by Dave Zirin ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 20, 2010
Zirin rightfully chastises uncompromising free-market ideologues who happily accept social welfare. Now, if he could only...
Nation sports writer Zirin (People’s History of Sports in the United States, 2008, etc.) continues his sports-themed muckraking with a blistering screed against the owners of major U.S. sports teams.
As sports increasingly become big business, the men who fund America’s major-league football, baseball, basketball and hockey teams have gained considerable influence. The author calls out these deep-pocketed billionaires for an extensive array of moral and ethical crimes, ranging from bilking taxpayers to build new stadiums (and offering nothing in return) to using their teams to promote right-wing religious and political agendas. He makes a compelling case that publicly funded stadiums rarely, if ever, benefit a community. He cites three damning examples: New Orleans, where Katrina victims huddled in the publicly funded Superdome while neglected levees gave way; Minneapolis, where a groundbreaking ceremony for a new stadium was sheepishly cancelled after the collapse of a decrepit bridge killed 13 people; and Washington, D.C., where politicians committed $1 billion of public money for a baseball stadium despite enduring the district’s highest poverty level in a decade. Zirin caustically, almost gleefully, castigates notorious owners, including the dictatorial George Steinbrenner (New York Yankees), the housing slumlord Donald Sterling (Los Angeles Clippers), the Napoleonic Daniel Snyder (Washington Redskins) and the misogynistic beneficiary of nepotism James Dolan (New York Knicks). Overall, the author’s arguments hit the mark, though he occasionally confuses personal bêtes noires with righteous anger on behalf of the masses, such as when he rails against owners’ religious and political affiliations. He also heaps praise on the utopian public-ownership model of the Green Bay Packers, but offers no other hopes for a working alternative. It’s hard to believe that he couldn’t find at least one socially benevolent owner—Mark Cuban? Robert Kraft?—to profile.
Zirin rightfully chastises uncompromising free-market ideologues who happily accept social welfare. Now, if he could only make them listen.Pub Date: July 20, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5475-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
Share your opinion of this book
More by Dave Zirin
BOOK REVIEW
by Dave Zirin
BOOK REVIEW
by Dave Zirin
BOOK REVIEW
by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
Awards & Accolades
Likes
18
Our Verdict
GET IT
Google Rating
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2016
New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.