Another feather in soccer’s cap. We tend to focus on the brutality and bigotry of European stadiums, but let’s not forget the great fans closer to home!
Another feather in soccer’s cap. We tend to focus on the brutality and bigotry of European stadiums, but let’s not forget the great fans closer to home!
… John Calipari, whose latest thing is losing lots of games at Kentucky but costing that stoooopid school over 33 million if it wants to get rid of him.
That’s because for decades Greek fans have been killing people and torching cities and all. The hapless government thinks a temporary pause and some more security cameras will bring Peace in Our Time, but this latest scheme will work out just as well as Chamberlain’s. I guess it’s real hard to confront the only thing to be done with a significant population of nihilist shits: No. More. Soccer.
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A BAD CROWD
Since that’s way rad an idea, let me say a bit more about pre-modern and postmodern crowds, and how they’re making crowds themselves obsolete.
The Greek football fans generate primitive, pre-modern crowding, all about atavistic drives among men. We had one of these recently in the States — the mass shooter at the Super Bowl victory parade was just, you know, hormones, spoiling for a fight.
Any scenario that surrounds fundamentally aggressive men with other young men will bring out the AK47 (that’s new — primitive cavemen had rocks), or, outside of gun-drenched USA, knives. And not just random young men: It was a signal cultural moment when the sixty year old owner of a soccer team got angry and ran onto the field during a game, with a gun in his outstretched hand to kill a referee.
You understand – yes? – the message Savvidis sent to all random hormoned-up young men? What I’m doing is a highly charismatic act.
You make matters worse when you present these people with established ‘enemies’ – opposing domestic or foreign teams. They don’t have to – like the Super Bowl shooter – go looking for enemies. You’ve set up a war for them to fight in, collectively, cuz they’re part of… a crowd.
And it’s an all-male, all-young crowd, right? Didn’t use to be, but over the years women children and older people have arrived at the conclusion that Greek soccer stadiums are not conducive to longevity, let alone a fun afternoon. So now you’ve concentrated the scariest element of society into loud sweaty excited rageful quarters.
So Greece is simply farther along in the evolution toward the end of crowds: It has watched for decades as its soccer matches – increasing numbers of them – devolve into fatal violence. It has tried everything, including, indeed, the end of crowds. The country is coming off of a two-month moratorium on soccer attendees.
But now that they’re letting these incredibly dangerous groups of people back in, what do they think is going to happen?
So, you know, we’re getting the stern announcements about enhancements of the police state they’ve already set up in the stadiums – vast numbers of security cameras, police, mandatory digital identification, weapon checks, blah blah.
Will it work? Keep your eye on Miami’s spring break. It’s happening right now. Those crowds are so awful that Miami released this ad a couple of weeks ago, and has made clear that it does in fact want the total end of those crowds. We don’t want you. Don’t come here. AND here are all the police state goodies we’re throwing at you if you come anyway. Let’s see if it works. Might make the guys madder, you know.
Anyway, so Greece. So what was once supposed to be A GAME, a certain thing, a sports gathering, is now – you understand? – a kind of lord of the flies free for all held perilously in check by insane levels of surveillance technology plus a very large, very frightened, security force. The players are scared, and not just the ones dreading racist chants. The referees? Forget about it. You know that groups of them have gone on strike because of the attacks.
So my thing is who’s kidding who. Eventually it won’t just be Savvidis packing heat. Obvious escalations of an already lurid situation are on their way, and we know from security’s inability to stop a mass shooting at the Super Bowl parade that guns are too quick and easy and lethal to police.
Think security will find weapons and confiscate them? Haha. Check out how many smuggled guns are discovered every day at all of America’s airports. People are always trying, and think about how many guns the TSA isn’t finding.
When crowds become impossible, what are your choices? You can try identifying and excluding the evil doers, but you’ll never get them all, and of course they’re evil enough to figure out how to get into the stadium no matter what you do. You can get to North Korean levels of police state apparatus, I guess (lines of soldiers with guns pointed at the crowd throughout? torture chambers below the locker rooms?), but this won’t be very… pretty. No, UD is thinking that Greece (and other countries) will have to shut down the whole thing.
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Our highly advanced postmodern crowds are a whole other thing. It’s their innocence that gets you. They are sitting ducks, awaiting the Las Vegas shooter, the Prague shooter, the Highland Park shooter. They are gathered to enjoy a concert, a parade, or just a sunny afternoon on the campus of Charles University. Massive, extensive, the highest of high-tech firepower rains down upon them from a heavily fortified genius who has thought everything out to guarantee he’ll be able to shoot for a long time and kill a lot of people.
I don’t think American parades or outdoor concerts have a very long shelf life either.
