What Female Athletes Wear...

It seems we can’t go very long as a culture without someone complaining about how someone else dresses, how long their hair is, or related foolishness.  Most of Curmie’s commentary (at least here) has related to the almost (but not quite) uniformly sexist school dress codes that have forbidden five-year-olds from wearing sun dresses with spaghetti straps, de facto declared clavicles and shoulders erogenous zones, and are so unevenly applied that allegations of selective enforcement border on the obvious.  (Curmie isn’t going to link to all those stories, Gentle Reader, but you’re free to look them up.)

In a variation on the theme, there’s been a fair amount of publicity in the last year or so surrounding what female athletes wear.  There’s Paralympian Olivia Breen, who was told by an official her shorts were too short (this does not seem to have affected her eligibility, however).  There was the brouhaha over the Norwegian beach handball team’s decision to (OMG!) wear shorts instead of bikini bottoms, in defiance of the profoundly sexist edict of the International Handball Federation.  There was the IOC’s inane decision to prevent black women swimmers from wearing “soul caps,” which, if anything, would have created more drag than traditional headgear.  (Curmie actually wrote about this one, here).  Indeed, the fact that the German women’s gymnastics team made headlines for wearing regulation-compliant unitards rather than “traditional” leotards at the Olympics tells us rather a lot.

So here are two more stories about how female athletes choose to dress and the silly responses of people in power.  Both stories involve change.org petitions, although Curmie learned of one of them through other means.

Team members posed in sports bras
for a photo to accompany the change.org petition

Let’s start with the girls track team at Albany (NY) high school.  This may come as a surprise to you, Gentle Reader, but sometimes it gets hot in May.  Not only that, but doing strenuous exercise in that heat makes you feel even hotter.  Thus, some of the girls on the team, noting that the boys team was allowed to practice shirtless, sought to practice in sports bras.  Seems reasonable, yes?  No, of course not, according to school officials.

According to the Albany Times-Union, on May 12, Athletic Director Ashley Chapple asked the girls thus attired to leave practice.  The girls complied, but Jordan Johnson, a sophomore sprinter on the team, posted a petition on change.org to rally support for their cause.  At the Times-Union’s press time on the 17th, the petition had gathered over 2500 online signatures; as Curmie writes this on the 22nd, the petition has over 10,000 signatories (including Curmie’s).  You should feel free to increase that number, of course.

The girls—13 members of a 15-member team, apparently—were subsequently banned from attending a lacrosse game later that day, and suspended the following day for “inappropriate and disrespectful behavior directed toward an administrator,” which, of course was “in no way related to wardrobe.”  Oh, no, of course not.  You may believe this if you choose, Gentle Reader, but Curmie will indeed lower his opinion of your sagacity. 

The Hegemonic Legion of Doom School officials held a meeting on Monday with the girls—parents were forbidden from attending, for reasons you’re no doubt sufficiently worldly to guess, Gentle Reader—and reiterated their position before re-instating 12 team members (what happened to the 13th is unclear).  Of course, the pseudo-educators in charge can’t even keep their story straight.  According to the girls, they were told by Principal Jodi Commerford that they were suspended for not wearing something over their sports bras because there were male coaches present.  What an insult to those coaches that they are presumed not be able to concentrate on their duties because some high school girls were wearing only a little more above the waist than those gents would see at any beach or swimming pool!  (OMG!  Midriffs!)

But if Superintendent Kaweeda G. Adams is to be believed, that’s not true.  So the problem was attending the lacrosse game (why shouldn’t they?)… or maybe something they said at the game?  School authorities say the girls were swearing; they say they weren’t.  The girls wouldn’t be the first to deny doing something they actually did; school officials wouldn’t be the first to lie about students in an attempt to extricate themselves from an embarrassing situation of their own making.  But since the power structure at the school has produced no legitimate rationale for denying the girls access to the lacrosse game to begin with (they aren’t charged with insubordination at their practice, only at the lacrosse game), there are only two possibilities: school officials are lying about the swearing, or they richly deserved it (or both, of course).

The real reason for the suspensions, of course, was that the girls had the audacity to go public with a change.org petition, thereby revealing the school administrators as authoritarian buffoons.

The suspension notices, by the way, state that each girl “poses a continuing danger to persons or property or an ongoing threat of disruption to the academic and athletic process.”  No, Ms. Adams, you’re going to have to look in the mirror to see someone who does that.

Latifa McBryde in action.

The other story pertains to Latifah McBryde.  She’s a Muslim wrestler who, according to the change.org petition, earned a place on the US team to compete at the Pan-Am Games in Mexico in July.  The problem is that for religious reasons, she “dresses in modest clothes and a hijab.”  Ah, but the stupid rules require a singlet.

Here’s the description of “A Wrestling Fan,” who started the change.org petition:

What do people in the wrestling room wear most often to practice? It’s not a singlet. What are high school wrestlers now allowed to wear in competition? Hint - also not a singlet. What does the Iranian Muslim women’s wrestling team wear? … Not a singlet! Latifah wears the same thing that the Iranian women’s wrestling team wears - knee-length pants strongly secured to spandex leggings, a long sleeve shirt also strongly secured at the waist and wrists, and a tightly secured headscarf sewed directly onto a rashguard.

Once again, as in the case of the “soul cap,” wearing what McBryde wants to wear is, if anything, a competitive disadvantage, so there ought to be no problem.  This, however, would be based on the apparently hasty assumption that the hierarchy of United World Wrestling can out-think a dead flounder.  USA Wrestling doesn’t seem to be much help, either.

If the NCAA—not known for either imparting justice or exhibiting intelligence—can ensure that a basketball team from Brigham Young University doesn’t have to compete on a Sunday in the NCAA tournament, then UWW and USAW can remove their phalangeal digits from their rectal cavities and find a way to allow McBryde to compete without violating her religious standards. 

In these two incidents, we see all-too-familiar patterns: blaming girls for being distracting (and concomitantly blaming boys/men for being so easily distracted), school officials believing their actions to be above reproach and their fecal matter odor-free, intransigent requirements imposed by sports authorities based on “the way it’s always been” without recognizing even the possibility of legitimate exceptions to the rule.

Curmie’s natural impulse is to look for guidance from Confucius, who has been referenced with approbation numerous times in this blog.  Alas, this time, Curmie is drawn instead to the wise words of a beloved former student: “People are stupid, y’all.”

Universities Behaving Badly (Again)

Universities behaving badly is a sport that never takes an off-season.  The economic straits engendered by COVID, the right’s ongoing desire to censor anything they don’t understand, and the left’s overblown reaction to the killing of George Floyd have all merely added fuel to a fire that didn’t need stoking.  Three stories, then, chronologically by the date of Curmie’s lead source for each story.

