What's the name of the three sticks that are stuck into the ground, and the two bits of wood that go on top of them?
What's the name of the player who squats behind them with pads and gloves?
What are the names of the fielding positions close in behind the batsman's off side?
How many runs do I get for hitting the ball out of the ground without a bounce?
OK, no googling involved:
I expect you know the adjective that's applied to positions of the fielders who get really close in?
;-)
Let's see... caught, run out, clean bowled, LBW, stumped... um, hit wicket, that's happened a few times... am I missing anything?
Oh well, I guess you'll need another captain... ;-)
I had thought that there were 11 ways of getting out, but can only see 10 in the lists I've looked at.
remembering 6 is enough for you to get the job ;-) Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
I was fielding at mid-on, (quite near the bowler) when the batsman hit the ball not far from me and called his partner for a "quick single".
His partner - sensibly - said no, and our friend was therefore stranded half-way down the wicket.
All I had to do was throw the ball over his head to the wicket-keeper, and he would have been "Run Out".
The stranded batsman - not noted for his sense of humour - was standing cursing his colleague, and as the ball passed over his head, he took a swipe at it with his bat and smacked it away to one side, at which point I and my team appealed to the umpire.
The question was whether he was out "Hit the Ball Twice" or "Obstructing the Field": both extremely rare ways of getting out, and generally highly contentious when they do happen.
In fact, the umpire said the latter, and the batsman departed in high dudgeon to the dressing room while we all roared with laughter (as did his unsympathetic team-mates). "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
You're definitely still captain, stormy. You'll scare the opposition with a name like that, anyway ;)
Anyway, apparently Inzamam was given out obstructing the field earlier this year. I missed that somehow. (Easy enough to do, no cricket on the TV here.)
It's like the UEFA finals. I think.
Well, not. Sports team loyalty can reach the same feverish levels for national teams and club teams here. Rangers vs. Celtic (both Glasgow) is as hot as France-Italy (though involving less people). Also in the unsavoury parts -- which is not just tear gas battlew with police but mass tragedies like at Brussels. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
But, to your point, it is the case that there have been a number of mass event disasters and they do point up that under particular circumstances a crowd can be terribly self-destructive. Largely as you say, through "Brownian motion."
Large crowds kind of freak me out, if they're really tightly packed. It wasn't at a sporting event, but I was nearly crushed by one about six years ago. My ring got caught on a metal door, meaning that I could no longer move with the surging crowd and instead had become an impediment to its motion. If a friend hadn't held me upright while I disentangled myself, I don't think I would have made it.
When I find myself in situations like that now, I remove all my jewelry. Also, no scarves.
I do remember seeing a computer simulation on tv for how crowd behaviour would manifest itself in a fire or emergency in a shopping centre. They mapped out the irrational behaviours of people. Very interesting viewing. Ad astra per aspera
there was a very rough cement floor, with broken bottles, and roger daltrey was standing on a blue buick, demolishing it with an axe....
the crowd started swaying, then slow-charging from one side of the big space to another...
i realised that if i went down under that i would not get up alive.
the 'who' i felt myself to be rapidly became a 'what'.
avoided crowds ever since, and it did not suprise me some years later when people got crushed at a who show.
whatever little sense of responsibility people have is all too easily washed away by the chaotic forces that can occur in crowds, during which one feels as powerless as during an earthquake.
it was a good lesson in what kind of mood to put out in rock, and the possible effects of that choice.
altamont drove that point home for me quite clearly also... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
My experience of this was at a different sort of 'cricket match': the flag-lowering ceremony at the India/Pakistan border. There are stands set up on each side of the border post, and people wave flags and blow whistles at each other. It all seemed pretty good humoured- and not a ball in sight!
There was a festival on in Amritsar, and the Indian stands were holding several times their intended capacity. A child of about two was standing next to me and suddenly she and her parents and I were swept forward by a surge. I couldn't reach her- we were too tightly packed. Her mother was screaming, her father was shouting, I was yelling (uselessly, in English) "Baby! Baby!" and, with the father, fighting desperately for her space. Nobody took the slightest bit of notice. It seemed like a long time (but probably wasn't) before another crowd movement allowed me to shove someone to the side so her father could grab her and raise her up. It's still bewildering to me how so many people could be completely oblivious to screams of distress right next to them. If nothing else, you would think we'd notice these things as indicative that we could be in danger next...
This seemed pointless and annoying, so I sat there for twenty minutes with the engine off and read a book till most of them had gone.
I'm sure we've had the 'crowds are stupid' thread before. When I lived in London, I could raise my chances of a seat on the tube during the rush hour just by moving up the platform in the direction of the end carriages. You get a kind of bell curve of inertia and inverse initiative around the platform entrances, which are usually in the middle. So there are reliably far fewer people in those carriages than in the middle of the train.
