Last weekend, when I heard the news of the death of Sen. Eugene McCarthy, not long after hearing the news of the death of Richard Pryor, I thought how appropriate it was. McCarthy spent much of his Minnesota political career living in the shadow of Hubert Humphrey, the titular head of the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party [...]

Apparently the NCAA is so busy monitoring offensive school mascots that it has nearly forgotten about the issue of minority football coaches. The Black Coaches Association reminded the NCAA last month that during the past year black football coaching hires in big time programs failed to reach 1 percent. Seventeen of the 30 institutions that [...]

Update 12/4: Read Sean O’Hagan’s tribute and account of the largest public funeral in Northern Ireland’s history. Soccer great George Best died Friday in London. For most Americans this simple fact has little meaning. For soccer fans across the globe, however, it is neither simple nor meaningless. Best was 59 years old and died from complications of [...]

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association recently announced yet another new agreement on drug policy. It may even be the final agreement of the year. As such, we can now relax and know that drug use in baseball is under total control. We also know that democracy is spreading across Iraq and throughout the [...]

Edward R. Murrow can be credited as the man who invented television journalism, having first perfected radio journalism during World War II. It should then be no big surprise that there is a high volume media buzz over the new film Good Night, and Good Luck, George Clooney’s homage to Edward R. Murrow. The focus of [...]

There are times when I wonder whether the president of the United States thinks the American people are a mass of blithering idiots, or if he is simply so dense himself, he can’t see the most obvious idiocy in his own words. Iraq aside, the past few weeks have offered truckloads of such words. In interviews [...]

Over the past half century it has been assumed on this side of the Atlantic that democracy had come to Germany. Indeed during the debate over whether to invade Iraq or not, Germany was cited by some as an example of what American power and intervention could do to topple a dictator and bring democracy [...]

What’s all the fuss about Pat Robertson anyway? Can’t anyone do the math? Sure, you don’t usually announce in public that it is time to assassinate a head of state. But if you look closely at the Robertson rationale, you’ll realize there is a certain impeccable logic in what he said. The only drawback is that [...]

The NCAA decision to rescind its order banning the use of the “Seminole” by Florida State University is an admission by the NCAA of the lack of information on which it made its original decision. In the reversal involving only Florida State University, the NCAA says that the university has a “unique relationship” with the Seminole [...]

It certainly seems like a logical and sensible position. It is one that is made most often these days by those who supported the war in Iraq but have now come to see it as a mistake. It is a position also taken by those who opposed the war in Iraq but now recognize that [...]

The NCAA, in whatever wisdom it may have remaining, has ruled that NCAA institutions who have “offensive and abusive” Native American mascots and logos will not be allowed to host any postseason event nor participate in any postseason event unless they remove such references from their facilities and uniforms. Eighteen universities have been named. This is [...]

President Bush raised the ire of his critics last week when he called for evolution to be taught alongside “intelligent design” in public schools. “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes,” the president said, once again simultaneously demonstrating his political brilliance and the fuzziness of [...]

UEFA President Lennart Johansson found himself in the hot seat yesterday for stating that the obvious way to advance women’s soccer is to sex it up: “There are so many companies who could make use of the fact that if you see a girl playing on the ground, sweaty, with the rainy weather and coming out [...]

Politics and sport often mix, and when they do, the results can be at once unfortunate, distressing and sometimes appalling. The House of Representatives hearings on steroids come to mind. More distressing, however, is the case of Pat Tillman. The cynicism this expresses about the dignity of human life and the solemnity of devotion to [...]

Dear Commissioner Stern: I have been reading with some interest newspaper reports about the current negotiations between the NBA and its Players Association. Of particular concern to me is your proposal to bar from the NBA any person who has not reached the age of 20. I am distressed by this not because I am under [...]