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Oh, and on the subject of Greek violence — We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the petrol bombs being thrown at police, even as we speak, in opposition to the government’s shocking intention to allow private universities to operate freely in Greece.
Yes! What’ll they think of next? Private, as well as, public universities!
Most Greeks are in favor; over 40,000 of the smartest young Greeks currently study abroad, having fled the squalid corrupt national system. (Put Greece university in my search engine.) Competition might wake up the dead public campuses and reverse the brain drain, but who would want to do that?
It’s obvious why Ancelloti –
Along with the other lads – thought he
Could simply relax
And cheat on his tax.
The big football leagues are that grotty.
… to an appalling 216 today, Texas Tech got there the traditional southern way: Appoint political hacks to run the place; make athletics everything, with its full complement of disgusting fans, sadistic/litigious/mentally retarded coaches, corrupt boosters etc etc etc; make sure everyone on campus is fully armed.
And fully drunk. In a typical day in basketball, Texas Tech fans threw water bottles and lots of other shit on the court cuz they were losing.
To round out your reasons to attend this school, Lubbock is one of the most dangerous cities in Texas.
New Mexico State (feast your eyes) puts a guy on court who just goes ahead and punches the lights out of another player.
New Mexico State’s Robert Carpenter pulled back his arm and delivered a powerful punch to the face of Liberty’s Shiloh Robinson, sending the forward to the floor, [breaking his nose,] and leading to an ejection during an Aggies overtime win.
The beauty of it is the coach initially said Carpenter’s a great guy and I’m sure he’s remorseful and maybe we’ll suspend him for a game or something… And then I dunno someone must have talked to the coach cuz now it’s oh he’s suspended indefinitely blah blah.
Wotta shocker.
[T]he athletics department at the University of Arizona is on track to lose approximately $65 million over two years.
… [T]he UA athletic department is operating at a roughly $30 million loss this year. Last year, the department lost about $35 million.
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I say give the guy a gun out there! America! Fuck the Euros! Fuck yeah!
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BREAKING: The guessing game is over: Draymond Green will be Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate.
Yesterday, Faruk ran onto the field and punched a ref so hard the guy had to be helped up off the ground. Faruk has now been arrested. SO…
Things are getting so much better in world soccer! The last time a team owner ran onto the field and attacked a ref, he did it with a gun!
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photo credit: superlig
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Update: LOLOLOLOLOL
My aim was to react verbally to the referee and spit in his face. At this time, I slapped the referee in the face. The slap I gave did not cause a fracture. [The ref’s cheek was fractured.] After the slap I gave, the referee stood for about 5-10 seconds, then threw himself on the ground. They immediately removed me from the scene because of my heart disease. Other than that, I am not aware of any incident that took place.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Because of my heart disease, I hereby resign from the club and place myself in jail for assault.
[In a recent coaching session with the team, Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott] cited the [9/11] hijackers as a group of people who were all able to get on the same page to orchestrate attacks to perfection. One by one, McDermott started asking specific players in the room questions: …“What tactics do you think they used to come together? … What do you think their biggest obstacle was?”
If you read this blog, you’ve known for years and years that down them parts thems all be morons. If you’ve been reading the Star Tribune, you think this is actually news.
When wee UD studied at the Medill School of Journalism, we often discussed the qualities of a good lead sentence; in particular, you want to pack a lot of information in without creating a run-on feel to the thing.
The AP writer who had to pack all of the repulsive behavior at New Mexico State into her lead had quite a task, but she acquitted herself well, finding a place in one sentence for the guns thing AND the cock-grabbing thing. Actual shooters (of guns) among team members appear a little farther down in the article. When there’s this much material, you have to be selective.
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For the venerable history of this institution, go here.
A Texas school district is considering the use of eminent domain to seize a man’s longtime home and make way for parking at a new $50 million [high school] football stadium… The land has been in [79 year old retired carpenter Travis] Upchurch’s family since 1916, when his relatives emigrated from Sweden and settled in Aldine as dairy farmers…
Upchurch’s family has said it is willing to sell the property to the district after Upchurch dies or at least work out an arrangement that would allow him to continue living there. His daughter, Tara Upchurch, told Houston-area outlet KHOU-TV that her father’s health has deteriorated as a result of stress… “I ask that you spare my father from this unnecessary upheaval.”
Aldine ISD has made multiple offers to purchase the land in recent months, both before and after trustees authorized the use of eminent domain … Under eminent domain, the government can acquire land for public use as long as it pays the owner a fair price.
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For what profiteth a fifth-generation elderly Texan who wants to die at home compared to the compelling public value of a high school football parking lot?
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UPDATE: Ah fuck it.
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UD thanks a reader for the link.