Torino, Italy, and Europe: Contradictions Galore

Five whole weeks have elapsed since my arrival in Torino on an overcast and rainy Thursday afternoon. Within a few minutes of my arrival, I quickly oriented myself to the boundless rain that had drenched the city all spring. Every resident I met seemed eager to sneak in some remark, in broken Italian, about how “this most rain we see in 200 hundred year,” as they cuffed their fingers towards the sky at no one in particular. For the first week it rained, in some capacity almost every day. The rain was always steady, never a downpour and never a drizzle, but rather a constant diet of frustration and demoralization. And then, a week after my arrival, possibly in an effort to mollify the city’s residents, the sun showed his bright and beautiful face, and with it, an inexorable increase in the city’s collective happiness.

Torino sits in the Northwest corner of Italy, not far from the borders of Switzerland and France, hugging a handful of the innumerable and majestic mountain ranges that make up the Alps. It was once the site of the first Parliament and the capital of a newly formed Italy, although that title would last just 4 years. It is in many respects an isolated city, self-sustaining and untouched, with a hint of banality compared to other Italian cities. That is not to say that Torino is lacking in charm, but rather that it feels somewhat normal compared to the inexhaustible splendor one may find on the streets of Rome, Florence, or Venice. Torino is Italy’s fourth largest city, with around 1 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area about twice that size. The closest major city is Milan, about 90 miles to the west, but there is little within the general vicinity of the city that would come up as "must-see" in an Italian travel guide. The notoriety the city has received is mostly due to it being the site of the famous Shroud, its hosting of the 2006 Winter Olympics and for being the headquarters of Italian car giant, Fiat.

My experiences thus far have come through two prisms. The first is through my experience at the University of Torino, where I am doing research for a professor about the vast intricacies of comparative health law. The second is through my experience living in the center of the city, renting an apartment from a 70 year old woman named Silvia who also lives next door and who I think is convinced that I am her long lost grandson.

Torino recently built a brand new, enormous, and stunning campus on the banks of one of Torino’s three rivers. The building is shaped somewhat like the exterior of a tennis racket, surrounding an outdoors area with elevated patches of grass and intersecting walkways. It gives off the feel of a research laboratory or office building with dark, reflecting windows and a very uniform design. The most noticeable aspect is probably the white roof, which extends over the sides of the building and looks kind of like a flying saucer. The enormous structure can be seen from the outskirts of the city standing out from the rest of Torino’s somewhat monotonous architecture.  I work mostly in an office, which is supposed to be for the head of the Legal department. But since the building is brand new and the school is in flux, nobody was using it, so I get a nice, corner office with a view of the entire campus.

My apartment sits on the far side of the river in Gran Madre Square, a lively piazza, which is home to a magnificent and luminous church, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome. I have a view of the main body of water in the city, the Po River, and if the clouds stay in hiding, the snow tipped mountains can be seen in the distance. I am on what is oft described as the “bourgeois” part of town, with the rolling hills behind me, spotted with the ostentatious residences of the city’s wealthiest and most powerful. Indeed, the professor whom I work for owns a house in the hills, which is too marvelous to describe in words. The gated house on a narrow, windy road looks down upon the city and has a spacious yard and blossoming garden, providing views of the Alps that could leave the most talkative man feeling slightly laconic. About twenty minutes walking from my apartment, directly uphill, a beautiful park is tucked neatly to the side of another windy and narrow road, and possesses remarkable views of the city and the countryside, with a tree covered walkway reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.

In addition to the unparalleled scenery and landscape, my experiences with the residents of Torino have been eye opening. My first visit to Italy was during a semester abroad in Florence during spring of 2010. There was nothing about my visit to Florence that I would alter in any fashion; it would be a disservice to my memory to bear any regret about my time there. But Florence is a city that is built primarily to serve the visitors who flock in droves to see the birthplace of the Renaissance. The visitors overwhelm the city most of the year, and most residents, in their interactions with Americans, seek little more than casual talk or the exchange of monetary instruments. In addition, I had almost no interactions with Florentine college students who were mostly non-existent. While I was always aware I was physically in Italy, the number of study abroad students could easily mistake you into thinking you were living in a very upscale college Shtetl. It was perfect for what I wanted at the time, but it prevented a full immersion into the lives of everyday Italians. Torino, on the other hand, provides a welcome contrast.

Torino is a city that enjoys relative anonymity, compared to other parts of Italy, but has worked and continues to work to become another major Italian tourism powerhouse. There is no better example of this than the 2006 Winter Olympics. Torino hoped the event would provide a platform to promulgate the city’s vast offerings, in addition to improving its aging and outdated infrastructure. While precise numbers are impossible to quantify most speculate that the city saw a modest bump immediately following the event, but now 7 years later, Torino remains low on the list of Italian tourism destinations. Once again, that says little about Torino other than it is situated in a neighborhood with stiff tourism competition. But, nobody here seems to mind, and neither do I. In fact, the lack of tourism is reason alone to cherish what the city has to offer. The city provides a welcome respite from other Italian cities which have a myriad of foreign tour groups at every corner, with their ridiculous matching flags or visors, and a guide who leads them with that darned raised umbrella. The city feels unspoiled and true, tucked away from the rest of the country, surreptitiously hiding among the mountains. 

But while there is certainly much to celebrate regarding Torino’s scenery or lack of tourist inundation, my interactions with the people have shaped my thoughts more so than anything else. Since the first day of my arrival, every person has been genuine, warm, and inviting, extending a hand to help in any fashion I deemed to be necessary. Every student I have been introduced to not only says hi to me in the hallway, but will make an effort to invite me for drinks or to get a coffee, just to see if everything is going okay. A law student who I was introduced to at the University, invited me to his house during my first week and introduced me to all of his friends, graciously driving me around the city. Silvia, the 70 year old woman who I am renting an apartment from (I call her my host-grandmother) is constantly inviting me to events and giving my number and email to different relatives, all of whom have invited me to their house. Oddly enough, Silvia revealed to me that she is actually half-Jewish. Her father was originally from Poland, but immigrated to Canada and Silvia was raised Catholic, solely by her mother. Just last weekend, I was invited to dinner at the house of one of Silvia’s daughters, who served fresh bread, Greek Salad, two types of Risotto, and Veal. My professors have also showed me incredible hospitality. Bianca, who is the professor I am working for, graciously invited me to her house for lunch, serving delectable fresh salad and gnocchi. Another professor, who I have been helping to proofread a document on legal drafting, has brought me to her house twice for lunch to feast on gnocchi, risotto, fish, veal, and fresh fruit. And then, without really asking, she took me on a tour of the area where she lived, in the “bourgeois” section of town, showing me the church where her children were baptized, with stunning views of the countryside and the Italian town of Chieri.

There is something about Italy that strikes a chord with me, something difficult to describe, enigmatic in a sense. In Boston or New York you can go to the North End or Little Italy, but it leaves a void; it wets your appetite but leaves you yearning for more. In all honesty, and I know it sounds so obvious, the beauty and wonder of Italy is simply being in Italy. It is a country so quick to mesmerize, leaving wide-eyes and blank stares to fill the ancient cobblestone streets.  Italian customs and traditions, seemingly so alien upon your arrival, yet so quickly accepted as normal you forget there was even an alternative. The drivers, who seem to not understand basic traffic rules and functions, routinely running red lights, cursing the car behind them making loud noises that just so happens to be an ambulance. The local businesses, who operate on no specific schedule, open when the owner decides to arrive. The supermarkets, leaving you to wonder whether America invented the idea of having more than one cashier line. The food, my God, the food surprises and bewilders me after every taste. Whether it be the rich flavor of Gelato, the crispness of a freshly made Cappuccino, or creamy, homemade Risotto from an Italian mother, your taste buds are always feeling enlivened. The cigarette smoke, which envelopes your every movement and the buds that litter the ground, your constant reminder that Italians do indeed cling to tradition. The artwork, monuments, and sculptures, adorning ordinary buildings, creating a mundanity bordering on the absurd. The immense history underneath your toes; the previous home of today’s modern world. I love it all.

In short, my experiences with Torino and its people have been nothing short of stellar.

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However, there is much more to tell. And unfortunately it is not all positive. I chose to ignore my surroundings when I visited Florence in 2010, locking myself in my own bubble of study abroad utopia, pretending the cities I visited were erected solely for my enjoyment. Now, three and a half years later, I have opened my eyes to the realities of the situation here, in an effort to understand not only the museums and monuments, but the people, the politics, and the social cohesion. I wish I could tell you that everything here is perfect and that the people are jovial, but that is simply not the case. What I have found is a country and continent rife with intolerance attempting to battle the endemic racism and xenophobia that permeates society. As the recession continues, and worsens, leaving many without jobs, tough times have given rise to politics reminiscent of Europe’s darkest days. In all honesty, it is difficult for me to write about all this, given my affection towards Italy and the rest of Europe. The truth is that I feel somewhat selfish since I have never personally been a victim, and instead I travel around Europe in relative comfort simply as another American tourist. There are so many warm, kind, and caring people that I have met, but as is often the case, the only voices you hear are a small impassioned few.