#1. St. Mary’s University of Minnesota is precisely the kind of institution that will take the greatest hit from the multiple factors affecting enrollment: politically-motivated cynicism regarding the legitimacy of higher education, unraveling support for student aid programs, declining population numbers for post-adolescents, perceived demand for outstanding brick-and-mortar facilities… and then add COVID into the mix.  St. Mary’s is a good school, but their “sticker price” is over $51,000 a year, more than twice as much as what an in-state student (and over 75% more than an out-of-state student) would pay at Winona State in the same city.  And whereas they have a good reputation, they’re not a Macalester or a Grinnell, whose graduates have instant credibility with prospective employers.  So it’s no surprise that they experienced a 13.5% drop in enrollment from fall 2019 to fall 2021.

Nor, alas, is it a surprise that their administration did two things in response: 1). panic and 2). use the enrollment decline as an excuse to abandon their mission in precisely the manner the administration had no doubt wanted to do for some time.  Curmie should probably mention here that he knows a little (not a lot) more about St. Mary’s than about most comparable universities: he has a friend who used to teach there, and the theatre programs at St. Mary’s and at Curmie’s employer at one time had similar exchange programs with the same British conservatory.  In some bizarre way, this makes it personal.

“Makes what personal?” you may well ask, Gentle Reader.  Well, this press release, announcing the discontinuation of some eleven academic majors, and a “new program portfolio…concentrated in business, technology, and the sciences.”  Even if Curmie thought the idea was a good one, pondering such jargon as “program portfolio” is enough to nauseate the hardiest constitution.  But, of course, turning a once-reputable university into an over-priced trade school isn’t at all a good idea; it is, in fact, remarkably stupid in every way possible, including the only one the St. Mary’s leadership seems to care about: financial viability.

Three years ago, Curmie savaged Goucher College for eliminating a host of majors and minors and pretending to remain a liberal arts institution.  Curmie directs you to that piece, Gentle Reader, where he makes many of the same arguments that apply to the St. Mary’s case: the schools are similar in many ways, and the betrayal of core values is (hat tip to Stevie Nicks) hauntingly familiar. 

But, frighteningly, the St. Mary’s case is even worse.  Both schools, of course, eliminated majors in the arts—hide-bound anti-intellectuals fear and loathe creativity even as they pretend to embrace it—and Goucher stupidly dropped math and physics, as well.  But if you’re going to call yourself a university, the list of majors that are absolutely, no-question-about-it, mandatory begins like this: 1). English.  2). History.  Guess which two majors are included on the St. Mary’s hit list.  Oh, and the erstwhile university seeks to impart its Catholic values by eliminating the theology major, as well.  Sigh.

Please allow Curmie to quote himself in a comment on his personal Facebook page about a different topic:

It’s the corporatization of higher education. Once upon a time, the goal was an informed citizenry, broadly knowledgeable and capable of critical thinking. But if you were one of the idiot politicians or CEOs who run the country, would you want that? No, you would want compliant drones, capable enough to do menial work but not to realize what a gaggle of wankers are at the top of the food chain... but you’d still want someone else to train them for you so you didn’t have to pay for that.

Sometimes Curmie hates it when he’s right.

#2. Old Dominion University is another well-respected institution that did something remarkably wrong-headed.  Curmie’s central source is a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, but that’s likely behind a paywall, so you, Gentle Reader, can check out the basics here.

Dr. Allyn Walker (they/them) is a trans scholar, a now-former Assistant Professor at ODU, who wrote a book titled A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity.  Anticipating backlash, Walker makes it clear in the introduction to the book that “This book does not promote sexual contact between adults and minors” (emphasis in original), and sent university leaders talking points with which to respond to whatever outrage might ensue.  The book, in fact, is in large part the result of Walker’s discovery that there are adults attracted to children but who avoid any sexual contact.  Wait… really?  There’s a difference between having an impulse and acting on it?  Who knew, right?

Here’s Walker, describing the parameters of the question: “There is no morality or immorality attached to attraction to anyone because no one can control who they’re attracted to at all. In other words, it’s not who we’re attracted to that’s either OK or not OK. It’s our behaviors and responding to that attraction that are either OK or not OK.”  This argument may not be unassailable, but to suggest it’s outside the realm of legitimate speculation is utterly ridiculous… which is why professional idiots like Tucker Carlson clambered over each other to jump on the Stupid Train first and hardest.  (It doesn’t appear that Walker was slandered in the narrow legal sense of the term, but the end result is all but indistinguishable.)

The complaint, of course, was with the term “minor-attracted”; they accused Walker of advocating for pedophiles.  In strictly technical linguistic terms, they’re actually right… well, sort of.  The term “pedophilia” actually refers to the attraction rather than anything more than that, but it has come to be synonymous with “child molester.”  Actually, of course, the Greek word φιλία (philía) suggests the kind of love between friends or equals… or that big city in Pennsylvania named for “brotherly love” would have a very creepy name, indeed.  But Curmie has strayed… back to the subject at hand.

In one of the first posts in this iteration of Curmie’s blogging life, some dozen years ago, Curmie wrote about the case of Gloria Y. Gadsden, who was suspended from her position at East Stroudsburg State University for two Facebook posts: “Had a good day today, didn't want to kill even one student.:-) Now Friday was a different story...” and “Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete [sic] hitman, it's been that kind of day.”  Anyone who has taught at any level for more than a fortnight empathizes with Dr. Gadsden; few of us have hired hitmen, though, however much the short-term temptation seemed appealing.

With the exception of the fact that Gadsden was joking and Walker was specifically and intentionally calling attention to the distinction between thought and action, the cases are pretty similar, up to and including university administrators once again demonstrating their uncanny ability to demonstrate hypocrisy, cowardice, and insufficient fiber in the diet simultaneously. 

In the Chronicle article linked above, reporter Emma Pettit wonders, “Did Old Dominion make a difficult trade-off between principle and public safety? Or did it cut and run when asked to protect a scholar with controversial ideas?”  Oh, that one is easy, Emma.  The latter.  A university worthy of the name would make a very public statement in support of academic freedom, even for a mere assistant professor.  (Side note for those not in academia: the overwhelming majority of assistant professors are untenured, and academic freedom doesn’t completely kick in until tenure.)  But, of course, the university, like most, is run by intellectual cowards and risk-averse morons.  Walker was promptly suspended and then “by mutual consent” (wherever is that eau de cow pasture coming from?), they resigned.

