Gearing Up for a Grudge Match

Game-Day Update Below

ESPN is billing tomorrow night's second-round matchup between Maryland and Louisville in the women's NCAA tournament as a grudge match. That sounds about right to the rabid Terp fans of Roxie's World, who have never gotten over the beat down Maryland suffered at the hands of Coach Jeff Walz's Cardinals in the 2009 Elite Eight. It isn't just the score -- 77-60 -- that still stings, painful as it was to watch the glorious collegiate careers of Marissa Coleman and Kristi Toliver end on such a sour note. What rankles even more is what Walz did when the final whistle blew and Coleman and Toliver sat stunned and disconsolate on the Maryland bench. Walz is a former Maryland assistant coach who was with the team when Brenda Frese guided a group of upstart freshmen, including Coleman and Toliver, to a national championship in 2006. He relied on his intimate knowledge of Maryland's players and its system to formulate a game plan that exploited its weaknesses. His team executed the plan brilliantly -- and when the dismantling was over Walz made a beeline for Coleman and Toliver and tried to comfort the women he had just defeated. Here's what we wrote about the gesture the day after the game:

At that moment when cameras were focused on the devastated stars, Walz, engineer of their disappointment, went over to each of them, got down on his knees, and put his arms around them. Moose thought there was something jarring about it at the time. It seemed disingenuous of him to take on the role of comforting them for a loss he and his team would be boasting about in a matter of seconds. Word of friction between Walz and Frese makes the gesture even harder to take. If Walz sincerely wished to express sympathy to Coleman and Toliver or admiration for their brilliant careers, he should have done so out of the limelight and only after Coleman and Toliver had had a chance to compose themselves. To insert himself into that moment was to take on a role that rightly belonged to his old boss and, apparently, his new foe. He beat her team, handily. He didn't need to try to usurp her role.  

We don't know anything about the rumors of bad blood between Frese and her former assistant (pictured at left in a slightly altered photo from 2006 [via]), which surfaced in the wake of the 2009 contest, but we have a hunch we're not the only ones hungering for a little revenge tomorrow night. When the brackets for this year's tournament were announced and it was clear the Terps and Cardinals could meet again, Marissa Coleman immediately tweeted (yes, Moose follows her -- don't judge) of the matchup: "TERPS get some payback for @KristiToliver and I, would ya?!" (Love you, Shoulders, always will, but that should read, "for @KristiToliver and me.") During first-round action Saturday at the Comcastle, some fans might have greeted Walz with warm fuzzies when he took the floor for his team's game against Michigan State, but there was no love lost for Louisville's head coach up where the Moms sit in section 114. When the short-fused Walz loudly berated a player for throwing up a bad shot (when the Cards already had a comfortable lead), a fan/friend mockingly repeated the coach's rebuke, adding in his own booming voice, "We could hear you all the way up here, Walz!" After that, we spent the rest of the not very entertaining game dissecting Walz's issues -- "He's got an Auriemma complex," one Freudian averred -- and concocting elaborate plots to guarantee a Terp victory tomorrow night, most of which involved sending spoiled seafood to the Louisville team's hotel.

Yes, darlings, that's why they call it Madness, this seasonal affective disorder college basketball fans experience every year come tournament time. We love the game, adore our team, and live for the drama of the major upset or the thrilling comeback. Or, you know, the sweet revenge.

We'll be in the stands tomorrow night, maybe with a special sign imploring the Terps to win it for Marissa and K. T. or to remember 2009. On the other hand, why should we burden these splendid young women with the bitter residue of someone else's past? Their talents and accomplishments are impressive in and of themselves, and they deserve their own shot at glory. It would be hard to fit our sentiments onto even the most carefully painted sign, but perhaps we'll show up at the Comcastle tomorrow with the hope in our hearts that these dazzling young Terps will win on Monday so that we will have the joy of knowing we will get to see them play together again -- at least once more before this special season, like all seasons, ends, in triumph or its opposite.

Sleep well, women. You've got your work cut out for you, and we can't wait to cheer you on in your efforts. Peace out.

(Photo Credit: Toni L. Sandys, Washington Post. Maryland forward Alyssa Thomas shoots over Navy's Alix Membreno in a first-round game, 3/17/12.)

Update: WaPo's Gene Wang has a story this morning on the Frese/Walz "subplot" in the looming rematch between Maryland and Louisville. According to Wang, Walz's departure from College Park in 2008 was "acrimonious," though Frese refused to comment on the matter, saying it was not important to the upcoming game. Reading between the lines, one might infer that Walz took a little too much credit for the national championship, including orchestrating the play that sent the title game into overtime. In this YouTube video of Marissa Coleman and other former players talking about that game, Coleman makes it clear that Toliver's sublime shot over Duke center Alison Bales was not the play coaches had drawn up. After the 2009 loss to Louisville, Coleman also publicly took issue with Walz's suggestion that Maryland's body language suggested the team was taking Louisville lightly as it focused on getting back to the Final Four. "Well, Coach Walz was wrong," Coleman commented when told what Walz had said.

