Tiny Tea Party Rally vs. Large Progressive Rally: Which Gets More Beltway Ink? Tiny Tea Party Rally vs. Large Progressive Rally: Which Gets More Beltway Ink?
Corporate media help manufacture the Tea Party’s power every bit as much as the tea party manufactured our current debt “crisis.”
Jul 29, 2011 / Leslie Savan
Nation Conversations: Katrina vanden Heuvel and Dave Zirin on The Nation’s Sports Issue Nation Conversations: Katrina vanden Heuvel and Dave Zirin on The Nation’s Sports Issue
From Jackie Robinson and the first integrated sports teams to Pat Tillman and our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, sports is woven into the fabric of our nation.
Jul 28, 2011 / The Nation
Nation Interns Choose the Week’s Most Important (and Undercovered) Stories Nation Interns Choose the Week’s Most Important (and Undercovered) Stories
Every week, Nation interns try to cut through the echo chamber and choose one good article in their area of interest that they feel should receive more attention. ...
Jul 28, 2011 / StudentNation / The Nation
Lester Rodney: Jackie Robinson, An American Hero Lester Rodney: Jackie Robinson, An American Hero
There was a time—not too long ago—when black players were not allowed to play on "white" teams.
Jul 28, 2011 / The Nation
Colbert Challenges the Poverty Deniers Colbert Challenges the Poverty Deniers
Stephen Colbert, with the help of Nation friend Peter Edelman, takes on right-wing poverty deniers with integrity and humor.
Jul 28, 2011 / Katrina vanden Heuvel
‘No’ Was All He Said… ‘No’ Was All He Said…
Eric in the wilds of an Allman Brothers show, and Reed on the media's amazing ability to pamper conservatives.
Jul 28, 2011 / Eric Alterman
Slide Show: 6 Ways the Media Represents Female Athletes Slide Show: 6 Ways the Media Represents Female Athletes
Far from piquing interest in female sports, hyper-sexualized media images actually serve to suppress interest in—and respect for—women’s sports.
Jul 28, 2011 / The Nation
Slide Show: David Remnick, Ralph Nader, Cecile Richards on Their Sports Heroes Slide Show: David Remnick, Ralph Nader, Cecile Richards on Their Sports Heroes
For The Nation's special Sports Issue, we asked a distinguished group of writers, thinkers and advocates to pay tribute to their favorite sports heroes growing up. The result is a package of moving mini-essays all expressing, in their own way, a feeling many of us share: pure love of the game. The following slide show illustrates our writers' heros with excerpts from each tribute. Click the links in each slide to read the full tributes.
Jul 28, 2011 / Photo Essay / The Nation
The Sports Issue: Views From Left Field The Sports Issue: Views From Left Field
Howard Cosell called it rule number one of the jockocracy—the idea that sports and politics don’t mix. Playing the game, and playing it well, is all that matters. And yet the closer you look, the more it becomes apparent that it’s not sports and politics that “don’t mix.” It’s sports and a certain kind of politics—the politics of protest and resistance. Athletes who speak out on issues of social justice invariably pay a price. It’s a problem that powerful commercial interests control the language of sports, not just because it shuts out alternative perspectives but because sports culture shapes other cultural attitudes, norms and power arrangements. Politics runs rampant throughout the sports world, a broad arena in which struggles for racial justice, gender equality and economic fairness are played out. With stakes this high, we couldn’t sit back and watch as the sports world becomes increasingly dominated by politics from right field. Consequently, we decided to enlist Nation sports correspondent Dave Zirin’s help in planning a special sports issue, only the second in The Nation’s 146-year history, and not coincidentally at a time when two of the country’s major leagues were locking out their employees in fierce labor battles. The following articles and essays will, we hope, address the central areas in which sports culture intersects with the pursuit of social and economic justice. But the world of sports doesn’t just demand our attention; it also fires our imagination. The distinguished group of writers, thinkers and advocates who pay tribute to their favorite sports heroes in these pages express a feeling many of us share: pure love of the game. —The Editors
Jul 27, 2011 / Feature / The Editors
Jocks vs. Pukes Jocks vs. Pukes
Jock Culture is a distortion of sports.
Jul 27, 2011 / Feature / Robert Lipsyte