My experience in Italy has revealed a deeply fractured society, struggling, in many respects, to reconcile tradition and modernism. The Catholic Church, whose adherents number over 1 billion, is omnipresent in a country in which nearly 90% of its residents are Catholic. The results are predictable. While Europe and the United States have liberalized their views on gay marriage (France legalized it just last month) Italy still doesn’t protect homosexuals under anti-discrimination laws. The question isn’t whether gay marriage will be legal anytime soon in Italy, but rather if it will even become a topic of debate. Italy’s conservatism, which emanates from the Church, is pervasive and entrenched in Italian society, championing traditional familial structures and the gender roles that follow. Within the government, Italy’s female ministers have been the target of death threats, with an upsurge recently due to a large influx of women into the new government. Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has made a series of offensive remarks directed at women, stating in part, that women are “God’s most beautiful gift to men” and that in order to prevent rape “we would need as many soldiers as there are beautiful women”, not to mention calling Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, a “unf**able lard-ass”. Italy has also struggled to protect women, with estimates suggesting that 1/3 of Italian women are victims of domestic abuse (the number is probably higher). Italy has also seen a spate of deadly violence against women. The UN estimates that in 2012, 120 women were killed by their husbands, exes, or boyfriends, approximately 1 murder every three days. After the brutal murder of a fifteen year old girl in Calabria just last month, Italy’s chamber of deputies ratified a treaty which aims to combat violence against women, taking a small, but important step towards tackling the problem.

To complicate those efforts, the divide between North and South has added an almost intractable element. While the two regions are connected and part of the same country, their relationship is disparate, pitting the industrialized North against the underdeveloped and crime-ridden South. The corrosive influence of organized crime, which has infiltrated vast areas of Italy’s politics (Silvio Berlusconi has often been associated with the Mafia)  and economy, has its stronghold in the South, in places like Sicily (Cosa Nostra), Campania (Camorra), Calabria (‘Ndrangheta), and Apulia (Sacra Corona Unita). Naples, the capital of Campania and Italy’s third largest city, is ground zero for Italy’s woes; the city is essentially controlled by the Mafia. The city suffers from high unemployment, elevated crime levels, endemic drug use, and serious health and environmental issues stemming from illegal waste dumping. I was recently told that organized crime has begun infiltrating Milan and Torino, seizing on poor oversight of government projects, essentially stealing public money. Poor oversight has also led to almost non-existent tax revenue from areas of the South, resulting in a giant burden being placed on Northern residents. To add insult to injury, the North often subsidizes large swaths of the South’s impoverished areas, even as the Mafia eats away at a shrinking economy. This creates a predictable animosity and frustration, leaving Northern residents feeling helpless, unable to penetrate the often opaque use of public funds and unable to hold anyone accountable. It is eerily reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s classic, The Trial, except adjusted to fit an entire country.

While these issues are of grave urgency, the most salient and pressing problem is intolerance, in the form of anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and racism, which have presented itself as a major problem in Italy and across Europe.

Relating Judaism to my experiences is always interesting in Europe for a number of obvious reasons. My experiences with Judaism actually began in the States, with my professor who set me up with this internship, and who is originally from Torino. She has an odd fascination with Jews, which became apparent during both classes I have taken with her. Not only does she have an obsession with Justice Benjamin Cardozo (Yeshiva law school is named after him) but she always seemed apt to mention if an important legal thinker came from a Jewish background (and there are a lot). What I didn’t know, and would later find out, is that Bianca, who my professor in the States set me up with, is Jewish, 1 of maybe 1,000 Jews in the entire city. When I visited her house, I couldn’t help but feel that I was in some American suburban Jewish home, which was adorned with different Jewish symbols. When I asked for a book to read, she gave me “The Lost” by Daniel Mendelsohn, which tells the story of the author’s quest to find out what happened to his relatives during the Holocaust. Her husband was travelling at the time, attending a Jewish conference in Vienna.

I also asked her about anti-Semitism in Europe and more specifically in Torino. She commented that her family and the Jewish community had never really experienced any problems in Torino, pointing to their small stature (they make up 1/1000^th of the population) and the tolerant nature of the community. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for other parts of Europe. In 2010, during my first trip to Italy, I was made aware of an incident in Florence a year earlier, in which a bomb was left outside of the Chabad House, a half a block from the Synagogue. When I travelled to Paris in 2010 I visited a Parisian friend who used to attend my overnight camp. His last name is Israel, a pretty easy giveaway of his religion, and he explicitly mentioned how much of a problem anti-Semitism was in France. He even suggested that at some point he would have to move, either to Israel or the United States, because it was so bad. Much of the recent trepidation among French Jews can be traced initially to the brutal kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006 by a Muslim gang. But since 2006, anti-Semitism has only gotten worse, culminating in another brutal attack by a Muslim extremist in Toulouse, which killed a Rabbi and three children, in March of 2012. Just a few months later, a Jewish supermarket was attacked in Sarcelles, a suburb of Paris. In 2012, according to a report by the SPCJ (the security unit of France’s Jewish community) anti-Semitic acts increased 58% from the previous year, to an astonishing 614.

But, this trend is not confined solely to France. Now, three years after my first trip, anti-Semitism is rapidly increasing across all over Europe prevalent among a growing contingent of resurgent right wing groups and immigrants, mostly Muslim, from Africa and the Middle East. Huge upsurges in anti-Semitism have been seen in the Swedish city of Malmo, which has a burgeoning immigrant population, in Hungary, where the right-wing Jobbik party is the country’s third largest, in Greece, where the Golden Dawn party has gained popularity, and in Ukraine, with the nationalist Svoboda party. Last month, one of Britain’s first Muslim ministers blamed his sentencing follow a driving accident on a “Jewish conspiracy."  And to see how it’s all come full-circle, in Germany, just a couple weeks ago, a rabbi was attacked near Frankfurt and called a “shitty Jew."

Some have said there is ample room for comparing Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the Great Depression hit, to Europe in the present day. Certainly, the economic situation is as dire then as it is now. Unemployment continues to rise throughout Europe, reaching over 25% in Spain and Greece and youth unemployment is even worse. In Italy, youth unemployment has reached 40%; in Spain the number is over 50%; and in Greece it is nearly 60%. This is especially problematic because young minds, when times are bad, tend to turn to ideas they do not fully understand. In Europe, these young minds are far more likely to turn to the far right of the political spectrum looking for someone or something to blame. In many instances they blame the government, but fringe groups seize on fear and uncertainty, enabling them to grow, ultimately blaming outsiders or immigration with the Jews being thrown into the mix. But, the threats to Jews are not the same existential threats of the 1930s. Instead, it is a more a persistent, inchoate threat, which continuously raises fear and apprehension but will likely never reach the same level as it once did; there is no threat of another European Holocaust. This, of course, does not make European anti-Semitism any better now than it was 75 years ago; it is rather that our recognition of the need to be prescient and our understanding of the iniquity of placation have given us an ability to react differently than we did in 1938.

I don’t mean to sound morbid, or to suggest that the situation here, as a whole, is dire. But in some areas, for many Jews, particularly religious Jews who wear Kippot or Tzitzit, it has, as Lyon’s Chief Rabbi remarked, become “unbearable.” France, however, is somewhat unique. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, and the largest outside of Israel and the United States, with somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 Jews. As my professor noted, the size and visibility of the Jewish population makes a big difference. In Italy there are only about 30,000 Jews, with half of them in Rome, so Italians are not intent to focus on the community. Instead, Italians have focused on another minority group, recent immigrants.

Due to its proximity to North Africa, Italy has seen a major influx of refugees, none of whom are white and many of whom are Muslim, which has rankled a country well known for its homogeneity. In Torino, for example, a number of refugees were essentially dumped in the city barely speaking a word of Italian, with no place to go and no money. I was invited to see the situation by Silvia’s granddaughter, who helped organize an event for the recent immigrants to provide food and other donations. They were all wearing donated clothing and lived in the now abandoned Olympic village as squatters, ignored by the community, and left to sit around all day. One of the recent immigrants spoke some Italian and engaged a couple of Italian students who I was talking to. He appeared to be high or drunk, and I later learned he was lamenting the treatment he and many others had received. They couldn’t find work and nobody seemed willing to help them. They were living in very close quarters in what were essentially abandoned buildings, with many making their living selling knock off leather goods or umbrellas. To put it in perspective, while Torino’s residents decry the incessant rain, its recent immigrants depend upon it.

