to me, the Mets fan (and I'm sure Red Sox fans have understandably very different feelings), that the Mets deserved to win the championship, having won 108 games that year, tying the 1984 Detroit Tigers (who also won the World Series) for the most wins by any team in the 1980s. And so it was ... they did win, in dramatic fashion. And for years I held on to ideas about sports teams being destined to win, something that I think also for a while influenced my views on the world in general. It was easy for me to believe that people who seemed to deserve success would get success--a firmly entrenched belief in the mythology of the American Dream.

Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way, and indeed, even determining who is "deserving" and who is not is very much an ideologically loaded judgment (again, just ask Red Sox fans about my idea that the Mets deserved to win). So, as I experienced many disappointments in my life that the 14-year-old me never saw coming, and as I learned much more about the ways in which social structures embedded in discriminations on the basis of race, social class, gender, religion, sexuality, and other identities have worked, I came to understand just how often there is no such thing as destiny and just how often destiny itself is an ideological construction, often built in inequities of power. I mean, just look at the concept of "manifest destiny" that helped fuel 19th century U.S. expansion as an easily recognizable example of exactly how the concept of destiny fueled oppression.

And, so, I still enjoy my memory of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Identification with the Mets has been a significant part of my immediate family's bond with one another. And this is one of the most important experiences in the history of that bond, with the entire family in New York and my parents at the game. Yet, while at one point in my life (in the late 1980s and early 1990s), I could literally not help but grin ear to ear and start jumping around with excitement at seeing video highlights of the game, my reaction today is much more subdued. I'm sure that part of that is age, as the experiences of adulthood life have for me, as they do for many people, muted the ways of feeling and expressing excitement. Yet part of it (and this part, I think, can be related to those experiences of age) also involves growth. Today, it would seem so much more insensitive to Red Sox fans (pre-2004 Red Sox fans, especially) to jump and down like that and go on and on about my perceived sense of destiny for the Mets.

So, even without consciously thinking about it, I simply don't react like that anymore. Rather, a quiet smile, largely in connection with the family bonding that this event signifies, feels so much more appropriate, for counter to the Mets' longtime slogan "You Gotta Believe," which my dad told me after the game he yelled out when the Mets were down to their last out, and which I'm sure went through the minds and lips of many Mets fans at that moment, I don't have to believe in any sense of destiny in order to find valuable meaning in what happened. And if I believe anything, it's that I think that's the more humane way to remember the event.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Oh! What a Night!

As the title would suggest, let's start off with a link to a particular song by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

And, with that in mind, what a night it was for many a baseball fan, as the Baltimore Orioles came from behind in the ninth inning to defeat the Boston Red Sox, who were then knocked out of the playoffs moments later when the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the New York Yankees in extra innings, after coming back from a 7-0 deficit and tying the game with a 2-out, 2-strike solo home run by Dan Johnson in the bottom of the ninth inning. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Braves lost by one run in extra innings to the Philadelphia Phillies and thereby also lost out on the playoffs, finishing one game behind the St. Louis Cardinals, who won handily over the Houston Astros. For Boston and Atlanta, these capped off incredible collapses in the month of September. For St. Louis and Tampa Bay, this was the culmination of a month of climbing back into competition.

Still, this occurs amid conversation of expanding Major League Baseball's playoff structure, and that very prospect led a friend of mine to post the following:

Dear, Bud Selig.
Don't screw up the playoffs (See this season).
Signed, baseball fans

And, indeed, if the Major League Baseball playoffs worked like the NBA or NHL, where eight teams from each league made it to the playoffs, all four of the teams above would not have been playing to continue their seasons today. Rather, they would have been playing for home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs, while the bigger stories today might have been Cleveland losing but still holding off the Chicago White Sox to take the American League's eighth seed by one game and Cincinnati perhaps playing with a different game plan today as they fought to try to catch the Washington Nationals for the National League's eighth seed. Certainly, these could have still be dramatic stories, but perhaps they would have had a different meaning than the races do right now.

Still, as a potentially interesting exercise, I looked at what the first-round matchups would be if Major League Baseball followed that model. They would be:

American League:

Cleveland at New York
Toronto at Texas
Los Angeles at Detroit
Boston at Tampa Bay

National League:

Washington at Philadelphia
Los Angeles at Milwaukee
San Francisco at Arizona
Atlanta at St. Louis

Some interesting stories, perhaps, including the Nationals making the playoffs and some potentially exciting first-round matchups there. What do you think?

Monday, September 5, 2011

Laboring Through Some Thoughts Today

First of all, Happy Labor Day, everyone! At a time when laborers are under what may be as great of an attack as they have faced in decades, now more than ever is the time to celebrate laborers. Unfortunately, unlike the ways that the U.S. media and institutions fall all over themselves to celebrate the military on Memorial Day (and somewhat misguidedly on Independence Day), to celebrate reasons to give thanks on Thanksgiving (despite the insensitivities of doing so), and to declare the United States a land of great equality on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (despite the civil rights inequities that persist in this country), there seems to be an embarrassingly inadequate amount of celebration of laborers by U.S. media and institutions today. Indeed, with thanks to Korryn Mozisek for bringing this to my attention, some have even called out Major League Baseball for such a lack of engagement with Labor Day.

Meanwhile, on a related note, if you've read this blog in the past, you may have seen where I have taken issue before with things suggested by BG News faculty columnist Phil Schurrer. While I haven't written about them here, it is worth noting that I have had many more disagreements with things that Phil has said in his columns in the time since I wrote that letter to the editor (and also that Phil and I had an amicable lunch shortly after that letter to the editor).

I do, though, want to start this blog post by agreeing with something that Phil said in his column that appeared in the BG News one week ago. After spending the column largely extolling the virtues of "right to work" situations in which union membership is not required, he argues that mandated union membership and/or mandated payment of union dues limits the choices of workers. His argument thus suggests that "right to work" allows workers more choice in this regard.

I agree. Mandated union membership and/or mandated payment of union dues do place some limitations on choices, and if one has the right to choose to work amid a strike or other collective bargaining action, then, yes, one has more choices. However, Phil's broader arguments about this going against the supposed "right to choose" rhetoric of liberals and progressives is an unfair application of a principle of purity to a situation that is a compromise to begin with.

Namely, unions themselves are a compromise position with our system of free market capitalism. Indeed, though Phil associates unions with liberals and progressives, and that is the dominant association in U.S. culture, in some ways unions are actually a rather conservative approach to management-labor conflict. Unions ultimately help keep the system of capitalism in place, but they attempt to provide labor with a greater voice in determining their working conditions within that system. As they help keep the system in place, they are, then, by definition at least somewhat conservative--i.e., they help to conserve the system as it is already established, which is at least one reasonable way of defining "conservatism." They are one choice among many for addressing management-labor conflict and representing workers voices. Other choices could include such things as reconstituting the structures of organizations to ensure more involvement of workers in decision making, significantly more fully developed government involvement in the processes of management and labor in an attempt to ensure that workers' needs are being met, redefinition of the very terms "management" and "labor" that affect the structures of work life and decision making, and a whole host of other possibilities that would be more radical and less conservative than the establishment of collective bargaining organizations.

