Shanks very Max Muchy.

There’s all this talk lately about sporting success and failures and money and the like. I think that there is a bit of unjustified criticism of Olympians not winning. Especially when they only came second?? And then there is the counter sinchilectualist arguments that say ‘who are we to judge, we’re a bunch of fatties that couldn’t hold a candle to them.’ Which is a good point to make maybe, but I am not so sure it’s that cut and dried. Surely we, as a populace that greatly advantages sports people through many areas  (public investment and taxation policy to start) have some sort of ability to be upset? I am  not talking about this being past the point of basic manners such as the many “what went wrong?” type questions that have been asked of an athlete as they have gotten out of the pool in a rush of emotion. I am not sure about this idea, but it seems to me that sport and the Olympics are merely the latest casualty of this need to base everything in economic terms. 'How many dollars a gold medal costs the Aussie battler' type rationalising that has plagued everything from natural disasters (floods and the like) through to carbon trading. You barely hear any commentary about whether or not something is a good idea or a good thing. Olympians can still swim more than a few laps of a pool in no time at all, but I think it may be more that we are too gutless to judge, rather than too quick. It takes some gumption to say - 'hey, s/he did well, swam fast, whatever' because someone saying that is identifying with that performance - seeing it as a goal to be attained/respected. Hanging shit on someone for being not worthy in some way doesn't require much forethought.

But no, my concern is more that observing things in pure economic terms generally misses the point. As someone, Barry Jones I think, said - the easiest way to increase the GDP of a country is to make cars less safe. All that extra work for panel beaters, doctors, lawyers etc will be great for the economy. The point is that economics and the concept of a dollar was never supposed to measure intrinsic value, unlike the media and social commentary which is supposed to, or at least point out weird shit.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has recently been cutting services and sacking the public sector left, right and centre on this mantra that Queensland is $65 Billion in debt, yet has admitted the upcoming Gold Coast Commonwealth Games will cost the state $85 Billon. For my understanding, there is no talk of cutting that back. We just can’t for some reason, yet we can get rid of major health, education and publically funded welfare organisations by the gaggle. For example, if you want a heart transplant in Qld nowdays..yeah, sucks to be you, we can’t afford that, but we can’t afford not to have shiney people jump over things and throw things for no apparent reason.

It would be interesting to see how far this (mis) use of economic terms goes though. Are we going to see things like how much the police cost us? How much a fire costs to put out? Maybe is someone’s house is burning down, it’s just too costly to fund a fire dept to put it out. Those trucks aren’t free you know. Surely judging the Qld Police in terms of how much money it costs for them to make an arrest on average (annual running budget divided by number of arrests made), let alone how much it costs us for them to convict someone of a criminal offence would be an awesome figure. It would make the very concept of police seem considerably more useless than the ‘glorified janitors’ label that many, including myself, who have ever tried to get them to actually do something concerning a serious criminal offence would perceive them. Then that begs the question: how much money is too much to pay for an arrest? $100, $200. I am sure the figure would be in the thousands. I’ll have to look into that.

But getting back to sports people; one thing that has always fascinated me is why someone would interview certain types of sports people. Jockeys are probably the funniest, though hard to ridicule properly in the written word. Rugby League players and boxers would be vying for second place in this contest. Boxers, like jockeys are hard to ridicule in the written form, but football players, league players are always such a waste of time.

“So Hassah matey, you had a good game there, what are yuz thoughts coming out of the match? You seemed to have a good game plan?”

“...Yeah, fanks Dougie [not his real name] yeah, well the boys an I wannad to like, put the ball ova da line more times than the other...you know...um...”

“The other team?”

“...yeah, yeah ... that’s right. And we like, also wanted to stop them from like...putting the ball over our line...”

SU-perb.

And you can never go past the sinchelectualism of a former player turned commentator...

''...importantly the team that wins game one goes on to win the series 71 per cent of the time''

Or in other words - the team that wins the first game of a three game series - about two thirds of the time, wins the series - way to support that whole 'footy players are a bunch of carpet shitting, racist rapist morons there Dougie [not his real name]

This post’s lame joke – Eric the White Horse and his mates raced a pack of greyhounds one day. The race was pretty tense, not only were there a lot of bets on it, pride was at stake. After the race, Eric and his friends walked into the local pub for a post-race beer and debrief.

“That race was insane” Eric started. “I was in the lead all through the first lap, then got to the third last corner, I had all these pins and needles in my legs and then pain, so I had to pull over.”

“You’re kidding!”exclaimed Roger, Eric’s best friend. “You know I was coming second until you pulled out, then I was in the lead and flying to the finish, but then, sounds like the same thing; pins and needles and pain and I had to stop coming into the second last corner.”

“Excuse me.” interrupted Sammy, one of the greyhounds. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation and I’d just like to say that the EXACT same thing happened to me. I was in the lead until the last corner, having a great race against you guys until pins and needles, then pain. I would what all of this means?”

“Well” replied Eric. “Fellas, I think we have seen something strange today. Just when we think that we’re all smug and knowledgeable, something like this comes along. An experience like this shouldn’t be shunned. Because, fellas, forgive me if I’m wrong, but have a look at what we’ve witnessed today. A talking bloody dog.” 

This post’s inappropriate over share: I have really ugly feet. I know I should spend some more time with a pumas stone and clippers or something so that they wouldn’t be too ugly, but what’s the point?