Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Yes, I know the season hasn't begun yet. Still ... Two thoughts. (1) One of the enduring and endearing facts about baseball is that it doesn't have a clock to run down to zero. The duration of a game is defined by the rules, independent of any clock. When the last out has been recorded, the game ends. Much appeal of the game has long been that if one gives one's self to the game, one puts clocks aside. Another thought -- (2) sports might in general be placed on a spectrum from individualist to collectivist. Skiers in the winter Olympics are individualists. They perform on their own, they win the medals on their own, although their achievements are also chalked up to lists of which nation got how many medals, and they wear the colors of that national "team." Football players (American football) are collectivists. The front lines literally line up shoulder to shoulder. The structure is hierarchical, with one central figure calling out the plays and the ot...

In July, I wrote here about public exposure of the plagiarism of Matthew Whitaker, which that month led to Whitaker's demotion from full professor to associate professor. Whitaker had been a rising star in the world of Black Studies, for example as the author of PEACE BE STILL, a history of African-Americans since 1945. But large chunks of that book turn out to come from such unacknowledged sources as the Archive of American Television. I quoted the AAT lifting last time I discussed this case. Another quite blatant example involves an edited collection of writings on African American Icons of Sports . Whitaker was the editor. As is the case with many editors of such works, he also included some work of his own. Or that he presented as his own, anyway. And that material came largely from wikipedia. Plagiarizing from such a widely used and easily accessible source just seems stupid but, hey, it's done. The new news: Whitaker isn't going to get away with a mere demotio...

Perhaps my coming posts will seem more timely than some of my recent posts. But I solemnly promise to make no serious effort in that direction. I have never aimed for timeliness. I remember long ago reading a discussion about the "three kinds of news." Some news is of scheduled events, and much of the story can be written well in advance, even if it has to be subject to some editing and blanks have to be filled in. Sports news is characteristic. The Red Sox will play the Yankees next Tuesday: a journalist in the field knows in advance which pitchers will start, the full line-ups, etc., subject to last minute scratches that can be taken care of by a quick edit. He could write most of that story before the first pitch is thrown. The most dramatic sort of news story, though, consists of shocks. The Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor. Airplanes have flown into skyscrapers in southern Manhattan. A train has gone off its rails with serious casualties, of as-yet indet...

The Secret Race is the new book by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle about the Tour de France and doping. Even if, like me, you aren't much of a cycling fan and are prepared to take a no-first-stone-from-us-sinners attitude toward whatever exactly Lance Armstrong might have done, this may be a compelling sociological study about a particular and very competitive subculture. I say "may be" because I'm not prepared to pretend to having read it.  A couple of quick points from the publicity though: the first named author, Tyler Hamilton, is the former denizen of that subculture. He rode with Armstrong on 3 of those Tour de France races. He teamed up with Coyle (whose photo I have installed above)  to borrow some writing chops for this project.   Last weekend's New York Times Review  of Books contained a piece on this result by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, who turns a nice analogy. "We are left with Armstrong, who  increasingly looks like the sporting answer to ...