As such, as I have suggested, unions are thus a compromise position rather than a more ideologically pure position that would call for significantly more radical social, economic, and/or political change. Like all compromises, they involve give and take from the parties involved. As compromises, they by definition compromise the purity or principles, with the hope that the tradeoff is worth the compromise. So, then, yes, unions do limit certain kinds of choices, but they do so with the hope that the other benefits (which would, by the way, include access to many other kinds of choices by virtue of the opportunities gained through collective bargaining) outweigh this particular loss of choice.

Meanwhile, Phil is awfully selective in how he applies his critique here. If he wants to critique this compromise that unions make and suggest that the "right to work" should not be compromised by unions, then I'm certainly willing to listen. But shouldn't we then also be applying this to the opposite side of the labor-management distinction? More specifically, shouldn't we also then be demanding a "right to work" of employers (and particularly of corporations)? If unions must offer individuals the "right to work," then I would think it's only fair that employers offer that as well. In this scenario, employers who wish to lay off workers must offer employees the right to work instead of just laying them off. Additionally, employers must show just cause in terminating employment of individuals because, unless those individuals have done things egregious enough to warrant termination (like violating others' "right to work," for example), they have a "right a work." If we want to add that to the conversation, then perhaps we have a lot of potential for a productive conversation.

Of course, doing so would harvest the potential for a much more radical alteration of the very structure of management and labor in the United States. It would also contain much more potential to upset the balance (or, more appropriately, imbalance) of power that employers--especially corporations--maintain. Yet, wouldn't that seem to be exactly the kind of upset that we need?

Monday, July 25, 2011

The Ball is in Our Court

If you get a chance, read Mike Butterworth's most recent post on his blog, The Agon. I'm not going to go on much more here because I think you can read much of what I might want to say from Mike's post.

I do, though, wish to add that, as an Michigan State University alumnus, I am not, despite what MSU Athletic Director Mark Hollis says, appreciative of the opportunity for the MSU men's basketball team to play in this game, in particular because I feel very strongly that it is inappropriate to stage a baseball game designed, in the words of Rear Admiral Dennis Moynihan, to be "a celebration of service to all veterans" on the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, which was the ship that transported the body of Osama bin Laden after he was killed during a U.S. military operation this past spring. Regardless of what any of us think or feel about bin Laden; the events of September 11, 2001; and/or U.S. military action over the past decade, the U.S.S. Carl Vinson is now inescapably associated with these things, and public events that use it for any kind of celebration of the U.S. military or U.S. foreign policy cannot be divorced from the cultural and political significance that the ship gained by becoming known as the ship that carried bin Laden's body. As such, its usage for this event strikes me as reflective of an arrogant insensitivity to the positions and practices of our fellow nations and cultures within the contemporary global environment at a time when reflective sensitivity to humane treatment of the various groups and cultures that make up the world would seem much more prudent.

Okay ... so I did end up adding a little bit to what Mike said, but I'll stop there and end by asking you to please join me in voicing concern about this event taking place on the U.S.S. Carl Vinson and requesting that the event be moved to an aircraft carrier that does not hold the kind of symbolic significance that the U.S.S. Carl Vinson does. I have called the MSU Athletics Department. I have emailed the Morale Entertainment Foundation, which helped organize this event. I will also be sending an email to MSU Athletic Director Mark Hollis. In each of these correspondences I have and will voice my concern about the ship being used and my request that the ship be changed. I ask you to do the same.

Contact information for Morale Entertainment, including phone number and email address, can be found here.

Contact information for the MSU Athletics Department, including phone numbers, a postal address, and an email link for AD Mark Hollis, can be found here.

Contact information for the UNC Chapel Hill Athletics Department, including phone numbers, a postal address, and an email address for UNC AD Dick Baddour, can be found here.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Charlie and Me

Today was going along rather uneventfully. I had just walked my dog and was getting ready to run a couple of errands when my wife came home. Upon entering the house, she said that there was an unknown black and white "foofoo" dog in our yard. I immediately went to the front window, only to see that the dog had crossed the road. My wife and I looked at the dog for a moment, wondering where the dog came from, and then decided we'd better go get it before it tried to cross again so that it wouldn't get hit, particularly because we live on a busy street. My wife quickly gathered a leash at our front door, while we both slipped on shoes, and we headed out ...

We were too late. As we opened our door, our neighbor was carrying the dog up to the yard from the street. The dog had been hit by a car.

We rushed forward to see how the dog was. He was still breathing, but he wasn't moving, and there was a little bit, though not a lot, of blood. We quickly learned, while my neighbor went to get his truck to take the dog to the vet, that the dog belonged to my neighbor's mother-in-law, and my neighbor was watching the dog for the day.

I sat with the dog in the bed of the pickup truck on the ride to the vet clinic, trying to comfort him and to make sure he stayed alert.

When we got to the vet clinic, he was still breathing, and upon checking him, the doctor said he was responsive, but the doctor was worried about internal bleeding. The doctor took him back to examine him more fully, while my neighbor and I waited.

I learned moments later that the dog's name is Charlie and that he was only about a year old. Moments after that, I learned he had died. The accident had ruptured his spleen, and he had bled out internally.

I drove my neighbor home a couple of minutes later, and I stayed with him until his wife and daughter came home. He was, understandably, very distraught, and his love for animals came through quite visibly. Indeed, the fact that he let Charlie run around came from a certain kind of love. He said he didn't feel right locking a dog up in a fenced yard, like it was abusive for the dog not to be able to be free. How, he asked, would people like it if they couldn't be free?

As I'm sure anyone who has seen how militant I am about safety and protection around my dogs can attest, I have a different view. I also, though, decided that this wasn't the time or place to go into that. My neighbor clearly felt the gravity of the situation, and some comment by me didn't seem like it would be appropriate or helpful.

I maintained composure as I gave support to my neighbor, but as soon as I left and walked back to my house, I could tell the sense of loss was hitting me significantly. All day, I have been haunted by the image of Charlie across the street, perfectly fine, just moments from the event that would so abruptly take his short life. I'm reminded, as I was three years ago when my wife and I came across a cat named Mocha who had been hit by a car, just how fragile life is.

I'm also reminded of how good it is to love animals. I only knew Charlie for about five minutes, and I hope I was at least somewhat of a comfort to him in his pain and shock during the journey to the vet. I deeply wish that the result had been better--that he had survived, not for my sake, not for my neighbor's sake, not for my neighbor's mother-in-law's sake, but for Charlie's sake.

Pets are wonderful companions. Take a moment to cherish your pet. Then, don't stop cherishing her or him. As I learned all too unexpectedly with the death of my dog Nellie Fox last October, and as I was reminded today by my brief time with Charlie, our dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, and other pets deserve everything we can do with and for them.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Even Better than the Real Thing

After years of claiming U2 as my favorite band, I finally saw them in concert in September 2009 at Soldier Field in Chicago (and promptly wrote about the experience both here and on Tunesmate). I enjoyed the experience enough to see them a second time, this time this past Sunday (June 26) at Spartan Stadium on the campus of one of my alma maters—Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. It was well worth a second trip to see them during their 360 Tour, and I ended up liking this concert even better than the Chicago one. And that seems like an appropriate place to start this review, because “even better” is where the band started the show.