Unsurprisingly, the plight of these recent immigrants has been met mostly with apathy, but there are many who are opposed to immigration completely. The most vocal political group is probably Lega Nord, whose main focus is on splitting the North and the South of Italy, but who invariably reject the legitimacy of immigration. The group routinely undergoes offensive campaigns to espouse support for their views. During a poster campaign, the group compared the perils of immigration to the plight of American Indians. The posters show a picture of an American Indian with a caption that says, “They suffered immigration. Now they live in reservations.”  On their Facebook page, the group once had a game called “Bounce the Illegal Immigrants,” in which players had to click on boats of illegal immigrants in an attempt to make them disappear. Following the historic appointment of Cecile Kyenge, the country’s first black government minister, the response was quick and vitriolic. Petitions were signed denouncing her and her effort to make the country more hospitable to recent immigrants. Mario Borghezio, a Lega Nord member, was recently kicked out of the Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group for disparaging remarks made towards Kyenge. Barghezio said in part that she wanted to impose “tribal traditions” on Italy and that “Africa hasn’t produced great geniuses as anyone can see from a Mickey Mouse encyclopedia.”

The debate sizzled just last month when a Ghanaian immigrant, Mada Kabobo, killed one and injured four during a rampage with an axe in Milan. Milan is in the Lombardy region of Italy, a stronghold of Lega Nord, and their offshoot Lega Lombarda. The reaction was swift, especially towards Cecile Kyenge. Matteo Salvini, a Lega Lombarda politician, was quoted as saying, “The illegal immigrants the colored minister wants to regularize, kill people with pickaxes.” Following his arrest, Kabobo’s first words to police were allegedly, “I am hungry.” While it appears as though Lega Nord’s prominence may be slightly decreasing, their party is actually in power in the region of Piedmont, where Torino is located. While Torino has always voted towards the left, the rural areas around the city have propelled Lega Nord representative Roberto Cota to the Presidency of the region. The same is true for Lombardy, Italy’s most populated region. While Milan has voted towards the left, the president of the region, Roberto Maroni, is also from Lega Nord.

In Italy there is an open, accepted racism that can often feel somewhat surreal. This is no more evident than in sports. Soccer is, like every other European country, a national pastime. Yet, Italy has been mired in racism problems for years. The tend to center around a small number of hardline fans, known collectively as “Ultras”, who make up just a fraction of a team’s fan base but are the loudest and most vocal group in the stadium. They often yell racist epithets at players and display repulsive posters and banners aimed at Blacks and Jews. This behavior goes back decades, a haunting reminder that a small number of Italians appear to have learned nothing from the days of Fascism.

The team most notorious for their section of “Ultras” may be Lazio who has a fierce rivalry with Roma due to both teams location in Italy’s capital city. The full name of the soccer club is Societa Sportiva Lazio, but it is often initialed as S.S. Lazio and its symbol is an eagle, a constant reminder of the club’s ties to former Italian leader, Benito Mussolini.  Mussolini was a well-documented supporter of Lazio and elements of the club still retain some Fascist leanings, evidenced by a litany of racism and anti-Semitism. Ultras at Lazio will often display swastikas, Celtic crosses and other Fascist symbols during home games. In 1998, Ultras unfurled a banner reading, “Auschwitz is your country, the gas chambers are your home.” In 2000, they unfurled another banner which read, “Honor to the Tiger Arkan,” an homage to Serbian war criminal, Zeljko Raznatovic. One of Lazio’s former stars, Sinisa Mihajlovic, was an outspoken supporter of Raznatovic as well as former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. In 2000, Mihajlovic was accused of calling Patrick Vieira a “black bastard” and “black monkey” but he denied he did so instead saying he called him “black shit.” Following his playing career, Mihajlovic got into coaching, eventually becoming the head of Fiorentina in June 2010 (just two weeks after I left Florence) and then taking a job as head coach of the Serbian National Team in 2012, a position he holds today. In 2005, another Lazio star, Paolo di Canio, inserted himself into a whirlwind of controversy when he appeared to give the Fascist salute to Lazio Ultras after scoring a goal. After major blowback from soccer officials, di Canio sought to clarify his behavior, stating, “I am a fascist, not a racist,” and praised Mussolini in his biography, saying he was, “basically a very principled, ethical individual.” Di Canio has a tattoo of the word Dux on his arm which is the Latin equivalent of Duce and is the current manager of English soccer club, Sunderland. In September of 2012, Lazio was fined after its fans taunted black players from English football club, Tottenham. Just two months later during another match with Tottenham, Ultras directed their ire towards the Jews, chanting “Juden Tottenham, Juden Tottenham.” Tottenham is often a target from clubs all over Europe because of their large Jewish following. In November of 2012, fans from Tottenham were attacked in Rome, greeted with Nazi salutes, resulting in one fan being stabbed. Just a few months ago, supporters of Tottenham were attacked again, this time in Lyon, greeted by more Nazi salutes. The list goes on.

Within Italy as a whole, the racism debate often revolves around one man: Mario Balotelli. Balotelli was born in Southern Italy to Ghanian parents, and ironically enough, raised since the age of 3 by Jewish Italians in Northern Italy. Balotelli is actually younger than I am, born in 1990, and thus has been subjected to abuse since he turned professional as a teenager (and probably before). Due to Italy’s strict rules regarding citizenship, he had to wait until his 18^th birthday to officially become a citizen, although he was born in Palermo and has lived his entire life in Italy. Balotelli is widely considered Italy’s best offensive player, but even in a country deathly obsessed with soccer, some Italians are reticent to accept Balotelli simply because of his skin color. He has been subjected to racism that is rarely seen in America’s professional sports, constantly watching fans wave bananas at him and referring to him as a monkey or hearing actual monkey sounds whenever he touches the ball. Upon his signing to Italian soccer powerhouse AC Milan, team official Paolo Berlusconi, the brother of former Italian President Silvio Berlusconi, referred to Balotelli as a “little black boy” (in 2008 Silvio Berlusconi famously referred to President Obama as “suntanned”). Fans from Juventus, one of the two soccer clubs in Torino, once infamously chanted, in reference to Balotelli, “There are no black Italians.” Some believed that all of this may have come to a head when Kevin Prince-Boateng, a Ghanian midfielder playing with Balotelli for AC Milan, walked off the field following racist abuse. The game was a friendly, essentially meaningless, and against a lower level team, but the action of walking off the field was far from meaningless. It signified a player and his teammates finally taking a stand, instead of simply meandering around the issue. But, the real question remained, would players take a stand during a game of significance, during a match where a spot in the standings were at stake? The answer came definitively just one month ago. During a match in Milan between AC Milan and Roma, Roma Ultras incessantly taunted both Balotelli and Boateng, forcing officials to briefly stop the game in the second half. Roma was fined $65,000. The list goes on.

To combat the issue of racism, actions cannot be confined solely to the offenders. Not everybody is chanting. Not everybody is holding banners. In fact, it is but a handful of fans. Thus, it is essential to recognize the importance of the fans who remain silent, realizing that indifference is the driving force behind soccer’s inability to rid itself of discrimination. Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, soccer’s governing body, and a man who has never strayed far from controversy, stated in 2011 that there was no racism between players and that it could all be settled at the end of the game with a hand shake. Lazio executive Claudio Lotito, defended his team, saying it would be impossible to “control the attitude of individual fans.” There are signs that Europe is waking up to the dangers of racism, beginning with tougher penalties enacted a couple weeks ago by FIFA, but it remains to be seen what, if any, the difference will be. I listed a number of incidents, but a simple Google search can reveal I barely even scratched the surface. Racism is extensive in all of Europe and it requires an extensive response. If Europe is unwilling to take bold action to combat racism’s ubiquity it is, in essence, a tacit acceptance of its inevitability. If that is the world Europeans are content to live in, then there is little anyone else can do. Ultimately, the final decision will rest with their gaze each morning, staring at their own reflection.

It is impossible to say if the economic situation in Europe will improve but as debt continues to grow and economies continue to shrink, the outlook is bleak. If Europe continues to deteriorate, the people will elect new leaders, but worsening times leaves the inevitability of a power vacuum, ready to be filled. The issues with anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and racism are real, and show no signs of dissipating. Europe will have to face the issues head-on, acknowledging their existence and devising a strategy to eradicate them. This is no easy task, and the climb will treacherous, and will be met with vociferous opposition but the alternative may be much more dangerous.






