SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2011
CHAMP OR CHUMP
Given McIlroy's historic 36 holes, there are only two possible endings
BY DAN WOLKEN SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2011
BETHESDA, Md. – This is not so much a golf tournament now as it is a final examination of everything Rory McIlroy is made of. We know he is resilient, we know that his talent is limitless and we know that he is still very, very young. But is he a winner?
History is calling McIlroy to answer that question, and now at age 22, he stands at the crossroads of expectation and delivery. No alibis, no excuses, no more time to wait. After the most dominant 36-hole performance in the tournament’s history, McIlroy leads the U.S. Open by six shots. Win this one, Rory, or you’ll never be at peace.
This can only go one of two ways now. Either McIlroy finishes off his first major championship this weekend and becomes the superstar that golf so badly needs or he becomes Greg Norman reincarnated in the age of Twitter, where the statute of limitations on a massive choke job never expires.
It is, of course, the fault of McIlroy’s immense ability that the stakes are so high so soon, but there’s no way to escape it. Almost anybody on the PGA Tour is capable of giving away a major championship, but only the elite could ever be in position to give away two in a row.
“He’s probably got more talent in his pinky than I have in my whole body,” said Brandt Snedeker, who is nine shots back but tied for third. “I look back at my first two rounds, and if I had played my best golf I could be at 7- or 8-under par, max, and he would still (be ahead of me) by four. He’s that kind of talent and everybody knows it.”
It’s uncanny how much that resembles the way Tiger Woods’ competitors used to talk about him during all those years they showed up at these things knowing anything close to his best meant they were playing for second place. Nobody talks that way about Woods now, not with him sitting at home this week trying to recover from an Achilles injury, winless since 2009. But for the moment, anyway, the Tiger comparisons are more than just breathless hyperbole to fill the void.
The rounds of 65-66 McIlroy shot to open this tournament? Best ever in a U.S. Open. His six-stroke lead? It ties Woods' record margin at the halfway point in 2000. The 13-under-par total McIlroy reached before a double bogey on No. 18? The lowest anybody has gone in an Open since Woods went 12-under at Pebble Beach. McIlroy tied that record in just 34 holes.
“It’s funny to me, you know, it feels quite simple,” said McIlroy, trying to become the second consecutive man from Northern Ireland, following Graeme McDowell, to win our national championship. “I really don’t know what to say. It’s been two very, very good days of golf.”
But here’s where this becomes an all-or-nothing moment that could resonate for the rest of his career.
With Woods, there was never any vulnerability about his quest to become the best golfer on the planet. He turned pro and just started crushing people, building an invincibility that lasted all the way until Y.E. Yang chased him down in the 2009 PGA Championship. With McIlroy, even six shots in front of, coincidentally, Yang, there’s some trepidation about how this thing is going to end.
For all the wonderful things that could be said about McIlroy, he’s won exactly twice as a professional, his resume haunted by some obvious problems closing out golf tournaments.
Though the Masters two months ago was the most notable example – after starting the final round with a four-shot lead, his triple bogey on No. 10 triggered a massive blow-up that left him with an 80 – there have been others.
The week after leaving Augusta National, McIlroy blew a 54-hole lead in Malaysia. In the final round of last year’s PGA, he three-putted No. 15 after getting into a tie for the lead. In Dubai last year, he couldn’t make anything happen down the stretch with a chance to win.
Finishes like that would indicate that McIlroy is much closer to becoming the next Norman than the heir apparent to Woods. Norman won 88 times worldwide, was the best player of his generation and banked massive amounts of money playing this silly game. But even with two British Open titles, Norman is remembered more for the ones he gave away, including the epic 1996 Masters collapse, which in many ways overshadows his career. McIlroy’s meltdown in Augusta wasn’t quite that jarring, but even Norman couldn’t match the trauma of blowing two huge leads in a row.
