And if I fight, I fight for something else.

I mentioned it about 18mo. ago, but the Times’ sports magazine is still one of the best reads you can pick up. Here’s. Why. You. Should.

In response to the appearence of this hackjob in the student newspaper last week:

Last Friday on this page, Mark Petterson suggested that if China doesn’t end its involvement with the Sudanese government, which is implicated in the genocide of its own citizens in Darfur, then the US should boycott the 2008 Olympics, being held next August in Beijing. I do not wish to use this space to defend China (which, the author failed to note, did in fact vote for a UN Security Council resolution earlier this month to send peacekeepers into the area, rather than abstain as usual), but instead to defend the Olympics.

Which seems a rather odd notion to be sure. After all, who could be against the Olympics? This grand sporting spectacle, repeated every four years in another global metropolis will be next year be celebrating its 29th incarnation, and for the first time in the world’s most populous country. That China has committed civil rights abuses is not disputed; what is still up for dispute is the impact that the Olympics can have a country, and in this regard, I fall on the side of optimism.

And so did the International Olympic Committee, back in 2001 when it awarded the games to Beijing over Istanbul, Osaka and Paris. Ever mindful of not only China’s own image but their own, the IOC sent a message that the Games would be the ultimate tool of diplomacy, an event that could change China and push it towards economic prosperity and political openness. If the IOC be naïve, then at least they be ambitious.

What of the Games themselves? The Olympics are meant to be apolitical; they exist to provide an atmosphere of international competition and sharing of arts and cultures, under  the umbrella of peace. Surely readers here know of the Olympic Truce that is declared during the 16 days of competition, and that a foundation called Olympic Aid exists to bring money and supplies to war-torn areas of the world. The infamous 1980 boycott of the Moscow Games by the USA and its Western allies accomplished nothing in the end; surely there are more productive measures to protest or combat aggressive actions by foreign governments than to boycott a sporting event.

Because let us not forget, it is a sporting event. Which means, the participants are completely innocent, as are the spectators. All of the geopolitical arguments you can use to justify boycotting the Olympics are diminished when you come upon an athlete who has been training for years, if not decades, to compete in the greatest contest the world has ever known, and is suddenly and inexplicably told ‘Sorry, wait four more years.’ Why punish our best, most promising talent–on the track, on the court, or in the pool–for an atrocity they have played no part in, especially when in reality, their forced absence from the Games will not change one single aspect of the situation on the ground?

Let us by all means seek to alleviate the injustices in Darfur. Let us work to end that conflict, and many others. Let us convince China to develop its moral leadership in these situations. And let us never forget that all of us, the world over, should not only continue to find common ground, but also to push other to greater heights of human excellence.

It just so happens that the Olympics can help us with all of those things. Don’t stop them before they even begin.

–Ryan M. Scarrow, 2005 graduate in history and senior in sociology

I agree with everything in this piece. But a few things could’ve been cut. =)

[And that, friends, is my first ever use of an emoticon on this blog. I mean, speaking of somebody who could use an editor around here.] 

And if I needed a reason to just stop using the New York Times anymore, here’s that reason. I read their piece on Gore last night (or more accurately, this morning when I wasn’t able to fall asleep until nearly 3:30am) and remember thinking ‘Wtf? You call this journalism?’ I’d only been going to it like once or twice a day anymore anyway, and I’ll still check in on their Sunday magazine, but otherwise, I’m strictly a Guardian man from now on.

In response to the appearence of this hackjob in my local newspaper last week:

To the Editor,

When I reached the end of the opinion “essay” last week (“Political Correctness,” March 1, 2007), I wondered if the second half would focus on the efforts of the political right-wing in this country to stifle dissent, offering examples of comments by noted conservatives threatening liberals, minorities and the very ideals of democracy. Then I realized that this half didn’t offer anything in the way of evidence on the part of leftists either. All the author used was a biased viewing of history, a tenuous example of the so-called ‘War on Christmas’, and an amateurish, and frankly wrong, reading of Marxist theory.

First of all, communism isn’t based on the theory of ideas, let alone that ‘all valid ideas come from … the masses.’ Karl Marx studied and witnessed the exploitation of the working class on the part of the ruling class–the aristocracy and the owners. He posited that the labor value of each individual worker has always been and was being exploited by those owners, and that capitalism was just the latest and most modern way by which that exploitation occured. Socialism, his theory went, would be the correction to the gross inequalities of labor and value in the economy, by putting the means of production–that is, the great quantities of capital, factories, natural resources and international trade–under the ownership of the people. He said nothing about the property or ideas of the individual; indeed socialism would be protecting the individual from the tyranny and neo-slavery of the ruling class. To the extent that the Frankfurt School addressed cultural factors, they did so because of the superstructure of the ruling ideas in society that keeps the working class from challenging the system they live, and work, under. Such modern ruling ideas would include, for instance, a political system financed by business and lobbyists, a military used for wars of conquest, and a culture in which torture is not only allowed by our politicians but celebrated on network television. But I digress.

Secondly, Western Civilization itself is not some monolithic set of values that transcends human nature or has been consistent throughout the last few millenia. The same Western Civilization that celebrates freedom of religion is also the same one that send Crusades into the Middle East to ‘liberate’ a Holy Land shared by two other religions, that allowed the Inquisition in several European nations, and that makes Ann Coulter a best-selling author for saying that “We should invade [Islamic] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” Democracy, that great gift of the founders of Western Civilization, was confined only to white, land-owning males until this past century, and even then there were, and still are, problems in making sure that suffrage is indeed universal in our elections. And if it is the nature of Western Civilization to be respectful of others and to correct injustices, then how we do rectify the second-class citizenship of homosexuals and working immigrants in our nation today? How do we reconcile the continuing racism that led some commentators to blame the poor citizens of New Orleans (mostly African-Americans) for not getting out of the way of Hurricane Katrina, and then, for doing whatever it took to stay alive while the president strummed his guitar?