Like we said, dude's got an Auriemma complex. We don't care what motivates the Terps to go out and get the W tonight. We just want them to win, but if it turns out the victory is fueled by a collective gynocentric urge to smack down an arrogant, bullying mansplainer, well, that's all right by us. We are women, hear us roar. Go, Terps!

Today in My Typist Is STILL Too Busy to Blog

Now With Tiny Violins!

Srsly. More than a week of radio silence around here, and my typist still insists she doesn't have time for a proper post. Dammit, Moose, we gotta give 'em something! I don't want to become known as the Grover Norquist of East Blogistan, starving the beast of my vast readership because you're having a hard time keeping up with yourself these days. Fine, Moose grumbled as she struggled to stuff all the balls she'd been juggling into her book bag before heading off to campus. Here, Rox. Throw 'em a bone. Let 'em watch the adorable vid I shot of the Norwood School orchestra earnestly sawing away on "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Sunday's game against Duke. It's cute, even if I didn't get the whole song, very nearly as cute as a damn cat video, and it proves that our national anthem is very nearly as hard to play as it is to sing. Throw in a Whitney Houston tie-in, and we're good to go.

Desperate times, desperate measures, people. Sometimes you go with the post you got, not with the post you want. These kids really are cute, and the Lady Terps snatched victory away from the Blue Devils with brilliant play in the final minute. The hearty "woohoooooo" you hear as the little fiddlers finish off the anthem is of course Moose, beside herself with excitement as tipoff approaches. She was so psyched for the big game that she even indulged in a bit of face-painting -- and learned by halftime that the reason face-painting is for kids and not for grownups is that grownups get stressed out when their team falls behind by 12 points early in the game, rub their faces, and turn a pretty red "M" into a big schmear that starts at the cheek and runs all the way up the forehead. Oops.

In any case, here, for your mid-week pleasure, are the little fiddlers of the Norwood School, forcing us to wonder, yet again, why we have marching bands but not marching orchestras. Don't say we never gave you nothin', people. Peace out.

 

Penn State Link Farm

(NB: If catching up on the Penn State scandal is part of your weekend plans, WaPo has a handy tick-tock story in today's paper that summarizes events since the release of the grand jury's indictments last Friday afternoon. The grand jury's report is here, but it is not for the faint of heart. Trigger warning for graphic details of child sexual abuse and men in positions of authority behaving badly.)

What can a humble dog blog say that hasn't already been said about the sordid news out of Penn State University this week about an alleged sexual predator protected and enabled for years by an athletics department and a university administration in thrall to a legendary coach and the economic power of big-time football? What do we see when we gaze at the seal of the neighboring school a few hours to the north and take American culture's latest Rorschach test?

Mostly, we see what others have seen:

Disturbing evidence that universities do a terrible job of handling sexual violence and harassment by responding to them as private, internal matters, as Tenured Radical points out in her excellent post on the scandal. Lesboprof also focuses on the administration's failure to notify police of what was obviously a criminal matter in a post that every college administrator on earth ought to read. Historiann weighs in briefly but generates a long and lively discussion thread full of thoughtful comments and good links in response to her point that the administrative failure in this case was gendered male, as all of the coaches, directors, university lawyers, and presidents whose actions protected the alleged predator rather than his young victims were men. Jennifer Doyle points out that laws that require universities to investigate and act upon allegations of sexual abuse or harassment have done little to change "the culture of silence" that serves to shame victims and enable perpetrators on campus.

Possible evidence, particularly in the pro-Paterno riots that occurred on the Penn State campus Wednesday night, of uniquely American forms of idiocy having to do with sports, idol worship, and other vulgar things. For that perspective, see Eric Wilbur, Jon Stewart, and Margaret Soltan, who focuses not on the riots but on the "stupidity" that overtakes a campus dominated by football. Of course, QTU is a school where "rioting" is as commonplace as plagiarism, so the Moms are a little less horrified by this particular behavior than others are. Gather a bunch of kids stirred up about something, bring in a few cops decked out in their Darth Vader costumes, get a couple of cameras rolling, and -- presto! -- you've got a riot on your hands. Still, we doubled over laughing at Andy Borowitz's somber announcement that the board of trustees at Penn State had responded to the rioting by replacing the entire 40,000-member student body with an interim student body: “After careful consideration, we decided we had to make a change,” said trustee Harley Manvers. “Hopefully, these interim students won’t be such jackasses.”

Y'all know we are fans of college sports here in Roxie's World. (Indeed, the Moms are washing tee-shirts and polishing up the pom-poms in preparation for the season's first trip to the Comcastle tomorrow, where they'll see if their beloved [and 11th-ranked!] Lady Terps can avenge last year's NCAA Tournament loss to Georgetown.) Nonetheless, we've grown increasingly concerned in recent years by the sense that the athletics sides of the campus in Division I schools are worlds unto themselves, operating by a different set of rules than the rest of us and not really accountable to anyone. To us, one of the most telling details in the Penn State saga is that President Graham Spanier and some members of the board had tried to get Joe Paterno to retire at the end of the 2004 season, and he refused. Joe Pa maintained a similarly arrogant "You are not the boss of me" attitude until the bitter end, as he announced Wednesday that he would retire at the end of this season and appeared to order the board of trustees not to spend "a single minute discussing my status." That seems to have been the last straw for the board, which announced his firing late that night.

