Archive For The “Odds & Ends” Category
When you watch track and field for the first time, you may wonder why the sprinters seem about to punch someone – okay, milers, too – while meanwhile the pole vaulters are all hugging one another. The latter have learned a lesson – you compete against the event, not against each other. You can learn a lot from track & field. About yourself, if nothing else.
I turn the radio off as we pull into the Woodburn Drag Strip, feeling like a 98-pound weakling at a body-building contest. I park next to a chopped and channeled ’50 black Merc with a bumper sticker that reads: “Concerned About My Driving? Call 1-800-WHO-Cares?”
The content reflects on the 2025 Prefontaine Classic, highlighting performances by Beatrice Chebet and Faith Kipyegon, who broke world records in the 5000m and 1500m respectively. The piece expresses disappointment over the lack of recognition for Steve Prefontaine, despite celebrating the event’s 50th anniversary. Nostalgia for the old Hayward Field is also evident.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer Truth is not defined by repetition nor volume. Truth is not defined by power. Truth is freedom, the freedom to recognize reality. …
But, if this part of our history could be told in such a way that those chains of the past, those shackles that physically bound us together against our wills could, in the telling, become spiritual links that willingly bind us together now and into the future – then that painful Middle Passage could become,…
This time last year I just delivered the newspaper, now I read it cover to cover. I was poor before I got a paper route, now I have almost five hundred dollars in the bank. Now I’m Gordy Braun, pronounced brawn, not Gordon Braun, pronounced brown. I’m a track star, a wrestling champion and the uncle to…
“The white man’s guilt further added to his rage.” -Tim Madigan, The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 During the Tulsa Race Massacre (also known as the Tulsa Race Riot), which occurred over 18 hours on May 31-June 1, 1921, a white mob – looting and burning and shooting and bombing –…
It’s become the motto of our time to watch what you say, be sensitive about what you say. The number of people and organizations that believe they are special is at an all-time high. They believe they shouldn’t be criticized. Jokes shouldn’t be told about them. It’s anti-American. It’s anti-free speech. The issue these days…
It’s never been a better time to be exceptional, or a worst time to be average. – Scott Galloway A CONVERSATION WITH SCOTT GALLOWAY We’ve been eager to make sense of the gender divide our country faces. What do you believe is behind it? And how should we be looking at it? We’re in an…
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. – Pope John Paul II By Brent Landau This April 20th, Christians will be celebrating Easter, the day on which the resurrection of Jesus is said to have taken place. The date of celebration changes from year to year….