It's depressing - politically and practically - that even when people commute daily on the tube for years, only around 10-20% of them seem capable of working this out for themselves.
It's the economists who believe in rational actors and all the rest of it that I have an argument with.
Anyway - next time I'll borrow a JCB from the BuildCentre next door, create another exit, and sell tickets for a fast getaway.
It's the interface rules between the crowds that make the psychology complicated.
And the fact that some of the crowds are dumber than others.
Then why shouldn't one be able to model the economy using cellular automata?
For the same reason you can't model the billions that are being spent on the Iraq war using cellular automata.
As a rational actor, I suppose you'll be avoiding the situation in future? ;)
Vile idea: could it be that obesity and unwillingness to walk any distance is behind this London phenomenon? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
exits/entrances were purposefully planned to be at different points along a station platform
Washington's Metro is like that. People spread out along the platform anyway.
In Cairo, my absolute favorite thing about the subway is the two cars at the front of every train reserved for women only. In another place, I might find that absurd, but those cars get really packed, and I'm sorry, but I don't think any woman on Earth wants to be crammed into a train car with 500 men. But especially not in Cairo. I have enough problems just walking down the street.
BTW, Washington's Metro is famous in urban-planning circles as a rare example of a city building a system after studying existing systems around the world, and thus learning in advance what are the problems to look after, the tricks others invented, what works and what not. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
But IMHO the train system itself works pretty well, although it's increasingly overloaded. My main criticism on the design would be the lack of a circle or beltway line, which I know both the London and Moscow subways have. It means, among other things, that a few central stations get insane during rush hour with people changing trains.
Regarding an orbital line, I thought the loops some lines form in the inner city take care of orbital traffic, but apparently not enough capacity. I guess the system is a victim of its own success here? So an orbital or another looped line should come. (BTW, a strictly radial+orbital system is pooh-poohed nowadays, because it forces more transfers between lines, and a more curved inner-city route can distribute people better.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
It's not strictly a radial system, in that there is no one station where all the lines meet. There are a few semi-loops formed by lines coming together in different stations. (Here's an interactive system map and a variety of other system maps... I'm going to have to download that iPod version when I get home.)
But there are a few flaws -- if you're in one of the Maryland suburbs west of the city on the Red Line, and you want to go to one of the Virginia suburbs west of the city on the Orange Line, you've got to go all the way into the middle of town. Same for the neighborhoods and suburbs east of the Anacostia River, and for the Maryland 'burbs on either end of the Red Line.
The expansion plans at this point are focused on extending the Orange Line out west to Dulles Airport, which is IMV a good idea, as no public transport currently serves that airport. (The city's other two airports are on either Metro or rail lines.)
There's also a plan for the so-called Purple Line, which I think is actually a light-rail line linking the outer stations on three different lines in the Maryland suburbs.
I knew the DC system map (I brought up that it's looped :-)), with strictly radial+orbit, I meant Moscow or similar systems.
An orbital line for outer suburbs, well not many subway systems have them (the Madrid line Migeru mentioned may be counted one). The traffic demand is usually too light for a subway, so it should be for trams or buses (whose lack is not the subway system's fault). But the Purple Line from your and Wiki's description seems just such a project. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
An orbital line for outer suburbs, well not many subway systems have them (the Madrid line Migeru mentioned may be counted one).
The Madrid metro map also gives me a misleading impression of the geography of the city itself. I don't really have a mental map of the areas the metro doesn't reach.
Over the past 10 years they've done an outstanding job or prolonguing the existing lines into the outskirts, but IMHO a second circular about 10 stops out from the circular line is due. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
I read that it was in the plans, but then trams were consaidered too. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
(My guess is it also works for voting.) -----sapere aude
The idea is that structure formation is a reaction-diffusion process, and that it's not that "star formation happens in spiral arms", but that "spiral arms" are a result of star formation reaction-diffusion plus differential rotation.
In fact, star formation happens at the front edge of the spiral arms, and the spiral pattern moves faster than the stars themselves. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
"spiral arms" are a result of star formation reaction-diffusion plus differential rotation
Are gravitational disturbances included in such a model? For, stellar mass dislocations take part in propagating the spiral arm, and also disturb molecular clouds.
the spiral pattern moves faster than the stars themselves
More correctly, it travels faster at one distance, and slower at another distance from center. Spiral arms are waves in both the "star gas" and the interstellar media. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Could you link to some articles about or involved in the fuss? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
On the other hand, it is true that 'real' nations are often most strongly kept alibe by the corresponding 'sports nation'.