As the original recording of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” played for the crowd to open the show, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in recognizing chords from U2’s “Even Better than the Real Thing” slowly making their way forward. Sure enough, within moments the band cracked into the song to lead off the concert with a set of four songs from Achtung Baby that also included “The Fly,” “Mysterious Ways,” and “Until the End of the World.” You can read more of my thoughts about how the show played out—and it was an outstanding show—in my other review, which I’ve posted today on Tunesmate. Here, though, in keeping with the spirit of this blog, I want to pick up the theme of “Even Better than the Real Thing” to analyze the show more in terms of the cultural and political contexts in which it works.

After going to the show in Chicago, I realized while heading to East Lansing how easy it would be to watch the band members as they are projected on the video screen rather than to watch them on stage. So, I initially tried to watch them on the actual stage, particularly since I was in good position to be able to see them all clearly on stage—to their right, maybe 80 yards from the front of the stage, nine rows from the field. Still, over and over again, the urge got the better of me throughout most of the concert, and I watched the video screen. Part of that had to do with the other images that the show projected onto the screen during songs, such as images of Aung San Suu Kyi during “Walk On” and of children’s artwork during “Miss Sarajevo.” Still, much of the time the video screen only showed the band … except that it didn’t only show the band. It showed the band in a way that looked more real than real—like high definition concert footage that brings out the vividness of colors and the movement within images to levels of intensity that my eye would not catch if I just looked at what was happening on stage. Thus, the experience of the show, mediated so largely through the video, was “even better than the real thing,” and I wouldn’t be surprised if the band and its promoters did that intentionally. After all, U2 did write the song “Even Better than the Real Thing,” and they have touched on that theme in other work as well. The visual experiences of the concert, then, are “even better than the real thing.” So, too, might be the political experiences.

As I mentioned on this blog after seeing U2 for the first time, U2 concerts clearly contain a number of elements designed to highlight political issues, including funding for AIDS research and relief, the work of Amnesty International, and, as Bono put it a couple of times in East Lansing, the general goals of “peace” and “love.” Yet, I could wonder the degree to which they even translate at the stadium. For instance, I consider “Walk On” to be a particularly poignant moment during the concert, as the band and the video screen bring attention to the story of Suu Kyi and, since her recent release from house arrest, the fact that more than 2000 people remain imprisoned in Burma under the same kinds of human rights violations as Suu Kyi was. Yet, much of the crowd around me took that song as a moment to sit for a break. Meanwhile, the tribute to E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons that ended the show garnered significantly more crowd participation when Bono asked the audience to hold up cell phones in the dark in memory of him. I have no problem with the touching tribute to Clemons, but I have to wonder what’s happening when it receives a much great response than the tribute to Suu Kyi, other hostages, and the work of Amnesty International.

However, even if one isn’t so actively engaged in listening to the political messages embedded in the performance, it’s hard not to miss them, including a message from Desmond Tutu that we’re all “one” in the fight for freedom and human rights; a statement by Bono of how much he loves the “idea” of the United States of America; a dedication of the performance of “Beautiful Day” to Gabrielle Giffords, opened by a video recording of her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, reciting some of the song’s lines; and Bono’s mention of prominent work on issues related to Africa that has been done at Michigan State University. So, it’s easy, to borrow a word featured prominently in the U2 song “Vertigo” (which was also part of the concert set), to feel socially and politically engaged during a U2 concert like the one in East Lansing.

Still, I wonder to what degree those experiences translate beyond simply cheering for them or listening to them at the concert. As I said in 2009, in the end I think that U2 bringing attention to these issues is a useful thing. I, for one, do leave the concert inspired to do more politically and socially, and I think to some degree I have followed through in that regard, even if indirectly. And, though the likes of Amnesty International probably deserve more credit for Suu Kyi’s release, I think it can be reasonably argued that almost a decade’s worth of U2 drawing attention to her situation probably helped. Yet, particularly given that the show still occurs within the context of the spectacle of the rock concert genre, and that it includes many elements that draw on the conventions of that genre, I can’t help but feel that the experience ends up providing for many an experience that they find “even better than the real thing.” One can pretty easily feel politically and socially engaged for a couple of hours, and leave thinking that experience made one a part of the larger struggle for issues like human rights, but in the end not really do anything other than feel that. To continue with the “Vertigo” reference, then, U2 concerts “give me something I can feel,” but I hope that for many of us it can translate into more than just that.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

A Three Season Ride

Two-and-a-half years ago, shortly after my wife and I started subscribing to Showtime, the network began to advertise a new show that was debuting in January 2009 called United States of Tara. Before the show even began, we looked forward to it. I can still distinctly remember during 2008-2009 winter break greatly anticipating the show's first episode before I even knew if I would like it, just based on my reaction to its previews.

That's typically a recipe for disappointment, since it's difficult for something to live up to that kind of expectation. However, the show did not let me down, and my wife and I have watched every episode over its three seasons.

The show isn't perfect. Its depiction of college experiences in the third season was seriously lacking. At times, some of the characters have felt a bit exaggerated. I'm sure people more qualified than I am could point out some critiques of the show's depiction of mental illness.

That said, I have enjoyed the show for its three seasons. I have laughed with much of the humor. I have often felt for the characters (well, a number of them, anyway ...). And, most of all (though, again, I'm sure there are some critiques of how it has represented mental illness), I thought that the show made at least a reasonably commendable attempt to address how people might work with mental illness rather than simply trying to bottle it up or stigmatize it.

Given all of that, I was disappointed when, a month ago, I found out that Showtime will not be renewing the show. I know that no show can last forever (though apparently The Simpsons is giving it a try), but three seasons just didn't seem like enough for the show. I felt there was more they could address with the characters and their experiences, and a couple more seasons would have allowed for that.

This past week the last episode aired, and perhaps the creators of the show realized that their future was in doubt when writing and filming the third season, since the final episode worked both as a season finale from which they could build a fourth season and as a series finale in the event of the series' cancellation. I felt a little sad when the episode ended. I won't be able to anticipate a new season next year the way I have looked forward to each of the first three seasons, and I suppose three seasons isn't enough when a show has met the high expectations I had before it even began. Still, to take a phrase from the show's theme song, I "love[d] the ride," and I'd recommend checking it out if you haven't already.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the White Pearl

First, check out this picture of Penelope Cruz's character (Angelica Melon) from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Then, check out this picture of Johnny Depp's character (Captain Jack Sparrow). Now, if you didn't look at this part of each picture the first time, look again, and focus your attention on each person's teeth.