Editor's Note: All of the information was derived from various reputable Internet sources, which I double and triple checked. In addition, a number of the events I researched came after reading Wright Thompson's brilliant piece about racism in Italian soccer. If you want information on my citations, ones which I did not link to the piece, please let me know.

The Absurdity of Stephen Hawking's Boycott

It has been reported that Stephen Hawking, the renowned and equally brilliant physicist who authored the bestseller, "A Brief History of Time", has decided to withdraw from the upcoming Presidential Conference in Israel. The Conference attracts some of the most prominent, brilliant and influential people in the world, and is hosted by Shimon Peres, Israel's Nobel Peace Prize winning President. The reason for Hawking's withdrawal is not due to his failing health, which some had reported, but rather due to his protest of Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people. Overnight Hawking has become the most notable academic to boycott the State of Israel, and in turn given credence to a movement which singles out Israel for impropriety in a region awash with moral depravity. According to a statement, Hawking's decision was based on advice from Palestinian academics who advised him to "respect" the boycott. It appears as though 'respect' is very subjective for Hawking, since his 'respect' does not apply to the myriad Israeli academics, as well as Shimon Peres, who have worked tirelessly to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians. It is nothing less than a shameful decision.

I don't deny that Israel is imperfect. I will not deny that Israel has and continues to commit wrongs against the Palestinian people. The occupation has probably done more harm to Israel's standing in the world than nearly all other Israeli policies combined. We should work hard to end it, through diplomacy and peaceful engagement, creating a long lasting and just agreement, that will last for generations. But boycotting the entire State of Israel and cutting off communication to a State which is home to the only democracy in the Middle East? Is Israel is so terrible that Hawking cannot acknowledge that women, minorities, and homosexuals are afforded more rights in Israel than in any other country in the Middle East or that Israel is a country where freedom of speech allows you to criticize government policy freely, freedoms which don't exist in any other country in the region? What about the fact that Arab women, Muslim and Christian, are allowed to pursue an education, dress how they see fit, and serve in Parliament, all of which can be elusive in every other Arab country?

Maybe Hawking missed those facts. I understand where Hawking is coming from. He is taking a bold stand against oppression and bigotry wherever it may lay, right? He should applaud himself. Too many people stand by idly while others are denied their freedoms. But if Hawking is going to boycott Israel, why stop there? In fact, there is a whole laundry list of countries for Hawking to display his noble and courageous beliefs!

Let's start with Russia. In 2012, Hawking accepted a $3 million prize for his work with black holes from a foundation founded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner. Milner does business and pays taxes in Russia as well as maintaining contacts with the Russian government. Thus, Hawking should take a bold and courageous stand and return the prize money. Why you ask? Russia maintains a close relationship with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has provided weapons and money to the Syrian regime. In fact, Russia has vetoed 3 UN resolutions condemning Assad's brutal crackdown, including vetoing a resolution which plainly condemned Assad's behavior. So while 70,000 (and counting) Syrians have been murdered, Russia has not only sat by watching, but has buttressed a regime which recently used chemical weapons on its own people. But, if that doesn't bother Hawking, then he should look at the lack of press freedom in Russia. According to Reporters Without Borders, Russia ranks 148 out of 179 in the Press Freedom Index. Russian ranks among the worst in prosecuting murders of journalists, and according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, there have been 54 journalists killed since 1992, which ranks just ahead of the 48 killed during the same period in Somalia. Maybe Hawking should take a stand against the rampant election fraud that took place during Russia's most recent election, or the brutal crackdown that followed. Maybe he should complain about the imprisonment of Russian government opposition like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and has been imprisoned on flimsy charges since 2005. Maybe Hawking should condition his acceptance of Yuri Milner's prize money on the immediate cessation of the trial of Alexei Navalny, an opposition blogger currently facing 10 years in prison. Or maybe not.

How about China? In 2006, Hawking visited China for a conference with hundreds of physicists, speaking to an audience of thousands in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. The speech occurred right in Tiananmen Square where hundreds, and maybe thousands of civilians were murdered by government forces less than 20 years earlier. China imposes a brutal occupation on the people of Tibet, who have protested by self immolating themselves. In 2012, according to Human Rights Watch, 72 Tibetans lit themselves on fire to protest China's rule. China is also a good friend of Russia in the UN. Not only has Russia vetoed three UN resolutions condemning the Syrian regime, but China has joined suit, stating, in defense of its veto, that the resolution was "seriously problematic, with uneven content that is intended to put pressure on only one party". I'm sure the Syrian people would agree. What about the unbearable conditions that Chinese workers must endure, resulting in rampant suicides, which protest the miserable hours and non-existent pay?  But if that doesn't bother Hawking, then he should send a nice note to Liu Xiaobo, who is imprisoned for supporting human rights, or speak to Chen Guangchen, a blind activist, who escaped China to come to the United States out of fear for his life.

But if Hawking really wants to take a stand and show some courage, there is one other country that he should boycott, a country which honored Hawking with the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the great United States of America. If Hawking wishes to support human rights everywhere, then how about he take a trip to Guantanamo Bay where detainees are being force fed through their noses because of  hunger strikes, undertaken to protest being indefinitely detained without trial. Hawking can talk to a man named Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen, who was mistakenly believed to be a terrorist suspect. El-Masri was held by the CIA for four months, tortured and sodomized, and left on the side of the road. Hawking should express his outrage at the invasion of Iraq, which has now killed at least, and likely more, than 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians. He can even visit Iraq and see the aftermath of the invasion, which has resulted in a huge upsurge in birth defects and deformities, which some have attributed to depleted uranium and white phosphorous used by the United States. And if Hawking chooses to boycott America because of its decision to invade Iraq, then he might want to stay away from his home in England, since it was England who came to the aid of the United States, partnering in the invasion of Iraq. The list goes on.

This movement, to boycott Israel, is a staple of many Palestinian activists as well as those on the far-left fringes of the political spectrum. The movement is loud, but its truculence is the movement's only real asset. There is simply no substance or veracity to any of the movement's charges, which is the main reason it has gained almost no traction in the United States. The biggest proponents of the movement are likely to be found in the Middle East, in which numerous countries do not allow those with Israeli (Jewish Israeli) passports and where the Arab League began boycotting Jewish businesses nearly seven decades ago. It is not fair to call the movement or Stephen Hawking anti-Semitic, but there are certainly elements of the movement whose motivations are dubious at best.

What is so upsetting about Hawking's decision is that it only harms the peace process. A boycott establishes the idea that one side bears responsibility and blame for a set of circumstances, thus establishing Israel as the sole contributor to the plight of the Palestinian people. Hawking appears to have discarded the roles that Arab countries have played in this conflict, refusing to recognize the existence of Israel while perpetuating a cycle of enmity between the two sides. Do the Palestinians bear no blame? Is indiscriminately killing civilians through suicide attacks targeting buses, restaurants, and night clubs not an impediment to peace? Is firing rockets, in an attempt to terrorize and injure as many civilians as possible, something that does not warrant condemnation? The only way to end this conflict is through negotiation and an acceptance of the other's right to exist; two states living peacefully side by side. And as reports surface that Russia is supplying the Syrian regime with advanced cruise missiles, as more and more civilians die every day, Stephen Hawking is nowhere to be found.

The Day Boston Changed Forever

I spent hours sitting on my bed, into the wee hours of Monday night, writing sentence after sentence after sentence. I was trying to determine the best way to start this piece, how best to grab the readers' attention, as if this was like any other piece of writing. I began writing about the unexplainable captivation of Boston. I used the phrases "enigmatic aura" and "mythological stature". I tried to craft a perfect opening and hours later found myself at the same place I started. During the course of that near sleepless Monday night, my emotions swung back and forth, a pendulum of shock, disbelief, sadness, and anger. I simply couldn't write anything down. Each time I did another emotion would surface, drowning out the other. Monday was supposed to be joyous and celebratory. Even from many miles away in Washington D.C. and even though there was no public holiday, I was excited; Marathon Monday in Boston is easily the best day of the year.

It started out like any other Monday. I had class in the morning and then Criminal Law beginning at 1:30 and ending at 2:50. During class I would peek at the Red Sox score, letting out a small and only slightly noticeable fist pump when Mike Napoli hit a game winning double. And as class ended at 2:50, the same time the explosions occurred, the exuberance that lit up my face quickly turned to confusion as the news trickled in. I had planned to meet with a Professor but I rushed home instead, watching the news, attempting to make sense of a nonsensical event. This was so personal, so close to my heart, and the hearts of anyone who has lived or spent time in Boston. This day was, for lack of a better word, sacred.

