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03/17/11
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04/15/11
August 29, 2012
Along with the London Olympics this year came news of athletes who defected or disappeared, some before they had a chance to compete. At last count, the number exceeded 20. This is, of course, no surprise and has been part and parcel of the Olympic Games for decades.
This year, 15 African athletes and coaches defected, with Cameroon leading the way. There were no defections from North Korea, however, which was surprising to some. But Olympic Historian David Wallechinsky told NPR’s Melissa Block recently that some communist countries employ “minders” to accompany each athlete everywhere they go. They are never allowed to be alone, for fear of defection.
Yet athletes weren’t the only ones to disappear at the London games. A Congolese coach and a technical athletic director also failed to return to their home countries after the games ended earlier this month. (Ethiopia deserves honorable mention since young Nathaniel Yemane, a 15-year-old torch bearer, disappeared for a short time but was later found safe in Nottingham. Apparently, Nathaniel had gotten lost.)
Seventy years ago, Olympic defections were linked to Cold War politics (A Czech gymnastics coach was the first to defect in 1948.) Since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, however, most defections have been economically motivated.
The benefits of defection from a third world country while in an international capital are not difficult to comprehend. The job market in the European Union may be bleak; however, it’s much brighter than in Cameroon where half the population falls below the poverty line. And many from home countries are willing and able to provide shelter and assistance, eager to help their fellow country men and women. According to the UN, an estimated 441,300 asylum applications were registered in 2011, which is 20% more than in 2010.
Meanwhile, back in Cameroon, a number of young people say they support these young athletes in their decision, stating they would do the same.
The act of defection – and of people living abroad, even – raises multiple questions. For starters, there’s the definition of citizenship. Then there are the rights of sovereign states. And, last but not least, there’s the question of a protection of basic human rights.
Tell me, how do you feel about Olympians defecting for political and/or economic reasons? And, is there a difference? Do you wish these athletes well in their quest for a better life or would you rather they return home?
still thinking about today...
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kwaller
04/09/11
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03/12/11
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dave merritt
03/28/11
Aroldis Chapman 105 mph. Tried to defect in 2008 and was refused a place on the olympic team. Defected in 2009. No one wants to face him in the 9th inning.
I think humans are of the animal genre and we should be allowed to migrate!
I think if Cuba got a National League franchise, the pastures on that island would green up significantly. Wake up Raul. Does Raul lurk in the Village? Anyone know?
Maybe just outside the village gate?
How about this since there is no one out there to defend them (where is Bert?) the Cubs could defect. Become the Cuba Cubbies. They might even have a shot at a title for once. Ah! The stuff dreams are made of...dangle away preposition, dangle away...I am done.
Happy Birthday, JAZ!!!!
Have a very special day.
I'm still laughing from Bebe's zit comment yesterday. I love John Belushi.
Ha, I'm sneaking a post! I MARJORIE, I aim to please! On Saturday my husband & I were driving into town & the song Louie, Louie came on & I said it always made me think of the toga party scene. He replied, "You & everyone else who has seen that movie." PAOLOS.....................you rollmeister you, in fine fettle & delightful. JAX...........................happiest of birthdays to you my friend! May all of your wishes come true! Love you............... Back to the salt mine I go..................................
Ha, I'm sneaking a post! I MARJORIE, I aim to please! On Saturday my husband & I were driving into town & the song Louie, Louie came on & I said it always made me think of the toga party scene. He replied, "You & everyone else who has seen that movie." PAOLOS.....................you rollmeister you, in fine fettle & delightful. JAX...........................happiest of birthdays to you my friend! May all of your wishes come true! Love you............... Back to the salt mine I go..................................
Bebe wants to defect....should we let her? Does she need a 'hall Pass'?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnGctWs4JM ; A musical interlude, on topic, sort of.
...and of course that old punch line ..."..the Olympic runner ran 12K's a day, by now, 2 weeks after the Olympics it would be....let me see. 14 x 12K, 168k's, that would be, er , about 100 miles from the stadium..."
And poor Bert is having password di-fyew-cult-eeee's
But,back on topoic,just why would we want the World's best anything to stay,after the contest? Space Needle?