Penn State's difficulty breaking up with Paterno reminded Moose of the Sturm und Drang that arose at her undergrad alma mater back in 2000 when the late Myles Brand, then president of Indiana University, fired the school's legendary basketball coach, Bob Knight. Sports Illustrated columnist Stewart Mandel noted that parallel in a post on the dangers of turning coaches into idols who answer to no one. Mandel argues that fans are partly to blame for what happened at Penn State, their worship encouraging Paterno's arrogance and his bosses' diffidence. Richard Vedder, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, considers possible solutions for the lack of accountability, including the radical yet intriguing idea that universities might "get out of the commercial intercollegiate business, perhaps by spinning off their athletic operations to separate for-profit companies (which could be sold to the public), largely erasing the fiction of the 'student athlete' that exists in the more commercial sports such as football and basketball."

We don't see big schools getting out of the sports business anytime soon, because, of course, the revenue and the brand buzz generated by athletics are desperately needed in the age of Excellence Without Money (™RW Enterprises, LLC). In the end, for us, the many facets of this tragedy -- sexual coercion, catastrophic failures in oversight, rioting fans -- come together in a phrase that kept running through Moose's mind as she contemplated the events of this sad week. That phrase might be taken as the unspoken motto of the neoliberal university: Live by the brand, die by the brand. Jerry Sandusky was protected by his close, nearly forty-year association with Joe Paterno, who was not just a legend but the public face and foundation of the Penn State brand. Tarnish the brand, and the whole shaky financial edifice might come tumbling down. Such thinking encourages the diffidence and denial that appears to have been rampant among administrators in State College, including, it pains us to say, Graham Spanier, who has been one of the good guys of American higher ed for many years. We are sorry to see his tenure as president end on such a negative note.

Live by the brand, die by the brand: Bloomberg is reporting that Moody's Investors Service will look into downgrading Penn State's revenue-bond rating in view of the likelihood of "lawsuits, weaker student demand, decreased philanthropic support, changes in its relationship with the state, and management moves" in the wake of the scandal. Sometimes, it would appear, the most strenuous efforts to avoid reputational and financial risk end up producing precisely what they intended to avoid. That's worth keeping in mind, as we all seek to learn "the lessons of Penn State."

Dear Abby

Would you please come home and raise the debt ceiling? Yours sincerely, US of A

Because, you know, I'm pretty sure she could.

(Photo Credit: Martin Meissner, Associated Press, via. AP caption: United States forward Abby Wambach celebrates after scoring the winning goal against France on Wednesday.)

Girl's got a good head on her shoulders, after all, which is more than you can say for the dudebros in DC these days.

(Photo Credit: Associated Press, via.)

Sigh. We are officially soccer-illiterate here in Roxie's World, but you know we love us any estrogen-fueled spectacle of power and grace, so we are all in for Abby and her gang o' high-kicking gal pals over there in Germany battling for the World Cup. You go, girls, and when it's over get your firm behinds home and get to work fixing any of the several. pickles. our nation. is currently in.

Meantime, whatever it is you do to win a soccer game, we hope you will do it supremely well against Japan on Sunday. Use your heads, wimmin. Right? Right! Go, team, go!

And, you, dudebros, being all preening and stupid and strateger-ic: Straighten up, fly right, and pay the bills. The clock is ticking, and your nation is sick of the dithering. Shut up and make a deal. Use your heads, if you can manage to pull them out of your un-firm behinds.

Yours sincerely, US of A

Fight the Power

A region rocked by threats of violence. Concern about how police will react if students take to the streets, set fires, destroy property. Will there be more beatings? More dubious arrests?

We're talking Cairo, right, weighing in at last on the small matter of the whole future of Egypt and perhaps the Middle East being at stake? Oh, heck no, kids! We're talking College Park, where it's officially "Beat Duke Week," as the Non-Lady Terps prepare to take on the Dark Overlords of Durham tomorrow night. QTU administrators, burned (ahem!) by negative press coverage of student riots celebrations that have followed recent Duke games, are being proactive this time in trying to manage the violence youthful exuberance likely to erupt. There are tee-shirts! Student marshals! A sanctioned bonfire! Holy-moly, turtles, there's even a prayer rally!

Moose thought that last bit was an especially nice touch, figuring the point was to try to commandeer the support of the Almighty in the effort to defeat the third-ranked Overlords, who got spanked hard by unranked St. John's at Madison Square Garden this past Saturday. I mean, come on, sports fans, Jordan Williams can't do it all on his own, can he? Anyway, turns out the prayer rally is for safety and sportsmanship, not for an effective perimeter defense, but Moose is hoping one of the faithful will sneak in a tiny request for the latter along with the former. Shoot, as long you've got the Big Guy on the line, you might as well go for it, right?