And then I saw the blast, the horrid video from the finish line, the sound of the explosion, the screaming, the blood, the horror, my feelings so visceral that I couldn't help but gasp. And then I saw the boy, Martin Richard, that young and beautiful child, with a wide smile, big brown eyes, and those pre-braces teeth, the picture of carefree innocence, holding up a sign for peace. The wall holding my emotion quickly crumbled as the salty and bitter tears streamed down my face. I remember sitting in my bed on Monday night, my eyes red and puffy, flinching when I heard the door close, then closing my eyes, reminding myself to breathe. Deep, easy breaths, just one at a time.

Why Boston? Why the Marathon? Why this day? There were simply no answers to the innumerable questions. I have been to the Marathon. I have walked those very streets, the very spots where the explosions occurred, more times than I can count. Sometimes, I would take the train into Back Bay Station, walk down Dartmouth Street, cross Boylston Street at the intersection just a few hundred feet from where the first explosion occurred, continuing on through Newbury Street and its expensive shopping, through Commonwealth Avenue's tree-lined walkway marveling at its pristine beauty, and then crossing over Storrow Drive, to the Esplanade, looking out over the Charles River to Cambridge, watching the sun slowly set. There is little that can top it.

Boston is a city that makes no sense yet makes perfect sense; a city of anomalies and paradoxes. It's a city that is nearly impossible to drive in with its roads appearing to have been designed by a small infant after being given his first coloring book. Its mayor, its stumbling, bumbling, goofball of a human, who can't stand on his feet or pronounce the names of the city's most famous athletes, yet is beloved by the city and  is easily re-elected each time he runs. Its subway system, built 100 years ago, seemingly unchanged or improved, leaving riders pleasantly surprised when it works properly. Its most notorious residents, filled with dropped "r's" and intolerance, ambivalent to outsiders or change, harboring a penchant for alcohol consumption, yet living in the heart and capital of arguably the most tolerant, educated, progressive, and liberal state in the country, home to some of the greatest institutions in the world. Its nightlife, or lack thereof, closing while other cities are just beginning, the subway shutting down just as you are going out, leaving you to find a non-existent cabby who doesn't take credit cards or have a sense of direction. Fenway Park, its beloved baseball stadium, plopped tightly and awkwardly near Kenmore Square, where ticket prices are the highest in the league buying you a seat which fits maybe half of your body, where a pretzel may run you $5, where the bathrooms overflow, and yet you can't help but be transfixed by its ambiance, magic, and transcendent beauty. The history of the city sitting at every street corner, innocuous landmarks quietly hiding in plain sight, reminders of the iconic events in this city's history which helped propel America to independence; The Old North Church, The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the other Boston Massacre. I don't know what the Marathon will be like next year, and in the years to come. It will most assuredly never be the same. But there is something about Boston, something I cannot pin-point, something, like the city itself, that I cannot explain, something deep inside me which knows that Boston will refuse to let this affect us.

Many people leave the city when they are young. They may move to New York or, like me, to D.C., where the streets make sense and the public transportation works. But sometimes I think of Boston. I think of the times waiting for the subway at Downtown Crossing on a hot summer day, the smells wafting through the air, hearing the groans from the commuters, as an announcement about mechanical problems delays your departure. I think of shaking my head angrily, sweat trickling down my face, as another commuter knocks into me, seemingly unaware that I was standing there. But one day I will return, and I will sit in Downtown Crossing during that summer day and I will smile. I will smile because I would simply have it no other way. Because just as it's certain I will return, so will Boylston Street, so will this great city, so will Patriots Day, and so will the Marathon. We would have it no other way.

The Obscenity of the NCAA

NCAA President Mark Emmert

Rutgers' Coach Mike Rice

Arizona Coach Sean Miller

Over the past couple days two major stories have emerged from the magical world of College Basketball. First, it was revealed that Ed Rush, the Pac-12 Head of Officiating, told a group of referees he would offer $5000 or a trip to Cancun if they rang up (whistled him for a technical foul) Arizona head coach, Sean Miller. Second, a haunting and disturbing report from Outside the Lines showed Rugters' head coach Mike Rice throwing basketballs and swearing at players during practice. Larry Scott, the Pac-12 commissioner, and Tim Pernetti, Rutgers' Athletic Director, disciplined both men, discipline that allowed both men to keep their job. Rush was reprimanded, which essentially means nothing. Rice was suspended three games earlier this season and fined $50,000, which is essentially nothing. These stories will almost certainly continue to evolve, and if I were to surmise, I would bet that Rutgers, being a public university, will ultimately fire Mike Rice in the coming days, or he will resign. As for Ed Rush, I would say him losing his job is far from a certainty, since the public outcry will be far less vitriolic towards him than to Rice. The people most and almost exclusively offended by Rush are sports fans (and University of Arizona students and alumni) while those offended by Rice include every person on Earth, except for maybe Mel Gibson.

I don't know much about Ed Rush. I do know that Marc Cuban said in 2002 he wouldn't hire Rush to "manage a Dairy Queen".  But up until this controversy I had never heard his name before. But I will not soon forget it. So much is wrong with this situation, I find myself trying to muster some semblance of coherent thought in a feeble attempt to describe my emotions. Am I sad? disappointed? angry? bewildered? shocked? For sports fans, this epitomizes our worst fears. Sports are so special because they are (or are supposed to be) some of the only elements of truth in the world. Sports are not supposed to be affected by the outside world. With all the terrible things we see on the news every day, sport endures as a symbol of fairness and impartiality. May the best man win. Plain and simple. Beauty in its purest form. But sports are not immune to the vices of the outside world. So when those tasked with overseeing the impartiality of the game, the referees, compromise the integrity of the game, the anger that results is often impassioned and fierce. After all a referee is "an official who watches a game or a match closely to ensure that the rules are adhered". Ed Rush has not just compromised the integrity of the game, he has destroyed it. The first action should have been his immediate dismissal, yet almost as shocking as the comments themselves, Larry Scott, the Pac-12 commissioner, has not fired Rush. Instead Scott decided to speak about the situation and made some of the most perplexing comments I have ever heard.

Scott said, among other things, that he did not find a "breach of ethics or integrity in the officiating program" and that there was "nothing individual about Sean Miller in all of this". Really Larry? What Ed rush said was ethical? If there was no breach of integrity, would you say that this incident has espoused confidence in Pac-12 officiating? Does this behavior embody the rectitude that is expected of Pac-12 officiating? What planet is Larry Scott on? What occurred is actually the opposite of Ed Rush's job description. His job is to oversee the officials to ensure the integrity and impartiality of the game remains. I'm not sure how Ed Rush could have fucked up worse. It's like a doctor who makes a patient sicker or a teacher who makes a student dumber. And then to say that Sean Miller wasn't targeted? Sean Miller received a technical foul, his first of the entire season for telling the official that his player "touched the ball". The question we need to ask is whether Sean Miller receives this technical in any other situation. I think the answer is emphatically, no. And while Scott admitted the comments were inappropriate, he in essence excused them by saying they were simply made "in jest". Does that even matter? At the time of the technical there was 4:37 left in the game. Mark Lyons was called for a double dribble, which was the incorrect call, as the defender touched the ball. Miller protested and received a technical. UCLA made two free throws. UCLA would win the game by two points. Ed Rush's comments affected the outcome of the game. Even Larry Scott is dumb enough to know basic math, I think.

 Mike Rice is another name I had never heard of until yesterday. I guess that's what happens when you are the basketball coach at Rutgers. Earlier in the basketball season, in mid-December, Rice was suspended for three games and fined $50,000 for what were, at the time, unknown offenses. The reality of that suspension came to light yesterday when Outside the Lines released video of Rice throwing basketballs at players and berating them with offensive slurs. The video is shocking and thus explains why Rutgers acted so surreptitiously during the initial suspension. The Rutgers A.D. said at the time, "there was obviously some things that are not to the Rutgers' standard that we evaluated and decided upon". Really? How about some things not up to the human standard? Mike Rice called his players pussies, bitches, cunts, motherfuckers, and faggots. He threw a ball at one of his players' heads. He aggressively put his hands on players, pushing and grabbing them. A college basketball coach is an educator and a role model, who is charged with setting an example for impressionable 18-22 year old young men, many of whom lack a strong familial structure. Not only does he fail that test, he might not even meet the criteria for world's worst dad. But as seems the tradition in NCAA athletics, those in charge seem to be the one's most in need of edification, like Rutgers A.D. Tim Pernetti.