While, it is also true that 'sports nations' can be 'adopted' more easily. Lots of Brazil fans around the world, Azzurri [Italy] fanatics here. Oh, and say local fans of the national teams of Germany and England will battle the same battles as their 'domestic' fans.
In fact, I'd say there is a feature of the World Cup that puts it apart from other sports events: the majority keeps watching and cheering for one team or the other (and that not with polite attention but passion) even after "their" (default) team lost (or if it even failed to qualify). Zidane's head-butt on Materazzi was heatly debated for days everywhere around me, on the streets and trains and family and workplace. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I think you're right about the World Cup. In every country I've been to (except my own), everyone sort of chooses proxy teams to support if their own team isn't in the running.
I've also noticed that people everywhere in the world seem to have "their" Premier League team. I've seen Man U and Arsenal jerseys in cities from Cape Town to Baghdad.
BTW, personal example: I mentioned sometimes my American cousin, with his father in Austria. The father is a true football maniac, and his favourite club team is AC Milan, ever since its lead line were three great Dutch players you may also know (Marco van Basten -- wqas the Dutch trainer this year, Ruud Gullit -- was it a few years ago, Frank Rijkaard -- present trainer of Barcelona). His son, a football 'convert', came back to Hungary with a Milan jersey (to my boos...), then 'converted' to Barcelona. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
He sort of has a point. I mean, the police will smash a "protest" of 20 people, arresting everyone for "blocking traffic," but when Egypt wins a big soccer match and the whole city spills into the streets, setting off fireworks and causing all kinds of traffic jams, the police just stand around and watch.
That has its parallel in fifties Hungary (shortly referenced in my first 1956 diary). But when the national team lost the 1954 finals, there were riots in the midst of dictatorship. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
But some point out that Real Madrid was effectively "Franco's Team" and their successes were equally quite political...
It is true that the governments encourage "nationalistic sport" as a distraction for the masses. At the same time, the masses seek out distraction even without this encouragement. And indeed, some would say that allowed transgression is still transgression...
The UK (and to a large extent other European nations, but I have lived in the UK much more than elsewhere in Europe) has just as great a base level of "nationalism" as the US.
The average person in the UK has as much national feeling as an average person in the US.
However, the venues for expression are different.
As you note, international sports conflict is a big one for the UK, whilst in the US, the nationalism is just overlaid on the event of sport itself through rituals (flag, anthem) and perhaps the notion that no-one else plays "real sports."
Still, this points up a different flavour, but for now I'm not sure I can describe it.
Egypt. Here we come to the connection between nationalism and government. I guess the question I'd ask you, do you think that the affection for the football team (esp winning the African Cup) did the government any good, beyond the obvious few days of feelgood factor and the fact that a distracted populace is less likely to rebel?
As for the politics of it... did it do the government any good? I dunno, honestly. Maybe. The Cup matches started in mid- to late-January, less than a month after 27 people were killed in the Sudanese refugee protest debacle. The 2005 parliamentary elections debacle had been only two months earlier, and there was still a lot of residual anger and resentment about that. It was a very gloomy time.
And then all of a sudden, there's something to celebrate, and people are feeling happy. That's not a bad thing, but IMHO it did play a role in getting people to forget about the elections mess.
Whether that was a deliberate timing thing on the part of the government, I couldn't possibly say. But it certainly didn't hurt them to get people's minds off of politics at that point.
What I mean to ask is if the sports nationalism in Egypt feels different to, say, South Africa? Or the bits of Europe you've experienced (you mention an England - France rugby match.)
Ivory Coast could well have won that game!
Hah! You know, I really don't think that very many Egyptians even considered the possibility that they might lose. They really seemed to think they deserved to win.
Which is not a terribly unusual attitude, I think.
But you're right, the government couldn't have been planning on winning the match. They did plan to host the event, however. And they've bid for other big sporting events, including the 2010 World Cup, which they didn't get. (A good thing, if you ask me.)
In Egypt, it's really interesting to me, people just totally abandon themselves to the sport. They adore it on a level I have never seen before. My friend is right, it really does give them a reason to just forget about all their troubles, which are legion. Kids play barefoot in the streets, using wadded-up paper and tape for a ball.
Sports in South Africa is much less unifying than it is in Egypt, partly because of racial politics and history. In Egypt, it's all football. There are no other sports. Everyone loves football. Period.
In South Africa, there's football and cricket and rugby, and each one has its "traditional" racial and linguistic constituency. (E.g. rugby is the stereotypically Afrikaans sport, etc.)
If one of the national teams does really well, everyone supports that team and gets interested in the sport and the players, even if it isn't "your" sport. But like I said, they haven't been doing well lately, so I'm not sure how much crossover they're getting.
