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QuoteReplyTopic: "CHINA'S 'SMILING ANGEL IN WHEELCHAIR' Olympics Posted: 18-Apr-2008 at 10:33
Originally posted by Sparten
Occupational hazard of taking unpopular stances. But I
agree she is a brave girl, though hardly "unnocticed" as the King of
Sparta would have us believe.
Originally posted by Leonidas
here is another story of a brave chinese student that doesnt get the same attention, well the right attention. This is a nice foot note of moderate and independant thinking - brave in the face of some very ugly attitudes and the shameful behavoiur.
She was? How was she hurt (I mean physically, not just had her feelings hurt)?
I believe the first post of this thread made some mention about it.
Sparten just contributed that there was some bleeding and bruising, which at least begins to put the thing into perspective.
But even if she had been a martial artist fully capable of knocking out any aggressors and not get hurt in the process, it'd still be no excuse for attempting to physically violate her.
Nobody don't have the right to hurt even a single hair of another person.
Of course they don't. Insofar as someone hurt her they should be held responsible for compensation, with damages either agreed or fixed by a court. For criminal action you would have to take into account whether the hurt was intentional or not, or whether it was the result of an attempt to commit some other crime.
At the moment this seems to me to be mostly a silly storm in a teacup.
You mean like making a mountain out of a molehill?
[/QUOTE]
Yes.
I suppose that would depend on what you would refer to as the "mountain" and what you would refer to as the "molehill".
A human being, the Torch bearer was assaulted. That is neither a molehill nor a mountain, it is a fact.
It's an opinion.
That she was lionised for propaganda purposes by the PRC could be a mountain, but that does nothing to diminish that it was a wrong thing to do to her.
That she was not seriously injured is also not a molehill - i.e., it is cowardly, it would be a total lack of integrity to trivialise the fact that physical violation has occurred.
You have a funny idea of physical violation. That she was not seriously injured is precisely what makes it a molehill. In fact she doesn't appear to have been 'injured' at all - scratched and bruised isn't 'injured'.
What is worse is one of AE's moderators, Temujin, tried to bring in Nazism and wheelchair together, citing an entirely ficticious Dr Strangelove, when there is nothing to remotely associate Jin Jing with being a Nazi or otherwise an evil person or deserves being assaulted.
He did nothing even remotely like calling her a Nazi. He pointed out that the Nazis invented the whole torch relay thing (I can add helped by the Nazi-sympathising IOC chairman, Avery Brundage, who was responsible for its later continuance, and a lot of the other nationalistic aspects that have crept into the Games.) He was right. We would be better off without it.
It's making up fictitious allegations like that that causes a lot of the problems here.
[/QUOTE]
Cathy Freeman carried the Torch during its last leg in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she being an Australian Aborigine, as a representative of a country whose country once inflicted horrors on her ethnic group. And at the time of Freeman's carrying the Torch, the Australian government had yet to apologise for the Stolen Generations.
Any association of the Torch with Nazism is purely a matter of personal opinion
[/QUOTE]
No it's not, it's a historical fact. We're supposed to take history seriously here.
- one does not have the right to impose it on others, nor expect to be justified when they acted upon it to physically violate others who do not share the same opinion.
There shouldn't be any comparison between Australia and China, but then again, there shouldn't be any obligation for any sportsman carrying the Olympic Torch to bear responsibilities for his or her government's misdeeds, neither from the past, nor at the present.
And Mohammed Ali lit the torch at Atlanta, recognition of his sporting excellence in spite of his opposition to US policies in his prime, and his stand against the Vietnam war, which nearly landed him in prison.
I wonder what the probability of a famous anti-Communist protester lighting the Olympic flame in Beijing is?
And on the issue that there shouldn't be an issue that it was a bearer on wheelchair being assaulted, there's both yes and no.
As a volunteer interpretor and tutor for the deaf for more than a decade, I do affirm that people with disabilities should expect the same dignity in treatment as any others.
But I also object to the proposal that they are the same as people without disabilities, the sameness extending to being treated in exactly the same way.
You're not respecting a deaf person if you expect to communicate with a deaf person by talking like you would to a normal hearing person, unless you have foreknowledge that the deaf person is fully capable of such communication via cochlear implants (and don't assume lip-reading is a perfect substitute).
Similarly, assaulting a wheelchair bound person is not the same as assaulting a fully abled person, ceteris paribus. The protestor who attacked Jin Jing may have done the same to a fully-abled Torch bearer, but it does not mitigate the worsening of his wrong in doing so to a wheelchair person.
This got nothing to do with the personal capacity, capability or dignity of the victim.
The ignominy of an abled person attacking an innocent disabled is inexcusable.
On Jin Jing having acquitted herself admirably for her performance during the attack, I have no doubt.
Even an abled person in similar situations might not have kept as cool, so she definitely did well, though I won't support her being used for propaganda purposes.
Originally posted by gcle2003
It should go along with all the other nationalistic flag-waving and medal ceremonies and such, which, apart from anything else, are dead boring and get in the way of the action. They never used to have them.
What didn't they used to have?
Torch relay was a late intro, but flag wavings and medal ceremonies were there since revival of modern Olympics.
Like I said, I wouldn't be upset if Greece were made the permanent host, but I also don't mind it rotating. But it is supposed to rotate between cities - the Games are awarded to cities not countries, and I can do without the sight of any national flag anywhere at any time during the whole fortnight.
I don't mind the last part myself, for a different reason.
I thought it'd be nicer if the participants of the Games were not identified with their nationalities but as members of a common human race.
That way, no nation has any reason to wave its flag around the Games, though cities might, since the host is a city, it might become an inter-city Games.
Unfortunately, there were practical constraints to maintain the Olympics at inter-country level at the moment.
For one thing, it limits the number of participants from bigger and richer countries, allowing people from the smaller or poorer countries more chances at more medals.
I don't see that that is true at all. I assume minimum qualifying standards would still have to be met, and there'd have to be some kind of pre-qualifying meets in various places. Most of the main contenders from small countries even now actually live and train in large countries: I suspect rivalry between colleges and clubs would still continue to pull in athletes from overseas, just as it does overwhelmingly now in soccer.
Consider how many players from small countries play in the European Champions' League now. Or in the US basketball leagues for that matter.
I agree though that this is something that needs to be borne in mind.
[/QUOTE]
Medals alone isn't the sole reason for a participant to take part in the Games, of course, but a free-for-all would probably favour people from bigger/richer countries over smaller/poorer countries, and would likely affect the participation levels in an undesirable way, linking it to the wealth and population size of a country.
And more important than medals during the Olympics are enabling those without such advantages to be able to better participate.
I wouldn't want to see, for example, an Olympics Basketball tournament dominated exclusively by various teams from USA only.
As a matter of fact, even in business, there's such a thing as anti-trust or anti-monopoly laws to give the smaller players a chance.
She was? How was she hurt (I mean physically, not just had her feelings hurt)?
I believe the first post of this thread made some mention about it.
Sparten just contributed that there was some bleeding and bruising, which at least begins to put the thing into perspective.
But even if she had been a martial artist fully capable of knocking out any aggressors and not get hurt in the process, it'd still be no excuse for attempting to physically violate her.
Nobody don't have the right to hurt even a single hair of another person.
Of course they don't. Insofar as someone hurt her they should be held responsible for compensation, with damages either agreed or fixed by a court. For criminal action you would have to take into account whether the hurt was intentional or not, or whether it was the result of an attempt to commit some other crime.
At the moment this seems to me to be mostly a silly storm in a teacup.
You mean like making a mountain out of a molehill?
Yes.
I suppose that would depend on what you would refer to as the "mountain" and what you would refer to as the "molehill".
