AirBunny wrote:The 1904 Olympics included the illustrious sports of greased pole climbing, rock throwing, and mud fighting. This is a historical fact! .
This is half right... There was a part of 1904 Olympics which was calle "Anthropology Days", which included the aforementioned "sports". It was a purely racist event:
"Here's where the fair's creepy, early-20th-century ideas about racial superiority reach their icky apogee. Throughout the fair, the so-called primitives participated in physical displays alongside cultural presentations; a visitor to the "Patagonian" display, for instance, might see native Argentines do a traditional dance and also perform some athletic feat. Sullivan subscribed to the view that the white, Anglo-American was at the top of the racial hierarchy in brains and brawn. Here, at his fair, was a chance to prove it once and for all. He talked to William McGee, his counterpart at the fair's Department of Anthropology, and proposed that they combine their efforts. They would hold a "Special Olympics" (Sullivan's phrase) during the plain-old Olympics in which the "savages" would mimic their white counterparts. For Sullivan, it would demonstrate the inherent inferiority of the world's indigenous peoples. For McGee, it would create a body of data that would help him make his mark in the emerging field of anthropology and help him develop his pet bit of quackery: a complete racial hierarchy.
The Special Olympics were harder to pull together than they expected. Despite the fact that the folks in the human zoo were in quasi-captivity, they were paid professionals. With agents and everything. Very few of the "primitives" had any interest in participating in an amateur competition: The Ainu people of Japan might have stooped to climb trees for fair-goers, but that was because they got paid for it. Some, too, seemed to balk because they thought the Olympic sports were ridiculous. Water polo—no joke—was quickly scratched from the program. But eventually, whether due to coercion or curiosity, contestants were secured and the bizarre games within the games began."
from
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/fi ... acism.html
AirBunny wrote:If Starsky goes to the olympics, mud fighting would be back in, his best game...
Would it now. Why would you bring Starsky close to these 1904 atrocities? A full excuse is the least you owe him.
AirBunny wrote:Toby, I tried to raise the level here, but it's not possible... Sorry. There was a discussion recently at the Berliner Schaubuehne about low class behavior on the internet. One top Berlin judge wasn't amused... In psychoanalysis we say acting out in groups at the most primitive emotional level is a symptom of childhood deficiencies... you either sublimate or hurt others...
You are so full of yourself... superior little pseudo intellectual Berlin girl, aren't you...