One thing is certain about Euro 2008, even before the final: If prizes would be earned by those who deserved them most, Turkey would have won the tournament this time. They weren’t the most technical or the most creative team, but they more than made up for all of that through sheer determination. I’m thinking back hard, trying to remember if I have ever seen any other team, in any competition, do what they did now. Three matches in a row turned around at the last moment and then narrowly losing in the fourth after battling bravely with a decimated squad. They were absolutely fabulous and should feel very proud of themselves despite failing to make it through to the final, as indeed they do. I think they’re right in saying all of Europe is talking about them and praising them right now. They truly deserve it and nobody can take that away from them, not that anybody’s trying.
After a rather poor start against Portugal they became unstoppable, apparently through sheer willpower. The match against Switzerland also started badly for them, but they managed to equalize early in the second half and then scored again in the 92nd minute to give themselves a dramatic win. That run continued in the next match, against the Czech Republic, when they were being led 2-0 in minute 75, when they finally managed to pull one back, only to turn the match around completely with two more goals in minutes 87 and 89 and managing to defend that result through injury time with a field player replacing their goalkeeper, who was sent off.
That got them out of the group stage and earned them a quarter-final date with Croatia, which was uninspiring for about 110 minutes until both teams decided to suddenly start attacking towards the end of extra time. Croatia managed what appeared to be the winning goal in minute 119, but Turkey were not about to be denied. Making the best of every last second of injury time added to that last half of extra time, they scored in minute 122, right when the referee was about to end the match. Then, as the Croatians were visibly demoralized by this turn of events, they managed to win the penalty shoot-out 3-1.
As a result, they set themselves up with a semi-final against Germany. Things looked very grim for them, hardly having enough players to put on the field. They had four suspended and four injured players, plus one other who could hardly be called fit but was willing to do his best if he’ll be needed anyway. That left them with 14 fit players (or 15 if you also count the partially recovered one), two of which were goalkeepers. It was no question of tactics or putting players in the positions they’re best suited for, it was only a question of putting enough players on the field to be able to play, hoping their determination would do the rest. It almost did, as they were the first to score, in minute 22, but Germany fought back, drawing level in minute 26 and taking the lead in minute 79, only for the Turkish fighting spirit to show it’s true strength again as they once again pulled back in minute 86. But their valiant but exhausted makeshift squad could only look on as the Germans scored again in the 90th minute. They tried to pull their amazing stunt one more time in the minutes of injury time, but for once they were unable to do so.
All that’s left to say is… Thank you, Turkey, for showing the world how sports should really be played. For all it’s worth, I’m sure history will remember this.
So far I didn’t comment about this (there was one post, but it concerned a very specific issue), but with the opening day of the Olympic Games quickly approaching and even more things happening, I have to say something. I have a bad feeling about this, it feels like a second Berlin 1936 in the making and I don’t like the implications of that at all.
To get one thing out of the way, I don’t support a boycott in the sense of not sending teams there. That would accomplish far less than being there and actually doing something about the issue, even if that means taking risks. After all, if you get disqualified for saying or doing something it would be the same as not participating in the first place, but at least the message would be louder and clearer. On the other hand, while I didn’t fully make up my mind when it comes to high officials boycotting the opening ceremony, I think I’m mostly in favor of that.
What I’m saying is that participants who care for this world to go in any direction other than downwards, or simply support human rights, should go there and make use any and all available opportunities to make a stand. I know any sort of statements have been forbidden, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make one anyway if you’re willing to suffer the consequences. If enough do so then the consequences might not be that bad after all, plus that there might be ways to make a stand without them being able to come up with a solid case against you. It’s strange how this decision to ban all statements came supposedly as a measure to avoid mixing politics with sports when it’s been taken for purely political reasons, isn’t it?
The most obvious concern when it comes to China is Tibet. I have said before that I think there’s something sacred about that place, something that should be preserved and treasured, as much as I usually hate tradition. So I do support the Free Tibet movement, especially since we’re talking about a relatively recent military occupation. I still don’t quite understand how you can attack Tibet in the first place, it’s like storming a village church with a full SWAT team during a sermon!