I saw the film yesterday, and while I found the film generally entertaining, I couldn't help but notice a difference in the teeth between the two lead characters. For Depp, it's kind of hard not to notice this, as the film introduces us to his character initially by his teeth. When we see the stained teeth and gold fillings, we're supposed to know it's Captain Jack Sparrow. And, while, in reality, the kind of lifestyle in the 1700s led by a character like Sparrow would have likely produced teeth even worse than these, at least some attempt is being made here to represent some lack of oral care. For Cruz, whose character I would assume has also led a lifestyle that would not be particularly conducive to effective dental hygiene, even that attempt is gone. Rather, her teeth look quite solid, quite intact, and quite white.

Immediately upon noticing this, I reacted through the lens of gender performance. There are certainly many types of masculine identities that call for a full set of solid, white teeth. (Just look, for instance, at Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon's reconstructed mouth.) However, I would surmise that there is more room for embodying forms of attractive masculinity with broken, stained, or crooked teeth than there is for embodying forms of attractive femininity. The differences between Depp's teeth and Cruz's teeth in this film would appear to support that assertion. Both have been characterized routinely as attractive. (Indeed, Depp was chosen in 2009 as People's Sexiest Man Alive.) Both occupy the lead roles in the film (with Depp first and Cruz second). Yet, the dental differences between their characters are striking.

Among other things, the study of gender asks people to look at the many various everyday and specific practices that reinforce differences between men and women and that, in the process, reinforce male privilege. In this case, the film reflects more rigid standards for women's teeth than men. When women are held to more rigid standards in regard to their teeth than men, it means more time and money for women spent in the care and presentation of their teeth, along with more judgment being levelled against women for the appearance of their teeth. At the everyday level, while men are not free of this concern, they don't have to worry as much about the brightness, straightness, and fullness of their teeth as women do in order to gain acceptance and opportunity. It is, then, one more on the long list of gender differences that perpetuate male privilege--one that, among others, is reinforced in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

R.I.P. R.T.M.M.S.



Let's play a game. In this game, I'm going to give you a set of initials and you need to identify the wrestler whose name matches these initials.

Here's an easy one: ATG. And another easy one: HH (Note: There's actually two answers: one very easy, the other not so much). And now: BTHH Or: JSS. How about PMWO, or RRR, or CBO? ... I could go on ...

And in the mid- to late 1980s, my brothers and I would go on. We all watched professional wrestling, and we made up this game as a way of passing time on long car trips, weekend and summer afternoons, and any other time we might be bored. I even made a master list at one point--probably around 1987 or 1988--that has long since been long lost. The funny thing is, I could easily start making a new one, and occasionally one of my brothers and I talk about doing exactly that, after we've played a few minutes of the old wrestling initials game. We could even add newer wrestlers to the list and have more available choices for the game.

Of course, if we add newer wrestlers, I'm not going to know very many names since I don't watch anymore, and I haven't paid much attention in about two decades. But, at one time, I would have known most of the names because I was a WWF fan.

I don't remember when I became a WWF fan. It had to have been around 1984 or 1985 or so ... maybe as early as 1983. I joined a number of close friends as wrestling fans who, like many of the boys at school, talked about the latest developments we witnessed on USA coverage of WWF (now WWE) wrestling on Sunday mornings (before Kung Fu Theatre) and on Monday nights, or alternately on TBS coverage of WCW wrestling when that league rivalled the WWF. I watched the Saturday morning Hulk Hogan cartoon in the mid-1980s. I still pull out my Jesse "The Body" Ventura toy figure sometimes when we talk about his successful 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial campaign in my political communication class. I went with a friend and his dad to a pay-per-view screen in Lima, Ohio, to see Wrestlemania II. A year later, another friend hosted a party for a bunch of us at which we watched Wrestlemania III via pay per view at his house. Again, I could go on, just as I could with the wrestler initials game. (And, by the way, here are your answers to the initials above: ATG = Andre The Giant, HH = Hulk Hogan and Hercules Hernandez, BTHH = Bret "The Hitman" Hart, JSS = Jimmy "Supefly" Snuka, PMWO = Paul "Mr. Wonderful" Orndorff, RRR = "Ravishing" Rick Rude; and CBO = Cowboy Bob Orton).

And, so, I join numerous folks around the country and the world who were saddened to learn the news the other day that Randy "The Macho Man" Savage (that's RTMMS in the wrestler initials game) died in an automobile accident at the age of 58. I don't know that I have a lot to add to the many things I've heard and read in eulogizing The Macho Man over the last few days. Perhaps ESPN's Bill Simmons sums it up the best in a piece posted today, though I will note that, unlike Simmons, Macho Man was not my favorite wrestler. Rather, in what is probably a sign that I took everything way too seriously as a kid just as I do as an adult, my favorite wrestler was the other guy (the winner, I might add) in Macho Man's classic match from Wrestlemania III, which until the last few days I hadn't realized was more than just my favorite match of all time. My favorite wrestler was Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat ... or, alternately, RTDS, for those playing along.

The Macho Man and The Dragon shared more than just that epic match. They also shared a space in the wrestling game that my brothers and I created. You see, you could do variations on names, including names without nicknames, to create another layer to the game. And, so, "RS" could be given, with two possible answers: Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat (unfortunately, my name didn't count ...).

And, as Simmons notes about Savage, The Macho Man and the Dragon also shared the good fortune of having the height of their success coinciding with the height of the WWF's popularity. The Macho Man was able to sustain and build upon that success more, even becoming known beyond wrestling audiences in later years for his Slim Jim advertisements, like the one featured above.

In that commercial, Savage asks, "Art thou bored?" and "Need a little excitement?" Indeed, I was, and I did, and for a while in the mid- to late 1980s, Randy "The Macho Man" Savage (or, RTMMS, that is ...) helped my brothers and I remedy that situation. For that, I remember him fondly.

Friday, April 15, 2011

MLB Integration at 64

Today marks 64 years since Jackie Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers, initiating the process of racial integration of Major League Baseball and, thus, opening the door for many African-American ballplayers to play in the majors in the time since. Still, within 15 years of that integration, the Negro Leagues were gone, and to this day Major League Baseball remains without African-American ownership. For more on this, please read my post on the subject from two years ago.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

All My Children; All My Mother



While I did not write a post specifically about it, I have noted on this blog that my mother passed away last May (May 14 to be exact). I've also noted in a blog entry a couple of years ago that I became attached in the mid-1980s to the ABC daytime soap opera All My Children because my mom, who was a loyal fan of the show since it began in 1970, watched it regularly.

After not watching the show much in the late 1980s, in the early 1990s, I got back into watching the show. My college roommate, whose mom is also an original fan, and I used to put it on every weekday in our dorm room while eating lunch, following the adventures of Tad and Dixie and Erica and Dmitri and Brooke and Edmund and so on. The show became so significant to me in connection with my mom that in 1995, when the show's creator, Agnes Dixon, gave a keynote speech at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association annual meeting, I attended Nixon's speech, met Nixon, and got Nixon's autograph (personally addressed to my mom), which I framed for my mom for Mother's Day that year.

Today, exactly 11 months after my mom passed away, ABC has announced that, as of this coming September, the show will be cancelled.