All of this happened last fall, but the Chronicle article brought it back into Curmie’s consciousness.  Curmie has no idea whether Dr. Walker’s book, or teaching, or anything else, is worthy of tenure or even of a contract extension.  But there is no question that Old Dominion checked all the boxes of how not to respond to a situation like this.  The good news, at least for Walker if not also for the profession, is that they’ve just signed on as a postdoctoral fellow at (get this!) the Johns Hopkins University’s Moore Center for Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse.  Curmie is pretty certain that hire will attract a little right-wing attention, too.

#3.  Illinois State University, feeling compelled to show that the left can be as stupid as the right, has introduced a new graduation requirement, to begin with incoming students in the fall of 2023, for a course in “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” 

Such courses already exist, of course, and already fulfill general education requirements. History/Sociology 111 (American Diversity: Contested Visions Of The U.S. Experience), and Latin America and Latino Studies/Sociology 109 (Introduction to Latina/O Studies) both fulfill the United States Traditions section of the GenEd requirements.  One suspects that virtually any course that checks the box for the Individuals and Civic Life section, while not focused exclusively on IDEAS issues (that’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in Society, for those of you who might be jargon-deprived), will certainly spend a lot of time there.  Anthropology/English/Language, Literature and Culture 143 (Unity and Diversity in Language), Family and Consumer Services 222 (Cultural Diversity in Dress), Management and Quantitative Methods 120 (Diversity, Inclusion and Equity in the Workplace) all fulfill the Social Sciences requirement.

Ah, but you see, a student could, hypothetically, avoid any of these courses by taking different coursework in the humanities and social sciences, the same way they can avoid Western Civilization, a single course in a foreign language, or a second semester of English Comp, and we can’t have that.  So now there’s going to be a new category, and students will have to take at least one “IDEAS-approved” course, although exactly which courses will be so designated has apparently yet to be determined.

Usually, Curmie raises a skeptical eyebrow at protestations from the right about “indoctrination,” but not this time.  Be it noted that Curmie absolutely supports the availability of IDEAS courses.  But requiring such coursework really is an example of “adopt this ideology or fail.”  How does Curmie know?  Because he’s seen how these programs operate.  Victimhood trumps excellence every time, or close enough to it not to matter.  This is not to say that such courses necessarily lack legitimacy or rigor, but whereas Curmie can teach Racine without being a monarchist, Brecht without being a communist, or Kālidāsa without being Hindu, a professor who teaches an IDEAS course without believing in a particular politico-philosophical perspective and indeed expecting agreement from students is roughly as common as AOC saying something nice about Donald Trump.  Don’t expect a lot of contemplation of the fact that goals of “inclusion” and “equity” are often in opposition, for example.

Of course, Illinois State is hardly alone in all this.  Looking for some source material for this essay, Curmie stumbled across the fact that a different ISU, Iowa State University, had already instituted such a policy, and indeed maintained it in defiance of an equally stupid state law.  Curmie has consciously avoided looking up Indiana State and Idaho State, lest there be a grand slam.

Curmie isn’t sure whether to be somewhat relieved or even more apprehensive that he’s seen it all (well, nearly all) before in 40+ years of college and university teaching.  The Big Bad Problem was once sexism/sexual assault, then homophobia, then transphobia, and now racism… with a couple of short-term stops at Islamophobia after the Iran hostage crisis and again after 9/11.  In all cases, the response to a real problem was an initially unrestrained over-reaction: one case of date rape on campus meant every incoming freshman had to endure a “training” session.  Guess what?  The tiny percentage of prospective perpetrators didn’t pay any attention, and the overwhelming majority soon tuned out, as well.  “Don’t do something that you already know to be stupid, immoral, and illegal” doesn’t really need to be repeated for two hours, even if there’s a badly-produced skit involved.

We, which is to say academia in general rather than an individual institution, endured all that and eventually settled on reasonably intelligent policies to protect the rights of actual victims (or prospective victims) without labeling everyone and their cousin a perpetrator.  The system isn’t perfect, but it’s better than it was at striking that precarious balance. 

This situation seems different, though: both more sinister and more permanent.  Here’s a case where Curmie hopes, down the road, to be proven wrong.  In the meantime: Curmie, although officially retired, taught a course a semester this academic year, but isn’t currently on the schedule to teach again in the fall.  As he looks around at the current state of higher education, especially at those in leadership positions, he increasingly believes this to be a consummation devoutly to be wished.

"Vicarious Liability" and the Walking Lawyer Joke

Two memories as background…

1. From 2006-18, Curmie led a contingent of university theatre students to Ireland every even-numbered summer.  2020 was looking to be the best trip of the bunch, but then COVID hit, and the wheels fell off that wagon.  And now Curmie is retired…

Anyway, we’d land in Dublin on a Monday morning, having taken the red-eye from somewhere on the east coast.  Monday evening, we’d do something that would hopefully keep us awake, so we’d wake up on Ireland time on Tuesday.  We’d let people sleep in, although we discouraged it.  But early Tuesday afternoon, we’d do the Historical Walking Tour of the city.  One of my favorite parts of that tour was that every guide took a different route, so I’d see something I hadn’t seen before even after doing the tour several times.

Lady Justice at Dublin Castle

One stop on every tour, though, was Dublin Castle, once the home of the British government in what was once a colonial outpost.  Above the main entrance was a statue of Lady Liberty.  But there were some idiosyncrasies, to say the least.  First, she was not blindfolded, so the “justice is blind” argument was already undercut.  The scales of justice she holds actually work, which turned out to be a bad thing, as rainfall would not infrequently throw them out of balance; eventually holes were drilled in them to prevent that happening.

But perhaps the most interesting thing about the statue is that it faced inward towards the castle, prompting the verse, “The Statue of Justice, mark well her station / her face to the castle and her arse to the nation!”  This post, as you will have surmised, Gentle Reader, is about legal injustice.

2. Curmie has received a dozen or more jury summonses over the years, but most have come during the academic year.  Curmie got a postponement, and wasn’t called again for another couple of years… also during the academic year.  (Lather, rinse, repeat.)  He’s actually made it to the courtroom exactly twice: once for a criminal case in Kansas (for which he actually served on the jury), and once for a civil case in Texas.

It’s this latter case that is on his mind at the moment, for reasons he hopes will become clear in a moment.  It was about 15 years ago.  At the voir dire, we learned something of the nature of the case.  I remember a few of the details.  A man, a local fat-cat auto dealer, died in the hospital.  The family sued… a doctor—a radiologist, perhaps?—who wasn’t even in the room.   (He had deeper pockets or better insurance or whatever, and therefore made a more attractive target for the money-grubbing family.)