And there are other layers of racial politics, so that some whites will bitch & moan if a black player is selected for the national team ahead of their favorite white player, and then you get all this talk about quotas and "merit" and it gets really annoying and rancorous. The players, mostly, really hate that shit, they just want to play.
I really look forward to a day when none of that stuff is an issue anymore. And I think most South Africans do, too.
It was a very gloomy time.... And then all of a sudden, there's something to celebrate, and people are feeling happy.
Reminds me of when Italy won the World Cup in 1982 - to me, that marked the end of the dark-dark "Years of Lead" - from night to day!
In a country where people had for years the last 12 years or so - with a little help from our Gladio friends -been literally-murderously politically obsessed and polarized to the point of "cold civil war", with "reds" and "blacks" distinguished by neighbourhood/city/region-of-origin, dress, speech, lifestyle... to such an extreme extent that for young people in Rome it was physically dangerous to walk around in an upper-middleclass area such as Parioli wearing faded jeans and a parka, or in a working-class area such as Testaccio in a camelhair coat and flannel trousers or skirt - allofasudden we were "all Italians" together, all celebrating wild with joy, all united - it was unbelievable!!
And the weeks and months after that, compared to the previous dark bitter years spent counting corpses and meditating revenge, were quite dreamily relaxed ... political extremism was suddenly "out".. miraculously, everyone-but-everyone was suddenly sporting light, bright, summery and non-politically-specific clothes, reading sports mags instead of marx or julius evola ... half the country seemed to be spending its time wandering round the piazzas arm in arm joyfulling reminiscing about every tiny detail of the Great Match while licking lemon icecreams ... then off to the beach.
Not quite the end of the "strategy of tension" ... but it was a watershed - marked a huge mass-psychology turnabout. "Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami
Meaning relations between the various groups on the left/left-left/left-left-left were as divisive as all the rest ... and no less vicious: Il Manifesto hated Autonomia Operaia which hated Lotta Continua which hated the Maoists who hated the Anarchists - and they ALL hated the PCI!!... and of course vice versa. My experience - friends, friends of friends - was that the far-left covens spent far more time and energy hating each other - and of course the PCI - than they did hating the Fascists, the Christian Democrats, the Socialists, the govt.... or even NATO itself!
And IMHO the BR (apart perhaps from the very first group which developed around Curcio.?) were an elitist power-worshipping gun-loving gang of self-appointed "saviours/leaders" of "dumb faceless masses"... whom they totally despised. Think it was Alberto Franceschini(??) who said that once when he was trailing Andreotti in central Rome he brushed right up against him, almost had an orgasm on the spot because he had come into contact with "power itself"???
And apart from nasty questions such as Senzani's extremely dubious real allegiance etc. etc. - I can still remember - will never forget - when in 1981 I found myself in the same compartment on a train to France as a group of "brigatisti". All trying to look workingclass-inconspicuous so reading comic-books in the compartment - but their manner, attitudes .. "aura"???....and above all, snatches of jargon-heavy overheard conversations in the train corridors switched on my alarm-bells. I later recognised two of them for sure, the two sitting beside me - including one of the women - on TV when they were arrested several years later. Still don't know who the others were but they were seriously creepy.
'Course I didn't actually tell the railway personnel about my suspicions... typical cowardly omertà-reaction, OK? But I was seriously afraid of a shoot-out on the crowded train (... not bad intuition on my part as that's exactly what happened when Nadia Desdemona Lioce was arrested in 2003) - also because during the night, in the small hours before crossing the frontier they had been messing around in the dark and the nearest they could get to dead silence, but I could hear them -- and just make out their silhouettes through fake-closed eyes - surreptitiously shifting stuff around from ... a couple of suitcases to "somewhere else" (?)... when they believed everyone in the compartment was sound asleep. I hadn't been able to sleep because I was already rigid with anxiety, had been forcing myself to act normal and unconcerned but it was the scariest train-journey of my life. "Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami
Se vedi rosa spara a vista - o è una saponetta o è una femminista
(If you see pink shoot at sight - it's either a cake of soap or a feminist)
...
They used to try to get the girls from the women's lib. movements put as near as possible to the lead-position in "united" leftwing demo marches - the "testa del corteo" - i.e. if the police started shooting the women would get the bullets instead of them, they could do their own shooting with their beloved P-38s from conveniently behind those human-shield "cakes of pink soap".
This isn't a feminist-victimist legend, btw - I got it straight from a guy who used to be part of Autonomia's Via dei Volsci setup.
Baaaaad times, grrrr - see why I was so elated about that World Cup victory and its pacifying aftermath??? "Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami
Hey, you know, I would be really, really, really, really interested in a diary about that time and your recollections. This has been a fascinating series of comments.