A human being, the Torch bearer was assaulted. That is neither a molehill nor a mountain, it is a fact.
It's an opinion.
That she was lionised for propaganda purposes by the PRC could be a mountain, but that does nothing to diminish that it was a wrong thing to do to her.
That she was not seriously injured is also not a molehill - i.e., it is cowardly, it would be a total lack of integrity to trivialise the fact that physical violation has occurred.
You have a funny idea of physical violation. That she was not seriously injured is precisely what makes it a molehill. In fact she doesn't appear to have been 'injured' at all - scratched and bruised isn't 'injured'.
What is worse is one of AE's moderators, Temujin, tried to bring in Nazism and wheelchair together, citing an entirely ficticious Dr Strangelove, when there is nothing to remotely associate Jin Jing with being a Nazi or otherwise an evil person or deserves being assaulted.
He did nothing even remotely like calling her a Nazi. He pointed out that the Nazis invented the whole torch relay thing (I can add helped by the Nazi-sympathising IOC chairman, Avery Brundage, who was responsible for its later continuance, and a lot of the other nationalistic aspects that have crept into the Games.) He was right. We would be better off without it.
It's making up fictitious allegations like that that causes a lot of the problems here.
Cathy Freeman carried the Torch during its last leg in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she being an Australian Aborigine, as a representative of a country whose country once inflicted horrors on her ethnic group. And at the time of Freeman's carrying the Torch, the Australian government had yet to apologise for the Stolen Generations.
Any association of the Torch with Nazism is purely a matter of personal opinion
No it's not, it's a historical fact. We're supposed to take history seriously here.
- one does not have the right to impose it on others, nor expect to be justified when they acted upon it to physically violate others who do not share the same opinion.
There shouldn't be any comparison between Australia and China, but then again, there shouldn't be any obligation for any sportsman carrying the Olympic Torch to bear responsibilities for his or her government's misdeeds, neither from the past, nor at the present.
And Mohammed Ali lit the torch at Atlanta, recognition of his sporting excellence in spite of his opposition to US policies in his prime, and his stand against the Vietnam war, which nearly landed him in prison.
I wonder what the probability of a famous anti-Communist protester lighting the Olympic flame in Beijing is?
And on the issue that there shouldn't be an issue that it was a bearer on wheelchair being assaulted, there's both yes and no.
As a volunteer interpretor and tutor for the deaf for more than a decade, I do affirm that people with disabilities should expect the same dignity in treatment as any others.
But I also object to the proposal that they are the same as people without disabilities, the sameness extending to being treated in exactly the same way.
You're not respecting a deaf person if you expect to communicate with a deaf person by talking like you would to a normal hearing person, unless you have foreknowledge that the deaf person is fully capable of such communication via cochlear implants (and don't assume lip-reading is a perfect substitute).
Similarly, assaulting a wheelchair bound person is not the same as assaulting a fully abled person, ceteris paribus. The protestor who attacked Jin Jing may have done the same to a fully-abled Torch bearer, but it does not mitigate the worsening of his wrong in doing so to a wheelchair person.
This got nothing to do with the personal capacity, capability or dignity of the victim.
The ignominy of an abled person attacking an innocent disabled is inexcusable.
On Jin Jing having acquitted herself admirably for her performance during the attack, I have no doubt.
Even an abled person in similar situations might not have kept as cool, so she definitely did well, though I won't support her being used for propaganda purposes.
Originally posted by gcle2003
It should go along with all the other nationalistic flag-waving and medal ceremonies and such, which, apart from anything else, are dead boring and get in the way of the action. They never used to have them.
What didn't they used to have?
Torch relay was a late intro, but flag wavings and medal ceremonies were there since revival of modern Olympics.
Like I said, I wouldn't be upset if Greece were made the permanent host, but I also don't mind it rotating. But it is supposed to rotate between cities - the Games are awarded to cities not countries, and I can do without the sight of any national flag anywhere at any time during the whole fortnight.
I don't mind the last part myself, for a different reason.
I thought it'd be nicer if the participants of the Games were not identified with their nationalities but as members of a common human race.
That way, no nation has any reason to wave its flag around the Games, though cities might, since the host is a city, it might become an inter-city Games.
Unfortunately, there were practical constraints to maintain the Olympics at inter-country level at the moment.
For one thing, it limits the number of participants from bigger and richer countries, allowing people from the smaller or poorer countries more chances at more medals.
I don't see that that is true at all. I assume minimum qualifying standards would still have to be met, and there'd have to be some kind of pre-qualifying meets in various places. Most of the main contenders from small countries even now actually live and train in large countries: I suspect rivalry between colleges and clubs would still continue to pull in athletes from overseas, just as it does overwhelmingly now in soccer.
Consider how many players from small countries play in the European Champions' League now. Or in the US basketball leagues for that matter.
I agree though that this is something that needs to be borne in mind.
Medals alone isn't the sole reason for a participant to take part in the Games, of course, but a free-for-all would probably favour people from bigger/richer countries over smaller/poorer countries, and would likely affect the participation levels in an undesirable way, linking it to the wealth and population size of a country.
And more important than medals during the Olympics are enabling those without such advantages to be able to better participate.
I wouldn't want to see, for example, an Olympics Basketball tournament dominated exclusively by various teams from USA only.
As a matter of fact, even in business, there's such a thing as anti-trust or anti-monopoly laws to give the smaller players a chance.
Of course they don't. Insofar as someone hurt her they should be held responsible for compensation, with damages either agreed or fixed by a court. For criminal action you would have to take into account whether the hurt was intentional or not, or whether it was the result of an attempt to commit some other crime.
Whether these violations would be prosecutable, or whether the victim even wants to do so, does not change the fact that it happened.
Originally posted by gcle2003
It's an opinion.
So when is it in your opinion okay to deliberately get physically rough with someone without their consent?
Originally posted by gcle2003
You have a funny idea of physical violation. That she was not seriously injured is precisely what makes it a molehill. In fact she doesn't appear to have been 'injured' at all - scratched and bruised isn't 'injured'.
I don't think it is funny to think to hold that nobody has the right to even merely scratch or bruise her, or anybody else, in the first place.
I never mentioned anything about what should be compensated to her - that's a matter for the courts and a matter of legal/moral opinion.
Instead of simply admitting the fact that she was violated physically, many posters just try to trivialise it.
The only other people I know who trivialise physical violations in similar fashions are culprits of sexual harassments in the office, pointing to "traditional culture" and that "she got to expect it."
Originally posted by gcle2003
He did nothing even remotely like calling her a Nazi. He pointed out that the Nazis invented the whole torch relay thing
...
It's making up fictitious allegations like that that causes a lot of the problems here.
Here is the original post he made when he brought it up, and what it's in response to.
Originally posted by Temujin
Originally posted by Killabee
The attack on the disabled girl is very sick to watch. Same goes for the innocent Han and Hui Chinese shop owners in Tibet. But many still claim those are just "peaceful protest".
who ever said disabled people cannot be Nazis just because they are disabled? what about dr. Lovestrange? if you're familiar with recent German politicians, you'll know MR. Schuble whose dream it is to create the perfect police state that makes the Stasi look like good neighbours. i wouldn't mind him.... but i'll stop now or maybe i'll suddenly dissapear into oblivion...
Why question whether a disabled person can or cannot be a Nazi at all if there is nothing to associate a Torch relay bearer with Nazism, not anymore than Cathy Freeman or Mohd Ali?
No it's not, it's a historical fact. We're supposed to take history seriously here.
Fact is the relay was started by the Nazi.
Fact is the torch was started earlier.
