I used to think that the Olympics was the one international event where everyone temporarily set aside their squabbles with one another. I thought it was in the ancient Greek tradition to do it that way. But it turns out that various nations have been banned off and on for a long time. In perusing that list, one can't help but notice that the same "winners" that write all the history books are the ones that get to choose who gets banned from the next Olympics. As one wise guy said, "I noticed in my history books that the good guys have ALWAYS won! What are the odds??"
Russia and the BRICS are starting up their own version of the Olympics called (I think) The Friendship Games. Hopefully they have better luck at observing the original tradition of allowing every nation to compete.
It's kind of sad to see the accident of their nation's politics deprive aspiring individual athletes of the rare chance to compete and, if things go their way, achieve a bit of international fame. This is especially true with those plucked from circumstances you know might give them more important things to worry about. But with respect to countries, why should anyone care which one "wins" the most medals?
If anyone deserves true respect, perhaps it is nations like South Sudan, for even managing to put together a team at all. Over half a century ago, I attended an enormous suburban high school (~5000 students) in the Midwest. One big thing every year was the state basketball tournament, where each school, large or small, sent a team. In my senior year, my school won the state championship undefeated, but with so many students to choose from, putting a first-rate team on the court was no challenge. In the semi-finals, we were paired with a small downstate school with a student body of just over 200, and for them it was almost a Cinderella story--they lost to us in double overtime by a single point. I'll bet every one of those 200 students and every one of their family members was in the gym for that game, and you had to take your hat off to them. They may have "lost," but I didn't really feel like we had "won."
BTW, just a few days ago, I heard that Sudan is (again!) on the verge of a humanitarian food crisis. (I'm not sure if South Sudan is part of that--the media often still refer to the region as though it was still a single country.) Sadly, it barely makes the back pages of our esteemed legacy media--too much going on with Ukraine and Gaza to be giving valuable print space to a mere famine.
With the exception of Switzerland (which had linguistic and economic ties to coastal countries like Germany, France and Italy) land-locked nations have traditionally not faired well. Being constrained in international trade by geography. The China lead BRICS initiative might change all that as the BRICS nations might find a way around the U.S. lead Bretton Woods constraints of the last 75 years.
The only thing I can say is, with the U.S. being check-mated by China and her BRICS economic allies prepare to see the American working class thrown under the metaphorical bus by her ostensible "leaders" in the coming years.
Anyone who is deluded and naive enough to think America (the U.S.) is a united, "we are all in this together" bullsh*t nation is badly deluded by wishful and magical thinking. The American capitalist ruling class will jettison the working class without compunction.
Is there really a "Don the Con?" Or have i just gone off the rails? Again. (The "Deep State" was a 20 year old weak-minded kid somehow in the clutches of Black Rock Hedge Fund , the later whom orchestrated the 2009 Financial Crisis and shifted trillions of dollars from the American middle class to the bankers.)
Remember that train wreck, carrying carcinogenic, mind altering chemicals, in Eastern Ohio a couple of years ago? I was down-wind of the fumes. Need I say more?
The other day while shopping in a department store I inadvertently ( the inadvertence probably due to being drunk) wandered into the "women's' lingerie" department. The sales woman, apparently eager for customers, pulled me aside and said , "You look like a 36 triple D." While I stood their with my mouth agape somewhat like a Large Mouth Black Bass, she piled about a dozen brassieres into my angrily crossed arms. "These should fit you, honey." She said. Having had enough with anger for the day. I escaped to the fitting room and tried on the proffered female undergarments. "Hmmm. Not bad, I thought. "Not at all bad."
I lived and worked in Beaver County PA for several years back in the late 90s/early 00s. Seems like I missed all the action--I could have been 20 miles east of the East Palestine train wreck, and 20 miles west of Butler PA, now temporarily the world's most famous shooting range. I still have a good friend back there.
A flight instructor I met there once told me that it was the only place he ever heard of that had a school holiday for the first day of deer hunting season.
All good things seem to happen just miles from Schwartzburg (Pittsburg), PA.
(A Swedish hockey player was suspended for calling Pittsburg, "Schwartzburg")
Recall a synagogue mass shooting a few years ago in Schwartzburg, and in the major newspaper there was also an advertisement for a Jewish Urban Warfare Institute, located just outside Schwartzburg.
At the Republican convention Trump essentially promised war with Russia and the Muslims. Maybe he should promise to make the American team win by a larger margin over Sudan to divert the gullible population from his planned disasters.
The country, with Biden's withdrawal from the election, was just officially handed over to Trump and the Trump Cult True Believers. I'm packing my bags getting ready for that midnight knock on my bedroom door when the Trumpers inform me "housing" will be available in a large, spacious internment camp somewhere west of the Rockies. Bring your own bed-roll.
