MSNBC Taps Rachel Maddow for New Show

August 19, 2008

Popular pundit Rachel Maddow will host a new talk show on MSNBC, catapulting the Air America host and progressive favorite into a prime time field largely dominated by male and conservative anchors.

MSNBC is set to officially announce the decision on Wednesday, but the channel's biggest star, Keith Olbermann, broke the news to supporters through a "fully authorized leak" on his diary at DailyKos on Tuesday evening. The jocular host, a longtime Maddow booster, even wrote up a few answers to "key questions" for his blog audience:

No, the format isn't set, though there have been a lot of discussions out there and they have all centered on how to best allow her to both give her laser-quality insights while soliciting the opinions of others.

US Misses Shot at Iranian Superstar

August 19, 2008

Everyone knew these Olympics would be political. We knew the stadium-sized gap between the so-called Olympic ideals and the commercial feeding frenzy in Beijing would stagger the faint of heart.

But we are also now seeing, in the towering form of seven-foot-two- inch Hamed Ehadadi, the hypocrisy of a United States that will sing the praises of China and ruthlessly punish Iran, defining the "axis of evil" on an ethically bankrupt scale. Ehadadi plays the center position on Iran's national basketball team. In four Olympic games, he scored 16.5 points and grabbed ten rebounds. Most impressively, he dropped 21 on an Argentinian team loaded with pro talent. NBA front offices salivated and began to line up to talk about contracts. One of the teams interested in Ehadadi was the Memphis Grizzlies, where he could enhanced their already formidable team featuring explosive wingmen OJ Mayo and Rudy Gay. But then the State Department stepped in. "We have been advised that a federal statute prohibits a person or organization in the United States from engaging in business dealings with Iranian nationals," is how Yahoo! Sports quoted the NBA legal counsel.

David Stern and the league office followed suit, ordering all clubs to cease and desist talks with Ehadadi's people. The cowardice of Stern is really striking. He likes to sing the praises of the NBA's embrace of globalization. Players in China, who arrive in the NBA with a hometown fan base in the hundreds of millions are welcomed with open arms. Yet Iran clearly is just a bridge too far.

Is Michael Phelps Really the Greatest Olympian Ever?

August 18, 2008

Eight gold medals. Seven world records. And most remarkably, transforming laps in a pool into must-see-TV. Michael Phelps has truly exceeded the hype and has derserved every accolade he's received. In slightly over thirty total minutes of swimming, Phelps defied our imagination about the athletically possible. Even NBC, so terribly awkward in its coverage of China, so self-censoring when broaching the politics of these games and so hackneyed when relaying the little soap opera vignettes about individual athletes--handled the Phelps story with gusto.

Now the only question left is the one without an answer: is Phelps "the greatest Olympian ever?" This is what's known as a "sports radio question." It's the kind of idiotic discussion point that has a commercial value precisely because it can be debated forever without any resolution. Phelps as "greatest Olympian" may turn out to be what finally supplants "Does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of Fame?" on countless call-in shows and in corner bars.

Since every sports yakker on the street has his or her opinion on this, I might as well give mine. The case for Phelps lies in the unprecedented eight gold medals (and the record fourteen for his career overall), his remarkable mental and physical endurance and the fact that he bested the greatest swimmers in the world using a variety of strokes. In an era of sports specialization, he is swimming's Bo Jackson.

Blind to Bolt in Beijing

August 16, 2008

The ultimate Olympic event is the 100-meter dash. From the greatness of Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis, to the ignominy of Ben Johnson--it has in many ways come to define the Olympics. This year a man with a name that comes out of central casting, a name straight out of Dickens--Usain Bolt of Jamaica, set a world record of 9.69 seconds at the Bird's Nest.

Bolt, in breaking his own world record, even slowed up at the end, pounding his chest, which has some wondering if he could have come in at 9.64, or even better. This is what the Olympics should be all about--watching athletes exceed our wildest dreams as to what is physically possible. There was just one problem with this amazing moment in sports history--it wasn't televised here in America. Instead men's basketball was being broadcast. Does anyone believe for one moment if US track star Tyson Gay had made the finals, this would have happened? In fact, unless you were following the race on a live blog you wouldn't have known a record fell at all. (And what does a "live blog" for a 10 second race look like? "The race begins." "Now it's over.")

As one poster at Washington Post.com put it, "Seriously, I'm sitting here watching the basketball team destroy Spain when I could have been watching the first person in history beak the 9.7 second mark? NBC has been dropping the ball all week on what they have been showing. They think that just because we are in America, all we want to watch are Americans." Another person called it "Shocking and disappointing." And yet another said pointedly, "Hey NBC, you SUCK."

No Free Press at Beijing Olympics

August 15, 2008

"Are you arresting me? I am a journalist," said John Ray, of London-based ITV News, as he was arrested by the Chinese police. The pernicious crime perpetrated by John Ray was covering a protest outside the National Stadium. "They bundled me out of the park," Ray was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. "They forced me to the floor, dragged me, manhandled me into a restaurant next door." Ray was covering the action of eight activists, seven from the US, who unveiled a "Free Tibet" flag near the National Stadium in Beijing.