Do we need to make it clear that we don't take lightly these concerns about public safety and reputation? Do we need to say that of course we hope students will go bonkers in their expressions of public happiness or disappointment without breaking laws -- and that this time the local constabulary won't decide to kick the crap out of kids who don't appear to be doing anything wrong? Fine. We said it. Now, can we get back to figuring out how the gritty yet inconsistent Non-Lady Terps are going to crush the Evil Empire? We've got a game to win, people, and I've got two words for you: free throws.  

Peace out, and may good conquer evil, always and everywhere.

(Photo Credit: Terrell N. Roberts, via. William Wang alleged he received these wounds in a confrontation with Prince George's County Police after a Maryland-Duke basketball game on March 4, 2010.)

The ABCDs of Basketball

For the past couple of weeks, as the NCAA basketball tournaments (wimmin's and non-ladies') have careened along from one buzzer-beating, heart-stopping game of the century to the next, the moms have engaged in a steady stream of virtual trash-talk on Facebook, the gist of which, from their perspective, can be expressed in a new rule that Moose announced when she found herself in the awkward position of rooting for Purdue to beat Duke in the Sweet 16. (That was awkward because she comes from a long line of graduates of her native state's other big honkin' public institution of higher ed and basketball, Indiana University.) Anyway, she bit the bullet and declared that she would follow a simple rule to figure out who to root for in any given game: ABCD, she said, meaning Anybody But Connecticut or Duke. Regular readers need no explanation for the "D" part of the rule; the "C" part stems from our constitutional aversion to dynasties and our boredom with the whole Connecticut is unbeatable meme. Oh, plus our pals up at Bruce Springsteen State U (which plays in the Big East) just loathe and detest Geno Auriemma, so we decided to hate him, too, in solidarity with them.

The ABCD rule was strongly in force Monday night as the moms hunkered down in front of the TeeVee for the non-ladies' championship game between the Evil Empire and yet another Indiana school, the one that Moose has never taken especially seriously because it's an itty-bitty private school in some athletic conference she's never heard of. For the night, though, she was happy to follow the logic of ABCD and declare herself a Butler fan. She spent much of the nip-and-tuck game taunting her Duke pals on Facebook and texting furiously with her big brother, another IU grad who lives in Indianapolis and had embraced the cause of the underdog Bulldogs along with all the other Hoosiers still waiting for IU to rebuild its storied basketball program. (Trust me, kids, had IU been in the dance, no one in the state but Butler's boy wonder coach Brad Stevens' mom would have cared if Cinderella managed to get her foot into that slipper. Oh, but speaking of Stevens' mom, she gives a cute interview about her son, who we really think is the most accomplished 12-year old we've ever seen, here.)

Anyway, as the second half of the game went on, with Cinderella relentlessly refusing to admit she was no match for the three mighty Prince Charmings (Jon Scheyer, Nolan Smith, and Kyle Singler) of Duke, Moose suddenly found herself in strange emotional territory. She realized she was no longer watching the game primarily because she hoped Cinderella would find a way to outsmart Prince Charming and snatch the trophy away from the Imperial Army of Durham. She was watching because it was quite simply one of the most glorious games she had ever seen, despite the fact that it was a low-scoring defensive tug-of-war rather than the kind of up-tempo transition game she usually enjoys. For a few minutes, her hatred of all things Duke (I mean, you know, all things basketball-related) melted away, and she sat, mesmerized and breathless, as two talented, brilliantly coached teams battled back and forth to see which would manage to be in the lead when the final buzzer sounded.

As it turned out, of course, the storybook ending was still -- literally -- up in the air as the clock expired. Butler's Gordon Hayward managed to get off a last-second shot from half-court that would have given Butler the win if it had gone in, but the shot hit the backboard and the front rim before falling futilely away from the basket. And just like that, the season was over, and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski had his fourth national championship.

In the closing minutes, Moose put a status line up on Facebook that probably shocked friends who expect torrents of anti-Duke invective from her any time the Blue Devils are on the floor. "Gotta say it," she confessed. "Just. Loving. This. Game." To her surprise, the feeling held up even after the game ended and the Duke celebration began. Perhaps it was because Coach K was both gracious and humble in victory. He looked a little shocked himself, as he tried to absorb the outcome. He heaped praise upon Butler and seemed slightly mournful about the game being over. "I love this team," he said, "and this is the last time we will ever play together." (We think that's what he said, anyway. Oddly enough, it's hard to find transcripts of court-side interviews, and we haven't been able to track down the vid either, but Krzyzewski says something similar in this low-key interview with ESPN's Andy Katz: "A lot of teams take stuff from you because you're trying to convince them to do things. This team filled you up . . . . I hope I'll have a team like this again. I really do.")

