Parade, Sports, Leftovers

(1) Are John Pike’s 15 Minutes Up Yet? I have read one good piece sympathetic toward the “casually pepper-spraying cop”:  Why I Feel Bad for the Pepper-Spraying Policeman, Lt. John Pike, at The Atlantic.  The point is that it’s structural, and there’s a nice review of changes in police tactics to deal with civil unrest: pre-70s (“escalated force”), up to the 90s (“negotiated management”), and essentially post-”Battle of Seattle” to today (“strategic incapacitation”).  Anyhow, he had me from the moment he quoted James Baldwin.  A nice piece, well worth reading.

In the hopes that Lt. John Pike’s 15 minutes are over, here’s my own crude contribution to the meme (after which everyone can just stop it, ok?):

One last related item:  hat-tip to Portside for this great blog post from Scientific American about the science and history of pepper-spray.

(2) A Bunch of Links About Sports:

• The NYTimes reports a tentative deal to end the NBA lockout. For background check out Dave Zirin’s excellent piece NBA Players: Welcome to the 99%.
• Katha Pollitt has a good piece about patriarchy and college sports, Penn State’s Patriarchal Pastimes. Read it along Taylor Branch’s truly eye-opening  Atlantic article The Shame of College Sports.
• Dave Zirin connects the Penn State scandal with the UC Davis events:  Two Scandals, One Connection.  The president of Penn State and the chancellor of UC Davis were both on the “the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which ‘promotes discussion and outreach between research universities and the FBI.’”  Creepy.

(3) Leftover Item to Post: Last week I posted a great first-hand account of the actual eviction of #OWS from Zuccotti Park;  since then I found a great first-hand account of the attempted eviction a few weeks before–when Bloomberg had to back down because thousands or more flocked to the park to protect the encampment.  $5 Chess Game, Best of Three, Zuccotti Park, by David Hill, at McSweeney’s.  A really really nice piece, especially the way he deploys the concept of Zugzwang (really).

–Chris Sturr