Saturday, August 29, 2009

Haiku 082909

the deer jumps

back into the woods
speeding car


***************

Recently, we read the following:

San Francisco Chronicle: "Drug testing trumped by gender testing" by Gwen Knapp

“Albert Pujols knows that, on every home run, his swing connects with suspicion. So many people want to believe in him, to imagine each homer sweeping baseball's doping scandals further into the past. Pujols can't definitively prove that he is different, that he is clean.

“Usain Bolt crushes the 100-meter world record again. He is dazzling, a showman with rock-star panache who promises to revive track and field. But like Pujols, he is stalked by an ugly history.

“Three of the last eight men (Ben Johnson, Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin) to break the 100-meter record have been banned for doping. Montgomery kept the mark for almost three years before federal agents uncovered what the drug tests missed.

“So Bolt and Pujols are stuck answering for the sins of their predecessors. But in this era of profound skepticism, they should be grateful for one thing: Nobody will ever watch them excel and then accuse them of not being real men.

“South African teenager Caster Semenya, the winner of the women's 800-meter race at the world championships, has been undergoing gender-verification testing. She must be examined by, among others, a gynecologist, psychologist and endocrinologist…

“It's not enough for her to undergo the very intrusive drug testing (the sample collector is supposed to watch every second, up close and personal, in the bathroom). Semenya has to endure a fairly medieval practice, a remnant from the days when all female athletes were deemed abnormal...

****************

And we thought:

… Pretty soon you'll have a nut-job stepping up and wondering earnestly: "What if it’s not about drugs or gender re-engineering? What if they’re not really human -- but extra-terrestials?" Things could get sillier...




No comments: