Hamstrung (Big Time Self Indulgence Edition)

I know from hamstring injuries. Although my track career also saw its share of knee problems -- I stopped high jumping after my sophomore year because of my left knee -- my hamstrings were my bete noir. At the NESCAC track championships at Tufts my junior year, when I was seeded first in the triple jump, I tore my right hamstring during the long jump. Almost upon takeoff I simultaneously felt and heard a brutal popping sound, and that was it.

I spent the summer rehabbing, mostly in Michigan, where I spent an unlikely summer working as a bartender at a dude ranch. In July of that summer Michigan held a giant sports festival, the Great Lake State Games (for those of you from the east it was very much akin to the Bay State Games -- I competed in those twice -- or the Empire State Games). My goal was to be well enough to long jump in the track meet in East Lansing. I did so, placed second, and ther than having my car engine blow up on me, recovered pretty well.

Paranoid my senior year about that hamstring I was extra careful. My only real injury problem my senior year came with a minor but excruciating partial tear of my left patella tendon, which eventually sidelined me during one event at NESCACs outdoors, but otherwise I was able to work through. We returned to Tufts for the All New England Championships where we got to face off against the big boys in New England track and dield (and where we always did very well). I had qualified in the long jump as well as the triple, and on the Friday evening long jump finals I knew something was awry. I had a knot in the area where the hamstring and glute meets on my left leg. My steps were awry and my speed was off, and so I did not qualify for finals, which was a bummer, but the real prize for me was the triple jump. I was in good health, I felt good, and I believed that if I pulled it all together I would qualify for nationals. Qualify for nationals, have a good day, maybe a litle luck, and All American is not an impossibility.

It did not take long the next day for those plans to go to hell. During warmups I felt the tightness again, and should have gone to the trainer for a massage, but I was in the first flight and was among the early jumpers in the random draw. I took off down the runway, exploded a huge hop phase, and drove my left leg up for the crucial step phase. That's when I felt the familiar tug and heard the familiar sound, this time in my left leg. Somehow I finished off the jump, though pretty much by collapsing into the pit. In a way I wish I had not -- the jump was decent as it was, and would have been exceptional had I not torn the hamstring before finishing the final two phases of the jump. That was the one. Athletes at a peak of performance are the ones most vulnerable to tearing the hamstrings. I was so close.

And torn it was, pretty much a full rupture. My college track career ended with me face down on the infield at Tufts University for the second year in a row. It was, suffice it to say, devastating.

Gretchen Reynolds' piece Hamstrung Results from a recent issue of the New York Times' sports magazine Play thus spoke to me. I I excerpt the article in its entirety since I received it via their email newsletter and cannot seem to track down an independent link to it:

It’s been quite an Olympics for the hamstrings. They’ve determined the outcome of more events than Michael Phelps’s freakishly long arms. Sanya Richards blamed a “grabbing” hamstring for her loss in the 400 meters; sprinter Tyson Gay’s hamstring pull at the U.S. Olympic Trials reduced him to a non-factor in Beijing; and Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang’s heartbreaking exit from the Games, while directly caused by a sore Achilles tendon, “almost certainly was related” to a severe hamstring injury he suffered a few months back, says Dr. Bryan Heiderscheit, an assistant professor of physical therapy at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and an expert on hamstring injuries.

Injured hamstrings, Heiderscheit says, are especially common in sports that involve fast, hard spurts of running, such as the track and field sprints, but also football and soccer. “The million dollar question is why,” he says. Despite reams of research, there’s no answer.

What is known, though, is that a hamstring injury is self-perpetuating. An athlete who’s suffered one is at an enormously increased risk of another. Again, researchers don’t know why that is, although a new study by Heiderscheit and his colleagues is suggestive. In the work, 11 athletes hobbled by hamstrings underwent a M.R.I. examination. In all but two of them, the hamstrings showed “substantial changes in the tissue,” even a year and a half after the injury, Heiderscheit says. Some sections of tissue were enlarged and scarred; others atrophied. The whole was, in effect, remodeled. How that metamorphosis contributes to later injury and, more important, how to use the M.R.I. findings to avoid re-injury “will require a lot more study,” Heiderscheit says.

In the meantime, the hamstrings will have plenty more chances to affect the medal counts in Beijing. “I hope no one else goes down,” Heiderscheit says. “But I won’t be surprised if they do.”

That's not quite where my tale ends. I rehabbed again, though with nowhere near the same enthusiasm. I tried to compete a bit later that summer, with very mixed results, and I jumped the next year for the Greater Boston Track Club while I coached in Concord, Massachusetts, again with fairly mixed outcomes. I was never the same, but then again divorced from the context of track at Williams, it never would have felt the same anyhow.

Three years later I had my last bit of sporting glory, playing rugby for Rhodes University in South Africa. I had lost a lot of speed but could still get around well enough to start at wing. Every so often that haphazardly rehabiltated left hamstring would catch on me, but it was not until the last game of the season, a humiliating defeat to a club based at a police base (university boys in the Eastern Cape taking on Afrikaner policemen is a recipe for an asskicking, and we got flambeed). Towrd the end of the game I had the ball around midfield and felt the familiar sensation once again. this time the hamstring was as much scar tissue as muscle, and predictably I went down, though for reasons that still baffle me (we were shorthanded, I do know that) I stayed in the game and hobbled around utterly uselessly for the remainder of the game. I got caught at the bottom of a maul and some big bastard "mountain climbed" me, stomping directly on the hamstring.

For a month my leg was night-black from ass to calf, my last real sporting scar. Today I can run around, if I warm up right I'm still faster than most guys even though I was never really fast per se, but before long I'll feel a little hitch and will know that either my day or at least my ability to go all out are done.

I regret nothing, despite the creaky knees and worthless hamstrings and cranky back that sports left me with. I'll be one of those guys who gets his knee replaced at 50, both by 55, working on hip replacement before retirement. It was all worth it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, working harder, smarter, better. But I'm always sympathetic to the guy with the hamstring injury. Their pain takes me back to moments of pain, but also to days of joy.

The Olympic Spirit

Holmes sent along this article a couple of days back. This story of Somali Olympians, who come from arguably the least stable state on the globe, reveals in many ways why a hyper-nationalist approach to the Olympics in which one's own country's performances are all that matter is silly and shortsighted. The Olympics are as much about stories such as this one as about the medal counts and the world records.

The Dems Bring It

I had found the Democratic National Convention up to last night to be something of a desultory affair. Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama were great the first night but the rest of the day seemed to lack much in terms of either buzz or substance. The second night was the same, though Hillary did what she needed to do. Any of her so-called supporters (there is growing speculation that a number of the PUMAs may well be McCain plants) who still won't line up, and who honestly claim to care about women's issues but support McCain are idiots and the party does not need them.

So the first two nights played a like a warmup act that went on a bit too long. But last night more than made up for it. Though it was a bit overwrought and byzantine, the Hillary appearance to call for the nomination by acclimation actually was a great touch. It further solidified Hillary's bona fides both as a major player and as an Obama supporter. The big three speakers did what they needed to do and more. In baseball terms Cinton and Kerry hit home runs into the upper deck while Biden hit a solid double. In grading terms we had two A's and a B+. Two nines and a seven. Three thumbs up. Etc. And the Obama appearance at the end, the second night in which he has slid into the proceedings, seemed to go over well. there are those who will gripe about tradition or overexposure, but that's a silly argument. The idea that the candidate should appear as if conjured for the cameras on Thursday night is a silly remnant of the days when parties did not necessarily know going into the convention who would win. As for overexposure, well, that trolley left the stop for both parties sometime back in the middle of 2007 and the start of the interminable election cycle.

I've no idea what sort of bounce to expect. The weirdly truncated VP naming/convention season makes little sense to me, so my guess is that neither party may get the boost that traditionally has come from such an affair. McCain is expected to announce his VP pick tomorrow, a savvy move that will draw him much more attention than a candidate would normally get the day after the other party's convention folds its tent. Then the GOP kicks in to its love fest next week. I would not eb at all surprised to see status quo ante reign in the polls, with each party's bounce canceling out the other's and a virtual dead heat ruling the day in the national polls with a reversion to last week's polling data or thereabouts come the second week of September.

Shaughnessy on the Last Flush at the Bronx Toilet Bowl

Here is Dan Shaughnessy's take of the Red Sox' last go-round at Yankee Stadium.

Idiocy Alert: Defending the Mentor Edition

This infuriated me this morning. No, not that Robert Dallek is writing a short biography of Harry Truman, but rather publisher Henry Holt's assertion that Dallek's book will mark the "first critical re-evaluation" of Truman since David McCullough's Truman. Not to put too fine a point on it, but are you fucking kidding me? Forgetting for just a moment how "critical" McCullough was, Holt is overlooking the best critical -- certainly the best scholarly -- biography ever written about Harry Truman, Alonzo Hamby's Man of the People. (Yes, Hamby was my Ph.D. advisor, is my mentor and now, I hope I can say, my friend. But let's be clear: He is all of those things because of the quality of his work.)

