I'm in Toronto now, helping my sister move. Very exciting. We just saw X-Men and it was quite good. I like the girl who walks through walls.

So the Duke Lacrosse thing is pretty interesting. Just read a story saying that the Duke women's lacrosse team, participating in the final four, will be wearing armbands that say "innocent."

Now I've long (and by long I mean 5 years) been a critic of college athletics, admissions, practices, etc. And in the Duke case, as in most rape cases, my initial reaction is almost always that the accused are guilty. As more information has emerged, however, it seems possible that no rape occurred. However, what has become abundantly clear is that many members of the Duke Lacrosse team are really the scum of the earth.

After all, it seems pretty clear that they ordered an African-American stripper, specifically because she was African-American, and proceeded to insult her with racial slurs. Whether a rape was committed or not, that alone is disgusting behaviour that tells you a little bit about the athlete culture at big time sports schools.

Even at Harvard, where I attended college, the athletes were for the most part decidedly un-intellectual. There were of course numerous glorious exceptions. But at the end of the day, these were msotly athletes, not scholar-athletes.

And what's worse, people go on and on about how athletics are very character-buidling. Indeed, one of the great defenses of athletics at Harvard was that it builds character, leadership skills. What a croc of shit that is. In my experience for 2 years as a sports reporter for the Harvard Crimson, I absolutely could not say that athletes distinguished themselves at all as having better characters or more leadership skills than the general population. And while athletes at Ivy league schools are to some degree isolated by their non-athlete peers, there is no comparison to the situation at Duke, or Stanford, where athletes live almost separate lives.

So, it's nice that the Duke women's team are supporting the innocence of the men's team. But I don't doubt that most members of the men's team regard their female peers as pieces of meat, vessels for their over-sized lacrosse sticks. Perhaps they are innocent of rape. But I hope to God these are not the future leaders of America. Because they seem to be coming out of the Dubya mould.

I'd like to recommend two blogs out there now.

The first is a blog by my friend Seth, who is in Israel right now. Here is the link to Seth's Israel Blog. You can also find the link at the side of my blog. seth's analysis is very fair and even-handed. He's working for Seeds of Peace right now. Seth is a brilliant guy, a great writer and also a great wrestler.

The other blog is by my friend Ezra Klein. It's a serious political blog, and can be accessed here. It's also on a link at the side. Ezra is a great writer , knows a ton about politics and has interesting views. He also loves chocolate chip cookies.

Enjoy!

I've never really seen an athlete reviled quite in the way that people are reviling Barry Bonds right now. It's quite remarkable, and I have to say I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm pretty disappointed that he was juicing. But then again, everyone was juicing. Why are we singling Bonds out?

More incredibly, we are directing our hatred towards professional athlete who used steroids. Yet right now, there are tons of athletes out there who have done far worse. Let's take a prominent example: Kobe Bryant. It is conceivable that Kobe RAPED someone. If he is guilty, he should not be competing for NBA championships (thank God the Lakers were eliminated), he should be serving time in prison. Even if not guilty of rape, he admitted to adultery. Now, I don't think that people should be going around carrying signs that say "Kobe = Adulterer" to Laker games, but I do believe adultery is probably worse than steroids, morally. Now I know there is a difference, because steroids enhance your game while fidelty or infidelity does not. But all I'm saying is there are some other high profile athletes out there who are much more despicable than Bonds (of course, I believe that Bonds also is an adulterer, but this isn't as public, I guess).

Even worse are the guys who have been convicted of assault. Marty McSorley nearly killed Donald Brashear with his hockey stick. Todd Bertuzzi nearly killed Steve Moore. These guys are criminals. Jason Kidd assaulted his wife. So did Sheldon Souray of the Montreal Canadiens.

Then there are the absent fathers. Shawn Kemp fathered seven illegitimate children with seven different women. Evander Holyfield has nine.

Or what about racists like John Rocker.

The point is, there are a lot of schmucky athletes. Barry Bonds is a schmuck. But his taking steroids isn't as bad as some of the other stuff that athletes do.

What can I say about my life right now? It's not too thrilling. But I can say that my two favorite bands right now are The Lovely Feathers and The Harlem Shakes. Why do I like these bands? well, The Lovely Feathers are 5 guys, all of who are from Montreal, all of whom went to Jewish school. That's pretty cool. And they are awesome. Their new album, "Hind, Hind Legs," kicks ass. As for The Harlem Shakes, well, their guitarist is aguy named Todd Goldstein, an old buddy of mine from Camp Kingswood in Bridgton, Maine. And they are also awesome. So go listen to their stuff now!

Hi there. You may remember me from previous blogs such as David's Israel Adventure. Well I'm back from Israel now, and not really adventuring, but I got bored, so decided to make another blog. I probably wobn't be counting shawarma on this one, but I will be doing other fun stuff. I promise.