Fact is people are free not to associate it with the Nazi but with the Olympic spirit.
gcle once more proved he was a heartless monster. The poor girl is in a wheelchair now! She was an athlete and now she is unable to even walk!!! At least the Chinese in Tibet have the decency to finish off those they brutalize. That is what I call civilization.
It just said "At the victory ceremonies, the medal winners stood on a victory stand and the flag of the winner was raised."
But medals had been awarded even way before that.
Maybe the stand and raising the flag of the winner is what you object to, but these are hardly unique to the Olympics.
In any case, the Olympics game had been evolving since it was revived at the end of the 19th century, and features such as staying in Olympics village, doping tests, and many of the competitive events today weren't part of the original modern Olympics Athens 1896 or 1900.
Just because something is an added feature alone is not necessarily a good reason to remove them. It all depends on its raison d'etre.
Originally posted by gcle2003
I don't see that that is true at all. I assume minimum qualifying standards would still have to be met, and there'd have to be some kind of pre-qualifying meets in various places. Most of the main contenders from small countries even now actually live and train in large countries: I suspect rivalry between colleges and clubs would still continue to pull in athletes from overseas, just as it does overwhelmingly now in soccer.
Which contenders from small countries live and train in large countries?
What is the basis for claiming most of them come under this category?
Originally posted by gcle2003
Consider how many players from small countries play in the European Champions' League now. Or in the US basketball leagues for that matter.
So how many of them are there?
Do they even have enough to form credible national teams for their own countries?
Of course they don't. Insofar as someone hurt her they should be held responsible for compensation, with damages either agreed or fixed by a court. For criminal action you would have to take into account whether the hurt was intentional or not, or whether it was the result of an attempt to commit some other crime.
Whether these violations would be prosecutable, or whether the victim even wants to do so, does not change the fact that it happened.
The question is what really happened and how serious it really was.
Originally posted by gcle2003
It's an opinion.
So when is it in your opinion okay to deliberately get physically rough with someone without their consent?
It's never completely OK. But that's only my opinion, not a fact. Anyway, what I said was an opinion is whether what happened actually amounted to an assault.
Originally posted by gcle2003
You have a funny idea of physical violation. That she was not seriously injured is precisely what makes it a molehill. In fact she doesn't appear to have been 'injured' at all - scratched and bruised isn't 'injured'.
I don't think it is funny to think to hold that nobody has the right to even merely scratch or bruise her, or anybody else, in the first place.
What's strange is to call it a physical violation. That usually refers to rape, though it can also mean giving serious injury.
I never mentioned anything about what should be compensated to her - that's a matter for the courts and a matter of legal/moral opinion.
Instead of simply admitting the fact that she was violated physically, many posters just try to trivialise it.
Or, alternatively, many posters try to make a mountain out of a molehill.
The only other people I know who trivialise physical violations in similar fashions are culprits of sexual harassments in the office, pointing to "traditional culture" and that "she got to expect it."
The comparison is absurd.
Originally posted by gcle2003
He did nothing even remotely like calling her a Nazi. He pointed out that the Nazis invented the whole torch relay thing
...
It's making up fictitious allegations like that that causes a lot of the problems here.
Here is the original post he made when he brought it up, and what it's in response to.
Originally posted by Temujin
Originally posted by Killabee
The attack on the disabled girl is very sick to watch. Same goes for the innocent Han and Hui Chinese shop owners in Tibet. But many still claim those are just "peaceful protest".
who ever said disabled people cannot be Nazis just because they are disabled? what about dr. Lovestrange? if you're familiar with recent German politicians, you'll know MR. Schuble whose dream it is to create the perfect police state that makes the Stasi look like good neighbours. i wouldn't mind him.... but i'll stop now or maybe i'll suddenly dissapear into oblivion...
Why question whether a disabled person can or cannot be a Nazi at all if there is nothing to associate a Torch relay bearer with Nazism, not anymore than Cathy Freeman or Mohd Ali?
It remains true that Temujin did nothing like calling her a Nazi, as your own quote shows. Of course torch bearers can be Nazis. They can have any political viewpoint, religion or ideology you care to name.
No it's not, it's a historical fact. We're supposed to take history seriously here.
Fact is the relay was started by the Nazi.
Fact is the torch was started earlier.
Fact is people are free not to associate it with the Nazi but with the Olympic spirit.
Fact is you were wrong. You confused the torch with the flame, which was introduced in 1928. The association of the torch with the Nazis is a fact, not an opnion.
I wonder what the probability of a famous anti-Communist protester lighting the Olympic flame in Beijing is?
Slim to none, but that's hardly the point here.
Wasn't me that brought up Kathy Freeman in the first place. It may seem irrelevant, but both the Freeman and Ali instances indicate the political nature of the choice of athlete lighting the flame.
Any bearer is free to decide for himself or herself what the Torch symbolises.
And while others are free to disagree, they are not free to attack the bearer who has different ideas.
Again you keep on with 'attack'. As maharbbal put it cogently, if ironically, it wasn't the protesters who put her in the wheelchair.
(Maharbbal - it takes one heartless monster to know another )
It just said "At the victory ceremonies, the medal winners stood on a victory stand and the flag of the winner was raised."
But medals had been awarded even way before that.
But not in ceremonies involving national anthems and flags held in the stadium on podiums and so on. In at least one Games, I forget which, the medals were posted to the recipients. And a few times anyway they were presented en masse at the end of the whole Games.
Maybe the stand and raising the flag of the winner is what you object to, but these are hardly unique to the Olympics.
Which hardly excuses it. It started with the Olympics, and it makes it even worse that it has been widely copied.
In any case, the Olympics game had been evolving since it was revived at the end of the 19th century, and features such as staying in Olympics village, doping tests, and many of the competitive events today weren't part of the original modern Olympics Athens 1896 or 1900.
Just because something is an added feature alone is not necessarily a good reason to remove them. It all depends on its raison d'etre.
True. Olympic villages for instance are on the whole a good thing. Holding the Games over two concentrated weeks is n the whole a good thing. Splitting off the winter Games is a good thing.
But pandering to nationalism and political ideology isn't.
Originally posted by gcle2003
I don't see that that is true at all. I assume minimum qualifying standards would still have to be met, and there'd have to be some kind of pre-qualifying meets in various places. Most of the main contenders from small countries even now actually live and train in large countries: I suspect rivalry between colleges and clubs would still continue to pull in athletes from overseas, just as it does overwhelmingly now in soccer.
Which contenders from small countries live and train in large countries?
What is the basis for claiming most of them come under this category?
You don't seem to actually follow sports at all. Even many of the UK contenders live and train in the US. On the one hand this is because the facilities are better, on the other it's because universities in particular are keen to recruit talent. Sometimes of course it isn't small country to large country, but rather developing country to developed one, as with Kipketer moving to Denmark, or Obikwelu to Portugal. Sometimes it's one big country to another, as with Russia's Sharapova in the US.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Consider how many players from small countries play in the European Champions' League now. Or in the US basketball leagues for that matter.
So how many of them are there?
Multitudes. Look at the team sheets of the UK Premiership teams any weekend. At the top you're fairly lucky to see an English name. It probably isn't so marked in US basketball, but there are certainly a surprising number of southern Slav names around.
Do they even have enough to form credible national teams for their own countries?
Small nations quite often field teams all the players of which regularly play in big country leagues, since that is where the money is.
I don't see why there should be anything wrong with having the 64 100m sprinters, say, with the best times recorded in the world in the past year, qualified for the Games without any regard for their nationality at all.
The question is what really happened and how serious it really was.
How serious is a matter of opinion.
What happened is not.
You may choose to think what happened is not serious, but it does not negate the fact that it happened.
