The Connections: Post-Olympics Edition

Pakistan's only woman in the Olympics said Sunday that she was hurt by what she called negative feelings about Islam at the Athens Games, where she said she was criticized for running in clothes that covered much of her body. —Agence France-Presse

Toward the end of the season, Cleo and her teammates learn that the Rangers have a new owner and general manager, Ahmed ben Farouky, a Saudi petrodollar tycoon. Shortly thereafter, bed checks by men with Arab headdresses are initiated at home and on the road. Married players find their houses broken into and their wives’s cosmetics, bikini panties, and birth control missing (along with their liquor). (Meade cravenly explains, “They’re pretty ethnic people.”) Finally, Cleo is informed by the Saudi manager that “the men in the Gulf” have reached a compromise: “You must wear a veil when you play.” A full-length veil, which, as Cleo sarcastically observes, will be a distinct handicap on the breakaway. —Gerald Howard on Cleo Birdwell's Amazons (from Bookforum)