It's hard to hate a guy who chokes up at the realization that victory in sport is not, as we so often seem to imagine, some kind of triumph over death but is in fact a form of death. The buzzer sounds, and, win or lose, the teams who have played this spectacular game are teams no more. You can hardly blame Coach K for seeming like the bar patrons in those Buffalo Wild Wings commercials who plead to have games sent into overtime in order to extend the pleasures of watching them. We didn't want this one to end either, Coach, and for once that was not because we couldn't bear to see you and your team win. Games like this make us proud to be fans of college basketball, despite all its flaws and its tendency to produce, if not flat-out corruption, then often badly skewed priorities. Games like this remind us of why we started saying a few years ago that we heart college basketball because it's "like life, only sweatier." We don't want the game to end because we don't want the team and all its dreams and all the parts of ourselves wrapped up in those dreams to die.

(For some wonderful writing on the Duke-Butler game by actual sportswriters, check out John Feinstein in WaPo and Joe Posnanski in Sports Illustrated.)

Of the wimmin's championship, played last night in San Antonio, we have next to nothing to say. The ABCD rule failed to prevent Connecticut from winning its second consecutive title and its 78th straight game. (Shall we pause here for a moment while my typist yawns over her keyboard? Feel free to get up and stretch if you, too, are bored contemplating the sheer perfection of UConn.) It was a weird, ugly game, with Connecticut held to just 12 (yes, 12!) points in the first half and Stanford once again folding more or less quietly in the second half under a barrage of brilliant shooting from junior Maya Moore. The only bright spot as far as we are concerned? Well, um, our blog pal Tenured Radical is happy with the outcome. That's the best we can do, sports fans.

Final thoughts on the basketball season just concluded? Flat-out most memorable moment of the tournament has to be seeing West Virginia coach Bob Huggins down on the floor trying to console senior Da'Sean Butler, who collapsed with a torn ACL in West Virgina's semifinal game against Duke on Saturday. It was a remarkable moment of raw emotion that gave viewers a rare opportunity to witness the powerful intimacy of the coach-player relationship. (See the vid here, if you think you can handle it.) We're tempted to label it the greatest instance of inter-racial homoeroticism since Jim urged Huck to come back to the raft, but such snarkiness wouldn't be fair to Huggins' great compassion and Butler's obvious agony. Instead, we will end by commending the Mountaineers for a gritty performance and wishing Butler well on his recovery.

Until next season, my friends -- When we shall return to pure, unbridled Duke-hatin' and the logic of ABCD will save us from basketball boredom, I promise!

(Image Credits: Picked up here, here, and here.)

Olympic Gender Dysphoria

Here is a video capture of Olympic skeleton gold medalist Jon Montgomery taking a happy swig off a pitcher of beer handed to him by a fan moments after his victory last Friday night (2/19) in Vancouver (via):

The response to Montgomery's ecstatic, public big gulp from the International Olympic Committee and from Gilbert Felli, the IOC's executive director of the Olympics? Um, well, let's see, I think that response might be roughly summed up as:

am crickets 01 hpx sound bite natural sound bites

And here is one of many photographs taken of the Canadian women's hockey team celebrating its gold-medal victory over the burly girls of the US of A this Thursday night (2/25) (via):

(More pics here. Trust us when we tell you that you want to click on that link.)

The response to a bunch of athletes from, we think, the XX side of the gender fence doing a bit of a chugalug in a moment of unbridled exuberance? Interestingly, that response might be summed up this way:

Screams5ManInsaneT PE134601 sound bite human voices sound bites

Well, or that's how we would translate what Felli is reported to have told the Associated Press when he learned that the women's team had gone back on the ice after its win and staged a celebration that included "swigging from bottles of champagne, guzzling beer, and smoking cigars" as well as an attempt by one player to drive the ice re-surfacing machine. Felli told the AP that such behavior was "not what we want to see."

"I don't think it's a good promotion of sport values," he said. "If they celebrate in the changing room, that's one thing, but not in public. We will investigate what happened."

Oh, by all means, Mr. Felli, do send in the gender cops to investigate these violations of female decorum. Ladies, as we all know, do not drink in public. We much prefer for the vagina-equipped to do their tippling behind closed doors, especially when they've just spent the last few hours out on the ice slamming the crap out of a bunch of their stick-wielding sisters. Wouldn't want anyone to get the idea that the delicate creatures have been coarsened by the experience or anything, now would we?

Here's a suggestion, Mr. Felli. Once you get those "centers of excellence" set up, those happy-sounding joints around the world that are going to be "equipped to treat athletes with [disorders of sex development] [sic]," perhaps you can set up special seminars where, say, the certified female figure skaters can teach those insufficiently feminine hockey players how to act like ladies. You know, they can give them tips on binging and purging behind closed doors! Maybe even show them how to smile sweetly when an abusive coach threatens to boot them off the team if they won't put out! I mean, really, Mr. Felli, there's a whole lot more to this gender thing than just assuring that the "women" have all the right parts and just the right chromosomes. They've got to act the part, too, don't they? Because otherwise, you know, you might have to suffer through all kinds of icky stuff you don't want to see.