Originally posted by gcle2003
It's never completely OK.
So are you saying it is not completely NOT OK either to deliberately get physical on someone without permission?
Originally posted by gcle2003
Anyway, what I said was an opinion is whether what happened actually amounted to an assault.
Ah, so are you suggesting that opinion is a matter for the legal courts, and the performance of the lawyers?
Originally posted by gcle2003
What's strange is to call it a physical violation. That usually refers to rape, though it can also mean giving serious injury.
All rapes are physical violations, but not all physical violations are rapes.
Any unwanted and forced physical contact is a form of physical violation (and we're not talking about two individuals trying to pass each other in a narrow corridor).
Originally posted by gcle2003
Or, alternatively, many posters try to make a mountain out of a molehill.
If you mean by lionising the victim or using it for propaganda purposes, yes.
Neither blowing it up nor playing it down is honest.
Originally posted by gcle2003
The comparison is absurd.
Absurdity is triviliasing the incident to being immaterial because it was merely scratches and bruises.
Originally posted by gcle2003
It remains true that Temujin did nothing like calling her a Nazi, as your own quote shows. Of course torch bearers can be Nazis.
But was this particular disabled Torch bearer one?
If not, why was he following up to the report of the attack on this particular disabled Torch Bearer by saying disabled can also be Nazis?
If you want to be fussy about it, I didn't directly say Temujin called her a Nazi either, but you chose to interprete it and responded saying "He did nothing even remotely like calling her a Nazi."
Originally posted by gcle2003
Fact is you were wrong. You confused the torch with the flame, which was introduced in 1928. The association of the torch with the Nazis is a fact, not an opnion.
I didn't confuse anything.
There is much more to the Olympic Torch than just association with the Nazis. That too is a fact.
Before there was a Relay, there was first a revival of the Olympic Torch in 1928.
Since 1936, including 2008, there have been 18 relays organized by the hosts, and numerous changes have been introduced to the Relay since 1936.
No one denied the Nazi introduced the concept in 1936.
But it is sheer narrow-mindedness to insist that that should be the only or the primary association of the relay.
It is akin to insisting that because the modern rocketry developed after WW2 were all traced back to the V-2 rocket technology introduced by the Nazis, modern rocketry is only to be associated with Nazism or a symbol of Nazism.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Wasn't me that brought up Kathy Freeman in the first place. It may seem irrelevant, but both the Freeman and Ali instances indicate the political nature of the choice of athlete lighting the flame.
And what's so Nazi about them?
Originally posted by gcle2003
But not in ceremonies involving national anthems and flags held in the stadium on podiums and so on. In at least one Games, I forget which, the medals were posted to the recipients. And a few times anyway they were presented en masse at the end of the whole Games.
And it was the Paris 1900 Olympics IIRC that they pulled people off the streets to become participants.
And they used to insist on oaths of amaterism.
Used to have something against competing on the Sabbath day too.
Formal protocols used to require flags to be dipped when passing by the King (1908 London), but Americans broke that tradition and blazed the trail for others to follow suit.
Lots of things changed during the course of modern Olympics.
Not everything necessarily for the better, but I won't demand any particular change just to suit personal sensibilities of individuals. The Games belong to more than any individual today.
Originally posted by gcle2003
But pandering to nationalism and political ideology isn't.
True enough.
But flag raising, medal stands podium aren't limited to nationalism or political ideology.
Originally posted by gcle2003
You don't seem to actually follow sports at all. Even many of the UK contenders live and train in the US.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Multitudes. Look at the team sheets of the UK Premiership teams any weekend. At the top you're fairly lucky to see an English name. It probably isn't so marked in US basketball, but there are certainly a surprising number of southern Slav names around.
We were discussing about sportsmen from *small* countries. Not sure of your expectations, but UK is hardly small.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Small nations quite often field teams all the players of which regularly play in big country leagues, since that is where the money is.
Seems applicable only for soccer.
Originally posted by gcle2003
I don't see why there should be anything wrong with having the 64 100m sprinters, say, with the best times recorded in the world in the past year, qualified for the Games without any regard for their nationality at all.
Isn't that what's happening now?
There is no limiting entries for individual events from any particular country.
It's the team sports that a country is limited to fielding only 1 team, and giving more opportunities to smaller countries.
The question is what really happened and how serious it really was.
How serious is a matter of opinion.
What happened is not.
You may choose to think what happened is not serious, but it does not negate the fact that it happened.
What is an opinion is what you should call what happened. What happened happened, but neither of us was there to tell what happened.
Originally posted by gcle2003
It's never completely OK.
So are you saying it is not completely NOT OK either to deliberately get physical on someone without permission?
It is certainly OK to deliberately get physical on someone without permission sometimes and in some circumstances. Or we would not have police forces.
I'm also holding that sometimes 'getting physical' is an overstatement of the situation that happened. It's 'getting physical' to push in front of someone in a queue, but it hardly amounts to assault. Or, if you take a very broad meaning of 'assault' then the 'assault' may well not be serious.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Anyway, what I said was an opinion is whether what happened actually amounted to an assault.
Ah, so are you suggesting that opinion is a matter for the legal courts, and the performance of the lawyers?
Yes.
Originally posted by gcle2003
What's strange is to call it a physical violation. That usually refers to rape, though it can also mean giving serious injury.
All rapes are physical violations, but not all physical violations are rapes.
Which is why I said 'usually'. It's cognate with French 'violer' which always (in the case of a person) means 'rape'.
Any unwanted and forced physical contact is a form of physical violation (and we're not talking about two individuals trying to pass each other in a narrow corridor).
Why aren't we? We're talking specifically about the attempt to snatch something from the hands of someone in a wheelchair (or not in a wheelchair for that matter). I doubt there was any intended physical assault. If the snatcher has succeeded in grabbing it from her, I don't in the least imagine he would have hit her with it.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Or, alternatively, many posters try to make a mountain out of a molehill.
If you mean by lionising the victim or using it for propaganda purposes, yes.
Neither blowing it up nor playing it down is honest.
Originally posted by gcle2003
The comparison is absurd.
Absurdity is triviliasing the incident to being immaterial because it was merely scratches and bruises.
That appears to be a factual statement of what occurred. What happened is what happened. If all that resulted was scratches and bruises, then all that resulted was scratches and bruises. That is precisely an objective measure of the seriousness of the incident.
Originally posted by gcle2003
It remains true that Temujin did nothing like calling her a Nazi, as your own quote shows. Of course torch bearers can be Nazis.
But was this particular disabled Torch bearer one?
If not, why was he following up to the report of the attack on this particular disabled Torch Bearer by saying disabled can also be Nazis?
Because someone had imputed they could not be.
If you want to be fussy about it, I didn't directly say Temujin called her a Nazi either, but you chose to interprete it and responded saying "He did nothing even remotely like calling her a Nazi."
Originally posted by gcle2003
Fact is you were wrong. You confused the torch with the flame, which was introduced in 1928. The association of the torch with the Nazis is a fact, not an opnion.
I didn't confuse anything.
There is much more to the Olympic Torch than just association with the Nazis. That too is a fact.
Before there was a Relay, there was first a revival of the Olympic Torch in 1928.
That was when the Olympic flame was first lit. Not when the torch became a symbol.
Again you're confusing the flame with the torch.
Since 1936, including 2008, there have been 18 relays organized by the hosts, and numerous changes have been introduced to the Relay since 1936.
No one denied the Nazi introduced the concept in 1936.
But it is sheer narrow-mindedness to insist that that should be the only or the primary association of the relay.
