virat0, i appreciate your energy and enthusiasm in responding to various items, but i must say you sometimes lose me when you get very abstract :-)
kapidhwaja or kaunteya, one of you had asked who i supported for the world cup. i am not very much into 'soccer', i prefer 'american football'. but i prefer brazil. also, a very interesting thing i have observed: it's always roughly the same countries that make it to the quarterfinals. which means that this is an instance of market failure: the free-market is not able to break down monopolies and create a level playing field. thus in a way it is an instance of excessive capitalism. now consider the national football league in the us, far and away the most successful of the professional sports bodies in the country. there is a very real chance that your local team will eventually do well because of the system: the worst teams get the highest draft picks the next year, there are salary caps, and the TV revenues are equally shared among the teams. this means it's not going to be NY, LA, SF and chicago dominating all the time (although i would rather like it if my beloved 49ers always dominated the league!). in other words, a level playing field. which means that even if you are from a smallish city like green bay or something, *you* as a fan has some hope that eventually team will win. a rather unusual situation where regulation is actually helping matters along. in other other words, "reservation" is helping! so what do you guys think about that? hey, that's a totally original insight into this problem, woudln't you agree? so i better TM it right here, right now :-)
i am glad to see that more and more, the TM 'aryan' 'tourist' theory is getting support from everyone. i might yet win my nobel prize for this, you mark my words :-) after all, if henry kissinger and amartya sen and yasser arafat can win, why not yours truly?
another question: i was thinking of the shashi tharoor controversy, and it occurred to me that there are very few indians who are visible on the global stage. i can only think of: jagdish bhagwati, lakshmi mittal, maybe somebody like vinod khosla. who else is a visible global indian?
finally, a word to vamanan: yo, i'm afraid you're confusing me with somebody who gives a damn for your problems. also, i missed the part where i signed up to educate ill-read pygmies.
4 comments:
rajeev,
well there *is* some level of reservation in soccer too. without that i cannot imagine ghana and ivory coast being part of 32 teams and greece and austria out of it. i mean football as we used to call b4 coming to US.. is probably the most universal sport. a poor country like ghana participating against lets say germany and usa... that's only possible here. i used to be a cricket fan for most part.. but i think cricket is a more elitist sport than football. infact football offers more level playing field than any other sport. also probably the only sport that can bring usa and iran together on same platform. meaning, a sport transcending the borders of religion,race,ethnicity,economy etc.
cannot imagine of any other sport where the big five brazil,germany,italy,england,argentina .. none of them are sure if they will reach the round of 16.. forget quarters..
this year italy and france.. both football power houses were on a brink of exiting in round one itself..were it not for some shoddy referring..
anyways.. hope you have a great long weekend too.. i will be all soaked up.. cheering for brazil and england..
gulping down .. corona light..on the way.. isn't that by far the best beer after kingfisher? :-)))
I wish we took more notice of the way the Indian Constitution and the Indian Democracy is being trampled by 'committed media', aggressive religious sects, and a party (congress) that always wants to win the game by means mostly foul. From 1st July, Tandon will retire as CEC, and congress has appointed one Qureshi to substitute him. There are grave doubts about the impartiality of the last appointee - Chawala, who seems to be a 'member' of the congress family right down from emergency days. The Election commission as an institute will be as good as finished here onwards.
The President will be next (in 2007 I guess). Is there any chance India will remain a free and independent country in future? The unfortunate part is that mainstream media are hardly discussing this.
KD,
Yes.. and on the same day.. it was very dissappointing.. i must say..
Yups.. haven't tried beck's as yet.
And yups now i will be rooting for Germany.. probably the most deserving of the semi-finalists
Darkstorm, I am sure Portugal will spring a surprise or two.. or actually there won't be surprise if they beat france.
France have been blowing hot and cold. They were spectacularly dull in there first round matches b4 they hit form against spain. In a way they have beaten two tournament favourites and quite convincingly at that. So can't risk putting money on either of the two.
For the other semis.. Germany are the clear favourites. Italians have been plain lucky reaching so far..
But who knows.. like how Pakistan went on to win the 92 world cup after being virtually on the brink of elimination.. anything can happen.
It sucks really, when luck decides the fate of the tournament.
Brazil had one bad day.. and whooosh they were out.. Italy had one good stroke of luck and they are in semis..
England offcourse is always more hype than substance. It's like that so called US basketball dream team that went on to win bronze; when they could not even beat Brazil at olympics.
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