It is inexcusable for a major publisher to make this sort of assertion. I always tell my students, and especially my graduate students not to make assertions about historiography if they are not well versed in that historiography. Do not say in a book review that book X is the greatest topic on topic Y unless you have read enough of the books on topic Y to be able to make that case.

Obviously it is not Dallek's fault that Henry Holt is an idiot. But as much as I like Dallek's work, I probably will wait until I get a free copy before reading it. Fight the power.

Holmes Racin'

Holmes got to drive a race car a few laps around Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. Here is his account. The only thing that could have improved it for him would have been if he had drawn the #41 car. And yes, that is likely the only auto racing coverage we're likely to have on dcat this year.

London 2012

Perhaps sounding something of a note of contrarianism, Anne Applebaum argues in The Washington Post that compared to the Beijing Olympic games, those in London "will be a lot less sinister, a lot less damaging and a lot more fun." (She forgets to mention: Buttloads more expensive to attend.)

The End of an Era

At The Boston Globe Amelie Benjamin reminds us that barring something bizarre happening, the Red Sox begin their last series ever in Yankee Stadium. Unlike Fenway or Wrigley, which are charming and historic and wonderful, Yankee Stadium has history and it has the gorgeous facade, and the monuments, but on the whole, it is a cesspool. The remodeling of the 1970s turned The House that Ruth Built into a soulless approximation of what it once was.

Finally! A Democratic Convention Drinking Game

At The New Republic Jeremy Bronson and Daniel Chun introduce the DNC Drinking Game. As they introduce the game, "Want to watch the Democratic National Convention, but afraid it'll distract from your alcoholism? The DNC Drinking Game can help. Pour yourself a cocktail (or a latte) and prepare to get drunk on booze and hope."

The majority of these conventions, GOP and Democrat alike, are best viewed through a drunken haze, though the highlights can be great. For the democrats the speeches by Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama were world beaters last night. The rest: Eh. Expect the convention to crescendo as the days pass. They always do.

On Medal Counts and Nationalism

I cannot get myself too worked up over the Olympic medal counts for a host of reasons. For one, as Eduardo Porter reminds us at The New York Times, Olympic dominance tends to go to the richest countries and the most autocratic ones. It would have been stunning had any countries other than the United States and China dominated the medal count, especially with China as the host country. But the Olympics are also about more than bean counting which teams were most successful. National pride and glory manifests itself throughout the games -- and it is both churlish and wrongheaded simply to dismiss this as boorish patriotism, given that some of the most nationalistic furor comes from smaller countries -- while at the same time the Olympics are supposed to transcend that sort of nationalism.

I do not always even support the American athletes. In sports in which Americans do not traditionally compete, I could not care less. In events when there is a serious underdog and where a victory by an athlete from a smaller country might bring some glory to that country, I'll find myself rooting for the underdog. I also root for African athletes, which should come as no surprise. I want the Americans to dominate certain sports, of course, and all things being equal I am likely to support the American team absent the treacly overcoming odds story from an international athlete or the presence of an African athlete I prefer. But at the end of the day, the Olympics are about the gathering, the experience, the competition.

The reality is that we all know who won these Olympics, for good or for ill. The United States won the overall medal count by virtue of racking up bronzes and silvers. But the Chinese won the most golds, and if we are tallying up winners, it seems bizarre to presuppose that a gold is not worth any more than the others. But in the end none of this matters. The Chinese put on a great Olympics, albeit by destroying any of the promises they made about openness in the process.

Only four years to London (and less than two to Vancouver)!

Stuff That Caught My Eye

The title of this post says it all. Here are a bunch of links to things that have caught my eye of late but about which I am too lazy, busy, or unmotivated to comment:

It took a bit of tracking down, as the New Republic seems to have disappeared the link, but here is a version of Jonathan Chait's glorious evisceration of the state of Delaware. I love the Joe Biden pick, but he comes from a little pustule of a state.

At Foreign Affairs Robert Kagan looks at the post-Bush world in "The September 12 Paradigm." This article represents the early stages, not the final word, in assessment, of course. My guess is that this will be one of those dialogues that we never quite resolve, as is the case with most ideologically and politically fraught issues with long-range ramifications.

Several New York Times articles have grabbed my attention in recent days, including Allan Barra's revisiting of John Carlos' and Tommie Smith's 1968 Olympic protest, the travel section's return to one of my favorite countries, Namibia, Robert McFarland's fairly brutal takedown of Paul Theroux's latest travel book, and Bill Keller's considerably kinder review of John Carlin's book on Nelson Mandela and the 1995 Rugby World Cup. I just ordered the Carlin book, as I am in the final stages of an article on rugby, race, and nationalism in South Africa since 1994 and the 1995 Springbok triumph plays a large role, as you might well guess. As for Theroux, I tend to enjoy his travel writing, especially his early stuff, but the man can be insufferable. Plus, one more serious problem I have with his work is that I wonder how reliable he is. No one expects a great deal of depth with someone who covers so much ground, but in Dark Star Safari, his tale of trekking from Cairo to Cape Town, he gets so much rudimentary stuff wrong or mangled about southern Africa that I cannot help but wonder what else he gets wrong about all of those other places about which he has written that I do not know so well.

At his Atlantic blog Mark Ambinder imagines a conversation between an Obama supporter worried about the state of the Democratic campaign and one who by and large is not. It's gimmicky, of course, but worth a perusal. My own view is that we live in times when both parties are pretty much guaranteed about 40% of the vote in a presidential election, but neither party is guaranteed 50%. This has been the case since at least 1992. Why is anyone surprised that it looks as if the 2008 election will be close?

Finally, I can take or leave MoveOn. But free Obama buttons are, after all, free Obama buttons. And if you want, you can buy even more. Then again, of course you can.

Olympics and World Records

The New York Times has a fascinating interactive chart progressing the world records set at the Olympic games in events across several sports. The games are wrapping up. I'll have moe to say, but I'm still a bit taken aback by the disjunction between the unquestionably fantastic product the Chinese put forward and the willingness of NBC and other observers to allow that to blind us utterly to some of China's more nefarious actions. The emphasis should be on the games, but the disproportionate nature of that focus here is somewhat disquieting.

The Broad-Gauge Gossip

Over at Cliopatria Ralph introduces many of us to The Broad-Gauge Gossip, whose psedonymous keeper Dr. Luker describes as "The Wonkette of the history blogosphere." Tidbits equal parts news and gossip abound at the B-GG. It's obviously a bit inside baseball, but for those of you in the biz the blog will be worth reading for its tasty tidbits about departments across the country, especially some of the big dogs. I've added it to the blogroll.

The Unbearable Lightness of Broder

In recent days the dean of American political reporting, David Broder, has taken his particular brand of anodyne, tepid centrism to dcat's home state of New Hampshire. In two columns for The Washington Post Broder has made unobjectionable, but also largely uninteresting, arguments about how Granite State voters perceive the fall's races with implications for what that might (or might not! No sense being hasty or rash with conclusions in what is supposed to be America's premiere opinion column!) mean for other swing states. In the first column he implies that Barack Obama has work to do to convince New Hampshire voters even though the evidence he reveals actually seems to indicate that both candidates have work to do and that many voters are yet undecided. Earthshattering! In the second he lets us know that New Hampshire is in play for both presidential and Congressional politics because the Democrats have spent a great deal of tiem an energy there. Well I'll be! (Of course, as he notes, Democrats won all significant elections in the state in 2006, so perhaps this will not be all that surprising news to those who follow politics.)

But hey, who said New Hampshire only matters once every four years during the presidential season. David Broder has cast his eye upon the flinty denizens of the state. Let a thousand flowers bloom!

BIDEN!!!

It's Biden. I'm thrilled. My guess is that you care enough about the election to care if Biden got the nod, you do not need me to link to discussions about it.

Biden is serious, smart, and will take the debate to the Republicans. No one has more gravitas on foreign policy than Biden. He could step in as President if need be (God forbid) and do a fine job. Yes, he's loquacious, and yes, he'll put his foot in his mouth every so often. But if those are his worst flaws, well, I think we can live with that. This is a great ticket for the Democrats.

I only wish Obama had not buried the choice in the recesses of the news cycle -- late Friday night/Saturday morning? And on the eve of the Democratic convention? Why not do it earlier and hope to get two bumps rather than fold the two major events into one bump in the polls?

But in the end, the choice for VP is a test of judgment. Obama has passed that test. Obama/Biden. This is my favorite ticket in my lifetime, without a doubt, and is historically pretty damned sound, at least from the perspective of less than twelve hours.

Rogge's Bizarre Rant

Courtesy of longtime reader and dcat friend Donnie Baseball comes this article from Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports. It seems that Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympics Committee has gone after ubersprinter Usain Bolt for his celebratons at the end of some of his races in these Olympics. Suffice it to say that Rogge is a fatuous gasbag. We could spend days explaining why, but here is a taste from Wetzel's column:

Jacques Rogge is so bought, so compromised, the president of the IOC doesn’t have the courage to criticize China for telling a decade of lies to land itself these Olympic Games.