Possibly. However the introduction of the Torch, like Riefenstahl's immortalisation of it, marked a significant change in the nationalistic spirit of the Games. It isn't just Hitler and the Nazis, it's the reign of Avery Brundage as Chairman of the IOC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avery_Brundage
It is akin to insisting that because the modern rocketry developed after WW2 were all traced back to the V-2 rocket technology introduced by the Nazis, modern rocketry is only to be associated with Nazism or a symbol of Nazism.
Not really. There were rockets before the V2, in the Napoleonic wars and before that. The first liquid-fuelled rocket, ancestor of the V2 and today's space exploration rockets, was launched in 1926 in the US.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Wasn't me that brought up Kathy Freeman in the first place. It may seem irrelevant, but both the Freeman and Ali instances indicate the political nature of the choice of athlete lighting the flame.
And what's so Nazi about them?
Nothing. I said the choices were politically inspired. I don't think the Olympics should be either political or nationalistic.
And, incidentally, while we're on the subject, I think the ancient Greek tradition should be followed and countries currently engaged in warfare should be banned from the Games.
Originally posted by gcle2003
But not in ceremonies involving national anthems and flags held in the stadium on podiums and so on. In at least one Games, I forget which, the medals were posted to the recipients. And a few times anyway they were presented en masse at the end of the whole Games.
And it was the Paris 1900 Olympics IIRC that they pulled people off the streets to become participants.
And they used to insist on oaths of amaterism.
Used to have something against competing on the Sabbath day too.
Formal protocols used to require flags to be dipped when passing by the King (1908 London), but Americans broke that tradition and blazed the trail for others to follow suit.
Lots of things changed during the course of modern Olympics.
Not everything necessarily for the better, but I won't demand any particular change just to suit personal sensibilities of individuals. The Games belong to more than any individual today.
Originally posted by gcle2003
But pandering to nationalism and political ideology isn't.
True enough.
But flag raising, medal stands podium aren't limited to nationalism or political ideology.
They may not be limited to it, but when they play national anthems and raise national flags they're enshrining nationalism.
I don't mind if they have a ceremony where the winner gets to play his favourite record and wave his old school tie. As long as I can switch channels.
Your other examples of changes are trivial compared to the growth of nationalism and the infiltration of politics. The only significant one is the change to allow professionals to compete, although there the problem is that in some sports (e.g. soccer) it's still only half-way.
Originally posted by gcle2003
You don't seem to actually follow sports at all. Even many of the UK contenders live and train in the US.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Multitudes. Look at the team sheets of the UK Premiership teams any weekend. At the top you're fairly lucky to see an English name. It probably isn't so marked in US basketball, but there are certainly a surprising number of southern Slav names around.
We were discussing about sportsmen from *small* countries. Not sure of your expectations, but UK is hardly small.
[QUOTE]
No, but it's smaller than the US. Denmark is hardly 'big' but Kipketer going there is still relevant. My point is that athletes move to where the facilities, the opportunities and the money is. I quoted some small countries. But check out for yourself where athletes from the West Indies and Africa actually live and train.
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by gcle2003
Small nations quite often field teams all the players of which regularly play in big country leagues, since that is where the money is.
Seems applicable only for soccer. Well, it will only apply to team games, won't it? In some sports, like cricket, restrictions on the number of overseas players limit the opportunities but the fact that those restrictions are wanted shows that more would come in if they could. (Currently of course in cricket India counts as a big country which is why pretty well all the world's top players have signed up to play there right now.) It wouldn't surprise me if you could put together a Croat basketball team of which all the players regularly played abroad, or a Dominican baseball side. Of course in non-team games like tennis and golf everyone plays pretty well everywhere anyway.
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by gcle2003
I don't see why there should be anything wrong with having the 64 100m sprinters, say, with the best times recorded in the world in the past year, qualified for the Games without any regard for their nationality at all.
Isn't that what's happening now?
There is no limiting entries for individual events from any particular country.
There's a limit on the maximum number of competitors one country can have in any one event. That is, for instance, you can only have three entrants in the 100m, 3 in the 200m and so on (I don't think it's always three). The maximum number of competitors a country can have in one sport depends on how many events the sport is divided into.
[QUOTE]
It's the team sports that a country is limited to fielding only 1 team, and giving more opportunities to smaller countries.
I think you can only have one entrant in a number of non-team disciplines. For instance in the one-man yachting classes, and the single sculls.
However the more general point is that each country is limited in how many competitors it can field, but entitled to field athletes even if they are nowhere near world-class, which sometimes leads to ludicrous situations.
The question is what really happened and how serious it really was.
How serious is a matter of opinion.
What happened is not.
You may choose to think what happened is not serious, but it does not negate the fact that it happened.
What is an opinion is what you should call what happened. What happened happened, but neither of us was there to tell what happened.
Originally posted by gcle2003
It's never completely OK.
So are you saying it is not completely NOT OK either to deliberately get physical on someone without permission?
It is certainly OK to deliberately get physical on someone without permission sometimes and in some circumstances. Or we would not have police forces.
I'm also holding that sometimes 'getting physical' is an overstatement of the situation that happened. It's 'getting physical' to push in front of someone in a queue, but it hardly amounts to assault. Or, if you take a very broad meaning of 'assault' then the 'assault' may well not be serious.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Anyway, what I said was an opinion is whether what happened actually amounted to an assault.
Ah, so are you suggesting that opinion is a matter for the legal courts, and the performance of the lawyers?
Yes.
Originally posted by gcle2003
What's strange is to call it a physical violation. That usually refers to rape, though it can also mean giving serious injury.
All rapes are physical violations, but not all physical violations are rapes.
Which is why I said 'usually'. It's cognate with French 'violer' which always (in the case of a person) means 'rape'.
Any unwanted and forced physical contact is a form of physical violation (and we're not talking about two individuals trying to pass each other in a narrow corridor).
Why aren't we? We're talking specifically about the attempt to snatch something from the hands of someone in a wheelchair (or not in a wheelchair for that matter). I doubt there was any intended physical assault. If the snatcher has succeeded in grabbing it from her, I don't in the least imagine he would have hit her with it.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Or, alternatively, many posters try to make a mountain out of a molehill.
If you mean by lionising the victim or using it for propaganda purposes, yes.
Neither blowing it up nor playing it down is honest.
Originally posted by gcle2003
The comparison is absurd.
Absurdity is triviliasing the incident to being immaterial because it was merely scratches and bruises.
That appears to be a factual statement of what occurred. What happened is what happened. If all that resulted was scratches and bruises, then all that resulted was scratches and bruises. That is precisely an objective measure of the seriousness of the incident.
Originally posted by gcle2003
It remains true that Temujin did nothing like calling her a Nazi, as your own quote shows. Of course torch bearers can be Nazis.
But was this particular disabled Torch bearer one?
If not, why was he following up to the report of the attack on this particular disabled Torch Bearer by saying disabled can also be Nazis?
Because someone had imputed they could not be.
If you want to be fussy about it, I didn't directly say Temujin called her a Nazi either, but you chose to interprete it and responded saying "He did nothing even remotely like calling her a Nazi."
Originally posted by gcle2003
Fact is you were wrong. You confused the torch with the flame, which was introduced in 1928. The association of the torch with the Nazis is a fact, not an opnion.
I didn't confuse anything.
There is much more to the Olympic Torch than just association with the Nazis. That too is a fact.
Before there was a Relay, there was first a revival of the Olympic Torch in 1928.
That was when the Olympic flame was first lit. Not when the torch became a symbol.
Again you're confusing the flame with the torch.
Since 1936, including 2008, there have been 18 relays organized by the hosts, and numerous changes have been introduced to the Relay since 1936.
No one denied the Nazi introduced the concept in 1936.