While I was initially surprised, I can't say that this is something that no one could have seen coming. Soap opera ratings are not what they once were, particularly because people have daytime cable options to watch instead, and the kinds of shows that ABC is proposing to replace All My Children as well as One Life to Live, which will be cancelled as of this coming January, typically have lower production costs. I, for one, haven't watched, but for catching a scene or two here or there, in well over a decade. Still, All My Children did influence my life, and it certainly means that another connection to my mom will drift into the realms of personal and collective memory.

In 1995, when I met Agnes Nixon, I thanked her for the hours of wonderful television programming that she created. Today, I thank her again for that and, more importantly, for the connection to my mom that her show has provided me. There's probably not much chance of this, since the show is likely to have its last episode on a Friday, not a Monday, but if All My Children's last episode comes on September 12, which would have been my mom's 65th birthday, it'll be hard to believe that my mom's not somehow involved.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Thanks, Nick, for the Memories

Last week, CNN.com ran a story detailing the story of former sports anchor Nick Charles' battle with bladder cancer. He was diagnosed nearly two years ago, and while, as of this month, he has exceeded the life expectancy quote that he received upon diagnosis, he has stopped treatment, and it appears that it just a matter of time until he passes away.

As some of us surely remember (and some of us likely do not), Charles was one half of the main hosting duo during the heyday of CNN Sports Tonight, which once rivaled ESPN's SportsCenter as the place to go for a sports round-up show. While SportsCenter quickly rose to prominence after its debut in 1979, that rise did not happen without facing some challengers, and perhaps its stiffest competition came in the late 1980s and early 1990s from CNN Sports Tonight, which aired on CNN from 1980 through 2001. Over the years, Sports Tonight featured a number of hosts, including folks like Dan Hicks, Gary Miller, and Hannah Storm, who would become known later for their work on networks such as NBC and ESPN. Craig Sager, who stayed in the same corporate fold by moving on to TBS and TNT, also appeared on the show. And can anyone out there who saw the show forget the inimitable Van Earl Wright?

The main hosts of the show at the height of its run, though, were Fred Hickman (who would later go to ESPN himself) and Nick Charles. And, though I disliked that CNN's hosts tended to give away results before playing highlights, in the late 1980s and early 1990s I grew to like Sports Tonight over SportsCenter. I don't think I was alone, and indeed, I think it's arguable that the moderate success of Sports Tonight pushed SportsCenter toward bettering its broadcast to produce "The Big Show" with Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann in what might have been SportsCenter's finest time as well.

In the meantime, I have many fond memories at home with my dad and in the lounge at my college dorm watching Hickman and Charles, especially as they gave the "play of the day" each day. I don't know if there's any possibility out there that Nick will get to read this post, but in case he does (and even if he doesn't), I'd like to say thanks, Nick, for the memories. May you always know that you played a significant role in the development of this sports fan/sports studies scholar.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

New Developments

I have two new developments to report that relate to the kinds of things that I try to do on this blog:

First, as I noted a couple of weeks ago, I have begun a radio show with my friend and colleague Mike Butterworth that runs from 2:00-4:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on WBGU, which is 88.1 FM on your radio dial in the Bowling Green, Ohio, area and can be found online at wbgufm.com. After a month and a half or so on the air, we've finally come up with a name for the show: After Further Review. Mike explains the rationale for this name on this post on his blog, The Agon.

And, speaking of The Agon, Mike has invited me, along with some other colleagues who study sport communication (Dan Grano, from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte; Abe Khan, from the University of South Florida; and Korryn Mosizek, from Indiana University), to contribute to The Agon, which is a blog that focuses on "rhetorical contests of sports, politics, and culture." I will still be posting here about sports, particularly as sports connect to personal experience, but you'll also be able to read some of my thoughts on sports at The Agon as well.

Monday, March 28, 2011

The Future of Women in Auto Racing

This past weekend, the Indycar Series auto racing league opened its 2011 season with the Honda Grand Prix in St. Petersburg, Florida, and a female racecar driver finished fourth. I'll give you one guess who that driver was....










... That's right. The correct answer to that question is none other than Simona de Silvestro. Now, if you're not an ardent follower of the Indycar Series, you're likely to be asking, "Who?" After all (and this was the basis for the very trick question I just asked), Danica Patrick is likely the only female racecar driver to register in the consciousness of most folks who do not follow the series. However, those of us who do follow the series are likely to know that de Silvestro was the Indycar Series' rookie of the year last year, finishing a very modest 19th in the standings but showing a lot of potential to improve upon that showing in future seasons, including leading four laps in St. Petersburg and garnering Rookie of the Year honors at the Indianapolis 500 with a 14th place finish.

For many folks, both among those who follow Indycar and those who don't, Danica Patrick has been a figure who brings out conflicting feelings. On the one hand, she's the most accomplished female driver in American auto racing, and those accomplishments are cause for celebration for the advancement of women in sports. On the other hand, the degree to which she participates in the very blatant and active sexualization of her public image has caused many of us to wonder if she does more harm than good. While other female racers, from Milka Duno to Sarah Fisher to Lyn St. James to Janet Guthrie, have participated in auto racing in general and Indy racing in particular without such overt active participation in the sexualization of their identities, none have had the success of Patrick, who won in Motegi, Japan, in 2008; finished sixth and fifth, respectively, in the Indycar points standings in 2008 and 2009; and has finished in the top 10 in five out six Indy 500 races, including fourth in 2005 and third in 2009.

Enter Simona de Silvestro. To date, she has not participated in such levels of sexualization of her identity. Meanwhile, she has shown significant enough levels of skill and potential in the racecar that we might reasonably think she has a bright future in the sport. Her finish this past week could be a sign of the progress she is making and the successes that the future may hold for her. It's too early to tell whether de Silvestro will continue to build successes in U.S. auto racing and/or will participate as Patrick has in the sexualization of her image, but if the past year (as well as de Silvestro's auto racing career before joining the Indycar Series) is any indication, we might reasonably believe the answer will be in the affirmative for the first part and in the negative for the second.

In the meantime, this may point to one other question that may be worth consideration. Namely, has Patrick's overtly sexualized image helped set the stage for the likes of de Silvestro (as well as Ana Beatriz and other women to come in the future of the sport) to seek and achieve racing accomplishments without such a sexualized image? In other words, perhaps the overkill of sexualization with Patrick's image has led to enough distaste for that kind of image that de Silvestro, Beatriz, and others will be evaluated much more fully just on their racing performances than on their sexualized identities.

Perhaps not. This latest development in the image of Serena Williams, as well as the continuing sexualization of the likes of Maria Sharapova and other female tennis players, may indicate that the overt sexualization of Anna Kournikova did not remove that aspect from the identification of women in professional tennis. However, at least for now, I believe I have a new rooting interest in auto racing: Simona de Silvestro.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Sports Talk Radio Show

So, I have been really busy lately, which has meant little action on this blog. One of these days, I'm hoping to be able to build a good schedule and fuller momentum with this thing. It'll probably happen once I realize how to make blog entries here that are as thorough as I want them to be, but are shorter both in their length and in the time it takes to write them.