All the promises made to get these Games — on Tibet, Darfur, pollution, worker safety, freedom of expression, dissident rights — turned out to be phony, perhaps as phony as the Chinese gymnasts’ birthdates Rogge was way too slow to investigate.

One of the most powerful men in sports turned the world away from his complicity. Instead, he has flexed his muscles by unloading on a powerless sprinter from a small island nation.

Rogge’s ripping of Usain Bolt’s supposed showboating in two of the most electrifying gold-medal performances of these Games has to be one of the most ill-timed and gutless acts in the modern history of the Olympics.

[There's more (I hope this large excerpt does not violate fair usage, but the column is pretty spot on):]

Oh, this is richer than those bribes and kickbacks the IOC got caught taking.

All the powerful nations — including the United States — have carte blanche at the Games. They can pout and preen, cheat, throw bean balls, file wild complaints, break promises that got them a host bid, whatever they want. They can take turns slapping Rogge and his cronies around like rag dolls as long as the dinner with a good wine list gets paid.

A single individual sprinter? Even if you don’t like his manner, that’s whom Rogge deems it necessary to attack, to issue a worldwide condemnation?

“I understand the joy,” Rogge said. “He might have interpreted that in another way, but the way it was perceived was ‘catch me if you can.’ You don’t do that. But he’ll learn. He’s still a young man.”

Perceived by whom? Old fat cats making billions of Olympic dollars on the backs of athletes like Bolt for a century now? They get to define this? They get to lecture about learning?

Bolt is everything the Olympics are supposed to be about. He isn’t the product of some rich country, some elaborate training program that churns out gold medals by any means necessary.

He’s a breath of fresh air, a guy who came out of nowhere to enrapture the world with his athletic performance and colorful personality. This is no dead-eye product of some massive machine.

He was himself, and the world loved him for it.

On his own force of will, Bolt has become the break-out star of these Games. He saved the post-Michael Phelps Olympics. It wasn’t so much his world-record times, but the flair, the fun.

No one at the track had a problem with this guy; they understood he is everything the sport needs to recover from an era of extreme doping. The Lightning Bolt made people care about track again, something that seemed impossible two weeks ago.

“I don’t feel like he’s being disrespectful,” American Shawn Crawford told the Associated Press. “He deserves to dance.”

Apparently, Rogge would prefer 12-year-old gymnasts too frightened to crack a smile.

It got better when, in the same press conference, he pretended to forget all the lies China told him to get this bid, all the troubles, all the challenges, and praised the host nation. Yes, these have been an exceptionally well-run Games from a tactical standpoint, and the Chinese people have displayed otherworldly kindness.

None of which denies the promises broken, the innocent jailed, the freedoms denied — the kind of issues someone with Jacques Rogge’s standing should be talking about.

He has no spine for that. Not for China. Not for any big country. He had to criticize someone, he had to make headlines, he had to show he was a tough guy. So who better than someone from somewhere that can’t ever touch him back?

Yes, Usain Bolt is the problem of the Olympics. He’s the embarrassment. He’s the one who needs to learn.

Sure, Jacques, sure.

As Donnie Baseball sums it up: "It reminds me of what I really don’t like about the Olympics. All the fun seems to have been sucked right out of the quadrennial spectacle."

Misrepresenting a Trend

I am intrigued by the Amethyst Inistiative, a push by more than a hundred college and university presidents to reconsider the 21-year old drinking age. I will simply say that I have never heard any particularly valid reasons for drawing an arbitrary line preventing legal adults who otherwise bear every other right and responsibility of adulthood from participating in something that adults over that arbitrary age limit are allowed to do. But I'll leave dissecting that proposal to others.

I do, however, take issue with The New York Times' latest headline on the ongoing story: 2 Withdraw From Petition to Rethink Drinking Age. two college presidents in Georgia have indeed withdrawn their name from the petition. But fifteen more have signed on. Thus while the story's headline, which should give some sense of the true measure of the story, indicates waning support for the petition, the reality is that its number of proponents is growing, and is doing so substantially.

Warm Bucket of What?

Longtime reader Good Liberal asked the perfectly reasonable question with regard to this post: what did John Nance Garner actually say about the value of the Vice Presidency? Come to find out, we're not exactly sure. But Patrick Cox, writing at The Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin (Woo Hoo Flagship institution!), looks into this anecdote. (See a fuller pdf article here.) Apparently the quotation, if it existed, refers to a bucket of warm spit, but in my heart it will always be a bucket of warm piss.

As of right now, 3:54 Central Time on August 20, 2008 we have no apparent movement on the Vice Presidential choice front. Or at least no choice seems forthcoming.

Good News Alert!!!

The dcat extended family has good news to report on the professional front.

First off, the University of Nebraska Press will be publishing Frederick Funston's memoirs, Memories of Two Wars: Cuban and Philippine Experiences. How does this tie in to dcat's inner circle? Well, Tom Bruscino has not only written the introduction, he also steered the project to the folks at Nebraska. Expect more good news from Tom in weeks to come. Congrats, man!

Second, when you sneer at me with your derisive comments, I now expect to be called Associate Professor Catsam. I rolled the dice and went up for tenure and promotion a couple of years early and the process went well. I got the official letter in my campus mailbox a few minutes ago. Giddyup!

The Veepstakes

The speculation as to the candidates' Vice Presidential choices is in full-speed mode. And as usual, even as the guessing game continues apace, no one actually has any idea who will emerge as the second on the ticket.

As a Democrat I am most excited about the possibility that Joe Biden will be the one. He occasionally puts his foot in his mouth, but he is almost inarguably one of the most serious foreign policy minds on the Hill. In many ways I'd almost prefer that Biden be tagged for a post that will enable his foreign policy gravitas to shine -- State, SecDef (though I am among those who believes that keeping Robert Gates in that post would be a fine decision), NSC -- but from a purely political standpoint I am thrilled at the idea of a serious, experienced, smart Vice Presidential nominee who will both serve in that vital capacity of all seconds, attack dog, and who will also be able to advise Obama about the most important issues he will face abroad.

Biden is not perfect, but no VP nominee is for either party, and his strengths far outweigh his negatives. And I think the last generation has shown the Vice Presidency to be much more than John Nance Garner's famous formulation of being not worth "a bucket of warm piss" given the vital and active roles played by Al Gore (for good) and Dick Cheney (I'd argue for not so good), which means you want a serious person in the position and not merely a placeholder or someone who will provide little more than the coveted news cycle poll bump.

The 100 Meter Dash

Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News sums up a good deal of what I feel about Usain Bolt's incredible race for history vis a vis Michael Phelps -- not that it is a zero-sum game -- in this column. A sample:

Everybody runs.
Not everybody swims.

It's that simple.

You marvel at Michael Phelps, Mr. Olympics 2008, Mr. Olympics for all time.

You identify with Usain Bolt, the Fastest Man Ever.

Phelps, an American, obliterated records in five solo swims here. His eight gold medals, a probability achieved, made him a safe and simple face with which to brand these Games, the new Mark Spitz. His 14 career golds vaporized the old mark by five.

But not everybody swims. Certainly, not everybody swims well, and virtually nobody swims more than one stroke, maybe two.

But everybody runs.

Bolt, a Jamaican, on Saturday morning ran the most significant race in Olympic history.

He lowered the 100-meter world record he unexpectedly set in May by 0.03 seconds.

Everybody has run. You start when you're about a year old. Eventually, everybody runs 100 yards or meters: in gym class, training for some sport, from parents or the boogeyman.

Because everybody runs, the case can quite easily be made that Usain Bolt categorically won the singular sporting event, running faster than anyone else ever has (without the aid of wind), that every other person on earth with the physical capability has tried. He won the most competitive sporting endeavor there is. He ran the single event that is elemental to nearly all (land-based) sports.

I'm reminded again of a Farleyism I am sure I have shared with you in the past. Dick Farley was the college football hall of fame football coach at Williams. Before he took the head gridiron job, he was the Williams head track coach, and after that he became an assistant with the team, a position he still holds. Farley was legendary for his witticisms, most notably for his bon mots, his "Farleyisms" (so dubbed by us, not by him). My favorite probably was his constant rejoinder to us, and especially to his football players, "you're only here because there is no division 4." One time at a meet at UMass he was coaching me up between triple jumps. The 5000 meter runners were huffing their way through that race and he simply asked me, rhetorically of course, "would any of these guys be doing this if they could run the hundred?" That sums it up in a nutshell.

Hoping Against All Hope: The State of Zimbabwe (Self-Indulgence Edition)

My latest op-ed is available here. I am especially pleased with this one because The Zimbabwean represents the ultimate example of speaking truth against evil. It is an expat newspaper based in London, but which publishes in South Africa, where most of its print readership is based. My cynicism comes to the fore quite clearly, I would guess.

[Crossposted at the FPA Africa Blog.]

Bolt From the Blue

It has been buried by the Micheal Phelps juggernaut, but the unfortunate time lag between Beijing and the US, and by dumb programming decisions by NBC, but for all of Phelps' dominance, the single most awesome moment athletically in this Olympics has been Jamaican Usain Bolt's stunning, otherworldly victory in the 100 meter dash. Bolt crushed his own world record, lowering it from 9.72 seconds to 9.69. But more impressive than that is how Bolt did it -- and how he emerged this year.

Bolt, a precocious talent in the 200 pretty much had to beg his coach to be allowed to run the 100. This year is his first year as a competitive 100 meter runner at the world class level, which is to say that Bolt has probably not run the 100 in ten meets. He is 6' 5", which is massive for the dash, and event traditionally dominated by muscular, stocky guys built like NFL running backs. In the race Bolt got out to what was for him a decent start. At his height, and with his inexperience, the blocks are the most precarious moment of the race for Bolt. But by 30 meters he race was over. By 60 the race was a laugher. And by 80 meters Bolt, in the Olympic Finals, was celebrating, posing, igh stepping, and decelerating. And yet he still ran the premier distance in track and field, indeed the gold standard for speed in any sporting context, faster than anyone else had ever run it. Not so long ago I remember the world record in the 100 being Jim Hines' 9.95, a mark that stood from 1968 to 1963 and I remember when that mark stood at 9.93 for some time, from 1983, when Calvin Smith set the mark until Carl Lewis (my vote getter for greatest Olympian ever, by the way) set the clean record (following the ignominy of Ben Johnson) of 9.92. (Here is the progression of the record.) Today we take a sub-10 second hundred for granted, forgetting how ridiculously fast such a race is.

We have entered a new realm in the 100, and perhaps in the 200 if that really is Bolt's better event. Bolt ran a 9.5-something race the other day but the joyousness of winning Olympic gold took over. Michael Phelps' eight golds is awesome, and his world records are undeniable. But the worth of swimming world records seems to have undergone a devaluation in recent months. But Usain Bolt's world record is the single greatest one-event performance in this Olympics, and while not Bob Beamonesque, represents one of the greatest single accomplishments in the history of the Olympics.

Beachward Ho!

We are off to a couple of days at the beach near Corpus Christi. I'll return to San Antonio hopelessly sunburned Sunday night and will be back in West Texas Monday evening. I should be back to blogging Tuesday, by which point we will have seen one of the greatest 100 meter dash finals ever, and Michael Phelps will have earned his eight golds and will undoubtedly be shoulders deep in gaggles of nubile Olympic flesh. (Well, what the hell else would you expect him to do? Sightsee?)

Bob Blogging Beijing

Bob Ryan is in Beijing and is covering his ninth Olympics. He is providing insightful observations and commentary at his blog for The Boston Globe.

Olympic Observations

I have been obsessively following the Olympics. Many of you, I'm sure, have as well. The Olympics, like any sporting event (and certainly like politics) is susceptible to the creation of narratives. The first week of these games have had one major narrative: Michael Phelps as swimming God. The usual series of smaller narratives have also emerged: Gymnastics, natch, and the "Redeem Team" (Ugh on that neologism, by the way). Smaller sports struggle for their props, though they get more attention now than they will for the next four years, until the 2012 games in London.

I have always been interested in these smaller sports, though in some ways I am ambivalent about them. Let me express this ambivalence by way of anecdote. When I was in high school there was a guy a couple of years ahead of me who had grown up in the next town over but came to NHS for High School, and he was one of the best ski jumpers in America. As a result, he never set foot on the Newport ski team, and spent huge portions of his year in Lake Placid. Because of the change that caused the winter Olympics to stagger (so that there would be either a summer or a Winter Olympics every two years) there were two Winter Olympics in a two year span in 1992 and 1994, and as a result this guy was able to participate in three Olympics, 1992, 1994, and 1998. In a small town -- in any town, really -- this is an awesome accomplishment.

One day one of my teachers, a former college basketball player and an assistant football coach, as well as hands-down the most respected teacher in the school (debunking the bad-teacher-as-coach meme) said in a conversation about sports: well, x is obviously the greatest athlete ever to come from Newport. And in terms of accomplishment the argument was a tough one to dispute. And I did not begrudge this guy his stardom -- while he never even came close to medalling (American ski jumping is, let's just say, not so good) he was also no Eddie the Eagle. He was a fantastic American ski jumper and a legitimate member of the tail end of the world class, which is to say, he was world class.

At the same time, a little perspective is in order. I was a member of the ski team in high school for my 8th grade, freshman, sophomore, and junior years, until I became good enough at track to be a legitimate contender in my events at the state and New England level and decided to pursue indoor track as a solo competitor, since NHS did not have an indoor track team. My high school had very little in terms of material comforts, but as a freak of circumstances, we did have the best 30-meter ski jump in the state, a practice jump from the 1932 Lake Placid winter games, and thus in years when there was enough natural snowfall (and when insurance liability was covered -- which means not all that often) we had a ski jumping team and hosted the state meet. I competed on that team in one of the very few states to have high school ski jumping. And in the one year I could do so, I was middling in the most literal sense -- I finished in the middle of the pack in the state meet out of about 50 competitors. There are approximately 500-600 ski jumpers in the United States in any given year. I was one of those (and my high school team had more than 1% of the nation's whole), and I was not one of the very, very worst. So being a United States representative for the Olympic ski jumping team is impressive, but you are competing against a pretty small pool. I would be willing to bet that there are more long jumpers in New Hampshire and Vermont, where a huge swath of the US ski jumping team is drawn from, than there are ski jumpers in the United States. And there are no ski jumpers in the states that otherwise tend to produce more world class athletes than New Hampshire. Take that for what it's worth. I take it as an indication that while any Olympian is impressive, we are entering Animal Farm territory in the sense that some Olympians are more impressive than others.

On to observations about some of the specific events:

Swimming: The swimming competition has been riveting. I'm not too worried about the effects of the new swimsuit that has changed the face of the sport. This is not akin to performance enhancing drugs, the use of which is not only banned in the Olympics, but in most cases is illegal in most countries in the world. And the swimming suits pose no health hazard to their users, which means that no one has to engage in a moral or ethical or health debate as to whether to use them. That said, the world records are falling at such a rate that it does cheapen the value of world records in the sport even though it does not invalidate those records. I have no doubt that today's swimmers are better than those in the past, with superior physical skills, better and smarter training, and better facilities and, yes, suits. The competition is the thing, and the competition, even the non-Phelps competition, has been fun to watch. And swimming has enough parallels with track that I think I get not only the basics (which are hardly tough to grasp) but the scope and scale of the accomplishments and also the nature of the competition -- the splits, the training, the idea of peaking, the between-events preparation and so forth. Track and swimming may not be the same language, but they are mutually intelligible to enough of a degree to make conversation viable. Swimming is Portuguese to track's Spanish, if you will.

As for Phelps, I want to first say that I am fully on board this bandwagon. What he is doing is awesome. He is making a case, I think he has made the case, for being the greatest swimmer of all time, even if he does not win another gold. But let's slow the talk about Phelps necessarily being the greatest Olympian of all time. He is lucky and talented enough to compete in a sport where eight medals is part of the realm of possibility. This is not the case for a sport such as track, where competing in four events is itself an impressive accomplishment. Look how many ways there are to go 100 meters in swimming. Recall, meanwhile, 1996, when Michael Johnson pulled off the until-then unheard of 200-400 double. Track has more prelims, it takes longer to recover, and I would be willing to press the case that track is substantially more competitive than swimming in terms of the number of people you have to beat. This is not to say that swimming is akin to ski jumping. But I would also argue that a sport that pretty much is not competitive in sub-Saharan Africa with the exception of white enclaves in South Africa (and that in general is a sport of white privilege and affluence wherever contested) does not compare with track. Everyone has run the 100 meters. Even among people who swim a lot, very few have actually swum a 100-meter breaststroke or butterfly or even backstroke never mind done so for time.

And so when this conversation about the greatest Olympian happens, consider a Carl Lewis, who won gold medals in four Olympics in events that are far more globally competitive than the swimming events. I would be willing to bet that there are more 100-meter runners and long jumpers in the state of Texas than there are swimmers in any two of Phelps' events in the United States. And there are almost inarguably more people doing those events in the United States from the high school level on up than there are people doing all of Phelps' events combined across the globe. For these reasons, Lewis gets my vote for greatest Olympian, though others deserve a place in the conversation as well. (Thunderstick made a couple of great points to me the other day: First, Lewis winning the 100, 200, 4x100 and long jump golds in 1984 would be like Phelps winning the 100, 200 and 4x100 freestyle and then winning one of the diving competitions as well. He also argued that the various strokes for swimmers is like having running forward, backward, sideways, and skipping being seperate events at every distance in track.) And let's keep in mind that there are lots of athletes for whom more than one or perhaps two events would simply be impossible. Al Oerter won four gold medals in four consecutive Olympics in the discus. At that level there is not a lot of crossover even with the shot or the hammer throw. And what of boxers? Members of team sports?

So Phelps has been awesome in a sport most of us appreciate. And he deserves a place in the conversation of all-time greats, in and of itself an almost unfathomably awesome accomplishment. But let's not simply equate winning the most medals with being the best Olympian of all time, even if it certainly helps to bolster his case.