Pernetti was interviewed on Outside the Lines and was pressed on the leniency of the discipline. Pernetti mentioned that the tape shown was not a full representation and that it is important to look at those incidents in full context. Might I inquire as to what context you are referring to? Because there is no place whatsoever for that type of behavior on a basketball court. Ever. But most bewildering was Pernetti's logic that this was simply a first offense. Maybe if you add up every incident together it was a first offense. Rice didn't simply hurl one ball at a player's head or call one player a pussy, he did it over and over and over again. According to the report, at least three players transferred due to his actions, and one player, Gilvydas Biruta, who is from Lithuania, was called a "Lithuanian faggot". Maybe if you took one of those incidents such as throwing a ball once, or yelling an epithet once, I would consider it a first offense. But not this. This is multiple offenses that Pernetti rolled into one to support his morally reprehensible penalty. Three games? $50,000? To put that in context, Shabazz Muhammad missed three games for accepting impermissible benefits ranging from $500-$700 during recruiting trips. And Mike Rice makes approximately $700,000, so $50,000 is approximately 1/14th of his salary. Sounds fair to me.

The bigger picture regarding both of these stories is the same pervasive themes that has led to the inexorable decline of the NCAA and its credibility. Players simply don't matter. They mean nothing. And it literally gets shoved into our faces over and over again. Those stupid NCAA commercials which show how the NCAA is always there for its pawns student-athletes. While the NCAA signs huge contracts, like the one in 2010 for 10.8 Billion (no, that is not a typo), its players are held at the mercy of coaches who are free to leave their university on a whim (it's usually for more money). Because when Gilvydas Biruta was called a "Lithuanian faggot" the only fair thing to do would be to make him sit out a year, which he did. While Mike Rice sat out three games, Birutas sat out the entire season. Seems logical, right? But logic means nothing to the NCAA. Remember Mike Leach? The Texas Tech football coach who put his player in an electrical closet. After being fired Leach signed a deal with Washington State which paid him over 2 Million Dollars per year. Naturally, he was accused of abusing his players in his first season at Washington State. There has been reported abuse all over the country. Just last month, University of Utah swim coach, Greg Winslow, was told his contract would not be renewed after allegations surfaced of sexual abuse, along with claims that the University did not do enough to protect its players from the abuse. The list goes on.

Scandals in collegiate athletics have become as ubiquitous as the competitions themselves. Players are helpless as they are left with nowhere to turn, while coaches and administrators are left accountable to no one. The truth is that in a month we will forget about Ed Rush and Mike Rice. No one will remember Larry Scott or Tim Pernetti. But I can assure you, with the utmost certainty, the scandals will continue. The names will be different. The stories will change, but only slightly; the idea is the same. The coaches with their exorbitant salaries will become more indispensable, and the players more inconsequential. The NCAA ostensibly represents the body which protects players but any action by the NCAA starts and ends with the movement of their lips. At the end of the NCAA's new March Madness commercial they say, "just know we're always there for student-athletes". And then something caught my glance outside the window. I looked quickly to see a pig flying through the air.


Editors Note** Mike Rice was fired this morning (4/3). I guess I can see into the future.**

Lance Armstrong and Manti T'eo

Wow. The only reaction that seems to come out of my mouth is Wow. Within a week, two (formerly) beloved stars of their respective sports have been embroiled in preposterous and staggering lies; their stories erupting in a volcano of deceit and moral depravity. There have been many famous sports scandals from the 1919 Black Sox to Penn St. and Jerry Sandusky. However, what sets these two apart, more so than others, is the nature in which their stories (and ultimately their lies) were used to further the mythological stature each of these two men shared. The lies became part of their narrative: Lance Armstrong as the Cancer survivor resisting the use of performance enhancing drugs, becoming a beacon of light in a darkened sport; Manti Te'o as the All American Linebacker overcoming unspeakable tragedy to lead "America's" Team to a perfect regular season. Both men created an intricate and inexhaustible web, a web which ultimately left them trapped in their own hand-spun artifices. In the end, lies can only last so long.

Yet, there is something that strikes you with Armstrong and Te'o, in different ways. For Lance it is the astonishing length at which he clouded the world's view of him, disparaging others (a list so large there was no one left to defend him) and even filing lawsuits, and winning, against those who had the courage to speak the truth. Lance went on camera time and time again, to reassure the world that the newest teammate or competitor claiming he used PEDs was a manipulative liar, bent on destroying him and his sterling reputation solely out of some form of retribution (he was actually talking about himself). We wanted to believe Lance Armstrong. We wanted to believe that his incredible story was pure and true; it was too perfect, too inspirational, too amazing, too unbelievable. What about those yellow bracelets? And the Foundation which he founded that has raised nearly 500 Million Dollars for Cancer research? What it is so mind-boggling about Lance is that, in the end, the steroid use won't be what spawns our hatred of him. It is the incessant lying to our face over and over and over again. Not for days or weeks, months or a couple years, but for a decade. The vitriol directed at the likes of Mark McGwire or Alex Rodriguez for their steroid use will pale in comparison to the hatred that will follow Lance in the years ahead.  In a world where nothing is what it seems, Lance Armstrong embodied the best the human spirit had to offer. And in one fell swoop he has shown us the worst. Or so we thought. Enter: Manti Te'o.

Te'o is less cut and dry at this moment. He has not confessed to orchestrating an elaborate hoax. In fact, he released a statement claiming he was the victim. His Athletic Director, Jack Swarbrick, was teary-eyed at a press conference defending the star linebacker. Yet, I find little comfort in his claim that he is a victim. Maybe, just maybe, he could plead ignorance. Maybe he can claim that he didn't know; that he actually thought he was in love with this imaginary person. Maybe he can tell us how it would be nonsensical to devise such an elaborate scheme, and maybe, like Lance Armstrong, he will buttress his claim with the sterling reputation that precedes him. I simply do not believe him. It is eerily reminiscent of college football titan, Joe Paterno, who owned a similarly impeccable reputation as Te'o does. Paterno claimed he didn't know what was happening for so many years. Paterno claimed no viable information was presented to him to warrant taking real action (other than telling his superior), such as telling the police or ensuring Sandusky never set foot on the Penn St. campus again. T'eo will find himself in a similar predicament. Either he was complicit or simply kept his eyes shut. Might I ask why after "her" death, he didn't meet with "her" family or attend any funeral services? Yes, he claims that "she" told him not to attend the funeral, but why not travel after the funeral and mourn with the family? Why not visit "her" grave after the funeral? Why do absolutely nothing following "her" death? Did "she" issue a directive that Te'o could not meet "her" family after the death? Did I mention "her" funeral supposedly took place in Carson, California, which is an astonishing twenty minutes driving from USC, where Te'o played about a month after "her" death? Would Brian Kelly have said "no" if Te'o asked for a couple hours to spend with his "girlfriend's" family? I think not. And what about the fact that he claimed he met "her"? Or that his father, Brian, claimed they would meet in Hawaii? Did someone really take the incalculable time and effort to create and perpetuate a lie of this magnitude, which would include paying a girl to talk every night with Te'o? Am I to believe Manti Te'o, who is smart enough to play middle linebacker (the play caller on defense) at Notre Dame, as well as graduating in 3.5 years with a major in Design and a 3.3 GPA, is not smart enough to figure out something may be a little fishy? Just as Lance used his lies to perpetuate his narrative, Te'o did the same. Te'o grabbed our hearts and put them in a choke hold. We became captivated by the story of a young man, overcoming unbelievable tragedy to lead Notre Dame back to its former glory. He had a sterling reputation not just as a football player, but as a man.

Lance will go on Oprah today and confess his sins and admit wrongdoing. But don't let him fool you. This was not some noble gesture by Lance acting out of the goodness of his heart. When the damning report from USADA was presented a few months ago, Lance was defiant. His lawyer attacked the credibility of the report (there were 26 sworn statements, including 15 from cyclists, against Lance) claiming it was a "tabloid piece". When the Tour de France stripped him of his titles, he tweeted a picture of himself lounging on a couch with the seven yellow jerseys he won with the caption, "Back in Austin and just layin' around..." The arrogance is palpable, coming from a man who actively lied for a decade about his steroid use. It takes a special breed to come back from Cancer and win the Tour de France seven times. It also takes a special breed to lie in such a manipulative fashion while still being able to rest your head at night; I'm not sure which is more remarkable.

The true story of Manti Te'o will come to the forefront, as it did with Lance Armstrong. Secrets, in this information age, only stay secrets for so long. When the whole story comes out, a very different picture of Manti Te'o will emerge, and I can guarantee the negative feelings we harbor toward Lance will permeate our thoughts of Manti Te'o. In the end, we are left to ponder if there is ever any truth in this world. There may be none, except for one thing: nothing is ever what it seems.