But it is sheer narrow-mindedness to insist that that should be the only or the primary association of the relay.
Possibly. However the introduction of the Torch, like Riefenstahl's immortalisation of it, marked a significant change in the nationalistic spirit of the Games. It isn't just Hitler and the Nazis, it's the reign of Avery Brundage as Chairman of the IOC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avery_Brundage
It is akin to insisting that because the modern rocketry developed after WW2 were all traced back to the V-2 rocket technology introduced by the Nazis, modern rocketry is only to be associated with Nazism or a symbol of Nazism.
Not really. There were rockets before the V2, in the Napoleonic wars and before that. The first liquid-fuelled rocket, ancestor of the V2 and today's space exploration rockets, was launched in 1926 in the US.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Wasn't me that brought up Kathy Freeman in the first place. It may seem irrelevant, but both the Freeman and Ali instances indicate the political nature of the choice of athlete lighting the flame.
And what's so Nazi about them?
Nothing. I said the choices were politically inspired. I don't think the Olympics should be either political or nationalistic.
And, incidentally, while we're on the subject, I think the ancient Greek tradition should be followed and countries currently engaged in warfare should be banned from the Games.
Originally posted by gcle2003
But not in ceremonies involving national anthems and flags held in the stadium on podiums and so on. In at least one Games, I forget which, the medals were posted to the recipients. And a few times anyway they were presented en masse at the end of the whole Games.
And it was the Paris 1900 Olympics IIRC that they pulled people off the streets to become participants.
And they used to insist on oaths of amaterism.
Used to have something against competing on the Sabbath day too.
Formal protocols used to require flags to be dipped when passing by the King (1908 London), but Americans broke that tradition and blazed the trail for others to follow suit.
Lots of things changed during the course of modern Olympics.
Not everything necessarily for the better, but I won't demand any particular change just to suit personal sensibilities of individuals. The Games belong to more than any individual today.
Originally posted by gcle2003
But pandering to nationalism and political ideology isn't.
True enough.
But flag raising, medal stands podium aren't limited to nationalism or political ideology.
They may not be limited to it, but when they play national anthems and raise national flags they're enshrining nationalism.
I don't mind if they have a ceremony where the winner gets to play his favourite record and wave his old school tie. As long as I can switch channels.
Your other examples of changes are trivial compared to the growth of nationalism and the infiltration of politics. The only significant one is the change to allow professionals to compete, although there the problem is that in some sports (e.g. soccer) it's still only half-way.
Originally posted by gcle2003
You don't seem to actually follow sports at all. Even many of the UK contenders live and train in the US.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Multitudes. Look at the team sheets of the UK Premiership teams any weekend. At the top you're fairly lucky to see an English name. It probably isn't so marked in US basketball, but there are certainly a surprising number of southern Slav names around.
We were discussing about sportsmen from *small* countries. Not sure of your expectations, but UK is hardly small.
No, but it's smaller than the US. Denmark is hardly 'big' but Kipketer going there is still relevant. My point is that athletes move to where the facilities, the opportunities and the money is. I quoted some small countries. But check out for yourself where athletes from the West Indies and Africa actually live and train.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Small nations quite often field teams all the players of which regularly play in big country leagues, since that is where the money is.
Seems applicable only for soccer.
Well, it will only apply to team games, won't it? In some sports, like cricket, restrictions on the number of overseas players limit the opportunities but the fact that those restrictions are wanted shows that more would come in if they could. (Currently of course in cricket India counts as a big country which is why pretty well all the world's top players have signed up to play there right now.) It wouldn't surprise me if you could put together a Croat basketball team of which all the players regularly played abroad, or a Dominican baseball side. Of course in non-team games like tennis and golf everyone plays pretty well everywhere anyway.
Originally posted by gcle2003
I don't see why there should be anything wrong with having the 64 100m sprinters, say, with the best times recorded in the world in the past year, qualified for the Games without any regard for their nationality at all.
Isn't that what's happening now?
There is no limiting entries for individual events from any particular country.
There's a limit on the maximum number of competitors one country can have in any one event. That is, for instance, you can only have three entrants in the 100m, 3 in the 200m and so on (I don't think it's always three). The maximum number of competitors a country can have in one sport depends on how many events the sport is divided into.
It's the team sports that a country is limited to fielding only 1 team, and giving more opportunities to smaller countries.
I think you can only have one entrant in a number of non-team disciplines. For instance in the one-man yachting classes, and the single sculls.
However the more general point is that each country is limited in how many competitors it can field, but entitled to field athletes even if they are nowhere near world-class, which sometimes leads to ludicrous situations.
We're talking specifically about the attempt to snatch something from the hands of someone in a wheelchair (or not in a wheelchair for that matter).
An attempt which the perpetrator has no right to attempt at all in the first place.
Originally posted by gcle2003
I doubt there was any intended physical assault.
Intended or not, that's what it amounts to.
A snatcher of purse might have not intended to hurt the victim or physically jostle her, he is no less culpable for the whole incident, including getting physical with the victim.
Originally posted by gcle2003
That appears to be a factual statement of what occurred. What happened is what happened. If all that resulted was scratches and bruises, then all that resulted was scratches and bruises. That is precisely an objective measure of the seriousness of the incident.
It may not be serious, which is a matter of opinion, but it still occurred and it is still an incident.
Don't try to make it seems that nothing happened, that's what I'm saying.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Originally posted by snowybeagle
If not, why was he following up to the report of the attack on this particular disabled Torch Bearer by saying disabled can also be Nazis?
Because someone had imputed they could not be.
Show that imputation.
Originally posted by gcle2003
That was when the Olympic flame was first lit. Not when the torch became a symbol.
Again you're confusing the flame with the torch.
Nope. You are confusing it with the fact that there are more than one association to the Torch and to the Relay.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Possibly. However the introduction of the Torch, like Riefenstahl's immortalisation of it, marked a significant change in the nationalistic spirit of the Games. It isn't just Hitler and the Nazis, it's the reign of Avery Brundage as Chairman of the IOC.
Which is history. History like Baron Pierre de Courbetin, founder of the modern Olympics, who initially refused to allow participation of women, and conceded only for events where women's modesty could be "preserved".
Modern Olympics is no more about sexual discrimination than the Relay is about Nazism.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Not really. There were rockets before the V2, in the Napoleonic wars and before that. The first liquid-fuelled rocket, ancestor of the V2 and today's space exploration rockets, was launched in 1926 in the US.
So what? What I posted was post-WW2 rocketry are traced back to the V-2, not rocketry itself. Read carefully what others posted.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Nothing. I said the choices were politically inspired. I don't think the Olympics should be either political or nationalistic.
So what has it got to do with this whole exchange?
Originally posted by gcle2003
And, incidentally, while we're on the subject, I think the ancient Greek tradition should be followed and countries currently engaged in warfare should be banned from the Games.
The Olympic truce? Not a bad idea.
Originally posted by gcle2003
I don't mind if they have a ceremony where the winner gets to play his favourite record and wave his old school tie. As long as I can switch channels.
You already can do that.
Originally posted by gcle2003
No, but it's smaller than the US. Denmark is hardly 'big' but Kipketer going there is still relevant. My point is that athletes move to where the facilities, the opportunities and the money is. I quoted some small countries. But check out for yourself where athletes from the West Indies and Africa actually live and train.
I'm from a small country ... some of my country's swimmers train in the US and in Australia.
And it all costs a lot of money, which my country can afford, but many others can't.
Originally posted by gcle2003
However the more general point is that each country is limited in how many competitors it can field, but entitled to field athletes even if they are nowhere near world-class, which sometimes leads to ludicrous situations.
