Today in Verbatim, This contributing editor Andrew Wallace interviews Dave Zirin, sports editor of U.S. progressive weekly The Nation and host of Edgeofsports.com, a blog and radio show that examines the collision of politics and sports. He’s the author of several canonical books on that topic, most recently of A People’s History of Sports in the United States, […] More »

I grew up in the Greater Toronto Area, home to the most diverse region in all of Canada, perhaps the world, in a Hong Kong immigrant household (caveat: my Man U-loving dad raised me on soccer). I’m intensely proud of that fact. So it ruffles my feathers that, hockey so often precludes all other events — […] More »

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games open tonight with much fanfare, pomp, jollity, glee, grandeur, ceremony, flourish, and setting things on fire. We’ve spent, oh, about the last six weeks moaning about the whole thing, from the overblown budget to the bogus environmental claims, the sponsor bloat to the unsettled aboriginal land claims, the out-of-control […] More »

This week, I’m coming to you live and on location from Canada’s Olympic city and the place of my birth. I’m fortunate enough to be staying at my father’s apartment across the street from the athlete’s village, so I’m literally in the center of the action. I can see the environmentally friendly generator that turns […] More »

This edition of Verbatim is a transcript of Andrew Wallace in conversation with Harsha Walia of the No 2010 campaign. The original podcast of that interview is available here. Andrew is also joining us as a blog columnist, writing about the intersection of sport and society with Game Theory. The first column appeared yesterday. Be […] More »

[Editor’s Note: Today we introduce a new blog column by Andrew Wallace, called “Game Theory,” about the intersection of sports and society. The column will appear every other Monday. Andrew wrote about Toronto’s Africentric school for the January 2009 issue of This, and also contributed last week’s podcast.] On January 11, a coalition of advocates […] More »

The Olympic madness just keeps on rolling in Vancouver. It was just two weeks ago that the Vancouver Public Library was sending out helpful reminders to confiscate guest-speakers’ Telus jackets and cover Sony logos with electrical tape. But now the micromanagement has exploded to a whole new level. Vancouver city officials this week issued a […] More »

I was going to say that it looks like the Vancouver Public Library has drunk the Olympic Kool-Aid, but then, Kool-Aid maker Kraft Foods isn’t an Olympic sponsor, so in fact it must be some sort of Coca Cola product. But whatever it is, it’s inducing the crazy: VPL marketing and communications manager Jean Kavanagh […] More »

The January-February 2010 issue of This is now in subscribers’ mailboxes and on newsstands coast to coast (for the first time ever, we’re also being sold this issue in 30 Canadian airports — let us know if you find us on the racks in your travels!). You’ll be able to read all the articles from […] More »

The Ancient Olympic Games were held in Greece every four years and celebrated culture as much as sports. The founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, placed an emphasis on culture as well, making it the “second pillar” of the Olympics, equal to sports. In the early 20th Century, the second pillar was […] More »