Sports

Sunday

Bill Kauffman

Hoosiers of New York

Poor March. It has so few defenders. Yet annually, on the first day of the month, I stand in the snow or sleet or icy rain and recite William Cullen Bryant in hopeful placation: “Ah, passing few are they who speak/ Wild stormy month! in praise of thee.” Bryant went on to speak in measured praise of the third month not so much for its qualities, such as they are, as for the promise it contains of the eventual arrival of the fifth month. For me, though, unheralded March offers the spectatorial pleasure of basketball.

hoosiers

Thursday

Pedro L. Gonzalez

America the fat and impotent

The dark link connecting pornography to everything from depression to marital strain to erectile dysfunction to romantic disinterest is irrefutable. The neurological effects parallel substance abuse, quite literally rewiring men's brains while polluting their hearts and sapping them of their ability to love. The video medium of porn, its ubiquity, the instantaneous access — these things combine to wreak havoc on the neural wiring that underlies learning and memory processes. This is not the same as watching an action movie or reading a book; porn becomes more real to the mind than reality.

fat america

Saturday

Philip Patrick

Olympics’ organisers could regret banning ‘taking the knee’

From our UK edition

Knee-taking and fist-raising protests have been banned at the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, with the International Olympic Committee warning athletes who flout the rules that they will be punished. The IOC clearly hopes this will mean the delayed and accursed Olympics – already set to be loaded with a slew of joy-killing Covid restrictions – can take place without the additional burden of political controversy. That’s the theory, but could it all backfire? At first glance it looks as if the IOC has been clever. Rather than issue a top-down declaration, they canvassed 3,500 athletes asking whether the current Rule 50, which bars all political demonstrations on the podium (not specifically the knee or the fist), should be retained.

Friday

Stephen L. Miller

Gracious China allows athletes to speak out on social issues again

Even after China unleashed a viral pandemic on the planet, crashing the world economy and killing thousands, we all find ourselves in their debt. You see China has been magnanimous enough to let those who matter most in America finally begin to weigh back in on social and political issues: our beloved professional athletes.Remember when China stopped NBA players from speaking about what was happening in Hong Kong? That now seems a long time ago. This past week has seen a flurry of professional athletes finally stand up and speak out against a racist government and police brutality. At an Atlanta rally in the wake of the shooting of Rayshard Brooks, Atlanta Hawks head coach Lloyd Pierce spoke about the protest movements happening across the world. What about China?

lebron james china athletes

Sunday

Julie Bindel

What gives the trans lobby the right to chastise Martina Navratilova?

Many of us have been waiting a very long time for ‘peak trans’ to be reached, and for liberals, faint-hearted feminists, journalists and politicians to break out of their cowardly complacency and face the reality – that extreme trans activism is misogyny. Perhaps peak trans may well have arrived, thanks to the latest valiant efforts of the trans bullies. The latest target in the vicious and often violent war being raged by extreme trans activists is one of my all-time heroes – the world tennis champion and LGBT rights campaigner, Martina Navratilova. Navratilova has been accused of being ‘transphobic’ as a result of a tweet responding to a question from a follower about transgender women in sport. ‘Clearly that can’t be right.

martina navratilova

Friday

Scott McConnell

Why the Ryder Cup is great

I made no time for the Blasey Ford testimony, and never do for the NFL, but the TV will be on for Ryder Cup this weekend, the greatest show in golf. The bi-annual Europe v. America spectacle is being held at Le Golf National, a relatively new course outside of Paris this year, which seems odd because golf has few roots in France. But tens of thousands of French people will be going, and tens thousands more will journey from Britain and Ireland and the continent. Since 1979, when our Ryder Cup opponents became European (because postwar, the US was beating the British-Irish team too consistently) the Euro team has become one of the few well-regarded symbols of a united Europe, in counterpoint to the sovereignty threatening bureaucrats of Brussels.

tiger woods ryder cup 2018