And lastly, why that story about Santa being banished from Kensington, Maryland certainly is sad isn’t it? But while this story may lead you to think that minority viewpoints are trying to destroy our cherished American holidays, here’s the thing: the Kensington city council did try to add icons of other religions, before deciding that a purely secular and patriotic display was best for that year. There was no bad guy, but that won’t stop Mr. Blazquez from blaming groups like the American Civil Liberties Union for representing such individuals who want society to simply understand that symbols do have meaning, and that those meanings can be just as harmful as they are good.

The point I want to end with is that columns like this one from Mr. Blazquez serve no purpose except to try to paint all of us who believe in liberal ideals as conspiring with those who want to destroy those same ideals. Mr. Blazquez seems to think he’s trying to help Americans recognize the threat of stifling speech and thought. But in his zeal, he would seek to halt civilization in the name of keeping our society just the way it is, right now. That friends, is more dangerous than any bomb or professor or lawsuit from the ACLU. As Lewis Lapham once wrote, “The freedom of thought and expression presents society with the unwelcome news that it is in trouble, but because all societies, like most individuals, are always in some kind of trouble, the news doesn’t cause them to perish. They die instead from the fear of thought and the paralysis that accompanies the wish to make time stand still.”

–Ryan M. Scarrow

Breaking news: Fuck the Kansan. All of these columns are now gone off the face of the internets. I mean seriously, who runs a major web site without a goddamn backup drive?

I find myself agreeing with this guy.

For the love of God, please go get the new October issue of Outside. I just read Mark Jenkins’ last ‘Hard Way’ column for the magazine, and if you don’t tear up while reading it, then you have no soul.

The editor of the Guardian has been quoted as saying that the brand new presses his paper bought for their conversion to the Berliner format will be the last presses they will ever buy. That’s because they know the future is online, and to demonstrate this, the coolest feature I’ve yet to see from a newspaper. Updated every 15min., these free, letter-sized PDFs are an incredible idea for a print publication. Now if only the rest of the industry could grasp the ‘vision thing’.

The most sickening thing I've ever read. Seriously, a third of all college-aged people in America can't find Louisiana on a map? Three-quarters think English is the most widely spoken language in the world? Over 40% couldn't identify Iraq, Iran, Israel or Saudi Arabia?

Maybe using proportional representation to get more people to vote isn't the best idea in the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the largest cojones on the planet. All the more striking compared to the shriveled ones of our media. Except for the Boston Globe; but even so, they're still following in the wake of a fake newsman.

As an addendum of sorts to my column of this morning, this interview courtesy of the Morning News.

I was taught, way back when, that a paragraph was to consist of at least two sentences. When I sent my latest column into the Kansan, it was four carefully constructed paragraphs, not every sentence for itself. Unless they were trying to fill space in the actual paper, I just don't get it. And I've been doing this for oh the better part of a decade.

I like to think I had some impact on that bottom headline, thank you.

Pretty freakin' sweet, considering that I spent 13 hours in a car for 11 waking hours in Liberal, KS. Jeff, Annie, Tim, and I all headed west for the grand festivities of this Shrove Tuesday. We left at noon yesterday, and spent the night at Jeff's parents' house (they happen to be super nice, by the way; they will receive the Church of Beer's highest order, just as soon as we, uh, think it up) where I realized that I am, indeed, a cookie addict (to go with my other status as a brownie whore). This morning, we dined on pancakes that really had quite a bit of soaking power, and watched as another KU grad student, Henry, gave a speech as England's official representative to Liberal for the day. Then we headed downtown to watch the series of pancake races held under sunny skies and in perfect temperatures (perfect, we believed, for what could be world record times). At noon the feature event, the international women's race, ended with the front-runner tripping 20 feet from the line, and the winning time in Liberal was five seconds slower than the time recorded in Olney, England, six hours previous, thus snapping Liberal's seven-year winning streak. Fortunately, this did not dampen our barbeque lovin's, and we then piled back into the car for the 6.5h trip back to Lawrence. A fantastic time with my best friends and some good food and the international brotherhood of running with breakfast pastries.

On a completely unrelated note, I wanted to amend my column that ran in today's Kansan; in my submitted version, the following paragraph goes in right after 'And, please, for the love of Tonya Harding, stop taking it all so damn seriously.' The editors are perfectly in their right to cut down as they see fit (they also made stylistic changes that I in no way take responsibility for, as always), but this passage makes a larger point that I wanted to discuss in addition to the others presented.

Lindsey Jacobellis fell in the final seconds of her snowboardcross final. She had a sizable lead on her Swiss opponent, and coming off the next to last jump, she pulled a method air, went off-balance and nearly wiped out before recovering to her feet and finishing with a silver medal. Her actions were treated with unimaginable disdain; to the journalists watching, she should have gone straight and narrow down that course, won her gold medal and waved her flag while giving a Wheaties smile. That she is still one of the top snowboarders on the planet doesn’t matter; that she and her fellow extreme athletes operate by a less, shall we say, stringent notion of athletic behavior is seemingly forgotten in the media. It’s not surprising, though, as it was forgotten by our society long ago.

And on another completely unrelated note, I am less than two weeks from the end of my yearbook career. I not only have to design 70 pages in the next twelve days, but likely come up with most of the pictures for said pages. In other words, I will be dead by 13 March. That, or I'll have an I.V. pumping maple syrup straight into my veins.