In the meantime, a few weeks ago, my colleague Mike Butterworth (who can also be found blogging at The Agon) and I started a radio show in which we apply critical, cultural, and rhetorical analysis to sports. It's on the air this semester from 2:00-4:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on Wednesdays on WBGU radio. That can be found at 88.1 FM in the Bowling Green, Ohio, area, or you can listen live by going to www.wbgufm.com.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Remembering Bob Arnzen

Yesterday, while eating my dinner, I turned on ESPN and was instantly greeted with a whole bunch of coverage of "National Signing Day"--the day when high school seniors can sign letters of intent to play their sport(s) at a college or university. I felt instantly kind of disgusted at the spectacle ESPN was giving this day, providing it with a whole new level of status as a pseudoevent. Later, though, I thought a little better of it. At least this was (to some extent) ESPN hosts and analysts focusing on reporting events of some substantive significance, not the kinds of endless prattling about predictions, sensationalizing of comments made by sports figures, and arguing over such inane subjects as who or what is the best at something, how a game has affected an athlete's legacy, and so on. It's because of that kind of stuff that I can't typically stand to watch SportsCenter anymore. So, I supposed, at least this was a move in what might be a better direction--not great (you know, like showing more highlights would be), but at least a modicum better, I guess.

Still, on the whole, I found the whole event lacking in its value to me as someone who follows sports. I say this not wanting to offer some kind of moralistic jeremiad about the downfall of amateur sport or something like that. That's too shallow and idealistic of an argument. Rather, I offer this as an argument for rethinking roles and views of sports in U.S. society and for suggesting that the ultracompetitive impulse that so dominates contemporary sports might be de-emphasized to create a more joyful, inclusive, and meaningful experience out of playing and spectating sports, as opposed to the advancing of this impulse to more fully colonize sports, which is what appears to be occurring in such things as the narrating of big-time high school athletics as national rankings and contests for resources.

I say this amid other news from yesterday involving high school athletics that made some local news but did not make national news. Bob Arnzen, who coached boys basketball at my high school from 1949 to 1993, passed away yesterday at the age of 83. While I was in high school, Arnzen became the winningest boys basketball coach in the state of Ohio. That was the late 1980s, and in the time since then, he's been passed a few other coaches, so he now stands at fourth on the list with an overall record of 676-291. He was so significant to sports at my high school that upon his retirement in 1993, the school named its gymnasium after him. He was so well known in the area that news of his death has been covered in many outlets throughout the Lima, Ohio, area, with characterization of him as "legendary" prominent in the coverage.

Now, obviously, as my description just demonstrated, winning was part of Arnzen's legacy. In addition to ranking among the winningest coaches in Ohio boys basketball history, he won a state championship in 1983--an event that I remember fondly, as a fifth grader who that very year had gotten his first season ticket for boys basketball at the school. That team went undefeated. (I believe they went 28-0; well, actually, they lost their exhibition game against alumni, but they were undefeated in the games that counted.) After the season, the school had a pep rally to celebrate the team, and at the rally I got the autographs of the entire team--a piece of paper I kept for years and may still have somewhere in my aunt's attic with other stuff from my childhood. Arnzen also finished runner-up a couple of times and made the state semifinals a few more times, including my senior year of high school.

While I certainly remember some of those details of Arnzen's success in winning as a basketball coach, my memories of Arnzen tend to be dominated by other experiences from him. First, Coach Arnzen had a selection of ties in his office, from which he would loan out if a boy forgot to bring a tie, which was required for boys as part of the uniform at my high school. I remember once forgetting a tie as a freshman, and Arnzen graciously allowed me to borrow one for the day, as he would for so many other boys without judgment, concern, or favoritism. Second, as a senior in high school, once on a "jean day" when we could wear clothing outside the uniform, I wore a shirt my dad had bought me that said "Question Authority." While some faculty members suggested the inappropriateness of wearing this shirt, I received compliments from two faculty members on the shirt: Sister Mary Bernarda (who taught English to sophomores and seniors) and Coach Arnzen. I was struck at the time by the fact that teachers more aligned in terms of age with the Baby Boomers, who have become associated culturally with the kind of sentiment the shirt offered, objected to the shirt, while two of the older faculty members, both of whom came from the generation born in and around the 1920s, offered compliments.

These kinds of moments, much more than the winning basketball seasons, created my sense of who Arnzen is. That sense of the man is one of humanity. Generous, accepting, compassionate, open, humble even as a figure of authority--these are the characteristics that I associate with Arnzen based on my experiences with him. And these are the kinds of things that I would like to see emphasized in sports, rather than the often authoritarian, ultracompetitive, physically and psychologically violent frames through which contemporary sports tend to be filtered--the kinds of frames exactly used in the "meat market" kind of metaphor through which National Signing Day was covered on ESPN and in other sports news outlets. National Signing Day could be a day focused on the educational and professional opportunities men and women have available by signing to play college athletics, rather than the emphasis on which colleges have now garnered the greatest resources. However, the latter is what we tend to get. (For more on this kind of thing, though applied to a different event, I'd recommend Thomas Oates' essay "The Erotic Gaze in the NFL Draft" from March 2007 issue of Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies.)

I think that competition has a place in society, and sports may be an excellent place for that competition to occur. However, it seems that a humane society would ask that competition serve humanity, not the other way around. Much of what I see in the field of national sports emphasizes competition with humanity as an afterthought, though I think it would serve the world, the nation, and individual locales within the world and nation better if sports emphasized humanity, with competition as one facet of humanity that sports allows people to express. My sense always was that Arnzen knew and put into practice something along those lines. He certainly was competitive, but I didn't see that get in the way of being inclusive, being generous, and being gracious--in a phrase, "being humane." That's how I remember Coach Arnzen, and I'm happy to have the chance to remember him personally.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Remembering Paul Robeson

If I started asking people, especially people born in the last several decades, who Paul Robeson is, I doubt I would find a lot of people who could tell me. Indeed, when I, while embarking on my Masters degree more than 15 years ago, took up more intense study of sports history, I didn't know anything about him going in. Yet, go back 60 or 70 years ago, and it's a very good likelihood that lots of people could tell you about Paul Robeson. Perhaps most prominently, Robeson was known to much of the U. S. public as an athlete and then as a singer and actor. By the early 1950s, though, much of that public--especially the white U. S. public--had developed a very negative view of Robeson based on association of him with work toward racial justice throughout the world, with communism, and with other political issues and institutions. Indeed, as I'm writing this, I know I'm not giving Robeson anywhere near his due, given that I don't have a lot of time today to compose this post, yet I wanted to get is posted. So, to read more on Robeson, check out here and here.