Gymnastics: Now let me bitch about everyone's favorite pixies, the gymnasts. I love sports, so I find myself willing to watch as the competitions get close simply because the language of sport is pretty universal. I watched some of both the women's and men's team competitions the last two nights. I was marginally interested. But here are two gripes:

Judged sports lose serious legitimacy points in my mind. When someone decides who wins rather than the competitors making those decisions, it tends to invalidate the exercise. (I exempt sports where without the default mechanism of judging people would be beaten to death. And Olympic boxing judging is such that I hardly see it as more legit than gymnastics in most cases anyhow.)

The second issue, which effects the women's competition, is that I have a hard time taking any sport seriously in which chldren are considered to have the advantage over adults and in which people lie about their age not to get an advantage of precociousness and thus opportunity down the road, as we see with lots of athletes in lots of sports globally, but rather because being young gives them a serious advantage while they are kids. Any sport where being 20 is a disadvantage because 20 is considered old is a dubious sport in my mind. Sports are about young people excelling, but in most realms that means young adults at their physical peak. Even granting the differing rates of physical maturity that makes many women tend to peak athletically at younger ages, women's gymnastics is a freak show outlier. W
in the end, women's gymnastics is the favorite sport of people who don't like sports (its winter corrollary is, of course, figure skating).

Basketball: I cannot get all that enthused about the Redeem Team. I tend to prefer Olympic sports in which the Olympics represents the pinnacle of that sport -- your track and field, your swimming, your ping pong (I assume). And I have a hard time getting too excited about a sport that we have historically dominated to the point where a bronze medal is not only a disappointent, but also a sign of utter failure. I hope the Americans win, I guess. But I am having a difficult time mustering up too much enthusiasm for the games the way that I know the Thunderstick is (though he is as concerned with how Coach K's role as coach will effect Duke basketball. The Olympic spirit: catch it!)

But enough griping. I think there is a badmnton final on tonight, and probably some kayaking. USA! USA! USA!

Light Blogging

Just got back from San Antonio today, and between now and Thursday I have to finish going over the copyeditor's questions and comments on the manuscript of my book. (To answer your question, yes, I have no shame). This, hopefully, explains another bout of light posting. As an fyi, not that you need me to point these things out given the relative level of readership, but Matthew Yglesias' blog has moved. I'll post as I can. (Cue smartassed Thunderstick comment.)

Let the Games Begin

I love the Summer Olympics. My track and field background certainly plays a role in my devotion to the quadrennial games, as this is the one time every four years when the jumpers and throwers and runners take center stage. NBC is planning about a billion hours of coverage, and I plan to watch a million of those hours over the next fortnight or so.

One curiousity that even casual viewers will have is how NBC and its several component stations will address the China question. Will NBC remain largely mum, making the fatuous (and demonstrably false) claim that politics have no place in the Olympics? Will any athletes use the medal stand, starting blocks, or any other platform to speak out against China's human rights abuses? Will China shoot itself in the foot by proving its critics' point?

And then there is the much-discussed issue of air quality. Everything you have heard is true. The air is nasty in China. When I was in Beijing a couple of years ago the smog was ubiquitous. On my last day, however, a mucous-thick yellow haze draped the city so that on the way to the airport early in the morning visibility was near impossible. Barring great luck, expect this environmental worry to be a legitimate question, especially when outdoor endurance events are in play.

My guess is that the main theme we'll see the most over the next couple of weeks will involve that precarious line between cultural exploration and cultural streotype. There will be myriad stories and images exploiting the differences between China and the West that will inevitably hint at the idea of ther inscrutable Chinese. And this is understandable -- China is very different from what most of us know. But how this is handled will be telling. There will be very real transportation and language issues for athlete and spectator alike. And China is fascinating. But this sort of endeavor is fraught with landmines. The line between caricature and picture is finer than most think.

Here are a few links that caught my eye this morning: Bob Ryan's column in The Boston Globe is, as should be expected, fine. The New York Times has a blog, Rings, covering all things Olympics (and here is an interesting interview on odd Olympic events with NYT sports magazine Play's John Tayman). The Washington Post scours its archives and samples excerpts from more than a century of opinions on the Olympics. The Council on Foreign Relations spotlights how the Games are part of a larger plan to augment China's peculiar brand of authoritarian capitalism. Here is an article from South Africa's Mail & Guardian discussing the "spectacle and controversy" that will be these games.

Enjoy the Games, USA! USA! Etc.

A Job You Don't Want

I think it is safe to say that this qualifies as a, er, shitty job.

Hubris Alert (Memory Lane Edition)

When I was a kid my Little League had a fundraiser. Some huckster brought in these plastic cups that we were to sell to family and neighbors and one of his main talking points, apropos for a group of boys, was that the cups were unbreakable. You could slam them against the floor, step on them, and generally abuse them and they would not break. To prove the point he distributed cups to all of us and allowed us to have our way. Cups were bouncing everywhere. I slammed mine against the floor like a wide receiver spiking a football after a touchdown. The unbreakable cup (white, with an imprint of a strawberry on it) cracked in two. I brought it triumphantly to the salesman. His only response, I kid you not, was "Oh, a wise guy, eh?"

The lesson: Avoid the hubris of proclaiming indestructibility. Do not claim that your ship is unsinkable. Do not claim that your plane (or helium-filled deathtrap) cannot crash. And do not claim that your new electronic passport with a microchip embedded in it is "foolproof against identity theft." Inevitably, some wise guy will clone it within minutes.

Postscript: Despite my revelation of the fallibility of the cups, my grandmother bought about a dozen, some of which were still extant upon her passing in 2003 and may be somewhere now for all I know. I made the All-Star team at first base that year playing for the Dodgers.

The Manny Trade

Thursday, Major League Baseball's non-waiver trading deadline, reminded me a lot of July 31 2004. On that day, the Red Sox, who had been fighting literally and figuratively with the Yankees but who were also scuffling below expactations, were widely believed to be trying to deal Nomar Garciaparra. Nomar, a Boston icon (and, though it is easy to forget now, a seeming certain first-ballot Hall of Famer)was discontented. Perhaps to make a point he sat out of an important game in a series against the Yankees with a dubious injury. The injury was plausible, however, inasmuch as 2004 marked what would prove to be the turning point in Nomar's now injury-riddled career. As the trade deadline arrived and passed that day, many Sox fans were relieved when there was no news about Nomar.

Moments later the bombshell came across the wires: Nomar had been traded to the Cubs in a four-team deal. The Sox received what at the time was the seemingly underwhelming pair of Doug Mientkiewicz and Orlando Cabrera. To add to the perplexing nature of the deal, the Sox also gave up a prized prospect, Matt Murton. It seemed at the time that wunderkind General manager Theo Epstein had been fleeced. Epstein talked about needing to upgrade Nomar's defense (which had declined precipitously) but that seemed like rationalization.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Fast forward to last Thursday. The situation with Manny Ramirez had clearly gone beyond the point of repair. Manny had begun a vanishing act all too familiar to Red Sox fans. In 2006 he effectively boycotted the last six weeks of the season, a season that began promisingly but then fell apart due to injuries but also to Manny's petulence. When he started sitting out games this season, claiming amorphous injuries that the medical staff could not identify, and when the whispering from the clubhouse indicated that Manny Being Manny had crossed the tipping point from cute to harmful, Epstein knew it was time to go.

Like in 2004 the 4:00 (est) trade deadline passed with seemingly no movement. Manny appeared set to remain with the Red Sox. Then the news came down: Manny had been traded in a three-team deal to the Dodgers. The Sox would also give up Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss. For two young players and the greatest right-handed hitter of his generation the Red Sox would get Jason Bay, a fine player who had wallowed in obscurity for the execrable Pirates.

It did not take long for the chattering classes to have at it. Theo had been fleeced! You find a way to live with a guy like Manny with his production! And perhaps most galingly, the Red Sox were now done for the year! No way could they compete with the Tampa Bay Rays (!?) and Yankees for the American League East.

This palaver is silly. For one thing, while Jason Bay may not be Manny, he is almost inarguably more reliable than Manny if Manny chooses not to play or not to put forth the necessary effort. We become blinded by the names of superstars, and yet the raw numbers indicate that Bay's production is comparable to Manny's this year. The Red Sox offense is solid, despite some frustrations of late (with Manny), and the reality is that the team's biggest weakness, the bullpen bridge to Papelbon, is far more significant than any offensive worries. Bay is not only going to be fine in Boston, the Red Sox are going to be fine, and may flourish, with him plugging that spot. (And although defense and baserunning are overrated, Bay is a substantial upgrade over Manny in those areas.) Furthermore, even if the Sox survived this season with Manny there was zero chance that they were going to exercise the club's $20 million option. Given that reality, and with Bay signed through 2009, the question became, or should have become, not just whether two months of Manny (who may simply choose not to play or not to run out a ground ball single) was better than two months of Bay, but whether two months of Manny was better than two months plus one full season, cost-controlled, of Bay.

