The New York Review of Sports

The latest issue of The New York Review of Books (yes, yes, we here at No Mas read the NYRB... we have do have lives you know) reveals two rather disturbing facts from the world of sports in its opening two articles.

The first fact is the first of what promises to be many disturbing pieces of news regarding the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In Dai Qing's article "Thirsty Dragon at the Olympics" she reveals a China trapped in a fresh-water crisis that is the result of over-population and short-sighted agricultural planning during the Great Leap Forward of the 1950's, when a relentless project of nationwide river-damming led to, as she calls it, an "ongoing ecological disaster."

Today the farmers outside of Beijing barely subsist on small water allocations and state welfare. Meanwhile, she writes, the Olympic powers-that-be

"... are celebrating the construction of the ultimate 'water follies' which will be ready in time for the Olympic year. These include the vast lake that will surround the titanium, egg-shaped National Grand Theater next to the Great Hall of the People, just off Tiananmen Square, as well as the largest fountain in the world at the Shunyi 'Water Heaven.' The Shunyi water park has been built on the dried-out remains of the Chaobai River - no irony intended..."

Water Heaven? The Water Follies? Merely in these bizarre names for their attractions, it seems that the Chinese authorities are revealing the extent of their perfidy by fetishizing the false abundance of a resource the Western World all too greedily takes for granted. Evidently, for the duration of the Games special pipes will bring potable water to the taps of Beijing for the first time ever. This is a luxury that will cease immediately after the Closing Ceremony. The entire production truly will be a mirage.

Right then... wrapping up this cheerful bit of reading, stomach slightly nauseous, palms on the clammy side, one turns the page and comes upon an article by Frederick Crews called "Talking Back to Prozac." This piece is about the insidious ways in which drug companies are going about creating a need for their drugs by fostering a sense in the media that certain natural personality traits - "shyness" for instance - are actually treatable "conditions." To illustrate this thesis, Crews begins with an example from a 2002 Oprah Winfrey show (oh dear Oprah... the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems) when the big O's guest was none other than the King of Weed himself, Ricky Williams. Crews writes:

Williams was there to confess that he suffered from painful and chronic shyness. Oprah and her audience were, of course, sympathetic. If Williams, who had been anything but shy on the football field, was in private a wilting violet, how many anonymous citizens would say the same if they could only overcome their inhibition long enough to do so?

Well, we learn, surprisingly enough Williams was paid for his appearance on Oprah by Glaxo-SmithKline, makers of the anti-depressant Paxil. He was not paid to shill for Paxil on the program, however, and he never once mentioned the drug. No, at the time he was only paid to go on the show and tell his story as a sufferer of chronic shyness. Only later did he appear in a Paxil press release, with a caption beneath his photograph reading, "As someone who has suffered from social anxiety disorder, I am so happy that new treatment options, like Paxil CR, are available today to help people with this condition.

Ah, the New York Review of Books. There's just nothing like it really to make the true sports fan, and anyone for that matter, want to go jump off the Bay Bridge.

Thirsty Dragon at the Olympics (nybooks.com)
Talking Back to Prozac (nybooks.com)