Sports

I just started watching BLINDSIGHT. It is a documentary about how Sabriye Tenberken, founder of Braille without Borders and blind herself, contacted Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to get to the top of Mount Everest.

She asked Erik if he'd lead a team of teenagers from her school and helped themclimb Mount Everest. He accepted the challenge and went one step further. He made sure the adventure would be documented.

I will write a proper review. Just wanted to give you the heads up with the trailer.

Just, wow!

Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy, Maria Shriver,Oprah Winfrey by LATimes

In a jaw-dropping last-minute endorsement, Maria Schriver endorses Barack Obama : Breaking News: Maria Shriver endorses Barack Obama.

Will.I.Am's endorsement of Barack Obama goes viral : Will.I.Am's remix of Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" speech.

La Opinion, the largest Spanish language newspaper in California (if not continental US) endorses Barack Obama. The tipping point? Immigration : The Democratic choice is Barack Obama y en español, La opción demócrata es Barack Obama.

In what looks like a direct response to Marcia Pappas' "Ultimate Betrayal" memo, 150+ Feminist women from New York State decide to endorse Barack Obama : New York Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama.

Susan Eisenhower, the granddaughter of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower and coiner of the phrase "military-industrial complex", comes out in support for Barack Obama : Why I'm Backing Obama

I am running out to the NPR studio here in Manhattan to record another session of News and Notes with Farai Chideya.

We will talk about how steroids brought the downfall of Marion Jones, an MTV poll that says that white youth is happier than black, Juanita Bynum's messy divorce and .... prepare your selves ... why I hate the word Hispanic.

TADA!

Tune in today to your local NPR News and Notes schedule or catch the whole show online after 3pm.

Of the ten beautiful, accomplished, championship athlete students labeled so vividly and unfairly by political radio host Don Imus, Heather and Katie aren't even African-American. Essence is a classical pianist. Half are freshmen (freshwomen? freshgirls?) just out of high school and by university policy are therefore considered not yet ready for media interaction.

THEY were labeled, these ten young women. Not a race, not a sex, sport or constituency. These particular, extraordinary and now extraordinarily visible young women. No one has apologized to them. Why should labeling them be a matter decided by a fight between Don Imus and Al Sharpton?

Imus could be in real danger if the outcry causes advertisers to shy away from him, said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio. The National Organization for Women is also seeking Imus' ouster.

Imus isn't the most popular radio talk-show host — the trade publication Talkers ranks him the 14th most influential — but his audience is heavy on the political and media elite that advertisers pay a premium to reach. Authors, journalists and politicians are frequent guests — and targets for insults.

He has urged critics to recognize that his show is a comedy that spreads insults broadly.

I have not ignored all the people who have asked me to comment on the Clinton-Bloggers Harlem fiasco. I have been doing an awful lot of commenting across blogs and responding to emails. Ironically, it's been a socially intense two weeks. For those who thought a digitally lynching would make me disappear ... heh. Sorry.

There's a lot of good stuff written out there. I want to highlight Sunrunner's awesome, "Jane Hamsher: The Left's Answer to Ann Coulter?". All throughout those posts you will find really awesome comments by kid oakland, Jeffrey Feldman, Donna, not your standard poodle (oh how I love that sig!), MBW, Nannette, belledame222 and Kai. There's lots of other people and apologies if I didn't highlight everybody, but these commenters can be found all across at least 10-15 posts on the matter. Thanks all for adding to the conversation.

I do have follow-up posts. I will make good use of Monday morning traffic for them to appear on the blog. It also will give me some more time to smooth out my not-so-final comments on the matter.

I've enjoyed a half-century of thrilling school sports -- personally I bleed orange and blue -- but I'm prepared to argue that it is immoral and degenerate (if not downright sick and twisted) to school little kids as if they were competitive commodities in big-money academic sports franchises.