“When I get myself in these positions, I have to really make sure that I don't get ahead of myself and I don't start playing defensively,” McIlroy said yesterday. “I have to still play aggressively to the targets that I pick. That's really the main thing, even if you get 4 or 5 ahead of the field, whatever, you're just trying to keep going.”
Until No. 18 yesterday, when he tried a risky second shot and ended up in the water, McIlroy had played 35 holes of near-perfect golf. Now, the psychological warfare begins. He is so far ahead that he doesn’t even need to play well the rest of the way; he just needs to survive. We’re going to find out a lot about Rory McIlroy this weekend. He may be young, but he defines himself now. Even at 22, there’s no more time to wait.
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If it’s illegal, it’s illegal
What will really happen if we criminalize abortion
BY JESSICA VALENTI
It didn’t surprise me when GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said on “Meet the Press” last Sunday that he thought abortion providers should serve jail time. He’s always been an extreme anti-choicer, and his contention that any doctor who performs an abortion should be treated like a criminal is consistent with that belief. What does irk me, however, is that he believes women who get abortions shouldn’t go to jail.
Now, it’s not that I think women should be criminalized for having abortions — I’m as pro-choice as they come, and I believe abortion should be legal, safe, accessible and free. But Santorum’s stance on abortion is inconsistent, reeks of sexism and just isn’t honest about what criminalizing abortion would look like in America.
When asked about his stance, Santorum said he opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and that he “would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion should be criminally charged for doing so.” He continued by saying, “I’ve never supported criminalizing abortion for mothers, but I do for people who perform them.”
Now hold on a minute. If Santorum believes, as he said, that abortion is “taking a life,” then why is he claiming to let women get off the hook? Shouldn’t they be prosecuted along with the doctors who provide the procedure? After all, it’s ultimately women who make the decision to have an abortion. And if abortion were made illegal in the United States, then the women who obtained them would absolutely be held criminally responsible — it’s disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
But this sentiment — that doctors should go to prison, but women shouldn’t — is actually pretty common among anti-choicers. The idea behind it is that women who get abortions are victims — of doctors, boyfriends or the evil “abortion industry,” and that when women go to get abortions, they don’t actually realize that they’ll be … well, getting an abortion. (The same idea is behind “informed consent” laws, whose supposed aim is to make sure that women really know what an abortion is. Hint: We do. That’s why we’re there.) The idea that a woman could actually be making an informed decision about her reproductive health and future never comes into play. In the minds of Santorum and the anti-choice movement, we’re all just widdle girls who need someone to save us. But truly, we don’t.
The anti-choice line that women shouldn’t be prosecuted is also a politically savvy one. The movement knows that the general public is not going to take too kindly to groups that want to throw more than one-third of American women (yes, that’s how many get abortions) in jail.
And the truth is, notwithstanding this dishonest stance by anti-choice organizations and politicians, many individual anti-choice activists haven’t even thought about the issue. At least, that’s what a video shot at an anti-choice protest in Libertyville, Ill., demonstrated. The cameraman asks demonstrator after demonstrator — all of whom believe abortion should be illegal — what the penalty should be for a woman who has had an abortion. As Anna Quindlen wrote in her 2007 Newsweek article about the video, “you have rarely seen people look more gobsmacked.” The protestors give confused answers, if they answer at all. But they are never willing to say that they think women should go to jail.
If abortion becomes illegal, women will go to jail. There’s always a penalty for breaking the law. After all, we prosecute the buyers of sex and illegal drugs, not just the sellers. So if you want abortion outlawed, then you better be prepared to send a hell of a lot of women to prison. To suggest that won’t happen is insulting and sexist.
Of course, if you’re anti-choice and you’re uncomfortable with the idea of imprisoning vast numbers of American women for wanting to control their lives and plan their families, you might want to start rethinking your entire position.
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A NEW APPROACH TO FACEBOOK AND TWITTER
Posted by Laura
Starting today, you'll notice something new about President Obama's Facebook page and his Twitter account, @BarackObama.
Obama for America staff will now be managing both accounts, posting daily updates from the campaign trail, from Washington, and everywhere in between. You'll be hearing from President Obama regularly, too; on Twitter, tweets from the President will be signed "-BO."
Why make the change?
As the President said when he launched this campaign a few months ago, he's focused on doing the job we elected him to do — so he's counting on all of us to lead this organization from the grassroots up, helping to shape it as it grows.
One way we're putting that idea into practice is by taking the reins of these Facebook and Twitter accounts. This change will give us new opportunities to make the most of these channels, using them not only to report what the President is doing every day but to connect to the millions of supporters who will be driving this campaign. We'll be asking for your feedback and ideas, updating you on ways to get involved, sharing the best stories that cross our desks, and maybe even retweeting you every now and again.
What else should we be keeping in mind as we make this switch? We're hoping you'll tell us. Let us know what you'd like to see on the President's Facebook page and on @BarackObama by shooting us a comment or tweet, or by leaving your thoughts below.
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Sonja’s pants on fire
Arbitrator labels ‘Real Housewife’ Morgan a straight-up liar
Sonja Morgan, one of the “Real Housewives of New York City,” got a verbal spanking this week from a retired judge in Los Angeles for her “insouciant dishonesty.”
Morgan, 47, the ex-wife of J.P. Morgan’s great-grandson John Morgan and mother of his 10-year-old daughter, had sued her lawyers for malpractice.
The former restaurant hostess — whose motto is, “I have a taste for luxury and luxury has a taste for me” — got into trouble after she produced “The Marsh” (2006), a low-budget thriller starring Gabrielle Anwar and Forest Whitaker.
In her next deal with Hannibal Pictures, Morgan claimed she had $25 million, and they set out to make “Fast Flash to Bang” with John Travolta. When the cash didn’t materialize, Hannibal sued her for misrepresenting her assets, and won $7 million in damages.
“She was the worst witness in Western civilization,” said one lawyer. “She appealed, she lost. She went after her lawyers, and now she’s lost again.”
Richard Neal, the same arbitator who will hear Charlie Sheen’s $100 million lawsuit against Warner Bros. and “Two and a Half Men” creator Chuck Lorre, cited “Ms. Morgan’s mendacious representation about her finances” and ruled: “Ms. Morgan’s hands are doubly unclean. Not only did she materially mislead [her lawyers] but she committed the fraud which is the subject of the underlying case.”
Morgan declared bankruptcy last year, listing $19 million in debt and $13 million in assets.
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CIVIL WAR HISTORY SERIES: Bedside manner
Civil War’s Sanitary Commission nurses troops and empowers women
BY TIM STANLEY
When the American Civil War broke out in April 1861, Elizabeth Blackwell was amused by the rich ladies who lined up to volunteer as nurses. She wrote in her diary, “There has been a perfect mania amongst women to ‘act Florence Nightingale’ ” — the amateur nurse who tended to British soldiers during the Crimean War. But Blackwell spotted a unique opportunity to professionalize female nursing and, maybe, earn women the vote. She came up with the idea of a United States Sanitary Commission, which would provide care and charity to Northern soldiers throughout the war.
Elizabeth Blackwell was born in England in 1821 and moved to New York City in 1832. After teaching herself rudimentary medicine in her father’s library, she applied to Geneva Medical College in upstate New York. To everyone’s surprise, she got in. Legend has it that Blackwell won a place because the faculty put the question of whether to admit a woman to a student vote, and the students thought it was a hoax. Blackwell graduated in 1849 — the first woman in the U.S. to be awarded a medical degree.
From the moment the Civil War began, Northern women wanted to help their fighting men in the only way 19th-century society allowed — motherly care. Blackwell wanted to enroll thousands of women as full-time, professional nurses. The goal was to prove that nursing required serious training and deserved respect as a skilled profession. Proving the intelligence and bravery of Northern women could be a first step toward winning them the vote.