Yesterday I read a great article about the late great Tolstoy "Long has man understood the definition of slavery. And long has he continued to practice it, ignoring and even mocking decent folks' cries for its abolition. It's time for something new. Were he still alive, Leo Tolstoy, a self-described "spiritualist anarchist," would be 184 years old today. The world of 2012 could learn a lot from this towering, 19th Century intellectual. For one thing, Tolstoy understood well the anarchist attitude of "live and let live," and he spent a good many words railing against The State and its brutal, oppressive nature. Tolstoy's ideas on civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. He saw government for what it really is, "an association of men who do violence to the rest of us." I wrote my first novel years ago and called it The Gingerbread Man about a vulnerable running man. I am no Tolstoy but I am a conduit for his belief that love is the only thing we humans should be about in the end. Good people provide asylum and freedom seekers risk dying because freedom is like oxygen...essential. I love every hit of fresh air I take and wish it for others. I'll leave the negotiations to politicians. I am an anarchist of the Tolstoy type choosing to love over throwing Molotov Cocktails with one hand while holding my Starbucks cup in the other.
so let them stay? and RY..why wouldn't we want the World's best anything to stay? Is this a discussion about send us your tired your poor or about how they enter....
Tommy---I think I've read that book you wrote. I can certainly remember the paperback cover.....top and bottom had bands of green....middle was white background with a gingerbread man running. Visual memory is very strong, I don't remember appreciating the text as properly as I should have, I'm sure.
When I was a young adult, I was always happy to hear about folks able to to defect to the US. It's so much more complicated now.
Carol-- Original had Gingerbread Man like you say with one injured arm from the bite of the wily fox, my metaphor for Deception. And no worries about the content not leaving a lasting impression. Ms Typical says I am an acquired taste. My works always make great coasters and door stops and leveling devices. Two bit actors and half ass writer/poets (and founder of rock band Tom the Bomb and The Atoms in the mid 60's) like me do however make great conversationlists at airport lounges. Will be hanging out in Midway Friday afternoon. Look for the red Haliburton case with the travel stickers.
IMarjorie~ Lovely STeve Earl song! I regret that I don't know the man...until now of course. But then you colud probably fill a book with stuff I don't know. I'll be depending on you all to fill me in.
George, I've always found that the more you learn, the less you know.
Bebe/IMarjorie ~ For years I had a big poster of John Belushi from Animal House in my laundry room.......loved him. It's no surprise that these athletes wish to defect and of course we must let them stay. By making that decision, they've probably sealed their fate in their own countries and certainly can't go back. BUT this does open a whole can of worms.....illegals and all that.
Sneaking a post here too!..Been busy lately, but I know I missed afew things...
Jax...Happy birthday!
Hazel ...happy moving! (Bert too I think?)
Korthal ...I just got glimses ...but hope and pray all will turn out well....
Gwen...Stay safe and well!
sorry if I missed any other major stories
We don't seem to have a problem with claiming scientists, inventors, medical practitioners who defect or immigrate so why should a sportsman be any different?
But talking of running of a different sort, the US debt hit $16 trillion last night, though some have it within this week. It took 200 years to get to the first $1trillion, it took just 286 days to get to the latest trillion. At this rate, (the wonders of compounding) it will get to:
$17 trillion in June, 2013
$18 trillion in March 2014
$19 trillion in Jan, 2015
$20 trillion in October 2015
...and it is ironic that the US has fears of China rising as a military power - the interest earned from their holdings in US debt is so huge that it funds almost their entire military budget.
This doesn't seem to have been picked up by the main financial news like WSJ or bloomberg though it is out on blogs, social networks, newsletters etc. It is too scary to think of consequences, especially with inflation, printing being the only way governments will attempt to find their way back.
This raises so many other issues. In Australia we are at present in heavy debate as refugees, who would I assume be more needy than athletes wanting ot defect ... lovepainandothercatastrophes.blogspot.com
This raises so many other issues. In Australia we are at present in heavy debate as refugees, who would I assume be more needy than athletes wanting ot defect ... lovepainandothercatastrophes.blogspot.com
This raises so many other issues. In Australia we are at present in heavy debate as refugees, who would I assume be more needy than athletes wanting ot defect ... lovepainandothercatastrophes.blogspot.com
This raises so many other issues. In Australia we are at present in heavy debate as refugees, who would I assume be more needy than athletes wanting ot defect ... lovepainandothercatastrophes.blogspot.com
This raises so many other issues. In Australia we are at present in heavy debate as refugees, who would I assume be more needy than athletes wanting ot defect ... lovepainandothercatastrophes.blogspot.com
MISS SPRING: Thank You ... for pointing out another Good Reason to Vote for the American Republican in November .......
I voted for the American Republican in 2008, rather than the Kenyan Democrat ... but it seems that overwhelming Collective Stupidity is hard to overcome .......