September 11, 2006
NEWSWEEK Cover Story
The New First Grade: Too Much Too Soon
Among affluent families, the pressure to succeed at younger and younger ages is an inevitable byproduct of an increasingly competitive world. . .Parents are acutely aware of the pressure on their kids, but they're also creating it. . .
"There comes a time when prudent people begin to wonder just how high we can raise our expectations for our littlest schoolkids," says Walter Gilliam, a child-development expert at Yale University. Early education, he says, is not just about teaching letters but about turning curious kids into lifelong learners. It's critical that all kids know how to read, but that is only one aspect of a child's education.
. . . childhood takes time.

Giving little kids TIME to love reading and learning sounds great, doesn't it? But see how once again we twist general good into specific harm. As usual, we do it simply by misapplying force instead of respecting the individual. We love both nature and humans -- why such little love for the nature of little humans?

BBC Radio 5 consulted a lip reading expert. The expert claims she could decipher Materazzi telling Zidane he was the son of a terrorist whore.

It came down to this : The best soccer player in the world looses his head over not just any ethnic slur, but one of the most hideously political ethnic slurs anybody could use against a man of Middle Eastern ascendancy : son of a terrorist whore.

During his Canal+ interview Zidane did not repeat the words uttered by the italian player. He did apologize, epecially to the children, for his unforgivable reaction. Yet he did not express any regret : To do so would be to say he had every reason to say what he said.

Do you think that I would do something like that, during the last 10 minutes of my career ... that I would do something like that just because I felt like it? ... What I did was inexcusable ... but the one who provokes ought to be taken to task.

You can watch the Canal+ interview here and continue on to YouTube.com for part two.

Ok, so we are obsessed with le headbutt.

My son has not stopped talking about it. His father is a man with no interest in sports. So my poor son has been stopping men, asking them if they saw the final game, if they saw Zidane and ask them why the hell did he do that.

It's like he's trolling for sports talk.

He's upset. He can't believe the captain, Le Capitain!, threw the World Cup away with a headbutt. He doesn't understand that maybe France was going to lose anyway but seeing France lose like that has him reeeeaaallly upset. This from the child who cried when both Brazil and Portugal lost to the frenchies.

So, after hearing him go to sleep asking yet again, "WHY DID ZIDANE DO THAT!" and with his baby brother yapping in the background, "Because he's a freaking idiot", I decided to get a clip of the cabezazo.

What I have found is a mini-treasure trove of linguistic soccer clusterfucking that proves that fútbol is not only biggest sport in the world, it is the only real world sport.

You are forewarned : The full post is BANDWIDTH SUCKING HEAVY.

Zinédine Zidane was "super-arrogant" and "I insulted him", admitted Marco Materazzi to La Gazzetta dello Sport on Tuesday,, 11 July. The italian soccer player provoked the frenchman who gave a headbutt that cost him an expulsion from the World Cup final game.

"I grabbed his t-shirt for only a few seconds, he turns to me, talks to be curtly, gives me the eye super-arrogantly from top to bottom : 'If you really want my jersey, I'll give it to you afterwards. I responded to him with an insult, it's true", Matterazzi told the sports newspaper/

However, when asked if the insult was meant for his sister, as it was confirmed to the media, Marco Materazzi said pointedly : "It was one of those insults you hear say dozens of time thrown at each other on the field.

"What is cecrtain is that I never called him a terrorist : I am not that educated and I have no idea what would an islamic terrorist be and my only terrorost is her ...", said Materazzi to the journalists as he pointed to his 10 month-old daughter who was sleeping next to her in the plane that was taking the italian team back home.

MOTHERS ARE SACRED

"I did not mess around with Zidane's mother either because for me the mother is sacred", had insisted the InterMilan player. Corriere della Sera had reported in an article focused on the exchange that Marco Materazzi had lost his mother when he was 14 years-old; so it was inconceivable for him to insult Zidane's mother.

The mystery hangs over what did Materazzi did say to Zidane to provoke such rage. Among the lip-reading specialists consulted on Monday by the Brazilian TV network, Globo, Materazzi may had called Zidane's sister a prostitute; whereas british journalists who also consulted lip-reading experts claim the italian called the frenchman "son of a terroriste whore".

Zidane has decided to wait a few days before he talks about the incident; his agent has said. The italian press says that Maco Materazzi is wanton to provocations and altercations.

French text under the jump.