Open thread 9/5/23
Today we have the first of a series I call “sports you may never have watched before or even known existed”:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Today we have the first of a series I call “sports you may never have watched before or even known existed”:
I miss “sport aerobics.” The aerobics championships of the 1980s were horrifyingly awesome!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIfAkOBMf5A&list=RDQM-l-96VA_16w&start_radio=1
Apart from the hoops, there’s not much difference between rhythmic gymnastics and competition cheerleading:
see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgH-Esw6GpI&ab_channel=TheCheerBuzz
Should be interesting, if he manages to do it:
https://patriotandliberty.com/100-transparent-jordan-peterson-says-he-will-broadcast-mandated-social-media-re-educationtraining/
Money for Burning Man: https://imgur.com/dcWVfgI
cb– the Babylon Bee gets it: “Biden Approves $40 Billion Worth Of Drugs To Be Airdropped To Burning Man” . . . “Look, Jack, we have 70,000 hippies stranded in tents in the middle of the desert with no uppers, downers, OR psychedelics,” he noted from his beach chair in Delaware. “That’s why I’ve asked Congress to declare a state of emergency and rush these much-needed drugs to Nevada immediately!”
Sources noted that supplies of illicit substances had been running low after heavy rains stranded attendees in the desert for several days. “Many of these folks only brought enough drugs for two days,” a source at the festival noted. “As they remain stranded for the fourth day, people are beginning to reach critical levels of sobriety!”
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-approves-40-billion-worth-of-drugs-to-be-airdropped-to-burning-man
Spent the weekend in Chicago. We are finished. But the Cubs won. Twelve strike outs.
I’m impressed that the gymnasts can throw the hoops with their foot long distances with accuracy. I imagine that one would have to practice for hours, flipping hoops at a distant target.
How these hoopsters don’t trip over their hoops, otherwise get all tangled up in them or drop them is amazing.
Speaking of “obscure” sports, I stumbled upon this recently; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUfZ7rXdfik
These athletes defy gravity.
I’ll stick to Buzkashi, thank you very much….
(That it’s not yet an Olympic event is truly scandalous….)
Cornhead, I hope you were in the shade.
RE: China–more revelatory information and videos about the real China–as they call it, “the land of shortcuts and facades,” from western China vloggers laowhy86 and Serpentza
I recently posted my experience with how we were warned not to drink the drinking water in Japan when I was stationed there in the late 60’s.
Well, here is something even worse.
Apparently the drinking water in China is so totally unsafe to drink that everyone has to buy bottled water.
Here is the story about how organized crime in China runs a counterfeit drinking water racket–they scavenge used name brand water bottles out of the trash, buy empties in bulk from restaurants, or even pick the empties out of landfills, fill the bottles up with untreated, unsafe water, then, this bottled water is repackaged to look new, and put into stores to be sold as the real thing.*
Then, here is another major issue with fake, unsafe products which everyone in China probably ends up consuming, the issue of “spit or gutter oil” (WARNING you need a strong stomach to watch this video).**
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu6yJyi97ZI
** See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKGtwaJaoHE&t=86
“But the Cubs won.”
There may be a black cat in the Cubs’ future– just ask Ron Santo about the furry visitor (supposedly released by a Mets fan) in Shea Stadium in September 1969:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAtniVkVQHQ&ab_channel=SharonR.Meade
These odd sports are the ones I like best. Please keep ’em coming.
I loved Wide World of Sports on ABC. Arm wrestling competitions and cliff diving were often featured.
RE: China–fake products
My mistake, I reversed the order of the links above at 1 PM.
Snow on Pine, when we lived in India we looked carefully at water bottles to be sure they were sealed, not just opened and refilled.
RE: China–
Here is a fairly comprehensive overview of current conditions in China, which does not at all paint a pretty picture.*
Again, I’m starting to wonder if what we are seeing here is the operation of China’s traditional dynastic cycle at work i.e. more and more aspects of the social, political, and economic order start to disintegrate, breakdown until, finally, the existing “dynasty” collapses in chaos and violence and, eventually, a new dynasty emerges.
*See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2_0CtJUDH4
Does this mean we’ll get to see things like sepak takraw and kabbadi? đ
Yes, I was in the shade. Great day.
The Ricketts family from Omaha own the Cubs. They improved Wrigley Field with more rest rooms! And a big electronic video board that was very informative and sold lots of ads.
I’m going to hit Sen. Pete Ricketts up for tickets next time I see him.