The other thing I remember is that I wasn’t the only prospective juror dismissed by the plaintiffs’ attorney: literally everyone who had even a college degree met the same fate.  I remember thinking that was rather telling with respect to the plaintiffs’ attorney’s confidence that he could convince an educated and skeptical jury that he was anything but a shyster and his clients anything but entitled and acquisitive asshats.  I never found out how the case turned out, although the defense attorney seemed pretty competent, and I feel rather confident that he could convince even a relatively uneducated jury of the simple fact that the plaintiffs had literally no case.

So now we move on to more recent events.  In March of 2020, a man took his manual transmission Jeep to the local dealership in Rochester Hills, MI, for an oil change.  He gave the keys to a young mechanic and went to wait in the lobby. 

The (ahem) mechanic, who has no driver’s license and didn’t know how to drive a stick-shift, starts the car without actually getting inside.  The car lurches forward, striking and killing another employee, Jeffrey Hawkins.  Now, over two years later, Hawkins’s family is suing.  It certainly appears that they have grounds to do so.

The question is: whom do they sue?  The kid, who certainly had to know he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, and may well have lied about having a license to get the job?  Nope.  The dealership owner, who obviously didn’t do anything approaching due diligence in hiring the kid, or in letting him drive, and who ought to be responsible for any lapses in professionalism on his watch?  Nope.  The Jeep owner, of course.  Try to keep up, Gentle Reader.

Apparently, as in the case for which Curmie wasn’t on the jury, the family felt aggrieved (at least in this case they had reason to) and, dammit, they were going to sue somebody.  So they hired an ambulance chaser named David Femminineo. 

The family can seek workman’s comp from the dealership, but that appears to be it. Michigan law prevents an employee from suing his boss for injuries suffered as a result of the boss’s negligence.  If I’m reading this correctly, had Hawkins been a customer, the family could have sued the dealership, but because he was an employee, they can’t.  Well, that’s a jaw-droppingly stupid law, but bosses have more money than employees do to contribute to political campaigns, so Curmie isn’t surprised. 

And apparently the incompetent kid can’t be sued, either, although Curmie struggles to understand the rationale here.  There’s an argument that he can’t be tried for a criminal offense, but even that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, if all those references in TV lawyer shows to “criminally negligent homicide” or some such transgression can be believed.  Why he can’t be sued (other than the fact that he’s no doubt uninsured and has a net worth of about a buck and a quarter) remains unclear to Curmie.

But… but… our husband/father died, and WE WANNA SUE SOMEBODY, DAMMIT!

Michigan law includes something called vicarious liability, under which standard the owner of a vehicle is responsible if he’s given his permission for someone else to drive it.  This applies, apparently, not just to allowing a friend to borrow the car, but to restaurant or hotel valets, and yes, to mechanics.  It’s a stupid law in that it makes no distinction between personal and professional use. 

It’s problematic, but at least comprehensible, that if I loan my car to a friend, I’m responsible for their actions.  But when someone is operating my vehicle in a professional capacity—as a mechanic or a valet—it’s the employer who should take on that responsibility.  Interesting that both of these questionable-at-best laws favor the boss, who in a just universe would be responsible in both cases.  Funny how that works.

But stupid laws are still laws.  And so the shyster Femminineo appeases the family by suing the owner, for… get this… $15 million dollars, although he knows damned well that the owner did nothing wrong, or even negligent.  Asked why he’s doing that, Femminineo responded, “I have to do that.”  No, actually you don’t, you obnoxious little asshole.

There remains a possibility that the ultimate result will be fine.  The owner has sued the dealership for indemnity, meaning that if there’s a finding against the owner, the dealership would be forced to pay the settlement.  That would be taking the long way around, but at least it would lead to a reasonable result.  But two separate lawsuits would have to go in a particular direction for that to happen.

Bottom line: There are at least two remarkably stupid laws at play here, which the Michigan legislature needs to fix in a damned hurry (but probably won’t).  The owner is completely innocent.  The family is rightfully upset but unethical in pursuing a case against the owner.  And David Femminineo is a walking lawyer joke.

Able-Bodied Actors Can't Play Richard III?

Given Curmie’s profession, it’s not surprising that he’s written a fair amount about casting decisions—when it is imperative that an actor be of a certain “look” (age, gender, race, etc.) and when it is not.

Curmie, in his own career, has cast many actors who don’t fit the character’s profile, or at least the description of the actor who first played the role… and that’s not even counting the plays by Euripides and Shakespeare, in which Clytemnestra, Rosalind, and Lady Macbeth would all have been originally played by men.  Sometimes, of course, you can’t do a play without having the actors fit a particular demographic: I wouldn’t have attempted “Master Harold”… and the boys or Trojan Barbie without being confident going into auditions that there were enough sufficiently talented and reliable black actors to do the play appropriately.

Sometimes, of course, “non-traditional casting” is done completely as a gimmick—casting a white actor as Martin Luther King, Jr. or a black woman as Anne Boleyn.  One of Curmie’s former students was just cast in an all-female version of Henry V.  Who knows… it might work, although Curmie raises an eyebrow of skepticism.

But much of what we’re seeing lately manifests as contempt for the acting profession: you can’t possibly play such-and-such a role without actually being of the same heritage.  One of the earlier manifestations of this phenomenon was when Chicago’s Porchlight Theatre cast an Italian-American (whom the company thought was Latino when they cast him) as the Dominican-born lead in their production of In the Heights a few years ago.  He looked the part, acted the part, sang and danced the part, but he wasn’t Latino.  There was much howling and gnashing of teeth.  The production and the company made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Even a reasonably close look at what’s happening of late reveals a sort of affirmative action program: it’s fine for a Jewish actor to play a Christian, a black actor to play a traditionally white character, a gay actor to play a straight role… but, recently, at least, reversing that pattern is guaranteed to produce ululation and rending of garments.  

The real Richard III
was pretty normal-looking

In the latest variation on the theme, the Times of London reports that “The days of able-bodied actors playing Richard III are over just as they are for white ones playing Othello, the outgoing head of the Royal Shakespeare Company has suggested.”  The only good news in this sentence is the word “outgoing.”

Apart from the irony if not hypocrisy—Gregory Doran, the RSC head in question, is the widower of Sir Anthony Sher, an able-bodied actor whose most famous role was Richard III—there are at least two considerations at play here.  One is the old “it’s called acting” response.  

Last night, Curmie and Beloved Spouse watched the Roman Polanski film “Venus in Fur.”  (Yes, I know, Polanski is a creep.  If you want to boycott his films, Gentle Reader, go right ahead.  But he’s also a great director, and Curmie, at least in this case, chooses not to deprive himself of art simply because of antipathy for the artist.)  The female character in the film’s source (the David Ives play) and the source’s source (Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s novel) is 24.  That description of her is cut from the film because the actress, Emmanuelle Seigner, was just short of twice that age. 