Soon afterwards she ended her 'latitanza', became one of Italy's first 'pentite' and, as such, didn't have to do time. There were however comrades in via dei Volsci who didn't like that. Neither did the secret services who put me on a 'most undesired foreigners' list and banned me from entering Italy for two years.
The ban was eventually lifted when the president of the German Bundestag committee who has oversight of the federal sec services talked to his collegue in Rome.
The affair cost me my wine business and ten hectars of land in Tuscany and put an end to my hippie period. It brought me to start working in Brussels. "The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819
And it was so very easy in those days to get sucked into the quicksands/crossfire. I was more Berlinguer-zone myself (still am I guess?) and had the blind luck not to come into friendship-contact or loveaffair-contact with any brigatisti - but half the people I knew were either "autonomi" or "lotta continua" (generational factor, particularly if they were two or three years younger than me) and a friend of mine was a close childhood-through-schoolyears friend of a "latitante" - a "known brigatista" on the run -dunno whether real or purported? - so her telephone was constantly wiretapped and at times so was mine. I also remember staying in a cheap pensione in central Rome - just steps away from the Viminale (Ministry in charge of police etc), oddly enough! - while apartament-hunting after my first marriage broke up and finding what looked like half the autonomi from Via dei Volsci were camped out on the 2nd floor, so seeing my friend (female) knew some of them we ended up drifting upstairs most evening to keep company with them, drinking cheap wine by the gallon and all singing "El Pueblo Unido .."... "Bandiera Rossa" and "Bella Ciao" hour after hour as someone plinked out a few chords on a beat-up guitar...
Dunno quite what my feelings are about all this - nostalgia, semi-nostalgia or just-plain-irritation that we all messed up so badly? "Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami
Of course, cricket in the sub-continent is all about anti-colonialism. The amusing thing is that it is for the Australians and South Africans too, except that for the sub-continent those nations are just part of the colonial Anglosphere...
Interestingly, and as an aside, a surprising number of my American friends and relatives have seen Lagaan and absolutely loved it, even without knowing the first thing about cricket. Aside from being a great film, I think that anti-colonial thing strikes a chord with them, which I find kind of odd, but only kind of.
Sports team identification is also pretty weird - I haven't lived in Boston since I was a little kid and I've no lived in NYC for a decade and absolutely love this city, but in sports I'm a diehard Red Sox and Celtics fan and get almost as much pleasure out of Yankees and Knicks losses as I do from my teams' victories (and given the respective states of the Knicks and Celtics, the Knicks are giving me much more joy than my own team)
you are the media you consume.
Because that is the only form of patriotism that is politically correct.
If people had a more relaxed view of patriotism (ie. not insisting that flagwaving automatically and without exception leads straight to Auswitsch), it wouldn't be so intense at sports events.
It becomes, well, an opportunity to vent some nationalist steam. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
You got a concrete example of that?
So the COPE raises funds by selling polo shirts... Interesting...
Anyway, it goes to show that the flag remains hijacked. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
The cope (Known in Latin as pluviale 'rain coat' or cappa 'cape') is a liturgical vestment, which may conveniently be described as a very long mantle or cloak, open in front and fastened at the breast with a band or clasp. It may be of any liturgical colour. A cope may be worn by any rank of the clergy. If worn by a bishop it should be accompanied by a Mitre. The often highly ornamented clasp is called a morse.
A cope may be worn by any rank of the clergy. If worn by a bishop it should be accompanied by a Mitre. The often highly ornamented clasp is called a morse.
Go Sweden! Go Norway! Go Europe! Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
(That's probably a "class" diary, BTW.) -----sapere aude
It's a kind of nationalism, or expression of self-identification, of belonging. There are other kinds of nationalism, the aggressive, fascistic kind, for example. There are romantic forms, that may simply turn out to be defence of a language and folklore, or may take another direction and become violent.
But as we've heard, European nations (or at least Western European nations) are not supposed to be nationalistic, no anthems, no flags, no tacky displays of patriotism. Well, except for sports. Because that's different.
Well, except for sports. Because that's different.
Since that's a pretty obvious googly bowled in my direction ;), I'll be boring just a second. Read me again, stormy. I only mentioned "nationalist" once, to say there were nationalists in Europe. I never said there was no "nationalism", no flags, no anthems, nothing tacky (didn't use those terms of Americans either, because that's not that kind of manifestation of nationalism I was thinking of). I was trying to make a point that concerned belief in the nation, its institutions and its myths. How far do people accept those, even hold them sacred? How far do they question them? And I maintain that, on that score there is a qualitative difference between the American way of "living the nation" and the European. (Western or Eastern.)
Yes, sports chauvinism is different. It's almost a replacement for a national entity that most people don't feel all that much allegiance to. Is no longer big enough (meaning the world has shrunk) for people to feel secure in and enveloped by?