I used to think that the Olympics was the one international event where everyone temporarily set aside their squabbles with one another. I thought it was in the ancient Greek tradition to do it that way. But it turns out that various nations have been banned off and on for a long time. In perusing that list, one can't help but notice that the same "winners" that write all the history books are the ones that get to choose who gets banned from the next Olympics. As one wise guy said, "I noticed in my history books that the good guys have ALWAYS won! What are the odds??"
Russia and the BRICS are starting up their own version of the Olympics called (I think) The Friendship Games. Hopefully they have better luck at observing the original tradition of allowing every nation to compete.
It's kind of sad to see the accident of their nation's politics deprive aspiring individual athletes of the rare chance to compete and, if things go their way, achieve a bit of international fame. This is especially true with those plucked from circumstances you know might give them more important things to worry about. But with respect to countries, why should anyone care which one "wins" the most medals?
If anyone deserves true respect, perhaps it is nations like South Sudan, for even managing to put together a team at all. Over half a century ago, I attended an enormous suburban high school (~5000 students) in the Midwest. One big thing every year was the state basketball tournament, where each school, large or small, sent a team. In my senior year, my school won the state championship undefeated, but with so many students to choose from, putting a first-rate team on the court was no challenge. In the semi-finals, we were paired with a small downstate school with a student body of just over 200, and for them it was almost a Cinderella story--they lost to us in double overtime by a single point. I'll bet every one of those 200 students and every one of their family members was in the gym for that game, and you had to take your hat off to them. They may have "lost," but I didn't really feel like we had "won."
BTW, just a few days ago, I heard that Sudan is (again!) on the verge of a humanitarian food crisis. (I'm not sure if South Sudan is part of that--the media often still refer to the region as though it was still a single country.) Sadly, it barely makes the back pages of our esteemed legacy media--too much going on with Ukraine and Gaza to be giving valuable print space to a mere famine.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/06/1151546
With the exception of Switzerland (which had linguistic and economic ties to coastal countries like Germany, France and Italy) land-locked nations have traditionally not faired well. Being constrained in international trade by geography. The China lead BRICS initiative might change all that as the BRICS nations might find a way around the U.S. lead Bretton Woods constraints of the last 75 years.
The only thing I can say is, with the U.S. being check-mated by China and her BRICS economic allies prepare to see the American working class thrown under the metaphorical bus by her ostensible "leaders" in the coming years.
Anyone who is deluded and naive enough to think America (the U.S.) is a united, "we are all in this together" bullsh*t nation is badly deluded by wishful and magical thinking. The American capitalist ruling class will jettison the working class without compunction.
There is a lot of truth to that t shirt slogan "society is a puppet show."
Is there really a "Don the Con?" Or have i just gone off the rails? Again. (The "Deep State" was a 20 year old weak-minded kid somehow in the clutches of Black Rock Hedge Fund , the later whom orchestrated the 2009 Financial Crisis and shifted trillions of dollars from the American middle class to the bankers.)
Remember that train wreck, carrying carcinogenic, mind altering chemicals, in Eastern Ohio a couple of years ago? I was down-wind of the fumes. Need I say more?
The other day while shopping in a department store I inadvertently ( the inadvertence probably due to being drunk) wandered into the "women's' lingerie" department. The sales woman, apparently eager for customers, pulled me aside and said , "You look like a 36 triple D." While I stood their with my mouth agape somewhat like a Large Mouth Black Bass, she piled about a dozen brassieres into my angrily crossed arms. "These should fit you, honey." She said. Having had enough with anger for the day. I escaped to the fitting room and tried on the proffered female undergarments. "Hmmm. Not bad, I thought. "Not at all bad."
The next time I'm going back for the panties.
I lived and worked in Beaver County PA for several years back in the late 90s/early 00s. Seems like I missed all the action--I could have been 20 miles east of the East Palestine train wreck, and 20 miles west of Butler PA, now temporarily the world's most famous shooting range. I still have a good friend back there.
A flight instructor I met there once told me that it was the only place he ever heard of that had a school holiday for the first day of deer hunting season.
All good things seem to happen just miles from Schwartzburg (Pittsburg), PA.
(A Swedish hockey player was suspended for calling Pittsburg, "Schwartzburg")
Recall a synagogue mass shooting a few years ago in Schwartzburg, and in the major newspaper there was also an advertisement for a Jewish Urban Warfare Institute, located just outside Schwartzburg.
At the Republican convention Trump essentially promised war with Russia and the Muslims. Maybe he should promise to make the American team win by a larger margin over Sudan to divert the gullible population from his planned disasters.
99% of people think everything is normal.
I'm not trolling you here but I'm thinking that number is a bit high, considering most of the idiots are living in America.
The country, with Biden's withdrawal from the election, was just officially handed over to Trump and the Trump Cult True Believers. I'm packing my bags getting ready for that midnight knock on my bedroom door when the Trumpers inform me "housing" will be available in a large, spacious internment camp somewhere west of the Rockies. Bring your own bed-roll.