What’s interesting, though, is that… wait for it: she’s good at her job.  With the exception of a couple of brief close-up moments when Seigner’s real age is suggested (she could still have passed for 30), Curmie would have bought that she was indeed 24.  An actor’s ability to make the spectator believe in the character’s reality is far more important than any demographic overlap between the character and the actor.

Second, the question must arise: just how similar must the actor be to the description of the character.  We actually learn more about Richard’s disabilities in Henry VI, Part 3 than we do in Richard III.  His arm is “[shrunk] like a withered stump”; he has an “envious mountain on [his] back; his legs are “of unequal size.”  In Richard III, we learn no specifics, only that he is “not shaped for sportive tricks” (Curmie, never having been confused with Adonis, has this line on a t-shirt he must dig out again soon… hoping it still fits), that he is “rudely stamped,” etc.

The real-life Richard was far less impaired, suffering from a relatively mild case of scoliosis.  The rest was simply Shakespeare sucking up to the current monarch, whose throne resulted from her grandfather defeating Richard at Bosworth Field, by conflating Richard’s allegedly deformed ethics with similar warpage of his body.

Curmie knows better than to believe that characters necessarily stay the same from play to play.  He once played Creon in Oedipus the King, and had more than one discussion (perhaps even argument) with the director, who wanted me to play the authoritarian and borderline evil character from Antigone instead of the loyal and unjustly distrusted brother-in-law in the play we were actually performing.  Still, to the extent that the physical portrayal of Richard has become codified and perhaps calcified over time, it’s worth looking at both those descriptions and what the character is required to do.

We’re leaving aside here such nagging questions as whether you need to be a murderous English nobleman (or from the fifteenth century) to play the role.  What must the character be able to do, and not do?  If we take our cues only from Richard III, per se, he just needs to have something less than the perfect physique, meaning that you don’t have to have an actual disability to play the role, even in the Wokest of scenaria.  But if we look to the earlier play for guidance, then he’s got a hunchback, a withered arm, and mismatched legs.  

If we’re insisting that the actor be other than able-bodied, we must logically insist that he meet all three of these requirements.  Also, of course, he must be capable of actually going into battle at the end of the play: he needs to be able to ride, to wield a sword with presumably his good arm, and so on.  So: in addition to the famous hunched back, the actor must have exactly one good arm, must be able to walk and ride, must have one leg significantly longer or thicker than the other… doesn’t that narrow the field a bit much?

Of course, it often happens is that the members of the fill-in-the-blank “community” are satisfied when one of their own gets cast.  A couple of years ago, Curmie directed an evening of one-act plays by Asian authors.  We made sure that we weren’t indulging in cultural appropriation: for example, one of the playwrights was famous for writing plays in which there was no family connection between characters, so that when the play was presented outside his native China, any actor of any race could play any role.  Needless to say, Curmie was publicly criticized by a student for not casting more students of color, such as herself, of course.  She’s Latina.  (Side note: two students of color were indeed cast.)

“So… let’s see… hunchback, withered arm, legs that don’t match.  Well, Bill over there lost an eye.  He’s disabled, so he’s fine.  Just don’t cast anyone able-bodied.”

All of this leads to another point, or perhaps just an extension of this one: maybe, maybe, if you’re the RSC you have a reasonable supply of accomplished actors with (how to say this?) appropriate disabilities.  But the rest of us don’t.  Quiara Alegría Hudes, co-author of In the Heights, addressed this issue with respect to that Porchlight production mentioned above.  Even while expressing disappointment in that company for their casting decision, she grounded her commentary in the fact that there are certainly good Latino actors in Chicago. 

But, she says, “I do not hold these views as strongly with educational and non-professional productions. I’m happy for schools and communities who do not have these actors on hand to use In the Heights as an educational experience for participants of all stripes.”  That’s a step.  Of course, she also argues that directors of color should be hired to do “Shakespeare and Molière and Ibsen and Cruz. Not just Cruz.”  But, one suspects, she’d argue that a director named O’Reilly or Kleinschmidt or Lundqvist should not be directing Cruz.  (Sigh.)

It may also be worth mentioning that when Curmie directed the production of “Master Harold”… and the boys mentioned above, he waited to go forward with the choice of play until at least three good black male actors were available to play the two black servant characters, Sam and Willy: you weren’t going to get cast just because you were the right race and gender. 

There are, needless to say, a lot more black actors than actors with the appropriate combination of disabilities to play Richard III “authentically.”  But Curmie would argue that if you’re going to insist that only disabled actors are eligible for casting, there need to be enough of them to not cast some.

But the stupidity of Doran’s position is more problematic than just being terminally woke.  Rather, it draws attention to itself rather than to an actual issue, one which Doran glosses over while ostensibly attempting to make: the fact that there are too few opportunities for disabled actors.  Even characters with disabilities are overwhelmingly played by able-bodied actors.  A quota system isn’t the answer, and making up bogus or misleading statistics (like that 20% of the population is disabled) is more of a problem than a solution.

Sometimes, there’s a real attempt at authenticity: for example, a number of productions, both professional and amateur, of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time have sought out actors on the autism spectrum to play the young central character.  And there are companies which concentrate specifically on providing opportunities for theatre artists with disabilities.  (One of Curmie’s favorite former students worked for such a company for several years.)

But it’s in the everyday roles that progress needs to be made.  Why can’t the boss or the best friend or the mother-in-law or… wait for it… the lead be played by someone on the spectrum or in a wheelchair or with a guide dog?  Sure, some roles will require able-bodied actors, the same way they require an actor of a particular race or gender or age.  But thousands of roles do not.  A good actor is a good actor: let’s make certain the roles go to those who deserve them.

It's easy to understand the frustration of disabled actors who aren’t even given the opportunity to compete for a number of roles they could play, and who simultaneously  aren’t granted priority for characters most like themselves.  Still, preventing actors—able-bodied or otherwise—from playing roles which are in their range is problematic.

It’s a truism of the theatre that the actor’s ability to cry is secondary to his ability to make the audience do so.  Similarly, the actor who can make us believe he suffers as the character does is always preferable to the one who merely does so suffer.  And exclusion is never the path to inclusion.

The Abortion Debate, Respect, and Michelle of the Resistance

Kirsten Cooke as Michelle of the Resistance

Of late, Curmie and Beloved Spouse have watched a couple of episodes a week of the old (1982-92) British sitcom “‘Allo ‘Allo!”  Curmie generally doesn’t think stupid equates to funny, but in this case he’ll make an exception.

The show is set in France during World War II.  One recurring character is Michelle of the Resistance.  If imdb.com can be trusted, she’s in 82 of the 85 episodes; whereas he can’t be sure of this, Curmie would bet that she utters her catch-phrase, complete with music-hall French accent, in all 82 of her appearances: “Listen very carefully.  I shall say this only once.”

