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Zirin: As Olympics near, people in Vancouver are dreading Games
Znet Article, January, 30 2010
Dave Zirin
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The International Olympic Committee has leased every sign and billboard in town to broadcast Olympic joy, but they can't purchase people's faces. It's clear that the 2010 Winter Games has made the mood in the bucolic coastal city decidedly overcas...
Zirin: NFL Owners Stiff-arm Fans/Union
Znet Article, January, 23 2010
Dave Zirin
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Call it the Super Bowl for lawyers and the reckoning for football fans. On January 13 the owners of all thirty-two NFL teams asked the Supreme Court to shield them from anti-trust laws. Their argument is that the league does not comprise, despite ...
Zirin: One thing about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: the man understood sports.
Znet Article, January, 19 2010
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
I don't mean that King was any kind of a star athlete. The only sport that the young, roundish "Mike" King was known to excel at was pocket billiards, which isn't exactly a sport (the golden rule: anything that you can gain weight or smoke cigaret...
Zirin: Mark McGwire's Pound of Flesh
Znet Article, January, 13 2010
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
In the ten years Brian Williams has anchored the NBC Nightly News, he has never once launched a broadcast by lambasting a public figure. Henry Paulson after the economic collapse? George W. Bush after Katrina? Dick Cheney after everything? All wer...
Zirin: Al Sharpton Wants Gilbert Arenas Punished. Seriously.
Znet Article, January, 05 2010
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
Whenever racism rears its head in sports, the Reverend Al Sharpton has usually had something important to say. In the process, he has proudly earned the contempt of the sports radio blabbocracy. But today, Reverend Al is earning their praise. Al S...
Zirin: Dennis Brutus 1924-2009
Znet Article, December, 30 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
It was 1976, and the Summer Olympics in Montreal had improbably become ground zero in the struggle against apartheid. Several dozen African nations threatened to boycott if the International Olympic Committee dared allow South Africa to be a part ...
Zirin: Tiger's Fall from Grace
Znet Article, December, 14 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
Tiger Woods's self-imposed exile from golf is the most stunning--and stunningly rapid--fall from grace in the history of sports. Not since Shoeless Joe Jackson was banned from baseball after being dubiously blamed for helping throw the 1919 World ...
Zirin: The People Speak: When Television Makes History
Znet Article, December, 09 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
On December 13th, a date I’ve basically had tattooed on my arm like the guy from Memento, The People Speak finally makes its debut on the History Channel. This is more than just must-see-TV. It is nothing less than the life's work of “peopleâ€...
Zirin: Message to Obama: You Can’t Have Muhammad Ali
Znet Article, December, 05 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
On November 19th, President Barack Obama wrote a stirring tribute in USA Today to the most famous draft resister in US history, Muhammad Ali. On Tuesday, Obama spoke at West Point, calling for an increase of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, with a...
Zirin: Amy Goodman and Canada's Olympic Paranoia
Znet Article, November, 28 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
When it comes to independent, agitational journalism, the standard is Amy Goodman and her radio/television institution, Democracy Now! Goodman and her staff often find themselves accosted by officials, foreign and domestic. This happened again on ...
Zirin: The NFL’s Concussion Conundrum
Znet Article, November, 24 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
On Sunday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made a startling concession to medical ethics, one resisted by all of his predecessors. Goodell said that when a player sustains a concussion, teams will now be required to seek advice from "independent" n...
Zirin: Rush Limbaugh: Why the NFL Just Said No
Znet Article, October, 17 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
Over the last eight years, even though it often made me break out into hives, I've listened to a lot of Rush Limbaugh. I've heard him express the full gamut of his emotional range: from hateful to very hateful. But over all this time, I've never k...
Zirin: Why NFL Owners Must Flush Rush
Znet Article, October, 10 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
National Football League owners could be on the verge of a catastrophic error in judgment. In a league that is 70 percent African-American, an unapologetic racist is in talks to buy a team. Yes, Rush Limbaugh, along with St. Louis Blues owner Dave...
Zirin: Can the NFL Tackle Homophobia?
Znet Article, October, 05 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
In the recent past, LGBT issues were only part of the NFL landscape when players held press conferences to assure fans that despite the rumors, they are not gay (without even adding the requisite "not that there's anything wrong with that ").
Zirin: Obama’s Olympic Error
Znet Article, October, 01 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
President Barack Obama is now en route to Copenhagen in an effort to sell Chicago as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics. In the process, he may be selling Chicago down the river. Obama is joined arm-in-arm with his wife Michelle on one side and ...
Zirin: Olympics in Chicago: 'Obama's Folly'?
Znet Article, September, 24 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
Recently Barack Obama criticized planned protests at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh because, as he knew from his Chicago days, "focusing on concrete, local, immediate issues that have an impact on people's lives is what really makes a difference an...
Zirin: Sports and the Uncivil Society
Znet Article, September, 18 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
This week, the grand media theme from USA Today to ESPN has been that "we have lost a sense of civility in US society." The examples have ranged from Serena Williams’s expletive-infused outburst at the US Open and Michael Jordan’s brutal baske...
Zirin: The Serena Williams Double Standard
Znet Article, September, 16 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
A top-ranked tennis player in a moment of rage cursed out a judge and shocked the world, headlining every sports and news program from ESPN to MSNBC. Meanwhile, another champion tennis player hurled expletives at a judge and the media barely yawne...
Zirin: Stop the Savage Sex Scare in Sports
Znet Article, September, 14 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
The salacious sports media and the puritanical zealots that run international track and field have joined forces to hit a new low. Someone in the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) leaked to the press that Caster Semenya, th...
Zirin: President Obama: Jack Johnson Punched Back
Znet Article, August, 31 2009
Dave Zirin
Zirin's ZSpace page
In a recent monologue, Bill Maher said that the United States has two main political parties: one party on the center-right: the Democrats, and one party in a mental institution: the Republicans. Frankly, his comment insults those who receive care...