Emotionally, however, the feeling is quite different. In what amounts to a bizarre coinsidence, weeks ago I had planned to be at Friday night's Dodgers game against the Diamondbacks. I was already thrilled to be going to a game with huge playoff implications. Suddenly I would be at Manny's first game. I loved Manny. I was one of those who believed that Theo Epstein and Tito Francona had brilliantly dealt with Manny being Manny. But I also knew that things had gotten out of hand, that management's tricks no longer could counteract Manny's increasing tendency to play the saboteur, and that it was time to get value for him. So I wondered what my recation would be when Manny debuted in a Dodgers uniform on Friday night.

The answer is that I could not help myself. I wanted to see Manny do well. I was bummed to see him in a Dodgers uniform. I cheered him.

I loved the Manny era in Boston. A lot of people have placed a bit too much emphasis on his 2004 World Series MVP -- realistically that probably should have gone to Keith Foulke, and in any case, Manny hardly placed the team on his shoulders in that relatively easy four-game sweep. But the reality is that Manny was an essential member of the team that nbot only brought the Red Sox two titles, but who also carried them through a long period of sustained excellence, even in those years when they did not win it all. Manny was a blast to watch, the sort of guy who causes even casual fans to stop what they are doing to watch his at-bats. Yes, I resented the coasting and the me-first attitude of the last few weeks. But that did not overwhelm the nearly eight years of excellence he brought us.

In the end I felt sad. Breaking up is hard to do.

So go well, Manny. Earn that $100 million contract you want so dearly. Make LA fans fall in love with you. Carry them to the National League West title (not exactly the American League East, mind you). Make more Manny Moments in Chavez Ravine. Thanks for (almost) everything.

And Jason Bay, welcome to Boston. It is a small sample size so far, but in five games you've acquitted yourself well and vindicated Theo yet again. The fans have embraced you. And you are in the midst of a pennant race in the city where pennant races mean the most, which must be something to behold after those years in the wilderness in Pittsburgh. If the best analogy for the last few days is this same timeframe in 2004, I think we can live with that. 2004 turned out pretty well for us, after all.

Hip to Be Square Watch (Alumni Edition)

What, is Stuart Scott coming up with Homecoming ideas for Ohio University? Get Your Green On seems like the sort of three-years-out-of-date, quasi-urban-hip reference that Scott would toss out. The reference is a double entendre intended to promote both the school's colors and aa deep and abiding (read: recent) commitment to the environment.

Oh well. Go Bobcats! Beat VMI! And enjoy the attention you'll get when you travel up to Columbus to take on Ohio State at the Horseshoe on September 6. I'll be hoping for the best for you.

Back and Barely Functioning

I'm back from Arizona. Whether I'm recovered is another matter -- Jaime, his son, and I headed to los Angeles for a guys' sporting weekend that involved seeing a Dodgers game (Manny Ramirez's debut in LA, coincidentally) and going to Cowboys' training camp (Jaime and Ben are huge Cowboys' fans. I just wore a Pats t-shirt in hopes of antagonizing my way onto Hard Knocks.) But that means that I had four six-plus hour days of driving in a row, the last three with a massive sunburn.

Given my intermittent blogging ever since my summer started, I'm sure no one is waiting with bated breath for my next post, but later today I'll have thoughts on Manny, the Red Sox, LA sports fans, and being a stranger in a strange land in Oxnard. But the quick takes: We'll miss Manny but it was time to go and he's already electrified LA. The Sox will be fine. Everything you've heard about LA fans seems to be true. Say what you will, but the Cowboys' Brand is a pretty powerful and far-reaching one. More later.

No Brainer Alert

My glee at Karl Rove, who has arguably done more to harm American politics than any single individual in a generation or more, being cited for contempt by the House Judiciary Committee is overwhelmed only my belief that this was an absolute no brainer. And I would like to think that I would argue the same (in terms of legal culpability) were Rove a Democrat. Congress subpoenad Rove. He was called by the country's highest legislative body to testify. And, in a classic example of Rovian hubris and arrogance, Rove declared that he did not have to do so, that in effect, he was bigger than the United States Congress.

My guess is that for many of us who loathe the Bush administration, it is this arrogance that we most hate. This sense of not only being right, but of righteousness where most people would be at least a little bit self-reflective. Because aside from the arrogance, this administration has also shown a breathtaking level of incompetence. My view on the Iraq War was always ambivalent, but I could and did make a case for waging a war against Iraq. I also made a case as to why I did not trust this administration to wage that war well or competently. And this is where I see the biggest failure with regard to iraq -- arrogance mixed with incompetence that has reached such a perfect storm that the administration and its defenders actually manage to muster up something resembling outrage over the unwillingness of the anti-war types, whose own idiocy is often manifest, to recognize recent successes in Iraq. But it is this administration whose chief Iraq War architect sneered at reporters that the war would take six days, six weeks, but he could not imagine it taking six months.

Into the sixth year of the war that was supposed to take a fraction as long and cost a fraction as much, we are now supposed to genuflect to the sagacity of our leaders who may inadvertantly have stumbled into a modicum of success? It's ironic that one of the few good lines that President Bush has managed to squeeze out of his malaprop-prone mumblehole was his reference to the "soft bigotry of low expectations," because his advocates now expect his presidency to be graded on a curve so soft that it redefines the idea of lowering the bar.

So Karl Rove is likely to face contempt charges. And Republicans are likely to bewail the partisan nature of Democrats daring to act upon the obvious. But the reality is that Rove refused to respond to a subpoena that the country's lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, issued. There was once a time when the Republicans were Amnerica's self-proclaimed law and order party. But apparently there are no angles to be played when the scofflaws don't play to type. Suffice it to say that rich, white, connected Republican operatives are not that type.

Zim, the Freedom Rides, and Travel: Treble Self Indulgence Alert!!!

It's belated because I was out of the country, but on June 25, just before Zimbabwe's runoff election, the Cape Argus published another op-ed piece of mine. In this one I argue that Morgan Tsvangirai's withdrawal from the race, while fully understandable, might set a bad precedent. I then go on to invoke the Freedom Riders, drawing a comparison between how the3 students took over the Freedom Rides after the violence in Alabama broiught the original rides to a halt, the rationale being that sending the message that violence can stop the movement would have had devastating consequences.

(Speaking of the Freedom Rides, I received my edits of my manuscript last night. There is some, but not an overwhelming amount of, work to do. It is always nice to see signs of progress.)

[Las Cruces, New Mexico, where we laid our heads last night, is lovely. Off to Arizona in a bit.]

In the 'Zona

Mrs. Dcat and I are hitting the road for a trip to spend a week or so in Arizona with friends of dcat, including this guy. Posting will be light.

The End of the Manny Era

Is Manny Ramirez on his way out in Boston? Dan Shaughnessy says defnitely, and that was before this weekend's nonsense, which has caused Shaughnessy to be even more barbed.

I hate to see the Manny era end this way. And it clearly is ending. But if he can lead the Red Sox to another title, I think all Sox fans will look back fondly on his tenure in a Sox uniform.

Wind Power

T. Boone Pickens, Texas oilman extraordinaire, uber-booster of Oklahoma State University, and the seeming embodiment of voracious speculative capitalist has also become something else, something quite unexpected in recent years: a voice for, for lack of a better term, going green. One of his latest schemes is to harness something that Texas, and especially West Texas, has in abundance: wind.

Texas already does more with wind power than any state in the nation. Driving from Odessa to San Antonio we cover about 80 miles on state highways that take us through the small town of Crane and the tiny town of McCamey. Just South of McCamey, high up on mesas that jut up on both sides of the highway, are hundreds of enormous windmills. If Pickens sees the prospect for helping us wean ourselves from the very commodity that has made him rich, surely there is something to it.

I am at best a soft environmentalist. I've no doubt about global warming and that we as humans contribute to it. But I am not crusader on environmentalism, and although it is blasphemy to say as much among the true green crowd, the environment does not rank in my top five, meybe top ten political or policy concerns. But we are blind if we do not start thinking of other ways to heat our homes and run our cars and dispose of our junk. The wind, the sun, and water are powerful forces, and are elements that are as yet largely untapped for power. Yes, right now mosty of them are inefficient, but my belief in progress is such that I would imagine that we can fine ways better to harness them and in so doing to make a transition from oil dependency to a world in which oil is part of, but not the brunt of, the equation.

Sleeper on Brooks

Over at TPM Cafe Jim Sleeper, hardly a doctrinaire liberal, eviscerates a recent David Brooks column, accusing the New York Times columnist of "intellectual usury." This summation of Brooks' ouevre capture pretty well what I feel about the man and his output:

His pseudo-scholarly ruminations flatter some readers and make others deferential, but they are always suspiciously easy to follow. They're the intellectual equivalent of "cash back" on an easy loan of false knowledge that leaves you feeling "had," empty-handed,and politically paralyzed. That is how Brooks makes his living: He charms you up the garden path toward a politics that is nowhere.

That about seems to capture it.

Dear Diary . . .

Tom has a new diary entry in which he talks about "slippery snippets," and yes, its every bit as sexy as you might imagine. Grrrrwwwwllll!!!