Yobial3!! Hihi!!
Where are you located? I am in Tasmania, and for the longest time, the only one this part of the world...Did you see SBS's program last time "Go back where you come from!"?
Now ... Lets see how long it takes for the Guilty White Liberals, who really believe Obama is Black ... to send the Peterman-Green Helicopters over to my place .......
Tariffs. For that time we had no deficit, and very few taxes, we had tariffs. Imagine if the duty on Chinese goods made them as,or more,expensive than ones produced here, what our trade imbalance would be, and how fast we'd pay off the 'vig'. Why, the Chinese army might start buying OUR bullets and beanies, because ours were/are made better. And, what if you called for nerd help witha computer problem (Bert) and had to speak with someone in OUR Country, where the machine was made....you might even talk with who made it!! And as for the World's best athletes defecting, YES we want them to stay!!!And wear OUR flag, and by the way, that flag should be MADE IN THE USA!!! And the PEOPLE that made it should have a decent wage, so they could afford to live like AMERICANS!!! (my soap box is still intact) Now, our debt isn't all to Chinese,or England,Holland,Germany,etc., it's to Americans as bond payments,and pensions,and Social Security. Isn't that better than to overseas bankers? Look how much money banks make;my savings accounts hardly do...
Happy Birthday Jax!!!
***
I am a refugee from Krypton where my father was a grifter. He hid me behind Kal-El (Later Superman) and there I was frozen like a popsicle until we fell to Earth. The Kents took Kal-El after the thawing and some Hillbillies from Tennessee took me since their dog had died. Clark had superpowers. I had a hankering for moonshine. I can not hold a public office and my school records are scandalous. Refugee Status Determination has become a complicated affair.
And Kryptonite gelato makes you queeezy?
RY- as weak as cat's pee
Roadie, it appears that the US public debt (ie. Sovereign or govt debt) as a percentage of GDP is 72.7% . But External debt (which includes private debt) is 100.6% of GDP.
Compare that with Japan, which is 196.5% for its govt debt but External debt is only 56% , where then, you can really conclude most of the debt the Japanese govt owns is to its citizens (a reason, like Singapore, is because it holds the citizens' pension funds).
So I'm afraid it is not exactly true that the US govt's debt is mostly to its own citizens.
You can get the picture here. Tab 1 (top left hand corner) also takes you to the page which shows a live public debt picture
http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html
This is something that will affect everyone, not just America, so it is very scary to me.
And this seminal work which, taking figures from US government sources, is highly interesting. It found that despite globalisation, the vast majority of goods and services sold in the US, are produced in the US. In 2010, imports made up only 16% of GDP....and China accounted for only 2.5% of GDP
https://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-25.html
And it may surprise that the Chinese actually benefit very little from making an ipad or iphone. A report by the Asian Devt Bank puts it only at 3% or $6. In fact, I think China probably has a deficit if you think about how much Apple sells there, so much so that a young man will even sell a kidney to buy one
http://prestowitz.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/08/why_isnt_the_iphone_made_in_america
Yobial3 - Welcome to you. And Spring - what part of Tas? So lovely there.
Spring~your figures though correct, do not take the momentium of US capability into consideration; suddenly, the world needed cell phones/infrastructure...what is next? do you/world markets know? Did television come from another place? Did the internet? cars?autos, though designed concurrently in Germany and America, where did the auto market grow unboundedly? And the asphault(?sp)that carried them? and Motels? There is so much more to the story than past performance graphs, and the future is so open to speculation...But remember, America is sending back pictures from MARS
Don't understand SWA giving a one day drink coupon for a 6:30 flight. Like I am going to have a Bloody Mary before a biz meeting. But then again maybe I do.
SF: China's got nothing to brag about. Nothing. It's one of the worst places on earth to be born, it treats its people like the slaves they are, and kills the ones who dissent. How anyone can stand with China I don't know - unless a person is all about money, and doesn't care about inhumane treatment of their own. Gordon Gekko meets the Great Wall....
When did we stop being humankind? Political borders are all artificial. Once we begin to recognize this, we will start down the road to enlightenment. Once we roamed freely and claimed no land...no we try to take others'. If ET landed tomorrow think how fast we would ALL become "humans!" (Or would we choose to sacrifice the third world peoples first? Are they lesser beings? Just ask the first human heart transplant recipient...he was a white South African and received a black South African's heart. Do you think he should have said "No, that's not a human heart?")
How sill we humans can be!
Er, make that silly!