It was 1976, and the Summer Olympics in Montreal had improbably become ground zero in the struggle against apartheid. Several dozen African nations threatened to boycott if the International Olympic Committee dared allow South Africa to be a part of the games. Montreal's athletic jamboree was in jeopardy and...

It didn't make SportsCenter, but one of history's most influential sportswriters died this week at the age of 98. His name was Lester Rodney. Lester was one of the first people to write about a young Negro League prospect named Jackie Robinson. He was the last living journalist to cover...

On December 13th, a date I've basically had tattooed on my arm like the guy from Memento, The People Speak finally makes its debut on the History Channel. This is more than just must-see-TV. It is nothing less than the life's work of "people's historian" Howard Zinn brought to life...

On November 19th, President Barack Obama wrote a stirring tribute in USA Today to the most famous draft resister in US history, Muhammad Ali. On Tuesday, Obama spoke at West Point, calling for an increase of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, with a speech that recalled the worst shadings of George...

First run at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091214/zirin

During the Bill Clinton impeachment idiocy of 1998, many on the left said if Clinton were removed from office, let it be for gutting welfare or for imposing sanctions on Iraq, and not l'affair Lewinsky.

Today, Tiger Woods, the most famous, wealthy and most PR...

When it comes to independent, agitational journalism, the standard is Amy Goodman and her radio/television institution, Democracy Now! Goodman and her staff often find themselves accosted by officials, foreign and domestic. This happened again on Thursday. But it didn't happen in East Timor or Burma. Goodman was detained by...

On Sunday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made a startling concession to medical ethics, one resisted by all of his predecessors. Goodell said that when a player sustains a concussion, teams will now be required to seek advice from "independent" neurologists. As the commissioner said on NBC's Football Night in...

I have made the decision to help launch a new organization called the Sports Fans Coalition. And I was inspired to do it by none other than Mike Lupica.

With all due respect to Mr. Lupica, the New York Daily News sportswriter motivated me by writing the most wrongheaded statement...

One of the first photos I saw of Barack Obama was a picture of him at his desk with a poster of Muhammad Ali staring down upon him. That was cool to me. Here is a basketball-playing Chicago politician and he chooses Ali over that icon of apolitical apathy, Michael...

[Note: please post suggestions of who LeBron James of who he should dunk on next]

It's rare when athletes respond to a dreary, clichéd question with a stimulating answer. Thank you LeBron James. Maxim Magazine wanted to know who basketball's king would most like to dunk...

Over the last eight years, even though it often made me break out into hives, I've listened to a lot of Rush Limbaugh. I've heard him express the full gamut of his emotional range: from hateful to very hateful. But over all this time, I've never known him to be...

Yesterday I was referred to on air as "scum" by Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh called me out by name on his radio show because, along with Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press, I challenged Limbaugh's efforts to own...

Scott Fujita is a star linebacker for the unbeaten New Orleans Saints. He is also a 2001 graduate from the University of California at Berkeley with a BA in political science. In addition to playing for the Saints, he is also is someone proudly raising his family in post-Katrina New...

I am absolutely reeling with shock that Chicago was knocked out in the first round and the 2016 Olympics are going to Rio de Janeiro. Some quick thoughts about Victoria Brasilia and the Chicago/Daley/Obama humiliation.

1 - This is a victory for the people of Chicago. Pushing back against immense...

President Barack Obama is now en route to Copenhagen in an effort to sell Chicago as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics. In the process, he may be selling Chicago down the river. Obama is joined arm-in-arm with his wife Michelle on one side and Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago...

This week, the grand media theme from USA Today to ESPN has been that "we have lost a sense of civility in US society." The examples have ranged from Serena Williams' expletive-infused outburst at the US Open and Michael Jordan's brutal basketball Hall of Fame speech to Rep. Joe Wilson...

Beneath the veneer, college football is multi-billion dollar spectacle of unpaid labor and unhinged fandom. The 2009 season opened in Boise, Idaho and flashed it's underbelly to the world. The game started with a mandated sportsmanship initiative, as 14 players from the Boise St. Broncos and the Oregon Ducks shook...

Tuesday night at Howard University, RNC chair Michael Steele did an impression of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz: he was absolutely heartless. Not everyday do we see the head of a major political party insult a 23 year old whose mother just died of cancer.

But...

In a recent monologue, Bill Maher said that the United States has two main political parties: one party on the center-right: the Democrats, and one party in a mental institution: the Republicans. Frankly, his comment insults those who receive care at psychiatric facilities; at least they are looking...

[A version of this appears in the new issue of Slam Magazine]

It starts with the cornrows. When I think back on the 2008-2009 NBA season, I don't think my first thoughts will stray to Lebron James' ascension to the MVP throne, Dwyane Wade returning and surpassing his old form,...