Boring half-hour over. A thousand pardons. Oh, and I support Wales and France in the Six Nations. High drama!
I say, we have a lovely Angelfood cake in the studio courtesy of a Mrs. Wilfred Bunniford from Sussex....
Oh, where was I? Yes, I think you're right, people (in general) like to belong to things. Groups. Nations. Clubs. Alma maters. (Almas mater? What the hell is the plural of that? I did study Latin once, but it's clearly long gone....)
So anyway, this diary was not meant as a challenge to you or your diary or anything like that, it really is just a cigar, my friend. Metatone and I talked about this subject way back when I first started posting at ET. Your diary just reminded me of it.
I was trying to make a point that concerned belief in the nation, its institutions and its myths. How far do people accept those, even hold them sacred? How far do they question them?
I know you were, and those are all good questions.
And I maintain that, on that score there is a qualitative difference between the American way of "living the nation" and the European. (Western or Eastern.)
You are probably right. I know very little about the European way of "living the nation," so I'm not sure I feel qualified to comment on that.
In the "developing world" (ag, I hate that term) countries that I do know a bit better, there is often a great deal of nationalism, and sometimes in a very dangerous form. Often it has been deliberatly fostered by the country's early post-colonial leaders as a way of cementing national unity at a very insecure time, against a backdrop of extreme divisions in ethnicity, language or relgion. In some places it works better than others.
Interesting idea, and it gels with the Egyptian example. Weirdly, it's a fiercly nationalistic country (as I mentioned elsewhere) where many (if not most) people have grown extremely detatched from and disillusioned with their government.
Also, it's worth noting that in the Arab world, there are two different kinds of nationalism -- the "patriotism" kind (wataniya in Arabic) that deals with country, and pan-Arabism, which is an entirely different, and in fact conflicting, ideology.
Boring half-hour over. A thousand pardons.
Not boring at all! Thanks for your contribution.
And thanks for playing...
:-D
It was a totally overdone full-day programme, with full TV coverage, like the burial of a king (including elected ones like Ronald Reagan). All notabilities wanted to pay tribute, of course.
First there was a ceremony at the national stadium (built as "People's Stadium", a few years ago -- by exception, normally no names of living persons allowed -- renamed Ferenc Puskás Stadion), turnout wasn't as expected:
Then, because Puskás (whose - adopted - name means 'rifleman') played in the Kispest Honvéd club, belonging to the military, there was also a military ceremony (on which he got a posthumous promotion...) at Heroes' Square (which you may have seen quadrupled in Michael Jackson's megalomaniac promo video for his History album):
...then he was laid to rest in the Bazilika, the central church of the capital, after a service also attened by Angel Maria Villar the boss of the Spanish league; UEFA Presidential hopefuls Michel Platini and Franz "Der Kaiser" Beckenbauer and the godfather himself, FIFA boss Sepp Blatter:
*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
But indirectly, there is something to what you said. The ceremony was planned by one Gábor Koltay, a would-be megalomaniac film director, who was promoted in the eighties (though already in connection with the nationalist wing of the Party), and later promoted by right-wing governments. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I have to plead guilty to not knowing who Ferenc Puskás was before now. I saw your conversation with Metatone about him and was going to ask for more information...
Thanks for posting this!
For more not forgotten also-runs of World Cup history, read this diary. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
That's my own national identity because I feel that I belong here, I have Welsh family, I've spent all of my adult life here, I understand public policy, it's closer to my values, there's a genuine heritage and a struggle within Welsh history to keep fighting through and a pride in the fact that somehow we are all still here and still going strong. England is arrogant.
Football is a different kettle of fish from rugby. I hate the football crowds, but the rugby crowds are fine. There's hostility with football that you don't see with rugby, it's far better natured - to play and to watch.
England seems to have more focus on football, Wales on rugby and to me that makes the distinction between the nature of the two countries. Patriotism = rugby. Nationalism = football.
But I have had lots of beer this evening so don't take my word on that! Ad astra per aspera
party-otism of the XXI century in action
statistics on Germany's party-otism
"The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819
I hate the football crowds, but the rugby crowds are fine.
You obviously havent been the only Englishman in a pub full of Welsh rugby supporters, when England have just beaten Wales. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
But yeah, being the only Englishman in a Welsh pub when your lot has thrashed us... grrrrrrrrr. Ad astra per aspera
la sopra elevata
the car of my next door neighbour
And as Stormy_present's asking for a diary on memories on the Years of Lead I'd say you're our man??? ;-)
If you start one it I guarantee I'll chip in... hopefully, plus others?? Also be interesting to see if we can sift the wheat from the chaff - in particular, what were the big mistakes and why, and what can/should be preserved and built on from those years. "Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami
When I was young and just in Italy (Genova--I was teaching english), I was invited round to an english woman's house for a meal, as was a joint student of ours, a very friendly chap who worked for the ferrovie statali (the school had a large contract training all the guards, conductors, drivers, etc.)