Girls will be girls, Mr. Felli, but it takes a tough guy like you to make sure, doesn't it?

Sunday Snacks

Gold-Medal Homo

Hooray for Australian Matthew Mitcham, the openly gay diver who won the men's 10-meter platform event yesterday in Beijing! (Advocate cover story on Mitcham is here.)

Topic for Group Discussion: Will/should Mitcham replace Daniel Vosovic (finalist on Project Runway, season 2) as Candy Man's dream date? Please weigh in in Comments.

(Photo Credit: Phil Noble, Reuters, via NYT, 8/23/08)

A Dog, a Blogger, and a Bar

No, that is not me in the photo below, and the guy in the baseball cap is not Office of Persona Management Director Mark Twain, and the bar is not Ishmael's, the seedy place around the corner from Roxie's World's global headquarters. (We make all this stuff up, you know, precisely so that The New York Times will never find us.) It's NY state political blogger Phillip Anderson, with his non-blogging dog Molly, who is featured in a Times story on bloggers going to the upcoming political conventions. The story, which also features Pam Spaulding of the awesome LGBT group blog, Pam's House Blend, is here; Anderson's post on the story is here. No, Molly is not going to Denver with Anderson. Dogs apparently are not allowed, which is why Moose, Goose, and I will be staying right here in Roxie's World this week.

Topic(s) for Group Discussion: Will Dems win if they persist in discriminating against dogs, the loyalest, most political animals on the face of the earth? Also, is there a risk or a downside to the levels of access and legitimacy bloggers are suddenly gaining in this political season? Do they run the risk of losing their independence, of becoming more and more like the insider journalists they have so relentlessly and righteously critiqued? Does the mere fact of our asking such questions prove that Roxie's World is jealous of the bigger, more influential dogs in the growing pack of political bloggers? Please weigh in in Comments.

(Photo Credit: Jacob Silberberg, New York Times, 8/24/08)

Phelps Phever

(Photo Credit: AP, via Baltimore Sun; Baltimore native Michael Phelps with each of the eight gold medals he won in the Beijing Olympics, 8/17/08.)

H/T to Baltimore Sun sports columnist Rick Maese for the phrase "Phelps Phever," which he offers in a column written with all the detachment of a high-school cheerleader shrieking praise for her boyfriend the starting quarterback. (That is not a criticism, Rick. You know we love you and are big fans of the Sun when it comes to Maryland sports. Besides, we are not exactly objective on the subject of Aquaman ourselves.) Check out the rest of the Sun's proud coverage of "the epic story of Michael Phelps' transcendent Olympics" here. Wa Po columnist Sally Jenkins offers her tribute here. We particularly like this paragraph, which nicely captures Phelps' rare combination of humility and ferocious discipline:

Phelps did not seem ambitious in any ordinary sense. He never seemed interested in becoming the all-time Olympic champion to revel in the celebrity of it. He competed less against others, than against some faint abstract outline of the possible. In fact, he seemed acutely isolated, a man with a distant stare and a heart made like a timepiece, executing perfectly aligned strokes with invariable precision, and a seemingly tactile sense of the ticking seconds.

Way to go, Michael Phelps. You got the eight gold medals. Seven new world records. The attention of the world -- presidents and NBA superstars, gossip columnists and the folks back home, many thousands of whom stayed late after a Baltimore Ravens' preseason game to watch your thrilling final swim on the giant screen at M&T Bank Stadium. We gathered 'round the plasma here in Roxie's World to see it for ourselves, and an anxious Moose pumped her fists and implored Brendan Hansen to kick it up a notch on his leg of the medley relay, as he fell into third place on the breaststroke before you dove in to churn up the water for your 100 meters of butterfly. We thank you, Michael, for letting us ride with you on what you referred to as the roller coaster of your Olympic quest. We enjoyed every move and every moment -- indeed, every one-hundredth of a moment, as your long, mighty arms gracefully yet miraculously propelled your fingertips to the wall a fraction of a second ahead of Milorad Cavic in the finals of the 100-meter fly. You delighted us, with your big ears and your goofy grins, your struggling to find words to convey the significance of your accomplishment before offering the eloquence of a modest man and a good son: "It's been such an unbelievable ride. All I want to do is go see my mom." You inspired us, as time after time we watched you thunder into overdrive to win a race in the last few meters. We were inspired by your teammates, too, of course, since three of your gold medals came in relay races that featured remarkable performances by other swimmers, including Jason Lezak's furious anchor leg of the 400-meter freestyle relay.

So, yeah, Michael, we're pretty darned impressed and have already voted you onto our very short list of Super Cool Dudes Who Momentarily Make Us Forget the Terrible Things Chlorine Does to Our Hair. (Also on the list: 41-year-old Dara Torres, who took silver in the women's 50-meter freestyle in her fifth Olympics.) We have to confess, though, that we've gotten fixated on an aspect of your story that doesn't seem to have gotten nearly enough attention in the midst of all the hoo-ha about world records and whether "greatness" in one sport is as great as greatness in another sport. We refer, of course, to the under-reported story of what fuels your greatness, literally -- i.e., to what you eat . . . and eat . . . and EAT!