I figured out, in part, why the Cubs and Wrigley Field are so popular. It’s like the James Earl Jones monologue from “Field of Dreams.” It reminds us of our past; our rural past. Baseball connects us.
Chicago is filthy and ridden with crime and corruption. But no crime or corruption at Wrigley. And it is clean.
People were so excited after the win, 4-0. They brought out W flags and sang. Really sweet.
I should add that I’m sure I ran across some illegal aliens, with their babies and paper diapers, outside of some kind of shelter. I say put those people to work cleaning the L stations. But their aren’t unionized so it ain’t happening.
I’m glad the Dems picked Chicago for their convention in 2024. The Dems can see what a failed, Dem city looks like. The hotel only had three elevators but 17 stories. Some corrupt deal got that passed.
Yeah, I hate Chicago. It is a failed one-party city in a failed one-party state.
Also went to the Art Institute to see Van Gogh exhibit. Lots of masks being worn by the libs. They will never learn.
Also, lots of tats. Totally horrible on women. Saw one guy at the game and one of his arms was nearly black with ink.
Cornhead–Yah, never could figure out the allure for women of tats–especially of “tramp stamps,” the first name of their current love tattooed in large cursive letters across their chests, or a whole “sleeve” of tats–or of lots of piercings, little balls of metal and/or pins sticking out of their faces, eyebrows, the bridges of their noses and the sides of their nostrils, pierced belly buttons with chains hanging down, and especially those big, Elsie the cow type doorknocker rings in their noses.
Stretched and faded tats, and lots of scars to remind them of their bad choices later on in life.
For me, totally unattractive, low class, kinda sleezy, and a very visible indicator of bad judgement.
I love those videos you see once in awhile of heavily tattooed young people–usually men–their faces and other parts of their bodies covered in tattoos–usually featuring violent or macabre themes–who complain that they are being “discriminated against” and can’t find a job.
P.S. Very clearly remember standing in line several decades ago at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the young guy in front of us had a shaved head whose top was covered with a large pentagram complemented, when he momentarily turned around, with cobwebs hanging from the corners of his eyes.
Quite a statement and sight, and we steered clear of him.
Chinaâmajor and crushing retirement pension disparities
As a result of the disastrous social engineering of the Chinese Communist Party’s âone child policyâ China is headed for a demographic collapseâhuge and increasing numbers of the elderly, but due to the reduced numbers of births caused by this one child policy, the number of people in younger cohorts are greatly reduced from what they traditionally were, and should be; thus, fewer and fewer young workers (and adult children) to work, pay taxes, and to support the retirement of more and more elderly parents and grandparents, as is traditional in China.
Moreover, as the video below describes, those who are elderly ârural residentsâ receive vastly less in monthly pensions from the Chinese âretirement systemâ (which they have to pay into, apparently with few, if any, health benefits included) âa pittance, and, apparently, not enough to live onâcompared to what those classified as being âurban workersâ–further divided into âinstitutional workersâ and âenterprise workersâ–receive.
Some examples from the video linked to below âin the city of Yingtan in Jiangxi province the 2023 average monthly retirement pension for government employees is around 5,080 Yuan (around $700 U.S. dollars) 2.14 times the 2,368 Yuan per month (around $326 U.S. dollars) which retired enterprise employees receive, and 25 times more than the 207 Yuan (around $29 U.S. dollars) which rural retirees receive.
In Changchun, Jilin province, government and public institution retirees receive an average of 5,480 Yuan monthly (around $755 U.S. dollars), 1.8 times higher than the average monthly retirement pension of 3,125 Yuan (around $ 430 U.S. dollars) for enterprise workers, and 41 times higher than the monthly retirement pension of those classed as being âurban or ruralâ of 133 Yuan ( around $18 U.S. dollars).
According to the video, the current average monthly retirement pension for urban retirees is 3,326 Yuan (around $456 U.S. dollars), while the average monthly retirement pension for rural retirees averages 179 Yuan (less than $25 U.S. dollars).
According to the video linked below, this gigantic disparity between the retirement pensions of the urban vs. the rural elderly apparently prevails throughout China.*
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEmsYkoEb3U
Cornhead, somewhere Harry Caray is smiling.
P.S. According to various statistical sources, as of 2023 around 36% of the Chinese population is classified as “rural,” close to half a billion people.
That was gorgeous.
Thank you Neo.
This and other “soft” floor gymnastics for girls became popular in Israel due to the influx of emigres from the Eastern bloc.
Israelis have a knack for finding the outlying sports, where a small country has a chance… such as windsurfing and judo.