A Second Look at the Second Amendment

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if an alien, from another world with the same general intellectual capacity as humans, were to come to Earth to stay at my house. How would it react to the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. What would that alien think about our gun laws? Or the incessant violence as a result of our guns laws? Or the reaction by politicians and pundits on both sides? What would a completely blank slate, not swayed by the rhetoric coming from every angle of our society about guns, think about the proper way to take action after this tragedy? I think we can all be certain that the answer would not be more guns; unfortunately we don't have aliens making decisions in our country, although we might be better off if that were the case. The closest we have to aliens are every other developed, industrialized country in the world whose deaths from gun violence are morphed by the great United States. Yet, even with all of the information we have gleaned from European countries which includes, but is not limited to, our entire legal system, automobiles, art, science, and mathematics, it seems information on gun control from Europe need not apply.

There is something fundamentally wrong with our society when many consider the upcoming battle for gun control an uphill one, which will be met with powerful, passionate, and fierce opposition. How can you not favor, after such a brutal slaughter of innocence, a complete overhaul or at least a drastic change in our current system? How can some people, even elected representatives, claim that more guns are needed to keep our children safe? In the wake of these frighteningly common shootings, the answers which seem so simple and common-sense, become more evasive and implausible.

What is so disheartening and downright mind boggling at times, is the logic of those proponents of expansive interpretations of the Second Amendment, like the one held by the NRA. The Second Amendment is very subjective; in fact the current interpretation of the Second Amendment is a new phenomenon, which only began a few decades ago. The NRA essentially turned guns into a political fight. A fight against less government, which has allowed for private citizens to buy and own some of the deadliest weapons on Earth, at ease. The common theme among those in this group, is that guns are used to prevent crime, and if someone had possessed a gun during the tragic shooting, deaths could have been prevented. In other words, more armed citizens will help to prevent crime.  It suffices to say this logic is absurd, but it isn't the reasoning that is most problematic, but rather the underlying belief behind the reasoning. The disturbing aspect is that those who make such outrageous comments, make a subtle admission that these events are unavoidable. In essence, they are saying that shootings are going to happen, and we must arm ourselves so that in the event something like this occurs, we can protect ourselves. Bad people do bad things, and there is nothing we can do about it. This acceptance of the consequences of the Second Amendment, are consequences I am unwilling to accept. Why should I? Why don't we simply eliminate the threat all together, by doing what every other developed country has already done; placing severe restrictions on private gun ownership. Why should I accept that shootings at schools will invariably occur, and the only way to prevent more casualties is to have the teachers armed? Why not enact laws that make it so the guns can't be acquired in the first place? This, of course, would render the Second Amendment a shell of its current from. But if that saved someone's life, like the life of a child, wouldn't you do it in a heartbeat?

This goes to the core of the fight over gun control. It is an issue of framing the argument, and those who favor gun control have done an extremely poor job. The NRA is very wealthy and very well organized. They have done a tremendous job at advancing their views of the Second Amendment; using politicians to ensure gun legislation is not passed. There is no organization on the other side that even compares in scope and effectiveness to the NRA. What gun-control advocates must come to terms with is that the changes that are being proposed should be the starting point, not the end. Banning assault rifles, tightening regulations, and providing better access to mental health facilities will help, but will not cure the problem. There must be an understanding that the modern day Second Amendment interpretation has failed. It doesn't work. More guns does not mean more safety. If we want to save lives, allowing unfettered access to any gun must be abolished. We must rid ourselves of this notion that every law-abiding citizen has the right to privately own a gun. If you don't want mass shootings then that is the truth we must accept. Providing more guns to law-abiding citizens, on a rare occasion, may save someone's life, but it will never fix the bigger issue. There is a clear choice to be made. If the NRA wishes to continue its quest for a nation of bountiful guns, they must also accept that there will shootings in malls, houses of worship, and in schools. The two go hand in hand. It will be impossible to drastically reduce our gun fatalities if the system doesn't change. If the Second Amendment provides the right to keep and bear arms, don't children, who are not allowed to possess a gun, have rights too? Children are at the mercy of the adults who make decisions. We are the ones who determine the life we want our kids to live; it is a grave duty we hold. Thus we must choose: guns or our children. The two are mutually exclusive. We cannot have both. It is a solemn promise, but if gun laws do not undergo a drastic change and overhaul, more children will be killed by guns.

Imagine that the alien who came to Earth to stay with you was curious about America and started asking questions about guns. Imagine you told the alien that Sandy Hook was not the first time, or even the second time something like this had happened. Imagine if you told the alien that in the past 6 months alone, there was a shooting at a mall that killed two people, a shooting a Sikh temple that killed 6 people, and a shooting a movie theater that killed 12. Imagine the alien's shock and disbelief. Then you can tell it that in 1999, 13 people were murdered in a school shooting and that in 2007, 32 people were murdered in a school shooting. And then you can mention that 6 people, including a nine year old girl, were killed outside a grocery store; an attack which left a United States congresswoman with a bullet wound to her head. Imagine the alien's reaction when you told the alien that the gun used to kill 20 children was the civilian version of the M-16, a gun used by soldiers in war zones. You can describe to the alien that the bullets in the gun fragment inside the body and cause devastating internal injuries, which is why they are used by soldiers to kill enemy combatants. The next day the alien is gone. You wonder where he went and you find a note he has left for you. "I have left the United States and returned to my planet. I feel much safer there."

Hating LeBron

Why Game 6 Validated Our Hatred

LeBron James has been under more scrutiny than any other athlete in the history of American sports. Since James has been able to drive, he has endured an inhumane level of scrutiny that has left an indelible mark on him. Imagine how difficult it must be (in fact there is no need to imagine since it is impossible) to live a normal life with that level of scrutiny. At 18, when he was in High School he was actually suspended for receiving two free jerseys. In High School!  How big must the microscope have been, for an 18 year old to be suspended for not saying no when he was offered two sports jerseys? How insane is that?

There are a couple of reasons why the scrutiny has been so great. The first and most obvious reason is that basketball is more individualized than any other major sport. Football is the ultimate team sport, and stars play on only side of the ball, so you may only see them half of the game. In addition, every play is dependent on another. During any given play, so many factors must be perfectly in place or the play breaks down. If the receiver runs the wrong route that quarterback cannot thrown him the ball and if he does run the right route, and the left tackle misses his assignment, the play breaks down anyways. Baseball players, depending on position are involved intermittently. Starting pitchers pitch once every five games, and relievers you may only see for one inning. Position players will likely bat 4-5 times a game, 1 out of every 9 total at bats. However, in basketball the factors don't change. The weather is always the same as is the ball, and the hoop never moves. You don't need to worry about receivers or offensive linemen. Players play offense and defense, and can theoretically play an entire game. LeBron can hold the fate of the game directly in his hands. He can single-handedly do more to effect the outcome than in any other sport (See Game 6). The control lies solely with that individual player on a daily basis in basketball, more so than any other sport.

The other reason, unfortunately has nothing to with sports, but rather with the world LeBron grew up in. There are two major factors, both of which,  are in some fashion related to each other. The Internet and Television News. Technological advances were sweeping the country in the early 2000s, and soon the world would become more connected than ever before. The advent of social media, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube coincided almost directly with his emergence as a young NBA star. Now, when something occurs, regardless of how inconsequential it may be, the video is on YouTube. Everyone is talking about it on Facebook. Everyone is Tweeting about it. And every blog is writing about it. And that is all within a few minutes. And You can access the information regardless of where you are. You don't need to wait for your dial-up on your home computer to boot up. Instead, you can just look at your IPhone or IPad or MacBook, which can all be accessed at any location. So, you can be at a wedding in Texas, and know instantaneously what happened in Boston 10 minutes earlier, just by looking at your phone. Amazing.