Note to the Pretty Boys and Middle-Aged Girls Who Are Our Most Devoted Fans: What you are about to read may induce paroxysms of jealousy and dangerous fantasies of binge eating. Sorry, but it's our blogger's duty to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, with stretchers thrown in when the truth is insufficiently entertaining. Just remember: Michael Phelps spends thirty hours a week working out. Before you stuff that Ho-Ho into your mouth, stop and think about how many calories you burned in any activity you performed for thirty hours in the past week. That's right, English profs and grad students. Step away from the Ho-Ho. Now. Read on. Think of it as calisthenics for the eyes.

Here is the amazing truth: Michael Phelps consumes 12,000 calories per day -- and still has a tough time keeping weight on his 6'4" frame. You read that right: 12,000 calories per day. His day begins with a 5-egg omelet, three fried-egg sandwiches, three chocolate chip pancakes, French toast with powdered sugar, and, to top it all off, a bowl of grits. Oh, yeah, and two cups of coffee. The rest of day includes a couple pounds of pasta, an entire pizza, and thousands of calories in energy drinks. My typist slumped in her big red chair when she read that.

"Moose," I said, because I am a curious animal, "what would you eat if you had to eat 12,000 calories a day just to maintain your weight?" Her eyes went all soft and dreamy.

"Oh, Rox," she said, "wouldn't that be lovely? And since it's a fantasy, can we pretend that I would have to do this without spending thirty hours a week in the pool or the gym?"

"Absolutely, Moose! So what you would you eat?"

"Dip."

"Dip?"

"Yep. Dip. Lots and lots and lots of dip. I would fulfill my cherished dream of having a vat of that crab-and-cream-cheese dip they serve at receptions over at Queer the Turtle U. all to myself. I would eat tons of it every single day and I would never be embarrassed about anyone noticing me going back for more."

"Okay. That's maybe 3000 calories. What else would you eat?"

"I love the idea of pancakes and fried-egg sandwiches, so I'd borrow that from Phelps, but I think I'd add some fried chicken and cream gravy into the mix, and huge bowls of mashed potatoes, of course."

"Now I think your fantasy is encroaching on Goose's."

"True, but we have similar taste in high-calorie cuisine."

"Although her 12,000 calorie diet would differ from yours in some respects."

"I suppose. She would probably skip the dips and have boxes of Godiva truffles for mid-morning and late-afternoon snacks. Washed down with several beers, of course."

"What about dinners?"

"Oh, that's easy. If we were on 12,000 calorie diets, we would dine every night at Ben's Chili Bowl downtown. It's DC's high church of high-fat, low-down cuisine. I can see us tucking into their famous half-smokes and a big order of chili-cheese fries, with a big ole slice of cake (pineapple coconut for me, German chocolate for Goose) for dessert. We had food from Ben's last night when we went to see the Nationals get their butts kicked by the Colorado Rockies. The game sucked, but Goose declared the food 'nasty great.' Isn't that poetic? She has such a way with words. And wouldn't it be swell to be able to eat that way every day without gaining weight?"

"Moose! Hey, earth to Moose, come in please! Fantasy's over. Watch this video by our favorite chick reporter Wendy Reiger on what women over fifty need to do in order to reach and maintain a healthy weight."

"Shoot, Rox, do I have to? I mean, I'm guessing Wendy's plan doesn't include vast quantities of dip and spending thirty hours a week trolling the internets, does it? Besides, I'm not fifty yet!"

"Tick-tock, Moose. Fifty is right around the corner, and you've kind of slacked off on your commitment to the Tim Russert Memorial Lifestyle Adjustment Plan. Let the Olympics inspire you! Let Wendy motivate you! Let the prospect of not fitting into any of your clothes when school starts focus you!"

"Wait, Rox. You know, we could sign on with the cause of fat acceptance. There is a strong feminist argument to be made against the obsessive focus on physical perfection."

"Of course there is. You are not seeking a perfect body, Moose. You are seeking a healthy body and a reasonable balance of work and play."

"I hate the winding down of summer, Rox -- the end of Olympic swimming, the changing of the seasons, the gearing up for another school year, the inexorable passage of time as we make our sad, slow march to the grave."

"Is this about your body or your syllabus?"

"Both, maybe?"

"Uh-huh. Watch Wendy's vid, Moose, and then it's back to work."

Between Men

I want to hold your hand . . . .


(Photo Credit: Doug Mills, New York Times; Times caption: "Americans Chris Colwill and Jevon Tarantino nearly won the bronze medal in the men's synchronized three-meter springboard, but Tarantino botched his entry in the final dive, a reverse three-and-a-half somersault, and they slipped to fourth." Beijing Olympics, 8/13/08)

(Image Credit: Michelangelo, "The Creation of Adam")

Olympian Observations

Here's what really matters about the Olympics, of course:

(Photo Credit: Doug Mills, New York Times; Michael Phelps takes his fourth gold medal of the Beijing Olympics in the 200-meter butterfly with a world-record time of 1 minute 52.03 seconds, 8/12/08, unless you are in China, where it is already 8/13/08.)