So this guy is telling me his stories and I'm nodding, but only understanding one word in six, sort of like when you watch a foreign film with no subtitles--or telly in a foreign country--where you think you know what's going on...you construct a narrative, and then they say "ciao" and you think "Yes! I am understanding something!"
Anyways, this guy was talking about the seventies, I'd got that much, and how the police would stop the buses and pull them out (I probably got this from the hand actions) and then...he put his fingers to my head and pulled one like a trigger.
"clic"
The policeman had put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Anyways... The next day, the woman teacher said to me,
"I was surprised at what"--let's call him Luigi, coz I know that wasn't his name--"Luigi was saying."
"Oh?" I said.
"Yeah, you know, admitting to being in the Brigate Rosse."
(Now I'm in remembering mode, I remember that when I falled in love with someone, she knew people who had been arrested and/or were hassled because they made visits to the prison...were the prisoners held at Genova? Ach, I no nossink! Nosseeeeeng! I tell yez!
So I would love to read a diary about those times.
And the stormy present: an enjoyable diary. Thanks! Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Why on earth did baseball get tossed out of the Olympics recently while they added new sports which are inane to the maximum? I do not get it. The Olympics really blew that one.
We always talk about the huge $$$ the Olympics receives from American advertisers. Well, consider, the baseball ownders could conceivably sink the entire Olympics by staging a World Baseball Championship at the same time asa the Olympics, because I guarantee you more American television sets would be plugged into that.
It's well known that the American package dwarfs all the other packages combined.
I'm not talking about eyeballs here, I'm talking about advertising dollars.
American advertisers paid well over a billion for each of the last two Olympics.
And you think that all the people who watch baseball are the same people, and the only people, who might be interested in watching figure skating or swimming or gymnastics, so there would be no US audience for the Olympics if it were up against baseball?
I don't know why baseball was ever in the Olympics in the first place. It's not a global sport, being limited to the Americas (and the non-soccer-playing nations of the Americas, at that) and Japan, and to a lesser extent Australia.
At any rate, since according to the "conventional wisdom" that governs what NBC chooses to broadcast in the States... Americans are only interested in watching American athletes, right? (Which is why they'll choose to air, for example, a shooting competition with an American medal contender rather than a gymnastics competition in which the Americans are all out of the running.) And yet for the last Olympics, the American baseball team didn't even qualify.
So in theory, the American NBC audience wouldn't have watched the Olympic baseball games anyway, even if NBC had broadcast them. Which in all likelihood, they didn't. (Although admittedly I don't know that for sure cuz I wasn't there.)
Besides, the IOCs excuse was that the top professionals do not participate. But that also holds true for soccer.
Baseball was broadcast, by the way, since the Olympics became a cable affair last time around, and almost all events were broadcast in the US.
That is rich, since the IOC's own "amateurism" requirements probably play a role in the absence of "top professionals". Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
You are talking about TV audiences, right? Not the "joy of the sport"?
(And as I mentioned, baseball is only popular in a few Latin American countries; the vast majority of South America is soccer country, both player-wise and spectator-wise.)
I would list the following countries as having extensive interest in baseball: Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican, Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, Mexico, Canada. Then there are the more minor countries that have major leaguers, Costa Rica, Ecudaor, Honduras, Nicaragua, Antilles, Virgin Islands, Bahamas. I think you need to check on Taiwan there. It's a big sport in that country. But Korea, the Phillipines, etc. have significant interest as well.
Regardless, the fact that the game is played seriously with world class level competition (i.e. players that compete at the highest levels of the sport) on three continents makes it more than eligible for the Olympics, especially when you consider some of the more esoteric team sports. I considered the IOC's decision to be a Eurocentric one precisely because baseball isn't played there. Countries like Cuba and Venezuela were very upset by it.
I mean, if you want raw numbers of TV-watchers, put cricket back in, because the entire Indian subcontinent will be onboard.
Anyway, your original assertion was that a competing international baseball championship would neutralize the American audience to such a degree as to render the Olympics themselves financially dead. That is simply not true.
As for this, I never said it: "Anyway, your original assertion was that a competing international baseball championship would neutralize the American audience to such a degree as to render the Olympics themselves financially dead. That is simply not true."
Not only did I not say it, I don't believe it. I think the Olympics of today rely heavily on that influx of $2 billion dollars. After all, the Greek Olympics in total cost $5.5 billion. Obviously, if that $2 billion is shaved considerably, the IOC will have to scale down the games considerably.
the baseball ownders could conceivably sink the entire Olympics by staging a World Baseball Championship at the same time
Just exactly how should we interpret the phrase "sink the entire Olympics"?