There is also the 24 hour news cycle, where grabbing the attention of a viewer became the main focus, rather than substantive reporting. News had always had sensationalist aspects, but because news is everywhere, all the time, so is the sensationalism. At one point, many years ago, you had the news in the morning, and then would wait until the next morning for more news. Now, you get the news every hour, on the hour. Now, many news organizations have simply abandoned being balanced. If they can appeal to a base, just like any other commercial product, why report both sides, when reporting to one side is more profitable? News is about catching your eye, not holding your attention, where every movement and every word becomes overly and unnecessarily scrutinized. These two aspects of our world are now constantly intertwined, enlarging the microscope LeBron has been under since 16. In essence, LeBron has been caught up in a perfect storm. A storm that the other greats of the NBA never went through. Larry and Magic never had to deal with anything close and Jordan got out right before it started. This is a new phenomenon, a giant social experiment, and LeBron has been our guinea pig.
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There have been many child prodigies throughout the years. Some pan out, others do not. LeBron was one of them. He was a magnificent High School basketball star. His perfectly chiseled body seemed to have been constructed by Michaelangelo himself. His stunning athleticism brought competitors to their knees, and fans into shock. He became a mythical figure, playing among mere mortals, effortlessly gliding along while everyone else was trying to stay two steps behind. And this was all when he was 18. His games were shown on ESPN and dissected by experts. During his senior year, against the #1 team in the country, Oak Hill, he scored 31, added 13 rebounds, and had 6 assists. The game was on ESPN, announced by Dan Shulman, Dick Vitale, and Bill Walton. The post game interview was conducted by Jay Bilas. It was a spectacle and a circus at the same time. An outrageous display of exploitation, but we loved it nonetheless. Yet at that time he was only another High School prodigy. A possible superstar. Someone with a chance to be great. We would soon find out, when he entered the NBA draft in 2003, directly out if High School, and was subsequently drafted #1 by the Cleveland Cavaliers.

While it is important to understand his High School years, 2003 was the beginning of his real career, the one which would ultimately define him. He did it in High School, but lots of players had; the real test was in the NBA. And there were many doubters, many who said an 18 year old couldn't compete at a high level, with NBA players. LeBron did not disappoint. In his first NBA game he had 25 points, 9 assists, 6 rebounds, and 4 steals, while shooting 60% from the field. The Cavs would improve by 18 games that season, fueled solely by LeBron considering the next four high scorers were Zydrunas Ilgauskas, young Carlos Boozer, Jeff McInnis and Eric Williams. He would win Rookie of the Year, averaging 20.9 points, 5.9 assists, and 5.5 rebounds a game. He lived up to impossible expectations, and made us believe that we were witnessing greatness. He made us believe that we were witnessing the future, greatest of all time.

LeBron would continue to improve, culminating in the transcendent performance in the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals against the Detroit Pistons during Game 5, where he scored 48 points, including the final 25 for the Cavs. And he was only 23. This would be a turning point. Following this performance we saw greatness. We saw a player that was the best, and that at his best, was simply better than everyone else. He gave us a glimpse of what the greatest player of all time could possibly look like. In a twisted sense, he spoiled us. If he can be that good, why not be that good all the time? We love seeing greatness, and this young man embodied it. We wanted more. And he gave us more. In game 7 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Semi-finals, he scored 45 points, had 6 rebounds, and 5 assists, yet still lost to the eventual champion Boston Celtics. The Cavaliers roster was so atrocious though that there was sympathy for LeBron. The starting five that year for the Cavaliers, was LeBron James, old Ben Wallace, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Wally Sczerbiak, and Delonte West. Ouch. He was still well-liked by NBA fans and losing was simply a product of his team, rather than his performance. The next season LeBron would win the MVP, having arguably his best season to date, but would lose to the Orlando Magic in the Conference Finals, leading him into the season, and the game, that would alter his career forever.
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In the 2009-10 season Cleveland made a last ditch effort to help LeBron with a supporting cast. There were rumors flying that he would depart in free agency after the season and there was an effort to give him an inside presence, which arrived in the form of 37 year old Shaquille O'Neal. LeBron would win another MVP and lead the Cavs to the leagues best regular season record. The Cavaliers would face the Boston Celtics again in the Conference Semi-Finals; a series which altered every thought we ever had about LeBron James.

With the series tied 2-2, the Cavs were in a must-win.  They were at home and the stage was set for LeBron to put up another transcendent performance. With free agency looming, there was a chance that this could be his last game in a Cavaliers uniform at home. In a best of seven series, the team that wins game 5, wins the series over 80% of the time. Everything was on the line.

LeBron shot 3-14, scoring 15 points. He was terrible. He seemed timid and scared, and worse than that he seemed indifferent. He appeared to act as if it was just another game, a pick-up game with friends, not a game with such important implications, implications that could alter and ultimately did alter, his career. The criticism was enormous. For someone who had almost everything right his whole career, he was torn apart for one poorly played game. But many forget, he would have a triple double in game 6 scoring 27,  grabbing 19 boards, and dishing 10 assists, and they still lost.

That spoiled attitude came out after that series. The greatness we had witnessed against the Pistons in 2007 was long forgotten. We wanted it back, and we didn't get it and we turned on him. We turned on him because he couldn't live up, for the first time, to our impossible expectations. Want to know what he averaged in the series in 2010, the final one in his career for the Cavaliers? 26.8 points. 7 assists. 9 rebounds. Not bad, huh? But because he wasn't the greatest player ever, he was not just a failure, but a complete failure. He was nothing. And things went from bad to worse.

We all know what happened next. While we were mad at LeBron for his game 5 performance, that anger would soon turn to hate. His basketball play was always questioned but his character wasn't. The Decision changed that. We went from being disappointed to actively hating him. Everyone hated him. If you weren't a Heat fan, you hated him. If you were an asshole and proud of it, you hated him, because he made even assholes look good. It was repugnant, vile, and despicable; effectively tearing the hearts out from every Cavaliers fan, and then stomping on them afterwards for good measure. LeBron was their Jesus. He had come down to save the most tortured sports city in America. Cleveland would finally find salvation, and LeBron would bring it. Imagine, then if actual Jesus arrived as the Messiah. Imagine the excitement for Christians. It would validate everything they've believed in and provide them with what they've been longing for. Imagine then, after a few years, Jesus made an announcement, saying he had actually made a wrong turn, and that he was in the wrong place, and he would actually be going to another planet. How would every Christian feel? Well, that is the feeling every Cavalier feeling had on the fateful day he departed for Miami.

But it didn't end there. Then, he had a welcome party. He acted as if the Heat had already been crowned. He promised championships, not one, not two, not three...He seemed like a genuinely bad person, and it had nothing to do with basketball. It was a haunting display of arrogance, reserved for the most egotistical people. And we, understandably so, hated him for it. And we hated him because he went to Miami. We wanted him to be different and special. We wanted to shape him and form him into the mythical creature we saw in High School. We were selfish. We wanted to make him into what we wanted to see, and for that reason we hated that he went to Miami. We felt it was the easy way out, that the greatest ever doesn't join forces with two superstars in a city more known for Cocaine than Basketball. At least go to New York or Chicago. Anything but Miami.

His Miami tenure has been marred by times where it appeared he shied away in big moments, especially in the Mavericks series in 2011, criticism which is certainly fair. He seemed to never want the last shot, and instead would hide in the corner. We hated it. We hated it because in addition to not living up to expectations on the court, he was now disliked for his "decision(s)" off it. But, most of all we hated it, because we saw wasted talent. We saw someone, who could take over games, and chose not to. We knew he could be better, and we knew he could score 40 a game, but we felt as if he decided not to. And we were hurt.

And Game 6 validated our feelings. The lead up was enormous. Many said this was a defining moment of his career. If he didn't come through, his legacy would be affected forever. The pressure was enormous and it was on the biggest stage. The performance was transcendent. 45 points, including 30 in the first half. He shot 19/26 and was unstoppable. Absolutely, unequivocally unstoppable. From the first minute, his facial expression did not change. He was stone faced. He meant business. He was going to score and score at will. And from the first minute everyone knew it. The Heat knew it, the Celtics knew it, the Garden knew it, the announcers knew it, and LeBron knew it. It was beautiful. And even though I was rooting for the Celtics, there is a certain type of excitement a fan gets, that is equal to your team winning, when you watch greatness unfold. It is a different type of excitement, but the excitement level is the same.

It was the LeBron we knew and loved, and the LeBron we wanted him to be. And while I loved watching the performance, I hated him for it. I hated him because there was this feeling that consumed me, that made me feel as if he could do that every single game. Every single game, he could go out there, with that stone faced look and dominate. Maybe not to the degree we saw in Game 6, but something that exuded the level of helplessness every Celtics player, coach and fan felt watching that game. On any given night, LeBron, can simply destroy an opposing team. Why don't you do that every game, LeBron? Why!?!?! Nobody else on planet Earth can come close to what LeBron did last night. Nobody. And he seemed to do it at will. He reminded us of what could have been, and what can be in the future. And maybe, just maybe, like his Rookie season, or the 2007 Pistons series, or The Decision, this game, can alter his career again. Maybe he'll dominate Game 7, lead the Heat to a championship and be the player we wanted him to be. Or maybe he'll shy away again and the Celtics will get the better of LeBron one more time. And that's why we hate him. We hate him because we don't know what he'll do next. We hate him because he can't do what he did in Game 6 every single night. Even when he wins, he loses. So what should he do next?