> From where I stand, this reflects more of a sterotype than a reality.
> In my experience, most of the "lefties" I have known have been in
> relatively good shape. While they tend to gravitate toward the more
> solitary sports: swimming, cycling, running, hiking, tennis, they DO
> move about and are physically fit. A lot of the high-school jocks, on
> the other hand, tend to run to fat and flab in later years.
Well, the discussion at this point obviously cries out for a full-fledged, professional survey of a representative sample of U.S. males (or females, too, if you want) to settle the question: do lefties take better care of themselves in later years than high-school jocks? Anecdotal evidence just won't do. In *my* experience, I see quite a few rather out-of-shape lefties. :-) (No, I'm not looking in the mirror right now.) But that may be because I'm in the Land of the Cheese-steak.
> So when we talk about sports, what are we talking about? Could we,
> maybe distinguish TV sport and sport-as-spectacle from sport?
I think the relevant sense of "sports" in this discussion is the former. The original thesis in question was that sports is a tool used by the power elite to disempower the masses; obviously spectatorship would be the tool for that job, not physical activity.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax