Category Archives: sports

2 Broke Girls, S6E20 “And the Alley-Oops”: A TV Review

I mentioned not too long ago that chances are Season 6 of 2 Broke Girls will be 22 episodes. That means that “And the Alley-Oops” is the antepenultimate installment, and you would hope that at this point the showrunners would begin lining things up in preparation for the finale. Nope, this is just an episode about bowling.

Caroline and Bobby have some mild conflict, but even it describing it that way feels hyperbolic. Max is very much a footnote to the episode, and on the outskirts the rest of the diner gang get up to their own light shenanigans. In other words it’s pretty par for the course, as 2 Broke Girls has been lately, but at Episode 20 we should expect a little more. Continue reading

2016’s Cultural Battleground – Gordon’s Account

EDITOR’S NOTE: We end each year by each taking a look back and picking our five best posts, explaining both their importance to us and to the world we currently live in.  Clicking the banner images will link you to each post, so as 2016 comes to a close join us in remembering how far we’ve come, but also how far we still have to go.


I know it’s been said all over, but man…

**** this year.

I’m going to just go ahead and embrace the roiling darkness and present, for your consideration, my own chronicle of our downward spiral. Not counting the French war on religious freedom, American attacks on the 2nd Amendment, Don Lemon’s career, and a host of other blemishes we don’t have room for.

Did I mention **** this year?

Anyways, here’re the major casualties from this year’s culture wars:

thepresidentnotmypresident While I don’t think this was my finest writing by any means, I do think it’s one of the more important posts I wrote this year. And not just because I want my good name vindicated by future historians or alien archaeologists sifting through the ashy remains of the Western hemisphere.

In the face of a lot of folks trying to come to terms with the election of Donald Trump, I make the argument that they just don’t have to.

firstladyIn spite of my own frustration and anger at the results of the election, I nevertheless want to state for the record that voting-for-a-lesser-evil is not now, nor ever will be, the answer. In spite of what Mrs. Obama, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders believe, democracy cannot be saved by us choosing not to practice it. Continue reading

Covering the Hijab at the Rio Olympics

Past weeks have seen the internet come to blows over pictures from a women’s volleyball game between Germany and Egypt. This picture:

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Now where most sane folks would see a simple game of beach volleyball, the denizens of the interwebs have managed to read in some fantasy about a clash of cultures- “the free and civilized West against the superstitious, primitive savages of the East.” Comment sections have been flooded with everything from sarcastic half-jokes…

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…to open propaganda.

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“Because I, from the comfort of my armchair, know this athlete’s situation better than she does.” -Idiot Commentor

There’s been snide comment after comment directed not at Doaa Elghobashy’s performance in the game, not towards her assertion that what she wears is her own damn business, not towards her teammate (Nada Meawad) who doesn’t wear a hijab…

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And I think it’s because people aren’t actually angry about any of that.

For all the sanctimony, the issue at hand seems not to be with mandates or even just pressure to wear the hijab. It has nothing to do with standing up for women- on the contrary. I do think that the extreme contrast between Elghobashy and her German counterparts hit a nerve that most people didn’t realize they had. I think it does forced folks to ask themselves some truly uncomfortable questions about why they actually watch the sport.

I’m talking about this:

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Now I seriously debated putting that picture up, but as cringingly uncomfortable as it is, I think it speaks volumes about our culture. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E8 “And the Basketball Jones”: A TV Review

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I’m gonna start by reminding all of you nice people that this show’s creators were paying so little attention to last week’s episode that they didn’t even bother changing the “Current Total” or the “New Total”, features that were once the entire crux of 2 Broke Girls. Once upon a time this show was all about Max and Caroline saving up for something big, and it’s very telling that this once important detail was recently overlooked.

As for this week, well, it’s another one of those episodes. And by “those episodes” I mean that not a lot happens. I was going to add more to that description, but it says it all. At this point the overarching narrative of the season appears to be Sophie and Oleg’s efforts to have a child together, and to that effect they take a significant step forward while the titular characters just live their lives as usual. Continue reading

The 3 Best Parts of a Professional Sporting Event for People Who Don’t Love Sports (i.e. Me)

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been struggling to keep up on my weekly posts since heading back to school. This has been primarily due to a creeping deadline at work, paired with more school assignments than I had been expecting from my “easy” filler classes. This weekend, I also had another distraction:

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It’s no secret that I’ve never been a sports lover. This is probably because I’ve never found a sport that I’ve been good at and I’m a sore loser. Yet somehow, I married a sports lover and, since then, I’ve begrudgingly come to appreciate the pastime. I just don’t always appreciate them for the same reasons that John does. Below, I’ve shared a few reasons why my first NBA (pregame) experience was a blast, and why I hope we can make it a tradition. Continue reading

3 Reasons Why I Will Be Watching Ronda Rousey Fight Bethe Correia

I enjoy fighting. I’ve even taken a couple classes in a few different martial arts (although never for long enough to learn anything more than the basics). Occasionally, I enjoy watching a match of MMA or boxing. Watching these matches always makes me feel conflicted. On the one hand, I enjoy the skill and level of physicality involved in fighting; on the other hand, as a Special Ed Aide, I feel terrible supporting sports that could cause long term brain damage. Despite this internal conflict, and despite the fact that I’m not an avid sports watcher, I know I will be watching Ronda Rousey fight Bethe Correia on August 1st. Below, I’ve explained a few reasons why.

1) Rousey is a bad-ass chick

This post went up late because I made myself go to kickboxing last night and then crashed when I got home. The main reason I convinced myself to go (trust me, I love finding an excuse when I can), is because of all the Rousey clips I’ve been watching. When I thought about skipping, I couldn’t help but remind myself, “what would Ronda Do?”

She would do a bad-ass ninja flip and then get herself to kickboxing practice, that’s what.

Continue reading