Regardless, the whole point of this thread is that the Olympic voters clearly voted baseball out because of their national and chauvinist interests, as I said to start this thread. This is evident because the vote was so close, and that Europe overwhelmingly opposed baseball. Also evident in that, when you compare baseball to some Olympic team sports, it has a much bigger fanbase, a lot more people play it worldwide, and more countries play it seriously. I can't think of a good reason to exclude it, actually.
The lower World Series numbers this year were largely a result of having two teams without a large fanbase go at it. It happens every year a team like St. Louis wins. Plus, it was a sweep. The long-term ratings are down because of cable TV. Baseball is actually experiencing a resurgence right now, as evidenced by the financial numbers. As I said, the Fox baseball package is bigger than the NBC Olympics package, even though I would wager that the Olympics is on for more total hours.
The lower World Series numbers this year were largely a result of having two teams without a large fanbase go at it.
And yet you think that a baseball game between Australia and South Korea is going to draw huge American audiences and knock the Olympics right off the map. Interesting.
And yes, Americans would watch say, Venezuela versus Korea, or the Dominican versus Japan, or Cuba versus Canada. There are a lot of stars on these teams.
Whatever. I'm saying that there are enough Americans who would rather watch gymnastics than any form of baseball to justify the continued broadcast of the Olympics in the United States, and thus (in the eyes of the networks) the continued payment of some vast amount of money by an American network to the IOC. So maybe it would be less than what NBC pays now (an assumption I believe to be incorrect, but whatever, I'll give it to you for argument's sake). Then, what, the US market would account for 30 or 35 percent of the IOC broadcasting revenue instead of 40 percent. That still does not render the Olympics as an institution financially insolvent, as your original post implied.
Sorry. Just not true.
http://ww2.worldbaseballclassic.com/2006/index.jsp
I'm not sure why this is a naive sassumption.
We simply disagree on the numbers. I think there are only so many sports fans in the US. If 25% are watching baseball during the WBC, and a similar amount are watching the Olympics, I think the two will overlap. Your average American fan (ie a fan of American Football, Baseball, Golf) will overlap heavily with the Olympics because of the sheer enormity of the numbers. There aren't many other fans left when you account for those.
The World Baseball Classic is for teams all over the world.
Then why would South Korea not be playing Australia?
You are making the assumption that the Olympics are only watched by sports fans. They are not.
At any rate, none of this "sinks the Olympics," which is how we got started on this conversation. The Olympics would survive even if Fox decided to air The World All-Star And Naked Coed Baseball Classic at the same time.
Regardless, the World event for baseball that I'm talking about is a hypothetical. Note, the WBC was held in March. That's prior to the pro season. Because of the nature of baseball training this is not the optimal time for such an event, and that's why many of the pro stars avoid it.
A top drawing event would have to come in the heart of the baseball season. At that point you would have more stars attending, and that would certainly raise the stakes. I doubt you have the same final, Cuba versus Japan. You can bet the Dominican would be one of the represented teams, and this would draw a huge audience in the US.
Regardless, as I said, this is a hypothetical. I highly doubt anyone would schedule it directly to coincide with the Olymlics. It's likelier that they would pick a single period in late July and it would be held there each and every cycle, thereby making its overlap with the Olympics relatively rare.
Team loyalty-whether national or local- is a family thing as much as anything. It gets passed from parent to child, no matter how geographically inconvenient...
Think of the advertising on that. We'd have channels paying NOT to show it.... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
What does "nation" mean when rich countries can import top athletes? Seinfeld's quip about teams seems to apply to nations as well: "Loyalty to any one sports team is pretty hard to justify. Because the players are always changing, the team can move to another city, you're actually rooting for the clothes when you get right down to it." ("The Label Maker")
Why do we need this? Why haven't we outgrown this? Bread and Circuses? (Incidentally, did interest in sports go down during the "Iron John"/drum circle/sweat lodge phase in the nineties?) -----sapere aude
However there was a surge of exactly sports nationalism during the Euro 2004, that took place here in Portugal. When the national team, brasilian coach Filipe Scollari, asked to see a flag hanging from every wondow in support of the national team, people responded in full.
Many left them hanging there well after the event and a casual visitor might confuse it for something it really isn't. Portuguese first hobby is self-deprication. Nationalistic self-esteem is something we are not full of. But there is a catch, only we can badmouth ourselves, anyone else who does it better show some credentials...
I don't know if any nation does sports nationalism on the scale of Australia. Images of the parade to welcome home the Olympians in 1996.
