Cockburn
/ St. Clair"s Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today"s
Stories
July
3 / 4, 2004
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam"s
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush"s Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain"t Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush"s Damaged Mind: the Madness
in His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush"s Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker"s Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America"s Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft"s
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
June
29, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover
Robert
Fisk
Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland
Troy
Selvaratnam
New York Times Boosts Pet Developer
Harry
Browne
Bush in Ireland
Ray
McGovern
The CIA According to Anonymous
Elaine
Cassel
Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really
Won?
June
28, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn / Leyla Linton
Grisly Rituals in Iraq
Amira
Hass
Confronting Myths and Deadly Power
June
26 / 27, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang"s All Here
Patrick
Cockburn
Iyad Allawi, the CIA"s New Stooge
in Iraq
Dennis
Hans
Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney,
the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11
Ben
Tripp
Adventures in Fuel Efficiency
Dave
Lindorff
That State Department Terrorism
Report: What They Knew, But Didn"t Tell You
Chris
Floyd
Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit
Ali
Tonak
Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives,
Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela
Keith
Rosenthal
The Withering of the Anti-War Movement
Bryan
Sacks
The Failure of the 9/11 Commission
Wayne
Madsen
Another Case of Blowback
Thomas
St. John
L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating
in the Wizard of Oz
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
American Swadeshi
June
25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul
Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege:
Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack
McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal?
Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel"s Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diana Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin"s Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz"s Colleagues Refused
to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Putin"s Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June
19 / 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation
on Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother
Nature
Col.
Dan Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis
in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a
Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets"
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June
18, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave
Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player
& Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American
Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
18, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan"s Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock"s Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global
Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel"s
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother"s Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can"t Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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Weekend
Edition
July 3/4, 2004
When
the Geeks Inherit the Earth
The
Progressive Case for Dodgeball
By
PATRICK W. GAVIN
In many ways, adolescence is simply
a series of fiery hoops that one needs to get through with as
few burns as possible: braces, pimples, dodgeball.
Dodgeball? Apparently so. Recently,
a nationwide effort has sprung up to eradicate this playground
staple from P.E. classes. Opponents argue that the game's aggressive
and Darwinistic nature lets boys beat up on girls and jocks beat
up on nerds, and, in the process, inflict physical and mental
bruises on thousands of children. Laugh if you will, but dodgeball
playa-haters have been largely successful in their efforts.
The question of dodgeball's
merit will again be raised this summer when Ben Stiller's new
movie, Dodgeball: An Underdog Story, hits theaters. In Dodgeball,
a group of Las Vegas oddballs (you guessed it: Stiller's one
of them) try to stop the corporate buy-out of their local gym
by entering a dodgeball tournament. To the victor, goes the spoils
in Dodgeball, and in real life it is that very concept that boils
the blood of dodgeball opponents.
To many of the New Age sensitivity
supervisors, dodgeball is a threat to their children's carefully
guarded self-esteem and it is their role to make those adolescent
hoops as easy to navigate as possible.
Bruce Williams, a University
of Connecticut professor and the movement's patron saint, has
been at this for a while. A few years back, he placed dodgeball
in the "Physical Education Hall of Shame," alongside
such childhood classics as Simon Says, musical chairs, and tag.
Seriously.
Such hyper-sensitive complaints
about dodgeball, however, miss their mark. A closer examination
of the game's structure, format, and rules suggest it's an instructive
teacher of the very same progressive values critics think it
shuns.
During my recent stint as a
middle school teacher, I supervised the Friday afternoon dodgeball
club (okay, okay, so I founded it, too), and the kid in me couldn't
resist lobbing a few beads at the kiddies from time to time.
What I witnessed on these Friday
afternoons flew in the face-literally-of anecdotal evidence suggesting
it was a cruel laboratory for teenage trauma.
The format of dodgeball is
unique in several ways. First, teams are usually chosen by the
teacher or the physical education instructor, providing a built-in
resistance to lop-sided teams. Second, teams are almost always
co-ed, as P.E. instructors must accommodate all of their students
for that period. Therefore, the game is already more "fair"
than most other sports before the first ball is even thrown.
The two teams are placed on
separate sides of a line and try to hit their opponents with
the balls, and catch those lobbed at them. Once hit (or caught)
the crestfallen must walk around to a small jail area located
behind enemy lines. They remain there indefinitely unless their
faraway teammates can toss dodgeballs over the opposing team
and into jail,
where it has to be successfully
caught-a tricky collaborative effort that rewards brains over
braun and finesse over physique. The first team to send all of
the opposing team's members to jail wins.
To see how this process promotes
fair competition and levels the playing field between traditionally
dominant athletes and their lesser counterparts-for simplicity,
let's call them jocks and nerds-we have to dissect the game's
pieces.
First, the "dodge."
What critics tend to overlook when it comes to dodgeball is that
these intimidating fastballs can be (and frequently are) dodged.
It's here that the nerds get a leg up on the jocks, as they-surprisingly-prove
to be remarkably adept at getting out of the way.
Dodging doesn't require bulging
muscles or a blistering pitching arm. And even those not quick
enough to get out of the way can find decent shelter (or at least
buy themselves more time to react) by laying low in the back
or in corners. In this sense, the "dodge" cancels out
the "ball."
Now, to the "ball."
As fun and satisfying as it may be to gun a line-drive at your
opponents, such fastballs are the slam dunks of dodgeball: fun,
flashy, emotionally rewarding, sure, but hardly the stuff of
champions. At this age, greater speed generally means worse accuracy;
adolescents obsessed with victory quickly heed the lesson, and
the reckless gunning of balls occurs less frequently that one
might assume.
Players also catch on to the
fact that a hit's a hit, no matter how fast you throw it. Nerds
can take out playground bully (finally!) and send them to the
glory-less (and painstakingly boring) jail with a well-placed
slow hit-something any nerd can do. This, oddly enough, happens
more often than not, since the show-off jocks tend to hover close
to the dividing line, and thus the enemy. The nerd gets a bit
of revenge, and the bully a much-needed lesson in humility.
Reckless throwing is also poor
tactical move. Every attempt at hitting an opponent is one lost
opportunity to help free one of your teammates from jail. Forget
about them for too long and you've lost the game. Ain't nothing
cool about that.
Who wins, once in jail? Almost
never the jocks. Many of them forget to make nice with their
teammates while playing and have few friends willing to throw
them a lifeline once in jail. Jocks either work on their manners
and diplomatic skills by befriending the nerds or face life imprisonment.
It's the nice nerds who get hooked up. Call it diplomatic dodgeball.
Dodgeball also encourages persistence
and participation. Unlike most other sports, when you're "out"
(meaning you've been hit or had your ball caught and you must
now go to jail), the game isn't over for you. Simply catch a
ball in jail and you're right back in, ready to give it another
shot. No one is ever permanently "out" until the game
is over, so nerds don't get discouraged by setbacks. Instead,
they have a strong incentive to improve and come back stronger
each time.
Contrary to popular belief,
the game isn't the insensitive, crass beast it's presumed to
be. Dodgeball creates perhaps the only environment in which bullies
are forced to cooperate, compromise, and befriend their nerdy
counterparts. In an adolescence where glory seems only to go
to the best and the biggest, brings the Goliaths down to size
and gives the David's a sudden boost.
Suddenly, the meek (and geeks)
inherits the earth, and even more, makes it shine.
Now, play ball.
Patrick W. Gavin is a writer living in Washington,
D.C. Email him at pwgavin@yahoo.com
Weekend
Edition Features for June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP"s Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel"s Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets"
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
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