Perhaps ... like how members of the Timor Leste team was able to participate for the first time not under the Indonesian flag but their own national flag during 2000 Sydney Olympics ...
Didn't win a single medal, which was not surprising, but their very presence was a moral booster to many people, judging from the standing ovation they got ...
the Olympics spirit transcended nationalism ... just because people were proud to represent their own country didn't mean they were antagonistic to people from other countries ...
Or the 1956 Melbourne which saw the international crowds cheering for the Hungarians beating the USSR in water-polo ...
Czech Emil Zapotek spoke of 1948 London Olympics "The revival of the Olympics was as if the sun had come out. I went into the Olympic Village in 1948, and suddenly there were no more frontiers, no more barriers. Just the peoples meeting together. It was wonderfully warm."
What you call nationalism apparently did not distract many participants from camaderie among sportsmen.
We're talking specifically about the attempt to snatch something from the hands of someone in a wheelchair (or not in a wheelchair for that matter).
An attempt which the perpetrator has no right to attempt at all in the first place.
Agreed. But not my point.
Originally posted by gcle2003
I doubt there was any intended physical assault.
Intended or not, that's what it amounts to.
A snatcher of purse might have not intended to hurt the victim or physically jostle her, he is no less culpable for the whole incident, including getting physical with the victim.
If there is serious damage, he's liable. I've already agreed with that. The important question is whether there was enough damage done for anyone to worry about.
Originally posted by gcle2003
That appears to be a factual statement of what occurred. What happened is what happened. If all that resulted was scratches and bruises, then all that resulted was scratches and bruises. That is precisely an objective measure of the seriousness of the incident.
It may not be serious, which is a matter of opinion, but it still occurred and it is still an incident.
Don't try to make it seems that nothing happened, that's what I'm saying.
And what I'm saying is don't try and make out anything serious happened.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Originally posted by snowybeagle
If not, why was he following up to the report of the attack on this particular disabled Torch Bearer by saying disabled can also be Nazis?
Because someone had imputed they could not be.
Show that imputation.
The impression many people had been giving was that somehow the girl must automatically be innocent because she was in a wheelchair. Temujin was questioning that assumption, and it's reasonable to do so.
Originally posted by gcle2003
That was when the Olympic flame was first lit. Not when the torch became a symbol.
Again you're confusing the flame with the torch.
Nope. You are confusing it with the fact that there are more than one association to the Torch and to the Relay.
There was no 'Olympic Torch' until 1936. That's factual. There was an 'Olympic Flame' lit in 1928, resurrecting the ancient Greek custom of keeping a flame burning throughout the period of the Games. But there was no 'Torch' until the Germans introduced the concept of lighting the flame in Greece and carrying it from there to Berlin in 1936.
Before 1936, no relay and no 'Olympic Torch', either in the modern Olympics or the ancient ones.
Possibly. However the introduction of the Torch, like Riefenstahl's immortalisation of it, marked a significant change in the nationalistic spirit of the Games. It isn't just Hitler and the Nazis, it's the reign of Avery Brundage as Chairman of the IOC.
Which is history.
Which is what this forum is about, no?
History like Baron Pierre de Courbetin, founder of the modern Olympics, who initially refused to allow participation of women, and conceded only for events where women's modesty could be "preserved".
Modern Olympics is no more about sexual discrimination than the Relay is about Nazism.
The Olympics still discriminates between men and women: the only question is how and to what extent, unless you're advocating no distinction should be made at all.
However, the Olympics has become less and less discriminatory on gender grounds, while becoming more and more influenced by nationalism and politics. The former is a good thing, the latter a bad one.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Not really. There were rockets before the V2, in the Napoleonic wars and before that. The first liquid-fuelled rocket, ancestor of the V2 and today's space exploration rockets, was launched in 1926 in the US.
So what? What I posted was post-WW2 rocketry are traced back to the V-2, not rocketry itself. Read carefully what others posted.
You're implication was that it started with the V-2, just as the relay started in 1936.
Watch more carefully what you write.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Nothing. I said the choices were politically inspired. I don't think the Olympics should be either political or nationalistic.
So what has it got to do with this whole exchange?
This whole exchange is about politics in activities associated with the Games. The whole thing is certainly political, and largely it appears nationalistic.
In the past, in travelling through a country, the torch has been carried by athletes from that country, not from the host. Here for some reason a Chinese athlete was carrying it through Paris, not a Frenchwoman. Why would that be if not for nationalistic reasons?
Originally posted by gcle2003
And, incidentally, while we're on the subject, I think the ancient Greek tradition should be followed and countries currently engaged in warfare should be banned from the Games.
The Olympic truce? Not a bad idea.
Originally posted by gcle2003
I don't mind if they have a ceremony where the winner gets to play his favourite record and wave his old school tie. As long as I can switch channels.
You already can do that.
Originally posted by gcle2003
No, but it's smaller than the US. Denmark is hardly 'big' but Kipketer going there is still relevant. My point is that athletes move to where the facilities, the opportunities and the money is. I quoted some small countries. But check out for yourself where athletes from the West Indies and Africa actually live and train.
I'm from a small country ... some of my country's swimmers train in the US and in Australia.
And it all costs a lot of money, which my country can afford, but many others can't.
Then your swimmers need better agents. Nike and Adidas and the others don't care what country you come from, just how good you are. (And I suppose sometimes how good-looking you are, but I don't know what's to be done about that.)
Originally posted by gcle2003
However the more general point is that each country is limited in how many competitors it can field, but entitled to field athletes even if they are nowhere near world-class, which sometimes leads to ludicrous situations.
Perhaps ... like how members of the Timor Leste team was able to participate for the first time not under the Indonesian flag but their own national flag during 2000 Sydney Olympics ...
Didn't win a single medal, which was not surprising, but their very presence was a moral booster to many people, judging from the standing ovation they got ...
the Olympics spirit transcended nationalism ... just because people were proud to represent their own country didn't mean they were antagonistic to people from other countries ...
That's a great example of politics getting mixed up with sport. That's not 'transending nationalism' it's enshrining it.
Or the 1956 Melbourne which saw the international crowds cheering for the Hungarians beating the USSR in water-polo ...
Politics again. And Melbourne isn't a terribly good example, since at least seven countries boycotted the Games for political reasons (one of them, ironically, the PRC, because Formosa (as it was then called) was allowed to compete.
Czech Emil Zapotek spoke of 1948 London Olympics "The revival of the Olympics was as if the sun had come out. I went into the Olympic Village in 1948, and suddenly there were no more frontiers, no more barriers. Just the peoples meeting together. It was wonderfully warm."
I remember the 48 Olympics. I was at Wembley for the soccer final in which Sweden beat Yugoslavia 3-1. It terms of international harmony it was probably the last great Games. The anti-Fascist wars were over, and the cold war was only just beginning.
Even then though there was a fuss when a Czech gold medallist defected rather than return home after the recent Communist takeover.
What you call nationalism apparently did not distract many participants from camaderie among sportsmen.
It's not among the sportsmen that the problems usually arise. Even in 1936.
And what I'm saying is don't try and make out anything serious happened.
That is happened is enough.
Originally posted by gcle2003
The impression many people had been giving was that somehow the girl must automatically be innocent because she was in a wheelchair. Temujin was questioning that assumption, and it's reasonable to do so.
Do show which post claimed that a girl in wheelchair must automatically be innocent.
Originally posted by gcle2003
There was no 'Olympic Torch' until 1936. That's factual. There was an 'Olympic Flame' lit in 1928, resurrecting the ancient Greek custom of keeping a flame burning throughout the period of the Games. But there was no 'Torch' until the Germans introduced the concept of lighting the flame in Greece and carrying it from there to Berlin in 1936.
