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the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Marjorie Garber and Erik Tarloff

the breakfast table
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from: Marjorie Garber

Zero Tolerance

Posted Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2000, at 11:26 AM ET

Erik,

I'm so glad you asked. I've been following, with fascination, the excellent adventures of (Coach, Mr., Professor, watch your mode of address, son) Bob Knight. Or "Bobby" Knight. When did he make the belated transition to the more adult-sounding "Bob"? During the last dark-Knight-of-the-soul, in 1998, when he hit the national headlines for unsportsmanlike conduct, I seem to recall that he was "Bobby." Some papers these days still split the difference, calling him "Bobby" in the headline and "Bob" in the body of the text. Bob or Bobby, he's been zero-tolerated out of IU, and as you say, the campus is restless. I don't see that there's any reason for surprise, here--coaches at big-time teams (note my use of the Cheneyism, "big time") often have hero-worshipping followings, especially among team members, student fans, and the locally passionate. (I see in today's Times that signs saying, "Bob Knight Is God" and "Bob Knight 4 President" have been sprouting all over campus, and that one apparent non-student called himself a "lifelong Hoosier fanatic.") Speaking just for myself, I'm glad to see that BK won't be throwing chairs, or tantrums, in prime time anytime soon.

Incidentally, I am a passionate sports-on-TV watcher, especially football and baseball, not to mention the impending Olympics. I love the fact that in sports the outcome is yet to be decided in real time (the fact, that is, that anything could happen, as it did to the Patriots, my local team, in the closing moments of last night's loss to the rival Jets). There's drama, and color, and yes, even heroes. Maybe that's one reason I find myself so incensed about this prayer-at-football-games stuff, both the recent spotlight on Friday night games in the Bible belt and the earlier wave of pros-kneeling-in-the-huddle, and then on-camera, attributing their victories to God or to Jesus. (To whose--or Whose--overarching design do they credit their losses?). I've written about this phenomenon in my book of essays, Symptoms of Culture, in a piece called "Two-Point Conversion." It's actually something that makes me furious. (I suppose I could say I have zero-tolerance for it.) What do you make of this peculiar national pastime? And, indeed, of Public Displays of Religion more generally?

The Knight-worship cult reminds me of a moment at a Democratic political convention some years ago when nominations were being taken from the floor for the office of vice president. One delegate rose to place the name of Julian Bond in nomination. The honorary chairwoman, an elegantly dressed woman from a southern state, couldn't hear the name over the din, and in any case it was a name unfamiliar to her. So she repeated it to be sure she'd got it right: "Bear Bryant, did you say?"

One time when I was down at the University of Alabama I paid a visit to the sports museum there and saw Coach Bryant's signature houndstooth-checked hat on display in the exhibit. I seem to recall that replica hats could be purchased at the museum shop.

Till soon,
Marge

the breakfast table
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from: Marjorie Garber

Zero Tolerance

Posted Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2000, at 11:26 AM ET

DISCUSS

E-MAIL

Marjorie Garber is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Harvard. Her most recent book is Sex and Real Estate: Why We Love Houses (click here to buy it). Erik Tarloff is the author of Face-Time (click here to buy it) and the newly published The Man Who Wrote the Book (click here to buy it). Click here to read this discussion from the beginning.

Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum

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Reader Comments From the Fray:

As for why women like Gore and men Bush? Simple: Romance and Presents. A big kiss for the wife, free pre-school for the kids and free medicine for Gramps. Gore's the national dream husband. Meanwhile, the men of America put their hands on their wallets which have just become perceptibly lighter, and furrow their collective brow as they tot up the trillions in taxes for the aforementioned goodies. Pikers! Don't they love their wives? How can they begrudge them the important things in life, paramount among them the free time to sit on the couch and watch Gore on Oprah? Gore's next initiative: a national program of heart-shaped chocolate boxes.

--Josh May

(To reply, click here.)

[Note from the Fray Editor: Hmm. That should go down well in The Fray. So, we are sure, will Tek's view that gravitas, like penetration, is male. Other ideas:]

Thanks Marge. You didn't mention reparations [see last week's Breakfast Table] and you got in the obligatory digs at George W. Bush. You have gravitas. Big time.

--WillV

(To reply, click here.)

The last female politician to have "gravitas" was Margaret Thatcher. She didn't care whether or not she was part of the old boy network. She did not sit around and whine about the glass ceiling. She did not toe the liberal/socialist line or care whether or not people loved her. She ignored all the experts, and just went with what she believed in and to hell with the polls.

--Dean W.

(To reply, click here.)

The gender gap is due to gun control.

I can't tell you how many working/middle class white men I've heard that say something like "I'm pissed with the Democrats that they keep making me vote Republican, but I strongly believe in the second amendment." For women (and men) who support or don't mind gun control, it's not a voting issue, because no one believes gun control will substantially reduce violence. And what's most irritating to this yellow-dog Dem is that actual steps Dems take are not that threatening, even if you are strongly against gun control. It's merely the rhetoric about "taking on the NRA" etc etc which is driving away working class white men in droves.
What's annoying to me is how the media is ignoring the issue. Media people will talk about the kiss, empathy, social programs (men don't want health care and education?), the Mommy vs. Daddy party, blah blah, but are completely oblivious to this particular 900 pound gorilla. And the polls don't ask questions on gun control either, so no-one sees how big (or small) its effect is. I find the combination of media obtuseness on gun control combined with endless (uninsightful) analysis on the gender gap really pretty irritating.

And Ms Williams, if you believe Wen Ho Lee was being railroaded, how come you haven't written any columns on it? Or on the fraudulent Cox report?

--Roublen Vessau

(To reply, click here.)
[Note from the Fray Editor: probably because she's actually Marjorie Garber. Marjorie Williams is over at Slate's Book Club.]

Erik, your story about Washington's steely (not wooden) character is true in essence, except it was Mad Anthony Wayne boasting after a cavalry skirmish that he was afraid of nothing in this world. Hamilton then gestured to Washington, who had just entered the room and was warming himself at the fireplace. "Go, then, and clap our general on his back, and hail him as a good fellow," said Hamilton. "No, I think I will decline the honor," replied Wayne.

Many share your outrage about Wen Ho Lee. Can you see why we reprehensible unreconstructed conservatives are always in such an uproar about the left's perpetual ambition to increase the power and reach of the Federal government? And I agree that the ACLU is a useful organization, though they should be admonished to change their name to the American Civil Liberties- Except-for-a-Phrase-in-Amendment-One-a-Clause-in-Amendment-Two-and-All-of-Amendment-Ten Union. Truth in advertising, you know.

--Aristophanes

(To reply, click here.)
[This is the post mentioned by Erik Tarloff in Monday's entry.]

(9/11)