This Charlotte’s idea of athletics is lying in a hammock in the cool shade reading novels. A glass of lemonade is nice, too.


Despite my lack of knowledge about sports (I always get the home run and touchdown confused –one’s tennis, right?) Jim McCarthy’s guest blogging on Off Wing Opinion (“Commentary for the Free Market Sports Fan”) has made me sit up and take notice (well, that’s exercise, isn’t it?).


On the architectural gems that are being built to accommodate the 2008 Olympics in Beijing:


“That’s about the only cool thing in China, however. Is anyone else bothered by the fact that the Olympic Games are going to be held in a Marxist police state that suppresses the speech, thought, assembly, political opposition, religion, private property, and oh yeah, pregnancy of a quarter of the world’s people?”


Or this:


“I like college athletics. A lot. They extol the highest virtues in amateur competition and nowhere is that more true than in the Olympic sports. An elite selection of those splendid Americans will represent us before the world in a few weeks.


“That’s why it is so utterly heartbreaking to see that more than 250 men’s collegiate athletic programs have been cut since the last Olympiad in Sydney. Olympic sports like track, wrestling, swimming and gymnastics are nearing extinction on campus. As 12 of the 14 members of a presidential commission agreed, this is happening because Title IX is being enforced as a quota.
 
“Simply put, this is one of the most important stories in sports and the national media continues to pretend there’s nothing amiss.”