If they do that...

Click here: Beijing considers hospitalising mentally ill for Olympics | the Daily Mail

"Mentally ill" is typically used in totalitarian nations as a synonym for "in public dis-agreement."

Natan Sharansky has told us all about it.

If the Chi-Coms do that we should seriously consider a boycott of the 2008 Olympics.

Softie ex-President James Earl Carter boycotted the 1980 games. Relatively few nations showed. Of course, the girls-who-looked-like-boys steroid-pumped East European swimmers were there to win medals for the Big Red Cause.

Hardball player, President-to-be Ronald Reagan opposed the boycott. ( ! ! !)

The Soviets boycotted the LA games in 1984. Most nations showed up.

"Sports and Society" is a theme that fascinates me.

We just taped WashPostie David Maraniss on his new book Clemente, in which Clemente angrily refers to himself as "double N-Word." But he says it with the real words.

Pittsburgh and environs were mostly populated by blue-collar hard-hat lunch-bucket types. Like most all (all?) Northern cities they had plenty of racism and anti-Semitism. You name it; they had it. Americans are exceptional. They are not perfect.

The move of blacks into baseball (Jackie Robinson) has been well-documented. Maraniss's book is probably the first to describe the the move of Latinos into the MLB, which they now come close to dominating.

I am thinking of doing my Next Book on the legendary game between the City College of NYNY (now part of the CUNY system) and Baron Rupp's UKaintuk Wildcats. Rupp's guys were huge favorites. CCNY won 90-45 (! ! )

Joy and rapture.

NYNY was never the same. Nor the Mid-South.

Later, many CCNY players were indicted in a point-shaving scandal. Gloom and Doom.


We have seen "soccer wars" and "Ping-Pong diplomacy." Everywhere I've been, most every area (except Sub-Saharan Africa) people whisper "y'know, this country is sports-crazy."


Me too.

Ben