Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Cycling I pissed all over the Men’s Road Race yesterday because of the way doping scandals have rendered every competitor a suspected cheat. Therefore, I feel obliged to note that women are dopers too. In fact, Marion Jones is as notorious in this respect as Lance Armstrong. But there’s no denying that, in the annals… Read more.
Over the next 16 days, athletes will compete in 41 sports — from Archery to Wrestling. This is up from 32 in 2012. But am I the only one who fears diminishing returns? Nothing indicates this quite like so many top golfers snubbing their sport’s return to the Olympics after 112 years. I decried this in “Withdrawing from… Read more.
The technological wizardry, choreographed precision and sheer grandeur of everything on display during last night’s Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games kept me in such shock and awe that I was staring at the TV even during commercials. (“Opening Ceremony of Beijing Olympics,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 9, 2008) With all due respect… Read more.
Friday begins my quadrennial binge watching of and commenting on the Olympics. To prepare I’m going to take the next few days off to detox my brain. Specifically, I’m going to allow my glymphatic system to drain out of the toxins from politics, terrorism, and other world events. Until Friday, then…. Read more.
The Democratic convention formally nominated Hillary Clinton for president on Tuesday, making history by choosing a woman to be the first standard-bearer of a major political party, a breakthrough underscored by a deeply personal speech by Bill Clinton calling her ‘the best darn change-maker I have ever known’… Mrs. Clinton’s primary rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, played… Read more.
I used to admire J.K. Rowling … a lot. Not because I’m a man-child who found her Potter novels spellbinding, mind you. In fact, I was never even tempted to read any of them. Instead, I admired her because she helped millions of kids discover the love of reading. But my admiration waned when she started… Read more.
The first round-the-world solar powered flight has been completed, after the Solar Impulse aircraft touched down in Abu Dhabi. Bertrand Piccard piloted the plane for a final time, steering it safely from the Egyptian capital Cairo to the UAE. He has been taking turns at the controls with Swiss compatriot Andre Borschberg, with the mission… Read more.
I was in the vanguard of those calling on the IOC to ban the entire Russia team from the Rio Olympics. I argued in “Track Officials Ban Russians from Rio Olympics for Doping,” June 18, 2016, that: I suspect Track and Field athletes are being punished for the sins of Russian athletes in every other sport.… Read more.
Prognosis? Be afraid. Be very afraid. Turkey’s parliament backed emergency measures Thursday giving authorities broad powers to pursue alleged supporters of a failed coup, even as the government said it has rounded up nearly 10,000 people since the attempted military takeover… The strengthened hand for authorities — with tens of thousands of others under scrutiny or… Read more.
Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman whose outsider campaign has both galvanized millions of voters and divided the Republican Party, is the 2016 GOP presidential nominee. The New Yorker’s embrace by the Republican National Convention (RNC) marks a remarkable moment in U.S. political history and validates a campaign that shattered precedent, defied pundits and usurped the… Read more.
