The All-England Club
Merv Griffin would often have "fabulous theme shows" on his old daytime chatfest. In the 1970s, you might catch a Merv that had all Davises as guests-- Bette, followed by Sammy, followed by Clive, that type of thing. I'm doing something similar today- a post-4th of July tribute to the country from which we liberated ourselves.---
First, the Libor interest rate scandal. If you've taken any of the training exams I administer at my place of employment, you know that Libor is an acronym for London Inter Bank Offer Rate. It's essentially the rate at which banks are borrowing money from each other at a given time in the money markets in London. It's a global index little known by Americans, yet it's tied deeply to our entire system of variable-rate lending in the U.S.-- mortgages, student loans, etc. It turns out that the biggest financial players in England have been criminally manipulating the rate.
As usual, Matt Taibbi can be counted on to explain this latest example of Wall Street corruption... oops, I guess this scandal doesn't technically belong to Wall Street. Force of habit. A 2008 email from former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond has been released showing that executives had permission and encouragement from the Bank of England, and even from high up in Her Majesty's government, to rig Libor rates downward, presenting information falsely to the world about the health and stability of the British economy. The email suggests that Barclays was just one of many British banks engaged in this chicanery, and may have even been bringing up the rear. Barclays got noticed, it would seem, because they were actually last to the party.
As promised, here's Taibbi, appearing with Eliot Spitzer on Current TV.
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I'm going to give you a sentence, and I want you to judge its contents on how large a sports story you think such a sentence would deserve to be in this country. Okay, here's the sentence: "The American won her fifth Wimbledon title, matching that of her sister." (Pause for your thoughtful evaluation.)
Of course, I'm talking about Serena Williams, who pulled off this feat yesterday. Only two women in the Open history of the tournament have won more titles than the five won by both Serena and her older sister Venus. Of these four top women-- the others are Martina Navratilova (9) and Steffi Graff (7)-- only Venus and Serena were born in the United States, and just think: they grew up one year apart living in the same state, the same city, the same neighborhood, yes, even the same house! What are the odds? After Serena's victory over Agnieszka Radwanska on Saturday, the two sisters then proceeded to win their fifth-ever Wimbledon doubles championship. The sisters have faced each other eight times in the finals of a Grand Slam event. Serena has a combined 29 Grand Slam titles (14 singles, 13 women's doubles, 2 mixed-doubles), Venus has won 20 (7 singles, 13 women's doubles).
Did Venus and Serena have some sort of unfair cultural advantage in childhood that allowed them to progress to this point of wild achievement at the respective ages of 31 and 30 in what has historically been a very socially-exclusive sport? Actually, it's the opposite. They grew up playing on public tennis courts, coached primarily by their father, who only picked up the game himself around the time the two girls were born.
You're probably picking up my point. I think we should strongly consider the Williams sisters' achievements to be the greatest story in the history of American sports. So why does it not seem to be? Why do Venus and Serena get far less media attention than even another pair of sporting siblings, Peyton and Eli Manning? Why do they get so little love from the American sports media, and from the people in general, despite being nearly perfect role models for the nation's youth, boys and girls alike-- dedicated, persevering, poised, inventive, warm, and expressive? Why does Serena get a harsh public scolding for shouting at a line judge when John McEnroe rode the same, and much more frequent type of on-court behavior to the peak of American sporting celebrity and idolatry? They've been subject to some of the most ridiculous charges, like the one about how they throw matches to each other, though the fact that that one ever surfaced tells you how dominant the two sisters were in the game at one time.
Venus has led the way in the gender equity pay movement in tennis, helping to force Wimbledon and the French Open to finally agree to join us in the 21st century. Despite already being financially set for life, Venus received her associates degree from the Art Institute of Florida in 2007, and is currently pursuing her MBA. Serena joins her in her charity work, and has even opened a secondary school in Kenya. They have overcome terrific personal setbacks. Their sister, Yetunde Price, was shot to death in 2003. In claiming their newest Wimbledon titles yesterday, Venus completes a comeback from an energy-sapping illness called Sjogren's syndrome diagnosed in 2010, and in the same two years' time, Serena had made her way back from blood clots in her lungs and two operations after cutting her feet.
Venus and Serena are rich and well-known, but the extent of Americans' indifference towards them, and our failure to acknowledge them collectively for their remarkable achievements, leaves me cold. At Wimbledon this morning, the television cameras keep turning to Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, seated in the front row of the Federer/Murray match, but as far as I'm concerned, the ladies of the American Ideal are in the air today flying home from London, their luggage loaded with ever more hardware, and both women in possession of more spirit, strength, and beauty than any tabloid princess.
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I wish I could have been at Wimbledon this week. Anytime John McEnroe and Charles Barkley are together in the same place, you just really wanna be a part of that.
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You've gotta hand it to the Brits for their magnanimity. Wimbledon is a major cultural event in their country even though Andy Murray is attempting today to be the first native son to win the "gentlemen's" singles title since 1936, and a Brit hasn't won the ladies' tournament in 35 years (Virginia Wade in 1977). I can only imagine how unpopular a sporting event would become in the United States if our competitors never won. This is why NASCAR raced past Formula One in popularity.
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Banksy, on his chosen vocation of 'art terrorist': "Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head."
posted by CM @ 12:18 PM
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