Video of Ray's arrest with his narration below:

Police said that they confused Ray with a protester, despite his press pass and loud protestations. Ray's arrest earned a mild rebuke from the IOC who said, "The IOC does disapprove of any attempts to hinder a journalist who is going about or doing his job seemingly within the rules and regulation." It's those very "rules and regulations" that are part of the problem. The IOC issued firm statements that freedom of the press would be respected during the games. China has also insisted that, "there will be no restrictions on journalists in reporting on the Olympic Games."

Spain's Basketball Team Sullies the Olympics

August 14, 2008

There are some athletes who can't be bought. Some athletes who refuse to become commodities, valuing their humanity more than their wallets. Then there is the Spanish national basketball team. Spain's team, which includes NBA stars like Pau Gasol and Jose Calderon, is embroiled in a controversy that has managed to be both racist and juvenile--and all the result of orders from one of their sponsors.

The photo that's rocking the Olympics shows all fifteen members of the Spanish team, pulling back their eyes into a slit-eyed pose meant to mock Asians. They are also all giggling like four-year-olds after someone makes a fart joke.

Even worse, it was all done on their sponsor's orders. Not only did all fifteen players think this was a smashing idea, but the Spanish courier company Seur paid for it and has been running it in Spanish newspapers.

Resistance Heroes in Tbilisi - In Baghdad, only Terrorists

August 13, 2008

The New York Times ran a feature August 12, on Georgian civilians who've joined the fight against the Russian invasion of that former Soviet republic. The story, by Nicholas Kulish and Michael Schwirtz is full of empathy and heart.

Nika Kharadze and Giorgi Monasalidze went to war last week, the Times report begins… "even though they were not warriors."

China's Algae War

August 13, 2008

When Olympic sailing competitors complete their races this week, they won't be slipping over the sides of their boats to celebrate with a refreshing swim.

That's because Fushan Bay, on whose shore sits the Olympic sailing center at Qingdao, is home to a persistent growth of algae as green and dense as a golf course fairway.

The algae were so thick that 20,000 Chinese went out in a thousand small boats in July to clear the water of hundreds of thousands of pounds of the stuff. Otherwise the boats would have been stuck in the scum unable to sail, their keels and center- or dagger-boards snared in it. And because algae is such a champion grower, the cleaning iscontinuing every morning at dawn.

Women's Gymnastics: The Big Mac of the Beijing Games

August 13, 2008

If you have been reading this blog, you know that I am somewhat conflicted about the Olympics. There is the beauty of the games, and an ugly pervasive undercurrent that can leave you queasy. It's like eating at McDonalds: so tasty at first, so nauseating upon reflection.

If the Olympics are McDonalds, then women's gymnastics is without question the Big Mac. There is the remarkable, CGI-like athleticism by all the young women involved. Then there is the knowledge that the competitors have had their bodies and health manipulated and warped so they can execute on the springboard.

Last night of course was what Sports Illustrated's EM Swift called "the marquee event of these Beijing Games" the women's gymnastics team finals where China and the US went head-to-head. China won, and in a staggering act of hypocrisy, all that US national team coordinator Martha Károlyi and her husband Béla (banned from coaching the team for unspecified reasons) could do was bellow about how the Chinese team violated age violations and cheated their way to the gold. (Béla calls the Chinese gymnasts "half people.") The media has run with this, raising hell with accusations that the Chinese were using several gymnasts under the age of 16. The Chinese coach, Lu Shanzen smartly responded, "If you think our girls are little because of looks, then maybe you should think the Europeans and Americans are strong because of doping."

Beijing Olympics: Dolphin Kicks Obscure Biased Coverage

August 12, 2008

"It's like he was part fish." That's what a friend of mine from the Maryland suburbs said about the young Michael Phelps. He was in a swim club with the multiple gold medal winner, and still shakes his head remembering how the prepubescent future star was in a league of his own. "You could just tell. It was sick." (That's a compliment.) Now Phelps is racing less against his competitors than against history. In his quest to win a record eight gold medals, Phelps has already won three gold medals and set three world records. As the New York Times wrote, "Michael Phelps is not just gunning for Mark Spitz's record of seven golds, he seems intent on winning all his races in world-record time, as Spitz did in 1972."

Racing the 200 meter free style, Phelps not only became the first swimmer to break one minute forty-four seconds, but he also broke one minute forty-three. The contrast with Natalie Coughlin could not have been greater. Coughlin won the gold in the 100 meter backstroke, becoming the first woman in history to win that event in consecutive Olympics. She barely held off Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe. Coughlin struggled, and looked at different points like she was shading from one side of the lane to the next. But where she--and Phelps--dominated was in the use of the dolphin kick when they made their turns. This is the part of swimming that makes the viewer think that they are watching some form of Darwinism on fast forward. The swimmers flip over and unless the underwater cameras are showing computer fakes, like the opening fireworks display, they writhe their bodies like they are doing a submerged electric worm, and cover aquatic ground with the speed of white sharks. Coughlin in particular looked like she was going to lose and then did a last unorthodox dolphin kick to barely outpace Coventry. You'd have to see the replay on this, if you at all value the beauty of movement. Yet we were rooting for Coventry whose success at these games has brought cheers to Zimbabwe, which is currently mired in violence and political strife.

It raises the question though, if Coventry had won, would we even have seen the race? One of the bizarre contradictions of the games is that they are meant in theory to promote internationalism, yet television coverage has historically been focused almost exclusively on US athletes. During this year's games this tendency has been even more egregious, with long tape delays and cold war rumblings combining to produce a spectacle that feels more like sports as propaganda than sports as bridge-builder.