In the meantime, I want to post this today to note that today marks 35 years since Paul Robeson passed away. By the time of his death, he had fallen from prominence in U. S. culture, largely blacklisted for his political and social work. That blacklisting is why, though so many of us really should know about Robeson, so many of us don't. It's also a significant factor in why the reporters of news who like to mark 25th, 35th, 40th, and 50th anniversaries are much more inclined to tell us about the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address this past week, but not acknowledge the 35th anniversary of the passing of a U. S. American who, I would attest, deserves to be held with at least the same regard as King and even higher regard than Kennedy. Much of what Robeson said and did could have a lot to bear on contemporary political, economic, social, and cultural issues. With that in mind, on the 35th anniversary of his death, I encourage everyone today to learn a little or think a little about him and his legacy. I know I will being do so.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Some Thoughts on the Winter Holiday Schedule

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, everyone! May it be a peaceful, hopeful day of thanks.

As a number of posts on this blog have demonstrated, I think it's important to examine the politics of holidays. With that in mind, to mark Martin Luther King Jr. day today, I want to put forward my thoughts on reworking the holiday schedule of the United States.

First, let me begin by saying that it would make sense to have our major holidays in the summer instead of the winter. Weather conditions in the summer would mean less cancellations and less accidents brought on by winter cold and snow. That said, if we want to continue to have the major holidays in the winter--perhaps, for instance, because they bring some joy to what might be an otherwise dreary time of year, as winter solstice festivals have been doing for ages--then I think we should have New Year's Day take the place of Christmas as the major holiday for gathering with friends and family and giving gifts, and we should have Martin Luther King Jr. Day take the place of Thanksgiving as the major holiday for gathering with friends and family and giving thanks.

First, in terms of the Christmas to New Year's Day switch, New Year's Day would seem to be the more inclusive holiday. Since Christmas is a Christian holiday, emphasizing it marginalizes those people who belong to other religions or who are not religious at all. Now, certainly, we have elements of our culture that have tried to make it more inclusionary, emphasizing Hanukkah for Jewish folks, developing and celebrating Kwanzaa for folks of African heritage, substituting "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays," and more. Yet, this all remains based around ways of accomodating Christmas for non-Christian folks--something that maintains the centrality of Christianity and, thus, marginalizes other religions and religious perspectives. Meanwhile, some Christian folks have fought against these kinds of moves. Every year some Christian folks voice opposition to use of "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas." From another angle, some Christian folks voice concern about the commercialization of Christmas, arguing that by making the holiday a day focused on buying and getting things and emphasizing elements of the holiday like Santa Claus, the things that Christmas should signify get lost. By moving the major holiday from Christmas to New Year's Day, many of these concerns could be alleviated. New Year's Day is not tied so directly to a particular religion like Christmas is, so it is more inclusive of many different groups of people. Additionally, Christians who voice concerns about the secularization and/or commercialization of Christmas can then celebrate it as a holiday particular to their faith without so much of the secular generalization to include everyone else or the emphasis on buying and getting things. Christmas would be something that Christians celebrate in the ways that they see fit, with New Year's Day as the day that we all come together, give each other gifts if we wish, and celebrate our lives and communities. On New Year's Day, we look back at the year that has ended, remembering what has happened, while looking forward to what lies before us in the year ahead. That seems like a sentiment that matches up really well with families, friends, and communities gathering together and with giving and receiving presents--i.e., things that help us remember the past as well as things that we want as we go forward into the future.

Meanwhile, I've discussed the politics of Thanksgiving on this website before. As a summary, Thanksgiving reinforces a version of U. S. history that privileges perspectives and experiences based in white, European, Christian backgrounds, to the exclusion of perspectives and experiences that differ from that, especially those of Native Americans. Indeed, the traditional story of Thanksgiving can easily be read as one of hegemonic assimilation, with one group using "friendship," "community," "peace," and other ideas to sell domination to the group they are working to dominate. Meanwhile, though often understood as specifically situated within the movement for African American Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is much more about the ideas of inclusion that supposedly are the basis for the United States as a nation. While King's messages especially mean a lot to many African American men and women, they have also resonated with many other groups, they have helped inspire many other fights against inequality and injustice, and they are largely recognized as being centered on peacefulness in a way that the characters from the traditional Thanksgiving narrative cannot signify. To me, the cultural meanings of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement provide a much more sound basis for a day of gathering with friends and family and giving thanks than the cultural meanings of the story of Thanksgiving. Martin Luther King Jr. Day can very easily signify thankfulness for the process of democracy, by which I mean, among other things, recognition that democracy is an ongoing thing; we must keep working to eliminate exclusion and oppression in order to create a society that more fully embodies a democracy. In doing so, we give thanks for those, signified by King but including so many others, who have worked to help us move forward in developing that democracy. By celebrating the process of democracy like that, we're celebrating what our nation as a community is all about. This would seem to me to be a much more appropriate place for a national holiday to give thanks and gather with the meaningful communities in our lives.

Of course, neither of these holiday moves is free of politics. Even with the greater inclusiveness of New Year's Day, the holiday is not entirely inclusive. For instance, not all cultures mark the beginning of the year on January 1. Meanwhile, while King often signifies progress toward civil rights, not all individuals agree with his message, and we might very well examine the politics of the "peace" that he promoted. Among other things, there are important arguments to be heard that suggest that King offered too much of a message based in assimilation to white society and, thus, celebrating a day commemorating him compromises the quest for equality and justice. I think these are important exclusions to note, consider, and work with going forward. Indeed, while making an argument about the ongoing process of democracy, it would seem rather disingenuous of me then to say that my plan alleviates these concerns and that we would not need to continue reconsidering the holidays we have even with the switches I propose. That said, moving the major holidays to New Year's Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day seems like a step in the right direction.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Maybe If We All Stopped Trying to Go West ...

Much has been written in the last few days after the shooting that occurred at Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords' "Congress on Your Corner" event in Tucson this past weekend. In particular, much discussion has placed rhetoric squarely into the center of discourse, articulating various questions and positions on the role of rhetoric in this instance and instances like it. See, for instance, this piece, from CNN's website, which actually cites rhetorical scholars Thomas Benson and Richard Vatz. Indeed, the central place of rhetoric and the word "rhetoric" in this discourse led me to feel overwhelmingly compelled to make this the example I used to introduce the Rhetorical Criticism class that I teach, which began with the new semester at Bowling Green State University this week.

Some have denied or refused to recognize a connection between rhetoric and actions like those of Jared Lee Loughner this past weekend, while still others have suggested holding off until a direct connection between something specifically said and what Loughner did has been shown, as if only an explicit direct connection provides any basis for calls to examine the significance and impact of rhetoric. Others, though, like Bud Goodall, in this post on his blog, have made compelling arguments for seeing why rhetoric is significant and important in an instance like this (and, for that matter, in so many instances in our everyday lives, including both the ordinary and the out-of-the-ordinary things that happen).