Safundi and Southern Identity: Self Indulgence Alert

Jeff Woods, a grad school colleague and friend, and I are the guest editors for a special issue of Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies devoted to the theme of Southern Identity. In addition to editing duties, I contributed the introduction and the conclusion/response to two prominent scholars who wrote responses to the issue. we are proud of the final product.

We came up with the idea at the Southern Historical Association's annual meeting in 2003, put forward a call for papers in January 2004 and have been working on the project in fits and starts ever since. originally conceived as a book project, in the end, doing it as a journal issue made more sense and worked out well for us. If you are in academia and your library does not subscribe to Safundi, make an inquiry, request it, lie and say that it is essential to your work. If you are an individual, subscribe. It is well worth it.

I have taken the liberty of placing a link to this issue under our slowly expanding list of books and similar publications.

Oldy McOlderson Speaks

From this week's Sports Illustrated (Print edition -- no link) "They said it," Bill Webber, the oldest living former Major League player at 100 years old commented on today's players:

"The hair's too long. Their beards are too evident. They're a grubby looking bunch of caterwaulers."

Greatest. Quotation. Ever.

Training Camp Kicks Off in Foxboro

Although I am excited for both college and pro football in the abstract, I am not really ready for the reality of the Patriots starting up again. Given that they were the best sports team I have ever seen for 18 games last year and given how the season ended, the hangover has had a dampening effect on my spirits. The Pats climbed to such heights last year only to fall short at the end that it is almost unimaginable where they can go this year. Part of me thinks that they are likely to go 13-3 and win the Super Bowl with less history on the line and consequently less hype. Part of me worries that they will get old all at once as happens in the NFL.

But taking the emotional investment out of the equation, it is hard to imagine the Patriots not being one of the best teams in the NFL this season. They won't slice through the league like they did last season, and there will almost certainly be no run toward an undefeated season, but they should still be playing in January. Training camp, which starts in a few hours in Foxboro, will be a bit tough to endure because there will be a lot of reflection on what almost was, but once the games get started all wil be fine again. Christopher Gasper of The Boston Globe has ten storylines to watch develop as training camp kicks into gear.

Come Fill Your Glasses Up!

Williams has a new head track and field coach. My old head coach, Pete Farwell, who some time ago stepped down from head track coaching duties to focus on his championship cross country teams and coaching the distance runners on the track team, took the program over again this year after some controversy caused his successor to step down. After a national search, one-time Williams assistant coach Fletcher Brooks has been hired to take over the program. A former All American shot putter and football letterman at Allegheny College, Fletcher is also the brother of my friend and former teammate Ethan Brooks, who had a nice career in the NFL, including a couple of years as a starter for the Baltimore Ravens. Fletcher will be leaving MIT, where he has been head coach of the women's team and has worked with the men and women throwers.

I have no doubt that Fletcher Brooks will lead the Ephs to more glory in the years to come. As an alumnus not only of the school, but also of the program, I have high expectations for him to have a long and successful tenure at the head of the Williams College track and field program. All he has to do every year is beat Amherst, win Little Three, ECAC, and DIII New Englands and contest at the All New England meet, produce All Americans, and make noise nationally. Basically, all of the things that Williams track has been accomplishing just about every year since 1990 or so.

[Gratuitous and self indulgent shot of the winning long jump at the 1993 Williams Relays.]

Go Ephs!

Hometown Media

It has not been a great few days for the print media in my home town and its environs.My dad told me the other day that the weekly paper that covers local news, the Argus Champion, is closing its doors. It is hard to explain what the Argus means in a town like Newport. There is a daily newspaper, the Eagle Times, based in the (larger) town next door, Claremont. But the weekly newspaper always held the soul of newport. Or it did until a few years ago, when the coverage started leaning toward some of the more affluent nearby towns. For many in Newport, this is the real reason why the Argus failed.

In high school the Argus was especially good at covering local sports. Each week the paper chose an athlete of the week, and a local grocer sponsored the award by giving the winner two free steaks. I must have had two dozen steaks as a result of this partnership, the sort of thing that characterizes, indeed defines, small towns. The Eagle Times does a fine job of covering high school sports, but its coverage area is such that it encompasses well more than a dozen small communities and their high schools. The Argus was for our town and our teams, with a strong emphasis on Newport Tiger sports. I so rarely get home, and must admit that I do not go online to look at the Argus at all often. But like every other institution in my hometown, just knowing it was there has always been comforting.

On a lighter note, yet another basically local paper, the Valley News, which was based a few towns away and thus rarely figured in our day-to-day lives (unless we accomplished something against one of the Upper Valley teams in sports) has made news lately for a rather embarrassing snafu. On July 21, the newspaper misspelled its own name. On the front page:
The paper later sheepishly apologized:

[Hat tip to Patrick Appel, one of the writers still subbing in for Andrew Sullivan, for the Valley News gaffe.]

Wistful for The Wire

So I go to look at my Tivo (or whatever mine is called -- Tivo has become the Kleenex of digital tv recorders) list last night, and my reaction was almost wistful to seeing an episode of The Wire, the greatest television show ever, newly minted on the newly recorded programs. Apparently HBO is re-airing one of the old seasons, perhaps the first. I have a tirade built up about the fact that The Wire got snubbed again by Emmy voters, forever confirming in my mind that Emmy's are useless and indicative of nothing, certainly not the best that television has to offer, but I just do not have the energy or time. trust me that the bile is there, though. Recently The Guardian's Sam Delaney interviewed Dominic West, who played drunken, womanizing, profanity-spewing (God Bless him every one) Jimmy McNulty.

The Thunderstick has been pestering me to start watching Lost on dvd, and I finally got season one, but I'm not going to kid you -- I'm feeling a huge magnetized force pulling me toward Baltimore's mean streets. Fortunately I hear great things about Generation Kill, the latest project from the guys who brought us The Wire, and I'm Tivoing that as well, so perhaps David Simon & Co.'s take on Iraq will substitute for my desire to get back in the game of Bodymore, Murderland.

Food Service Memories

If you have ever worked in a restaurant, you have horror stories. Rude customers (let's just give them numbers one through five on this list), imperious prima donna bosses, the revelation that food can be pretty gross, and, if you've worked in the kitchen (which is my background) you know just how much manual labor is involved when it is your shift to wash the dishes. And then there is the heat, good God, the heat.

Despite all of the complaints, I owe a debt of gratitude to the time I spent in the kitchen at the Backside Inn in Goshen, New Hampshire. (Goshen represent!) While there I learned how to cook. I spent one summer doing nothing but baking and making salads, and that gave me a solid foundation and passion for cooking that never subsided. And that summer I got out of the nighttime kitchen drudgework. I was the equivalent of a white-collar worker that last summer.

Memories of that time came back to me when I read this interview in The Boston Globe with someone known only as "The Waiter," who is the keeper of Waiter Rant, a blog based on his table-jackeying in New York City. He is also the author of a new book, Waiter Rant: Thanks For the Tip -- Confessions of a Cynical Waiter. I'm sure most of you have done your time in the food service industry. This may either bring back deeply repressed memories or stir that bittersweet blend of nostalgia and revulsion that so many incidents from our past do.

Zim's Talks

Over at the FPA Africa Blog I have my analysis of the Zimbabwe "talks about talks" that has led to an agreement between Robert Mugabe/ZANU-PF to meet with Morgan Tsvangirai/MDC to try to settle the crises there. Let's just say that I am not especially optimistic, even if I am hopeful.

Kolmanskop

The blog Oddee has a feature (with lots of great pictures) on the ten most amazing ghost towns in the world. I have only been to one of these, but it is the one ranked at the top of the list, Kolmanskop in Namibia. It is every bit as spectacular as the pictures indicate, as is the entire Skeleton Coast of Namibia.

Hat tip to Patrick Appel, one of Andrew Sullivan's pinch hitters while the doyen of blogging is taking a break.

The New England Revolution: Is There Anything They Can't Do (Other, I Mean, Than Win an MLS Title)?

In a pre-9/11 world the story of members of the New England Revolution subduing a clearly deranged streaker on a cross-country flight would fall into the category of amusing stories that bloggers use to fill out their content (guilty!). Although the story is absurd, it is also easy to imagine why "Some passengers became frantic during the incident." And even if you are a passenger who did not become frantic, and even if you are no pollyanna, a closed space with childrfen is probably not the time you are going to chuckle about a streaker. A lot of guys I know, myself included, would have jacked the guy in the face the first time the guy popped out of the bathroom in the altogether. Nonetheless I look forward to seeing how Homeland Security and the FAA overreact to this event and come up with utterly irrelevant and improper responses, a la the arbitrary and absurd 3 oz. bottles-in-ziplocks solution to a non-problem.

Happy Birthday Madiba!

Today marks Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's 90th birthday. The great man is slowed but still robust, with his characteristic grace and wit still intact. As South Africa muddles through, the country's leaders would do well to dwell on Mandela and his meaning, not merely his undeniable symbolic power, and not even the mythology that surrounds him -- in some cases rightfully -- but rather on his approach to leadership and governing.