And that, Gentle Reader, is how Curmie begins this essay on abortion.  I shall say this only once, albeit, unlike Michelle, I’ll say it loudly: SOMEONE WHO DISAGREES WITH YOU ABOUT ABORTION IS NOT INHERENTLY EVIL.  If, to use the euphemistic terms applied by both sides, you’re pro-life, your neighbor who’s pro-choice is not a baby killer.  If you’re pro-choice, your pro-life neighbor is not a fascistic misogynist. 

Curmie need hardly tell you, Gentle Reader, that someone leaked a copy of a draft of a SCOTUS decision, drafted by Justice Alito.  This document could be word-for-word what the actual ruling will be when it’s officially announced, or there could be significant changes—significant enough, indeed, to totally flip what is now regarded as “the script.”  Curmie will read the final document in its entirety (which is more than most commentators on either side of the issue will do), but reads drafts only if at least one of two conditions are met: the draft document is in Curmie’s area of professional expertise, and/or he’s getting paid, directly or indirectly, to read it.  The Alito draft meets neither of these criteria.

If, however, that leaked draft remains essentially unchanged, it would overturn the half-century-old Roe v. Wade decision and, presumably, a host of other cases decided on the basis of that precedent.  Regardless of what the final document will say, the leak has precipitated a flurry of memes, rants, and other variations on the theme of demagoguery from both sides, with epithets flying faster than English arrows in a movie version of Henry V (Olivier or Branagh, take your pick). 

What’s notable about these outbursts is that they are uniformly without the slightest hint of nuance.  Curmie does not suggest here that decisions about abortions are ultimately anything but disjunctive—you can’t “sort of” have an abortion—but there’s no suggestion of “I see your point, but…” emanating from literally anyone.  Even those who purport to respect all perspectives lapse pretty quickly into variations on the themes of accusations of infanticide or serial misogyny. 

Curmie’s own view aligns reasonably well with prevailing national sentiment on this issue, but it doesn’t matter, as this is a deeply personal issue, affected by one’s own life history as well as world view.  Your point of view is likely to be different if your mother considered abortion but ultimately chose to give birth to you than if you literally would have died had you not been able to abort a pregnancy gone wrong.  Either way, you’re alive because abortion was or was not considered the least bad option in a difficult situation.

There are, to be sure, a couple of side issues at play here—what if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest? how do we handle an ectopic pregnancy? are we considering the life of the mother, and, if so, what level of threat to her life is sufficient to perform an abortion at what point in the pregnancy?, etc.  Ultimately, however, there is really only one issue: at what point can we say we’re dealing with a human “baby” rather than simply a collection of cells?

There would seem to be two reasonable endpoints: at fertilization and at birth.  No one seriously believes in the literality of the “masturbation is murder” signs that have turned up at rallies in the past fortnight.  Monty Python’s “Every Sperm Is Sacred” song is satire, not advocacy, and the shtick is funny precisely because it’s so absurd.  Nor does any sane person believe that babies who have been—you know—born are anything less than human beings.  If anyone positions themselves outside the fertilization/birth range, Curmie encourages you to run, do not walk, away from this person.

There are major religions which align themselves at both poles.  Catholic policy, which purports to be unchanging, erm… isn’t.  Southern Baptists, too, now condemn what they accepted without demur in the wake of the Roe decision.  Are these changes of direction cynical?  Or is Curmie cynical to point them out?  Yes, to at least one of those questions.

In all, Curmie counts no fewer than seven positions which have been suggested as the beginning of human life. 

Stop #1 is fertilization.  This is a logical position in that it is the first moment after which birth can (not to say will) occur without any volitional action.  A number of birth control strategies—condoms, spermicide, contraceptive implants, etc.—seek, therefore, to prevent fertilization.  When Curmie was a lad, the Catholic Church forbade even these approaches, advocating instead for the “rhythm method,” in which couples predicted, based on menstrual cycle, the days on which the woman was most likely to conceive, and avoided sex on those days.  Needless to say, this was not a foolproof process.  As the late, great, George Carlin put it, there’s a word for couples who use the rhythm method: parents. 

Stop #2 on our journey is implantation.  This occurs roughly a week after fertilization.  The distinction is important, as a fertilized egg must penetrate into the uterus for the birth process to continue.  If and when this process occurs, the body releases hormones, begins to build up the placenta, etc.  One could legitimately argue that pregnancy actually begins here, when the body prepares for the process, rather than at fertilization, which is simply the conjoining of two cells.  A number of birth control methods—the “morning after pill,” for instance—seek to prevent implantation, as fertilization may have already occurred. 

And so we move on to Stop #3: “Fetal heartbeat,” which generally happens at about six or seven weeks. (It’s important to note here that this and subsequent dates of pregnancy refer not to the period since fertilization, but since the last menstrual period; this is how such dating can be as exact as it is.)  “Fetal heartbeat” may be the least reasonable of our stops along the path to birth, more for its name than anything else.  First off, it’s still an embryo (see below), not yet a fetus.  Secondly, it’s pretty damned difficult to have a heartbeat without a heart to be beating.  (There’s a reason for Curmie’s use of scare quotes for the term.)  The opening and closing of valves that constitute a heartbeat per se can’t happen because those valves don’t yet exist.  Rather, a cluster of cells generates electrical activity; what is heard on an ultrasound machine is generated by the machine itself.

“Fetal heartbeat” legislation is thus literally nothing more than an emotion-based attempt by anti-abortion politicians to move the cut-off point for abortion from the standards established by Roe to a much earlier moment, a point at time in which a woman may not even knows she’s pregnant in time to get a legal procedure.  And let’s face it, “fetal heartbeat” sure does sound a lot more baby-like than “embryonic pulses.” Being a few days late for a period can happen for a wide variety of reasons; pregnancy is on the list, but nowhere near the only possibility.  

Stop #4.  Ensoulment.  First off, what a lovely term!  This refers to the moment when, according to whatever religious or philosophical position one follows, the soul enters the body.  Of course, since we’re dealing with a spiritual rather than medical/anatomical phenomenon, different cultures place ensoulment at different points in the process—as early as 40 days after conception (perhaps eight weeks or so after the last period) or as late as quickening, the moment the mother feels the fetus move, which may not happen until as late as 21 weeks.  Note: according to some religious traditions, a human being doesn’t have a soul, it is a soul.  Curmie just thought he’d throw that in there, because the topic isn’t complicated enough, otherwise. 😉

Ensoulment is a fascinating concept, since if a fetus isn’t really human until that moment, and we can’t decide when that happens, then we’re really casting about, looking for answers.  Of course, this leads to where it always leads: the recognition that we have a natural tendency to translate and interpret to fit our own pre-conceived notions. 

