Category Archives: sports

Labor organizers have (lots of) work to do


Last week on Labor Day I found a column I wrote in 2011, on the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It’s what editors call an evergreen column, meaning it will always be topical. Plutocrats are still fighting … Continue reading

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Athletes and artists (Trump and Nero)


Another reminder of how much better off we’d be if the malicious buffoon in the White House cheated at golf fulltime instead of devoting his extra hours to wrecking the economy and pursuing his forever war with Iran: The Winning … Continue reading

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Ruling class loves ‘subversive’ Kendrick Lamar


The reviews came gushing in on Monday: “…the Most Hip-Hop Halftime Show in Super Bowl History” (Billboard); “Kendrick Lamar’s performance was as Black and subversive as all get-out” (Washington Post); “The best word to describe the rapper’s halftime show is … Continue reading

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QB ‘immunized’ against science and ‘woke culture’


Here’s Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers in August, responding to the question of whether he’d been vaccinated against Covid-19: Yeah, I’ve been immunized. There’s guys on the team that haven’t been vaccinated. I think it’s a personal decision, I’m not … Continue reading

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Blowin’ smoke on Super Sunday


I was sitting on the porch with Swamp Rabbit, trying to nail down the silliest Super Bowl moment. Was it Budweiser’s “Blowin’ In the Wind” commercial or the halftime performance by Maroon 5? “Ain’t nothin’ silly about ‘Blowin’ In the … Continue reading

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‘Your people I do not understand’


On Sunday night the Eagles won their first Super Bowl and there was joy in Mudville, a.k.a. South Philly. I could hear the revelers from my bedroom window, hooting and honking car horns, breaking glass, rejoicing. Reminding the world that … Continue reading

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Hemingway does Super Bowl XLIX, files late


This year there were many victories. The Patriots captured the big town beyond the northern lakes where the Vikings sail and there was a victory over the Chiefs on a great plain and the Pats went back East and crossed … Continue reading

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If Comcast’s CEO had sucked up to Teddy Roosevelt


Swamp Rabbit had an interesting thought today. You’ve got to wonder, he said, how many media companies Comcast CEO Brian Roberts would have gobbled up if recent U.S. presidents hadn’t been stooges for big business. Net neutrality is only one … Continue reading

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Ivan Klima covers the NFL playoffs


Swamp Rabbit and I were hungry, so we took a two-day job — strictly commission, unfortunately — peddling magical electricity in a suburban mall. There were flat-screen TVs and football fans all over the place. We caught some of the … Continue reading

Posted in fiction, humor, life in the big city, Philadelphia, sports, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Virginia Woolf almost does the Super Bowl


Most years, I persuade a famous novelist to write a 500-word recap of the Super Bowl — Dostoyevski and Faulkner, among others, have donned their sportswriters’ caps to appear in this space — but this year Virginia Woolf phoned at … Continue reading

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