Blackwell started training army nurses out of her clinic at Bellevue Hospital in New York. On April 26, 1861, she organized a meeting of 4,000 ladies to found the Women’s Central Association of Relief for the Sick and Wounded of the Army. Unable to attract federal funding, Blackwell reluctantly turned to men to make her case. The radical Unitarian minister Henry Bellows agreed to go to Washington to argue on her behalf for a national organization of trained nurses.
President Abraham Lincoln hated the idea. Honest Abe said such an organization would be cumbersome and expensive, like a “fifth wheel to the coach.” Eventually he relented, and legislation was enacted establishing the U.S. Sanitary Commission on June 18, 1861, exactly 150 years ago today.
Blackwell’s idea was a big hit. By 1863, there were 7,000 local affiliates throughout the North and the commission had collected nearly $6 million in donations. Although it was staffed at the higher ranks by men, the commission was run by tens of thousands of female volunteers, who collected supplies for the troops, cared for the wounded, provided free lodging for soldiers and raised money through large-scale “Sanitary Fairs.”
One such fair was organized by Mary Livermore, a former tutor on a Virginia plantation. The shock of seeing black Americans brutalized by their owners drove her to join the abolitionist movement and the Republican Party. In October 1863, Livermore and her friend Jane C. Hodge put together the funds for a Sanitary Fair in Chicago. They faced stiff opposition. Local male politicians were skeptical that two housewives could pull off such a large fundraiser, and builders refused to recognize their contracts unless their husbands co-signed them. But after Livermore and Hodge convinced their husbands to endorse the enterprise, it proved to be a roaring success.
In her memoirs, Livermore recalled the extraordinary outpouring of donations for auction: “Six young girls brought us five barrels of potatoes they had grown themselves. An elderly black woman, who had escaped slavery in Alabama, contributed a sheet she had stitched to be sold for the benefit of our soldiers.” Lincoln donated his own copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, which went for $10,000. In total, the Chicago fair raised $86,000 for the troops.
Perhaps the most revolutionary experience for Sanitary Commission women came in the hospitals themselves. Louisa May Alcott, author of “Little Women,” was 30 when she signed up to work at Union Hospital in Washington. The hospital was little more than a slaughterhouse, ripe with the smells of disinfectant and rotting flesh. In a letter home, Alcott wrote that she was overcome by “the sight of several stretchers, each with its legless, armless, or desperately wounded occupant, entering my ward.”
The greatest shock of all was the sudden, unromantic introduction to the male body. On her first day, Alcott was told to undress and wash the men with soap. She nearly fainted. “If [the nurse] had requested me to shave them all, or dance a hornpipe on the stove funnel, I should have been less staggered; but to scrub some dozen lords of creation at a moment’s notice, was really — really —!” But Alcott remained undeterred: “Having resolved when I came to do everything I was bid, I drowned my scruples in my wash-bowl, clutched my soap manfully, and, assuming a business-like air, made a dab at the first dirty specimen I saw.”
The war ended in 1865 and the Sanitary Commission was disbanded in 1866. Ex-slaves had won the vote, but women had not. The involvement of women in politics returned to the more orthodox ground of campaigning against alcohol. Blackwell, frustrated with America’s conservatism, moved to England to set up a female medical school with Florence Nightingale. She spent the last few years of her life campaigning alternately for women’s suffrage and the banning of male circumcision.
The Sanitary Commission had revolutionized the lives of many young middle-class ladies, but the dominance of men appeared unchanged. Nevertheless, Blackwell’s goal of professionalizing nursing was realized. By 1865, over 3,000 American women had become paid nurses. A profession that had once been majority male became majority female — one more step in the long march toward the equality of the sexes.
Dr. Tim Stanley is a research fellow at Royal Holloway College, University of London. He can be followed on Twitter at @timothy_stanley.
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Chris Nirschel's Gazpacho Soup
Make refreshing gazpacho soup with Food Network's Chris Nirschel
Credit: The Daily (www.thedaily.com)
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