Mandela's greatness stems not from his perfection -- he was not perfect and would be the first to recognize as much -- but rather from the humility of his approach, on his willingness to compromise, on his loyalty, and on his unparallelled integrity. As just one example of a shortcoming leading to positive action, Mandela recognized even before he had left office that he had fallen short on what would prove to be one of the country's, the region's, biggest challenges, the threat of HIV-AIDS. And so his foundation has tackled that issue head-on and in so doing has done much good on that scourge that so haunts the country.

Mandela emerged from 27 years on imprisonment by a regime that deserved no quarter. But Mandela knew that in order to accomplish his goals of a non-racial, or multi-racial South Africa with one-person, one-vote democracy, he would have to negotiate with his enemies. And so he went about establishing the conditions for negotiation, cajoling some of his more skeptical comrades while at the same time making clear to the National Party the parameters within which negotiations would happen. Mandela was not the sole, perhaps was not even the most important, negotiator for the African National Congress, but he was the most important figure in the negotiation process, and knowing this, Mandela leveraged his identity and his leadership to bring about the end result that he desired.

Nelson Mandela will not live forever, yet he will live on. the question is how he will live on: As the father of a new South Africa forged in the consensus of the Freedom Charter or as the lamented apogee of an ANC gone awry. It is too facile to speak of historical crossroads, and yet South Africa certainly seems to be dealing roughly with the post-Mandela era. Thabo Mbeki will likely leave office scorned, his absence not long lamented despite his own well-earned status as an ANC exile leader. Jacob Zuma is hardly off to a promising start as the president of the ANC, and though it appears that he and his supporters may well find a way to cause the corruption charges against him to evaporate, as the country's president Zuma seems detined to be a divider rather than a uniter. South Africa does not need another Mandela -- there can be no such thing and we've been lucky to have the one -- but what it needs is leaders who look beyond Mandela's symbolism, beyond the birthday praise, however insufficient in relation to what the man accomplished and has meant to so many, and who can capture the essence of what Mandela wanted for his country and his world.

Grown men are not supposed to have heroes, or in any case are not supposed to worship them publicly. But Mandela is my hero. And he is the hero of millions. Long may he live in the minds and hearts and actions of South Africans and people the world over. More important, long may he live.

[Crossposted at the FPA South Africa Blog and the FPA Africa Blog]

Back to SA!

Naturally after a month out of the country, while still dealing with jet lag (I never4 get jetlag coming east to west except that this time with the layover in Dakar I got in at 6 in the morning in the States) two days later it seemed like a good idea to drive down to San Antonio for the weekend. The drive went smoothly yesterday, but I was out by 9:30 last night, something that happens about twice a year as I'm normall;y a very late-night person. I'll be here for the next few days and will post as I can.

Back in the USA!

40+ hours, one lost piece of luggage, three movies, several television shows, two read books, several newspapers, and virtually no sleep later, I arrived back home last night. I am catching up on life and will resume posting soon.

[Crossposted at the FPA Africa Blog and the FPA South Africa Blog.]

Departure Day

After three weeks here in South Africa, this evening I will board a South African Airways plane bound for Washington, DC’s Dulles International Airport via Dakar, Senegal. If all goes well I will land at 6:00 am eastern time tomorrow, Tuesday, at which point I’ll hope that I can get to BWI in time to catch my onward flight that will eventually take me back to Texas.

Leaving South Africa is always bittersweet for me. I love this country, its people, its culture and politics and sport and even, in odd ways, its history. And every time I leave I have no real idea when I will next be back. Next year? 2010? As of right now, I am simply not sure. South Africa is a part of my life, a vital part, and when I leave I will miss it even as I am excited to be home again, to see my wife and friends, to sleep in my own bed, and not to live out of a bag.

Over the course of the next few days I will continue my assessments about what i have seen and done in the hopes that it will continue to shed light on how I see South Africa right now, in the middle of 2008. Between now and then I have much traveling to do with a very cranky back. in the airport I am set to see a Zimbabwean friend who has fallen on difficult times here in South Africa. And then I’ll leave South Africa again, knowing full well that I will return, soon if not soon enough, to this place I have so come to love over the last decade-plus.

[Crossposted at the FPA South Africa Blog and the FPA Africa Blog.]

South African Politics

I have written some of my observations about South African politics at the Foreign Policy Association's South Africa Blog and Africa Blog. Please do check one of them out if you get a chance.

Back in Contact

My apologies for the silence here for the last week or so. Traveling in South Africa sometimes means not having the sort of internet access or opportunity to write as I might like. The last few days have taken me from Cape Town to Grahamstown and Rhodes University, one of my old homes. From there I came up to Johanneburg where my South African adventure will end without the hoped-for Zimbabwe trip for reasons simultaneously byzantine and prosaic.

In the next 48 hours before I leave for my return flight to the US I shall make some observations about a number of facets of South African life as it is in 2008.

Cross-posted at the FPA's South Africa Blog and Africa Blog.

Happy 4th of July (And the Meaning of America)

To my readers in the United States: Happy 4th of July!

To my readers in South Africa and anywhere else on the globe: Happy Friday!

In the last dozen years I believe I have spent more American Independence Day holidays outside of the United States than within it, with most of those spent here in South Africa. Being abroad usually provides an interesting perspective on one's own country. I consider myself to be patriotic in the most important and perhaps least jingoistic sense in that I love my country but I see its flaws. I honestly have no idea what people mean when they say that the United States is the "best country in the world." I guess I do not dispute the assertion at its essence, but I have no idea what "best" means, and why those who make the assertion do as much with such totality. The best at what? The best by what measurement? Is patriotism simply the willingness to rank arbitrarily one's country by some sort of flow chart or Olympic medal chart? I will grant that the United States is the most powerful nation on earth militarily, politically, economically, and culturally. And as a result I think it can be argued, and I would, that the United States is the most important nation on earth. But nation-states not being reducable to one's favorite sports team or top-five pop bands, I see neither utility nor meaning in the "best country in the world" mania that strikes my most jingoistic countrymen and women.

At the same time, it is always telling to see what others think of one's own country. I have found the supposed anti-Americanism that is supposedly pervading the world to be vastky overstated. I am certain there are places where that sentiment is strong, such as in much of the Middle East and in certain quarters in Europe, say. But on the whole what I find, especially once I convince the listener that I am not an agent of my state and that I do not represent American policy (even if I may defend elements of it or the larger framework within which that policy operates) I will have engaging, if occasionally lively, conversations.

The fiasco in Iraq has not done the US any favors abroad, nor has the arrogance our current administration has put forth in presenting the American face to the world. But at the same time most people in South Africa and elsewhere understand that our administrations are temporal where the American state is not. And so what I hear most often are questions about the current campaign for the presidency, and whether Obama can win, and if McCain is a Bush clone.

It is my experience that the rest of the world is very much interested in the United States and its role in world affairs and looks at America with a combination of awe and fear and respect and admiration and concern and envy. This may be impossible to quantify, but it is a lot more interesting, and telling, than simple assertions that America is "hated" or loved.

[Crossposted at the FPA Africa Blog and the FPA South Africa Blog.]

The Reasons I Travel

At the end of the day, travel is, for me, about people. Whether I am returning to Africa or to the UK, places I visit regularly, where I have lived and worked, or whether visiting someplace for the first time, such as when I went to China a couple of years back, the most important component to me is always the people I meet, and friends new and old. This is not to say that there are not other factors -- work, for example, certainly requires me to travel quite regularly, and provides the justification for these trips. And like anyone who leaves home a lot, I like experiences as well, whether cultural, aesthetic, adventure, or what have you.

But the most important element of travel is people. I am staying in Sea Point, in Cape Town, with my good friend Doug, a black Zimbabwean who has lived in South Africa for more than a decade. We met in 1997 when we were at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, and he is one of the people I always try to meet up with when I return. The time here will be too brief, but it is important, indeed crucial, that I spend it here. The conference in Stellenbosch provides another example. I walked into the conference venue knowing of a handful of the people there but actually knowing only one, a grad student at The University of Texas who I nonetheless always seem to see in South Africa. By the time I left Stellenbosch yesterday I had made a handful of new friends, some of whom I'll maintain contact with professionally, a few of whom I will likely remain friends with over the years.

In some ways I think I'be grown almost sanguine about the opportunities travel affords me. I brought my camera on this trip, have been able to see some new places and revisit old ones, and have yet to snap a single shot, which probably seems like a waste, but in my eyes just remonds me of all of the time I have spent here and the ways in which I try to immerse myself.

In any case, Cape Town is raw this morning -- rainy and damp, cold -- and I have decided to devote a day to trying to catch up on work. I apologize for the fundamentally personal nature of this entry, which lacks much insight into South African politics or history or culture. But South Africa is, for me, more than simply a tableau for politics and work. It is a real flesh and blood place where I've spent a large proportion of my life and energies for nearly a dozen years. So today I'll just work for a few more hours until Doug, my friend, gets home from work, and we'll go out to eat and for a few drinks before tomorrow, when all too quickly, I'll be leaving again.

[Crossposted at the FPA South Africa Blog and the FPA Africa Blog.]