Welcome Sports Haters!

Understood.

You don't like sports Chumly?

I've met a couple of sports I didn't like, but they are not all bad.

Sexual athleticism is spiffy but prudish restrictions prohibit public display. The "culture" of hockey, football, baseball etc is a big yawn.

I've heard Spendi found a way to combine sexual athleticism with water ballet and it's showing off-off-Broadway.

Well--I suppose American sports are pretty bad when you think about it. It's hard to imagine anybody having much interest in them outside of just wanting to be on the side that's winning. And the cheer leaders of course.

On 5/3/2005 by a 65-56 vote, the Texas House of Representatives passed a bill to restrict, "overtly sexually suggestive" cheerleading to "more ladylike performances". Under the bill, the state education commissioner can request that school districts review high school routines.

that just about sums up a rugger test match...oh, and "like watching paint dry" to boot

let's face it, every culture has their unfathomable sport..

put on a lacrosse match and my eyes glaze over.

Pro sports in North America have become a big business and more "entertainment" than sport..that's why they keep meddling with the rules and the equipment...and ruining the sport.

But I think about all the kids that have been afforded a better education with partial and full scholarships here and I believe on the whole organized sports are a good thing

More than a good thing. A necessity.

But why oh why do you Yanks not play cricket? Baseball is so corny.

right. last week was the bosses birthday. Something I dread each year, because (a) she has the worst taste in the world, (b) anything she wants she's already gone out and bought & (c) although she's straight, I have never meet a less "womanly woman" in my life.

Basically, when I'm going to get her a gift, I think "What is something I would absolutley hate?", and I go buy it.

This year I thought "I would totally hate an iphone case with my favorite sports team on it"....so, there you go. The search was on for a UT orange longhorn iphone case.



For those of you who don't know (or care) that "Hook 'em Horns" thing? The first time I saw someone doing the "hook 'em horns" hand gesture...



naturally I gasped, as anyone who grew up around 2nd generation Italian Americans would have.



anyway...she loved it.

I get to the office this morning, and see that someone else, probably her husband, had bought her the ultimate UT fan gift...


Oh....My....God...
Have you ever seen such a monstrosity?



I hadn't looked in her office when I arrived. She wasn't there yet. When she got there someone went in to talk to her, then came over to me whispering "chai, you're not going to believe....no, maybe you will." I went over, took one look and just walked away. A few seconds later, I heard the new person in the office, who doesn't yet realize the depth of the devotion, blurt out to the boss "THAT's Ridiculous!!!" I could just envision the speaker clapping their hand over their mouth.

good lord.

She must have been really pleased with your gift chai. It shows how much you care for your boss and I hope she has taken due note.

Obviously the credit crunch is not as traumatic as we are being led to believe.

hey, that piece of crap cost about $20. Personally, I wouldn't have given someone a nickel for it. No need to spend more when it's what the receipiant would want.

yeah, she did like it. she immediately put it on her phone, which she uses contantly.

I got a good job, been there for eons, with decent pay. No credit crisis with me.

Thanks for saying that, chumly. Somehow that point was lost in the discussion.

Something Cicerone Imposter put up today that exemplifies what participating in athletics is all about. It goes beyond words.

http://www.responsibilityproject.com/films/player/the-home-run/

What do you mean? A movie means nothing.

You twit! Watch the movie!

I got fed up with it pan. Does something real happen?

Everything important about the human condition happens.

Now I recognize whom you remind me of spendix, Beckett's Vladimir and Estragon, for whom life itself passes by waiting for it to happen.

Have you started taking the yoga?


re that movie....I guess it gets you choked up if you like sports.

didn't do a thing for me.

CHAI SAID
]

No Chai, the film does not choke me up because “I like sports” but because I appreciate people and relish the human condition that generates such compassion towards others, and hold entirely to Hamlet's description of humanity.



All human beings undergo a personal vision quest. We are the heroes of our own lives. Whether it is a to quest to play a Beethoven bagatelle, paint a landscape, build a kite, plant a rose bush, climb a mountain, quilt a family blanket, or throw a ball.

So why pick on the vision quests of athletes?

Your antagonism with “sports” is not about the spirit of the people participating in their personal vision quests but you are rightfully recoiled by the meta artifacts of popular sports in today’s culture; viz., the presence of highly testosterone laden athletes with low self control and high libido along with crazy fan adulation.

But an appreciation of the mental and physical efforts and sacrifices needed to pursue these personal vision quests of athletes is a recognition of ascetic values, and should not be confused with the cultural artifacts of modern day “sports.” One is a personal, adamantine substance of a person’s core personality, while the other is simply bombast with gigantic foam hats and Number 1 fingers.

The young women who won that game were not the women with the most runs, but those who carried their opponent across the plate to beat them.

Consider that the women did not have to carry the runner all the way to home plate and could have achieved their personal vision quest simply by doing nothing. But they did not do nothing; for a human they did everything, by sacrificing their goal for a higher one. What athletics taught those women was that there are higher values than their own personal satisfaction by achieving victory at any cost. Winning, in sports as in life, is not just achieving the best score or dying with the most toys, but holding on to your values, (and discovering new ones along the way) even when it hurts and costs you your toughly fought for goals. Can you not even appreciate that simple fundamental condition of the human spirit, without yawning in boredom? Most people actually possess that sensitivity towards others as a default emotion for being a human being, and you startlingly lack it entirely.

Be a mensch for Christ's sake. Maybe it will help you get along with your boss and co-workers with whom you don't get along.

why is it anyone who doesn't agree with you has an antagonism towards sports?

The video just didn't move me.

It wouldn't have moved me regardless of the subject matter.

It was a silly little simplistic video, of a one time event.

It didn't show that perhaps the fellow teammates said to these 2 carriers, "way to go for making us lose the game"

was the game for some kind of championship or something? Or was it one of those games that were just one of those run of the mill ones that didn't count toward anything much?

If this had been for the national softball championship, do you think they would have carried her around the bases?

What I'm trying to say is that, in the big picture, winning or losing a game is really uninportant to me.
I'm sure I've won my share of games, and lost my fair share also.

I just can't remember any of them, because it just didn't matter.

Maybe it's great for some people, not for all. That's what makes us individuals.

I'm thinking for a lot of people, it's fairly easy to "carry the downed opponent around the bases" because there a crowd of people watching you be a great sportsman.

I think it's more important when a person does something for a fellow human, and no one ever gets credit for it.

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. ~ George Eliot

Is Chess a sport?
and on performance inhancing drugs. How are painkillers NOT performance enhancing?