Curmie is not a scholar of Ancient Hebrew or Aramaic, and suspects that you aren’t, either, Gentle Reader.  That means we’re not really in a position to decide if Genesis 2:7 says that human life begins at first breath.  And even if you do happen to be such a scholar, you were taught what words mean and what grammatical structures suggest by someone who may or may not have had an agenda in placing a particular spin on a passage… and who was taught by someone else who may or may not… you get the idea.

More to the point, whatever this or that religion may currently say, or may once have said, about ensoulment, it’s impossible to base a secular policy decision on such a basis.  We reject this rationale as emphatically as we do “fetal heartbeat,” albeit for different reasons.

Stop #5.  Fetus.  This occurs at roughly ten weeks, and marks the transition from “embryo” to “fetus.”  That is, all the major organs, though immature, have been formed.  This strikes Curmie as a far more reasonable signpost than the bogus “fetal heartbeat.”  Whatever your views on the morality and ethics of abortion, it seems reasonable to grant that something significant occurs at this point in a pregnancy.

Stop #6.  Viability.  This represents the point at which there is a reasonable expectation that the fetus could survive outside the womb, with or without medical intervention,  This is, roughly speaking, the status quo established by Roe, albeit a number of states have drastically lowered the threshold to well under the most optimistic interpretation of viability.  But, like the other moments already listed, this is impossible to pinpoint exactly.  And that word “reasonable” complicates things, too.  What, after all, is “reasonable”? 

Curmie knows and loves someone, now well into adulthood, whose birth was extremely premature: to the point that the infant weighed less than three pounds a month later.  The chances of surviving the first night were placed at 1 in 1000, of ever walking, at far longer than that.  As an adolescent, this youngster was the weakest member of the high school cross country team.  Let me say that again: the weakest member of the cross country team.

Of course, we can reasonably assume that the medical community’s ability to care for such patients is at least as good as it was a generation ago.  The accepted standard for viability seems to be at 22 weeks, with the smallest baby to survive even for a few weeks having been born at 18 weeks.  So, Gentle Reader, if viability is your criterion, that’s your range; Curmie, for personal as well as ethical reasons, urges you to err on the side of early rather than late.

Stop #7: Birth. Some religions, including, for example, some forms of Judaism, insist that birth per se is the beginning of human life.  Still, adopting such a standard for abortion is not only ethically problematic at best, it’s politically impossible except in cases where either the mother’s life is seriously imperiled or the fetus has literally no chance of survival.  Even these exceptions, along with exceptions for rape or incest, are anathema to some conservative politicians. 

There are those who argue, as Pete Buttigieg does, that the overwhelming majority of third trimester abortions are for pregnancies that were intended to go to term.  The argument goes that anyone seeking an abortion for frivolous reasons would have already had the procedure.  Therefore, there had to be something that went wrong—with the mother or the fetus—to change direction.  That’s a compelling argument.  Of course, absolutists would counter that “overwhelming majority” is insufficient, and that even if 99% of late-term abortions are for good reason, that leaves 1% that constitute, in their minds, sanctioning murder.

The problem gets even more complex when we start talking about the health of the mother.  Defining that term is akin to grabbing a handful of mercury.  Does mental health count?  Does the threat need to be chronic or acute?  Both?  There are times that Curmie is quite fine with letting other people decide the details; this is certainly one of them.

Closing thoughts #1:  Curmie is not an obstetrician, a lawyer, or a religious leader.  He may be misinterpreting what’s he’s read.  If so, he asks forgiveness and correction. 

Closing thoughts #2: The Democratic Party, as usual, fucked up royally in their response to the leaked document.  They could have put forward a bill in Congress that would have guaranteed abortion rights a significant majority of Americans agree upon, eliminating “fetal heartbeat” bills, protecting victims of rape or incest, etc.  This would have led to one of two results: either those rights, at least, would be guaranteed or the Republicans would have had to go on record to fail to protect even rape victims seeking a first-term abortion.  That wouldn’t play well with the electorate at large.

Instead, the Dems put forth a bill, laden with Woke platitudes and jargon, which actually would have extended abortion rights beyond what Roe ensured.  They can blame Joe Manchin all they want, but it was the party leadership that snatched political defeat from the very jaws of victory.  It’s also bad form (to say the least!) for both Democratic politicians and, worse, left-leaning news media, to blame the defeat on a Republican filibuster which, of course, never happened.  Of course, it’s also a bit of a stretch to call the bill’s defeat “bipartisan,” as the right-leaning press would have us believe.

Closing thoughts #3.  You are, of course, free to choose whichever you choose of these steps along the process of creating a human life as your personal definition.  Curmie would argue, however, that it is impossible to make good public policy (a different thing) based on religion-specific ideologies (#4) or pseudo-science (#3). And option #1 does seem misogynistic, as “Plan B” would seem to be a means by which to protect victims from being further punished while not, in fact, interfering with a pregnancy (at least in one definition of that term). 

But that still leaves options 2, 5, 6, and (in narrowly defined cases) 7 as viable possibilities.  If that’s where you are, Gentle Reader, then Curmie respects your opinion.  He may disagree, but that’s another matter.  Diogenes famously went in search of an honest man.  In terms of policy-makers in whatever branch of government and at whatever level, Curmie would settle for a grown-up.

The Great Story of Rich Strike's Win... Which ESPN Can't Be Bothered to Cover

Let us take as given that there are some serious problems with horseracing: unscrupulous owners and trainers, doping, horses bred for speed at the expense of overall health, all that.  And it is certainly a sport for rich people.  All those great stories about a group of friends kicking in a few thousand bucks (pounds, Euro, etc.) apiece to buy a racehorse that subsequently wins The Big Race against colts that sold at auction for millions—these are heart-warming tales, but they capture our collective imagination precisely because they’re so rare.

Of course, it would be difficult to name a sport that isn’t dominated by the obscenely rich.  With the occasional exception of a team like the publicly-owned Green Bay Packers, virtually all sports teams are owned by individuals whose net worth is three or four zeroes more than yours or mine. 

And, in this country, one of the premiere sporting events of the year is the Kentucky Derby.  Few people care about gymnastics, swimming, or figure skating on an ongoing basis, but Olympics competitions in those sports attract a lot of viewers.  Similarly, the nation’s indifference to horseracing in general disappears, briefly, on the first Saturday in May.  Nearly 150,000 fans showed up at Churchill Downs in Louisville; television viewership numbers haven’t been released as of this writing, but predictions were in the range of 15 million.  That’s a lot of folks.  And, all told, a record $168.8 million was bet on this race alone.