Roxie's World takes an extra jolt of pride in the accomplishments of the beyond phenomenal Phelps because he's a Baltimore boy with a hard-working mom. We won't mind at all if he breaks Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single Olympic games, even though Spitz was a hero of Moose's swimming-obsessed family in childhood.

[. . . .]

(Ellipses mark the pause in typing while Phelps picked up his fifth gold of the games in the men's 800-meter free relay. And his fifth world record! My typist is so easily distracted.)

[. . . .]

(How does the balance beam not do serious internal damage to the bodies of those tiny little girls? Oh, right -- It does!)

Anyway, watching the Olympics means watching commercials broadcast during the Olympics, which has made us wonder:

• How can it be legal for McDonald's to be a major sponsor of the Olympics? Shouldn't someone have said, "No, really, guys, you've done more to undermine the cause of healthy eating world-wide than any other company. We just don't think this is the kind of product we want associated with the Games."
• Is it us, or are those "Where does depression hurt?" commercials for Cymbalta the most depressing things you've ever seen? And do the marketing geniuses at Eli Lilly think viewers of the Olympics are the best target audience for Cymbalta? I mean, granted, a nation of couch potatoes glued to the spectacle of gravity-defying athleticism might be feeling a little down on itself, a little inadequate in comparison to the gods and goddesses on the screen, but viewers might also be reveling in the fantasy of their own god-like potentiality. "By golly," they might chirp from the couch, "I don't need an anti-depressant -- I need new running shoes! Or maybe a Big Mac . . . ."

(Eek, these little American girls are dropping like flies off the balance beam and onto the floor. Things are not looking good for the women's all-around. Quick -- Send in the Cymbalta!)

• Flame us if you dare, but we think McCain's "celebrity" ads, which have been in heavy rotation in the DC media market during the Olympics (presumably because of the battle being waged for Virginia in November) are actually pretty effective on repeat viewing -- and there is something especially powerful about viewing them in the context of the Olympics. Caught up as we may be in the myth-making machinery of NBC's (actually pretty darn good) coverage of the games, McCain's message about whether a celebrity can be counted on to take care of your family has extra resonance within this context. Obama may be the political equivalent of Michael Phelps, but it's easy to imagine that Phelps would be, um, a fish out of water at something as mundane as a cabinet meeting. We can't imagine how the McCain campaign is affording all this air time, but we think it's a smart move.
• On the other hand, and we swear we didn't make our minds up about this ahead of time, we are underwhelmed by the "hands" commercials Obama has been broadcasting during the Olympics. To us, they are about as moving as the corporate PR spots Archer Daniels Midland runs on The NewsHour. Strong production values, but a real snooze in the message department.

On a totally unrelated matter, you will note we haven't yapped, woofed, barked, or howled about the shocking news that Senator John Edwards was in fact schtupping Rielle Hunter, a woman hired by his campaign to make videos, as reported last October by The National Enquirer. We've kept quiet because it's so hard to find anything new or interesting to say on the tired subject of ambitious men with zipper problems. Two or three things we will say, though:

• Go read Ruth Marcus's insightful column on the sordid affair. She reminded us of the snarky comments Edwards made about Bill Clinton's infidelity and pointed out how troubling it is that Elizabeth Edwards publicly promoted her husband's commitment to her during her illness as a reason to support his candidacy when, according to the timeline of events they have produced, she already knew about his infidelity.
• Marcus doesn't make exactly this point, but we say that a candidate who uses parts of his private life as evidence of the kind of leader he would make can't cry foul when evidence of private misconduct is used against him. You don't get to say, "My virtues are a reason to vote for me, but my vices can't be held against me." Especially if you and your incurably ill wife have been publicly lying about your vices for nearly a year!
• Finally, we couldn't help but raise an eyebrow this morning when photos of Edwards and Hunter together on his campaign announcement trip in late December 2006 turned up on Wa Po. This got our attention because Edwards has spoken of his "liaison" with Hunter as being over and acknowledged within his family in 2006. Now, of course, photos of the two together on a campaign trip say nothing about the private state of their relationship at that point in time, but public glimpses of the two looking chummy together just moments before the end of 2006 will fuel skepticism about the timing of events in relation to the recurrence of Elizabeth Edwards's cancer (in March of 2007) and the birth of Hunter's child (in February of 2008). Yeah, and we think it's super-convenient that Hunter is refusing a paternity test -- from the comfort of the Santa Barbara home that Edwards's top money guy is helping to pay for.
  

Gotta get off the soapbox, kids -- It's time for bed! The moms take off for a couple of days at the beach tomorrow, but if you're really, really good, maybe they'll post some pretty photos of the Jersey shore. Meantime, here's another piece of eye candy for Moose, qta, and other lovers of Aquaman:

(Photo Credit: Getty Images, via Baltimore Sun, 8/10/08)