With that in mind, I found interesting that the number one film in the United States this past week was the Coen Brothers' remake of the film (and adaptation of the book) True Grit (something that has been partially the subject of another recent post by Goodall, by the way) While I have wanted to see the film, I have not yet had a chance to do so. I remember watching the original "John Wayne version" of the film as a kid, but I don't remember anywhere near enough about it to comment effectively on the film's story or ideological commitments. Having not seen the new film and not read the novel, I don't feel comfortable speaking much about either of those either. The connection I see, though, is a very general one. Namely, the story is a Western, taking place in the U. S. American West and containing many of the conventions that make a novel or film a "Western." Indeed, David Carr's review of the film in The New York Times calls it "a classic Western" and notes that the film's producer, Scott Rudin, has said that the filmmakers took a "formal, reverent approach to the Western" (Carr's words there, apparently paraphrasing Rudin). It's also not the Coen Brothers' first venture into the land of the Western, as their award-winning No Country for Old Men (also based on a book) also went that route, though it certainly was not a conventional Western. So, while I have not seen the film, I have it on good authority, based on my own general knowledge of what the story is about and my reading of what others have said about the film, that it invokes the mythology of the U. S. West. Now, there remains the question of whether in the process of invoking those mythologies the film offers a critique of them or reinforces them. However, even if critiquing them, invoking them to do so shows their significance in U. S. society.

I'm not going to go too deeply into the mythologies of the U. S. West here, as I'm limited in time and space, and I can make some good recommendations on where to go to read more about it, starting with Richard Slotkin's Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. Some elements of the mythology include the lone hero figure who both exists on the fringes of society and protects society from dangers beyond its borders; the rugged individualist cowboy figure who silently and with strength goes about his work (and who, notably, is white, male, and assumedly heterosexual, though there are some interesting queer readings of the character, as Jon Stewart pointed out while hosting the Oscars in 2006 when Brokeback Mountain was among the nominees); and the notion of regeneration through violence, which suggests that an act of violence can take care of a problem that society is facing and make everything okay again. These mythologies of the U. S. West have been very pervasive in and significant to the development of U. S. culture and society--something explicitly noted in historian Frederick Jackson Turner's famous Frontier Thesis from 1893, which argued that "the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development."

While Westerns constitute one of the most explicit forms of references to mythologies of the U. S. West in U. S. culture, they certainly are far from alone. Star Wars has been directly linked, including by George Lucas himself, to the mythology of the U. S. West. Star Trek explicitly references the frontier as part of its introduction. The theme song from the sitcom Mad About You called marriage "the final frontier." Plenty of texts and practices use horses, cowboy hats, guns, and other signifiers of the U. S. West as means of identification and promotion. Though not exclusive to the region, states like Arizona, Texas, and others in the U. S. Southwest draw on mythological U. S. West imagery to promote their states, bracket tourist experiences within the states, and identify themselves. A cowboy even appears on the Wyoming license plate, and a vista straight out of a Western, complete with mountains and cacti, appears on the Arizona license plate.

Amid all of this, politics is far from immune. Indeed, much political rhetoric has both explicitly and implicity referenced the mythology of the U. S. West. Much of this has been associated with the political right. Consider the many images of Ronald Reagan in his cowboy hat that circulated during his presidency. Consider John McCain's presidential campaign utilizing the word "maverick" to characterize their candidate. Consider the many uses of Western imagery by George W. Bush--something that Mark West and Chris Carey have analyzed in their essay "(Re)Enacting Frontier Justice: The Bush Administration's Tactical Narration of the Old West Fantasy after September 11" in Quarterly Journal of Speech from 2006. However, the political right is far from alone in this regard. For instance, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is known for wearing his cowboy hat to conduct official government work.

I hope what I've mentioned at least goes a little way to show how deeply embedded the mythology of the U. S. West has been and continues to be in U. S. culture and society. It is, then, there that I see another connection to the events in Tucson this past weekend. I have no clue whether or not Loughner saw himself in any way explicitly in connection with a kind of cowboy or Western hero identity. Perhaps he fashioned himself more of an emo or Goth type. Perhaps he regularly watched Dexter or he regularly watched Blues Clues. Perhaps his favorite films were zombie films or romantic comedies. Perhaps in addition to the many books that have been reported that he owned, he also liked to read the work of John Grisham or of Neil Gaiman or of Jodi Picoult. Perhaps he liked to watch bowling on ESPN. Regardless, by virtue of being in the United States (and even if he engaged with the kinds of possibilities I have just listed), he was not only exposed to but at least in part socialized by many texts and practices that both explicitly and implicitly link U. S. society, culture, and identity to the mythological U. S. West and its ideologies of violence and often short-sighted pride in rugged individualism. In that regard, then, the rhetoric of the U. S. West that has been so dominant and foundational to U. S. society played a role in his socialization and, thus, him getting to where he is today. In a state like Arizona, which is among those that most explicitly links itself to these mythologies, that socialization is all the more likely. Rhetoric thus played a rather significant role in Loughner's actions.

And even if, by some chance, Loughner managed, despite their incredible pervasiveness, to avoid being socialized by the mythologies of the U. S. West, the deep identification with guns, which became part of the Bill of Rights because it was a large part of the frontier mentality at the time of the formation of the United States and which continues to remain high in U. S. culture today, aided Loughner in his actions. Among the many things that the U. S. Western mythology influences, it informs people's fascinations with guns (and, by extension, explosions, shoot outs, and so on in films), and it informs U. S. policies on gun control and people's positions on that issue. If not for the continued identification with what really is an outdated and in many ways overly romanticized way of life associated with the U. S. West, perhaps guns would not be as widespread or as available in this country, and thus perhaps Loughner would not have been able to get one (or to go with the extension to film I noted above, would not have been able to get access to other kinds of weapons and explosive devices). So, even if the rhetoric of the U. S. West in no way directly influenced Loughner (in itself hard to fathom, but perhaps remotely possible), that rhetoric influenced the attitudes, positions, and laws involving guns, weapons, and violence that pervade this country and that allowed Loughner to access the gun he used. Again, rhetoric did--and does--matter here, and it played a significant role in what happened this past weekend in Tucson.

Few can honestly deny that they think that culture and language--both of which are highly invested in rhetoric--play significant roles in socializing people. Indeed, while many on the political right have denied a connection between contemporary political discourse and the events involving Loughner's actions in Tucson this past weekend, many of these same folks have spoken of the need for a "culture war," have made arguments about how the word "hero" should be selectively applied, have decried what they think is the indoctrination of U. S. society through cultural texts produced by the "liberal media" and "liberal Hollywood," and have railed against the use of "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Their arguments on these issues don't work unless they accept the premise that culture, language, and rhetoric matter. So, they can't, then, genuinely make the kinds of arguments they've been making over the past several days about political discourse and the events in Tucson.


Critical studies of culture, media, and rhetoric ask us, among other things, to be reflective--to be willing to examine our own assumptions and see the power relations and ramifications of these assumptions. It seems to me that more reflection on the deeper mythologies and ideologies upon which U. S. culture and society have been built would do a lot more good right now than posturing defensiveness claiming not to be involved or connected. Given my thoughts here, I'm rethinking what I do and how the things I do might involve and reinforce the violent aspects of the U. S. Western mythology. As part of that, I'm rethinking, among other things, my interest in seeing True Grit. I don't think this is the only answer, but it seems like a useful path to pursue.