Side note: the Kentucky Derby is also special for completely other reasons to Curmie and Beloved Spouse.  Watching the 1981 Derby from my apartment on the other side of Kentucky was sort of our first date.  We “bet” on Tap Shoes.  He… uh… did not prosper.  On the other hand, a year later, on the second Saturday in May, we were married.

This year, there were lots of potential stories.  How would the horses initially trained by the suspended Bob Baffert fare?  Would this be the year a Japanese horse won the roses?  Would jockey John Velasquez win his fourth Derby?  Or would Mike Smith, at 56, become the oldest ever to win, aboard a horse who’d only run in two previous races (winning them both, including the Santa Anita Derby)?  Or would Steve Asmussen, the winningest trainer in the country, finally get a Derby win after 23 losses?  And do I go with the morning line favorite or the post-time favorite?

The answers to the above: not very well, no, no, no, no, and neither.

Sonny Leon guides Rich Strike to victory

There are Disney movies that don’t strain credulity as much as what actually occurred.  The aptly-named Rich Strike did indeed strike it rich yesterday.  This was a horse that didn’t qualify for the Derby on points, and was added to the field at literally the last minute Friday morning when legendary trainer D. Wayne Lucas pulled Ethereal Road, allowing Rich Strike to become the twentieth and last entry into the field.  A former claimer, Rich Strike was sold by the famous Calumet farms for $30,000.  He just won $1.86 million.  Someone at Calumet is muttering a big “Oops” about now.

The horse was listed, probably optimistically, at 80:1.  The odds were even that low because there wasn’t a really clear “super-horse” favorite.  But a late entry without speed racing from the far outside post?  A trainer (Eric Reed) and jockey (Sonny Leon) who had precisely one Grade 1 win and no Kentucky Derby experience between them?  Yeah, 80:1 was probably wishful thinking.

At the half-mile pole, Rich Strike was well to the back of the pack, in 18th place, perhaps 10 lengths off the lead.  Even coming into the home stretch, he was in 13th place, surrounded by other horses, with no apparent chance of breaking through, no matter how fast he might have been capable of running.  Except that he did.  Leon, who had never won a Grade 1 race, gave as masterful a ride as Curmie has ever seen (seriously: check this out)—finding the gaps and shooting his horse through them.  That young man’s phone IS. GOING. TO. BLOW. UP.

By the time they’re into the final furlong, Rich Strike is up to fifth and on the rail.  Leon guides him outside to pass a fading horse, then straightens him out and charges towards the wire.  The announcer continues to talk about the battle between morning line favorite Zandon and post-time favorite Epicenter: “Coming down to the wire, Epicenter and Zandon, these two, stride for stride!”  He doesn’t even mention Rich Strike until he’s already caught the favorites at the 1/16 pole.  Needless to say, that merited an excited “oh, my goodness!”. And it was a clear win—no photo finishes, noses, or necks.  Officially, it was ¾ of a length.  Curmie would have said a full length, but he’s not going to quibble.

On the way to the winner’s circle, one of Rich Strike’s connections is screaming “we shocked the world.”  Indeed, you did, sir.

This has to be one of the most memorable horseraces in history.  Was there luck involved?  Boatloads.  The scratch of Ethereal Road just soon enough to allow another entrant into the field.  And taking nothing away from Leon’s utterly brilliant ride, sometimes the holes just never appear the way they did yesterday.  But this plucky colt, his modest Kentucky-based trainer, and a jockey who rode the race of his life—they deserved the win, however much Steve Asmussen wants to pout. Train your horse better next time, Stevie.

This story has got everything: luck, huge underdogs across the board, an exciting come-from-behind finish… you name it.  So what sports reporter wouldn’t be all over this?  The answer to that question is apparently “anyone who works for ESPN.”    

Seriously.  It’s over 18 hours after the conclusion of the race, and what’s on ESPN’s webpage?  Gasping coverage of game threes of NBA conference semifinals, a couple of reports on soccer leagues in foreign countries, NCAA women’s softball scores, even a story on not-even-close-to-being-a-sport WWE.  The biggest horseracing story, at least in this country, in a decade or more: not a freaking word.

Now, Curmie could understand if ESPN decided that horseracing isn’t really a sport (WWE is?), or if the downside of the sport makes it ethically unpalatable (unlike, for example, the clear linkage of football to chronic traumatic encephalopathy).  But pre-race coverage—which horse to bet on, mostly—is still up.

ESPN has long been known for insufferable announcers.  As a college basketball fan, Curmie will definitely turn off the sound if not the game itself if Dick Vitale or Bill Walton are within hailing distance of a microphone.  Even Jay Bilas—who, unlike the two just mentioned, actually analyzes the proceedings instead of spouting idiocies and catch phrases they think are cute—allows himself to be an accomplice in ESPN’s belief that people tune in to see and hear “their people” instead of, you know, the game.  Curmie can but hope it’s against his will.

And if the front-line announcers are this bad, imagine what the guys covering the game between the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople and Pigeon Puke Ag and Tech are like.  But this is all, of course, a matter of personal opinion.  Somewhere, one supposes, there’s someone who doesn’t work for ESPN who thinks Bill Walton adds to fans’ enjoyment.

Less forgivable was last fall’s airing on their main channel of what purported to be a high school football game between IMG Academy (a “school” devoted almost exclusively to athletics) and “Bishop Sycamore” (a school that doesn’t even exist).  Curmie wrote about this incident last September, and the situation kept getting weirder and more sinister after that.  ESPN was unquestionably complicit, but one could argue that they were simply too fucking lazy to exercise even cursory oversight of their product.  And what they did wasn’t criminal, right?  I mean, yes, they abetted criminality, but they were too incompetent to know any better, so that’s OK, then.

But now we pass from sloth and logistical ineptitude into the range of YOU CAN’T CLAIM TO COVER SPORTS IN THE US IF YOU DON’T HAVE AT LEAST 500 WORDS UP WITHIN A HALF AN HOUR territory.  There is literally no excuse for an omission this egregious.  But just as ESPN thinks they’re more important than the game, they also think it isn’t really worth covering if they weren’t the ones to do the live coverage.  They are as arrogant as they are incompetent, and that’s saying rather a lot.

Correction: It appears that ESPN did indeed post a story.  It didn’t appear on their homepage, and it was not the featured story even on the horse racing page, which you have to search for (there is, however, a direct link to the NBA’s G-League, even though a). they're a minor league, and b), their season has been over for weeks): ESPN pundits’ predictions about the race occupied the featured position until days after the race was over.  But there was a story; the link was hard to find (Curmie specifically looked, twice), but it appears it was there.  With this minor correction, Curmie’s indignation stands.