Fine, I won't use the term flame and torch interchangably - without the Flame, there won't be a Torch, so the Torch did originate from the Flame.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Which is what this forum is about, no?
Sure, and that would also mean to make a distinction whether it *is* history or it is still *not over*.
Originally posted by gcle2003
The Olympics still discriminates between men and women: the only question is how and to what extent, unless you're advocating no distinction should be made at all.
However, the Olympics has become less and less discriminatory on gender grounds, while becoming more and more influenced by nationalism and politics. The former is a good thing, the latter a bad one.
Perhaps, but we no longer keep the discrimination today has no longer the ghost of Courbetin's, and given how Torch relay has had many bearers of what the Nazi would term as inferior races, Freeman and Ali being among them, there is no significant Nazi ghost there either - except for those who want to keep it alive.
Originally posted by gcle2003
You're implication was that it started with the V-2, just as the relay started in 1936.
Watch more carefully what you write.
Read carefully what I posted again. Here is the quote from the post I made:
Originally posted by snowybeagle
It is akin to insisting that because the modern rocketry developed after WW2 were all traced back to the V-2 rocket technology introduced by the Nazis, modern rocketry is only to be associated with Nazism or a symbol of Nazism.
In case you missed it, let me highlight the relevant part in bold.
Originally posted by snowybeagle
It is akin to insisting that because the modern rocketry developed after WW2 were all traced back to the V-2 rocket technology introduced by the Nazis, modern rocketry is only to be associated with Nazism or a symbol of Nazism.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Then your swimmers need better agents. Nike and Adidas and the others don't care what country you come from, just how good you are. (And I suppose sometimes how good-looking you are, but I don't know what's to be done about that.)
And allow commercialism to run even more amok? No, thank you, though it's not like I got a say it in myself.
You complain of nationalism during medal awards spoil the Games but you think nothing of the even more ubiquitous rampant commercialism ???!!!!
Originally posted by gcle2003
That's a great example of politics getting mixed up with sport. That's not 'transending nationalism' it's enshrining it.
How does cheering for a liberated country enshrine nationalism for people from other countries??!!!
They did it for humanitarian reasons, which incidentally, is what the non-Tibetan pro-Tibetan supporters are claiming for protesting against China.
And what I'm saying is don't try and make out anything serious happened.
That is happened is enough.
What happened? Who got hurt? How badly? Let's be objective about this. Is kicking someone in the ankle as bad as chopping their head of? A sense of proportion is needed here.
Originally posted by gcle2003
The impression many people had been giving was that somehow the girl must automatically be innocent because she was in a wheelchair. Temujin was questioning that assumption, and it's reasonable to do so.
Do show which post claimed that a girl in wheelchair must automatically be innocent.
I said that was 'the impression many people had been giving', not that it was in a specific post. People were leaping to their feet accusing the protesters of all sorts of things, and nobody had pointed out that maybe the girl shares some of the blame. It's that absence I'm pointing to: I can't provide an instance of something not being there.
Not that I would impute much blame to her personally because I doubt she had much choice in the matter, but the organisers of the relay certainly share some of the blame. Maybe Chinese athletes shouldn't have been carrying the torch through France (or any country but China) in the first place.
Originally posted by gcle2003
There was no 'Olympic Torch' until 1936. That's factual. There was an 'Olympic Flame' lit in 1928, resurrecting the ancient Greek custom of keeping a flame burning throughout the period of the Games. But there was no 'Torch' until the Germans introduced the concept of lighting the flame in Greece and carrying it from there to Berlin in 1936.
Fine, I won't use the term flame and torch interchangably - without the Flame, there won't be a Torch, so the Torch did originate from the Flame.
Yes. Later. Thousands of years later.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Which is what this forum is about, no?
Sure, and that would also mean to make a distinction whether it *is* history or it is still *not over*.
You're the one that said 'It's history' as if dismissing it. I agreed with you it was history, but I don't think that makes it unimportant.
Originally posted by gcle2003
The Olympics still discriminates between men and women: the only question is how and to what extent, unless you're advocating no distinction should be made at all.
However, the Olympics has become less and less discriminatory on gender grounds, while becoming more and more influenced by nationalism and politics. The former is a good thing, the latter a bad one.
Perhaps, but we no longer keep the discrimination today has no longer the ghost of Courbetin's, and given how Torch relay has had many bearers of what the Nazi would term as inferior races, Freeman and Ali being among them, there is no significant Nazi ghost there either - except for those who want to keep it alive.
There is certainly continues to be a nationalist ghost in the Games today. That first started getting serious in 1936, and it still continues. 1936 was the first Games which were threatened with being boycotted for political reasons, and there are still threats of boycott today. The Games of 1956, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988 were boycotted and 1972 was threatened with boycott. In 1992 and 2000 Afghanistan didn't participate. Since 1968 only the 1996 and 2004 Games saw all member countries participating, and now we're threatened with boycott again.
Originally posted by gcle2003
You're implication was that it started with the V-2, just as the relay started in 1936.
Watch more carefully what you write.
Read carefully what I posted again. Here is the quote from the post I made:
Originally posted by snowybeagle
It is akin to insisting that because the modern rocketry developed after WW2 were all traced back to the V-2 rocket technology introduced by the Nazis, modern rocketry is only to be associated with Nazism or a symbol of Nazism.
In case you missed it, let me highlight the relevant part in bold.
Originally posted by snowybeagle
It is akin to insisting that because the modern rocketry developed after WW2 were all traced back to the V-2 rocket technology introduced by the Nazis, modern rocketry is only to be associated with Nazism or a symbol of Nazism.
Exactly. You were wrong to say it was akin. The institution of the torch and the relay started with the Berlin Games in 1936. Modern rocketry did not start with the V2. Hence the two are not akin.
Originally posted by gcle2003
Then your swimmers need better agents. Nike and Adidas and the others don't care what country you come from, just how good you are. (And I suppose sometimes how good-looking you are, but I don't know what's to be done about that.)
And allow commercialism to run even more amok? No, thank you, though it's not like I got a say it in myself.
You complain of nationalism during medal awards spoil the Games but you think nothing of the even more ubiquitous rampant commercialism ???!!!!
Commercialism doesn't kill people. Nationalism does. Commercialism - in this area - only discriminates on the basis of talent, not on race or nationality and not that much on gender. Commercialism means money from rich countries goes to athletes from poor ones.
This was the team sheet for Arsenal when they played in the UK premiership this weekend:
Lehmann; Tour (Ebou, 60), Gallas, Song, Clichy; Walcott, Gilberto, Fabregas, Hleb (Denilson, 74); Van Persie, Adebayor (Bendtner, 74). Substitutes not used: Senderos, Mannone (gk).
The only British name on the whole list is Walcott, and he's black, and doesn't usually start.
That's the way commercialism defeats nationalism.
Originally posted by gcle2003
That's a great example of politics getting mixed up with sport. That's not 'transending nationalism' it's enshrining it.
How does cheering for a liberated country enshrine nationalism for people from other countries??!!!
It's supporting one nation against another.
They did it for humanitarian reasons, which incidentally, is what the non-Tibetan pro-Tibetan supporters are claiming for protesting against China.
True, but I don't agree with them calling for a boycott either.
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Topic: "CHINA'S 'SMILING ANGEL IN WHEELCHAIR' Olympics
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if you're familiar with recent German politicians, you'll know MR. Schuble whose dream it is to create the perfect police state that makes the Stasi look like good neighbours. i wouldn't mind him.... but i'll stop now or maybe i'll suddenly dissapear into oblivion... 