Though it’s not something I think about often since I have other priorities when it comes to activism of any kind, when you hear about violence in a place like that or patriotism tests, something inside you stirs into motion. Or at least something inside me does… I don’t know how much of it is a genuine desire to help, how much is anger at what’s being done there (including less visible abuses or how the situation affects others who have nothing to do with it) and how much is fear that it’d be done to the rest of the world as well soon enough, unless we stop it now.
But it doesn’t stop there. China has a poor environmental record and insists on making it worse, doesn’t care about freedom of information or expression (their methods of Internet censorship being absolutely frightening, for me at least) and the concept of human rights in general doesn’t have much meaning there either. None of that is a surprise for a Communist state, but what worries me is that the other countries are too worried about their own interests (and even their own security) to treat China like they treat the other Communist states left in the world.
There was a time when I thought China was somewhat different from the other Communist countries. I was little and had to base my judgment on the information I had at the time, which for some reason was along those lines. Then I got older, learned more and realized it’s not different at all, just bigger and stronger and therefore able to scare the rest of the world into not doing anything about it. Russia and China (and occasionally the United States, but their approach is different): The bullies of the modern world at the highest level. How long will we keep putting up with it?
Yes, I’m talking about doing something about a country that represents 1.3 billion people who have been “bred” to function like clockwork and be loyal to the death (thankfully it doesn’t work on all, but unfortunately it works on enough of them) and an economy the world needs like air, but I’m sure there are ways. Might not be pretty for a little while, but good things often require sacrifices.
As for the Olympic Games, part of me wants to think those who awarded this honor to Beijing have simply been naive enough to think it would change things for the better, but the more rational part (and I always listen to reason, except when it comes to love) says they did it to ensure China of their esteem, exchanging continued economic benefits for the Western world for turning a blind eye towards their domestic abuses. That’s something that makes China different from the other world bullies, they seem mostly content with abusing their own instead of trying to control everyone else as well, but that only seems to make the rest invite them to have some influence over them.
Either way, it seems the Olympics are being used as a means to settle some other old scores (I think “went answered” should be “went unanswered” there) and not as an opportunity to improve their record. Of course, they try to make things appear better, but most of that is propaganda and most of the rest are only localized and temporary measures that are mainly for the benefit of the visitors, an elaborate play if you will. I keep saying that whenever you make the mistake of thinking people are not that bad they strive to prove you wrong, don’t I?
I guess I just have to hope it won’t really be a second Berlin 1936, referring to how it’ll end up being used by the host country’s government and what will happen shortly afterwards… That will at least give us time to worry about the other things after the Olympics are over.
Of course there are far, far more things I could have mentioned, but I think this is quite enough, plus that anybody who’s in any way interested likely already knows what I’m talking about and the rest won’t care either way, as it is with everything. I wonder if this site will end up being censored in China after this post though, would be interesting to know.
A company (and an ad agency) got a little bold with an ad and the result was one more proof of how a small group of people can make things go their way if they make some noise.
I’m looking at the ad and the only thing that makes me raise my eyebrows just a little is how the children call the “chef” “mum”. A mother is a female parent; a male parent is a father. A child with two male homosexual parents has two fathers, as simple as that. You can argue that one’s biological gender does not always coincide with the gender they feel they are and in that case, if they truly go through all the trouble of making that obvious for enough time, it might be more appropriate to call them according to the gender they feel they are instead of their biological one, but the “chef” looked very manly to me so that’s not the case.
But aside from that perhaps slightly bad choice of words, what’s wrong with it? How many “happy family” ads do you see every day? Why’s this any different? Yes, you have two men instead of a man and a woman… So? I really can’t understand why’s that any different. (I also wonder whether the complaints would have been just as bad if the ad would have featured two women. I highly doubt it…) It’s like something I recently read in Throne of Jade, when Riley found out about women being among the aviators. Temeraire listened to his comments with increasing confusion and eventually said he doesn’t understand why ought it make any difference at all, at which Riley looked “very much as though he had been asked to justify the tide, or the phase of the moon”. I guess I’m like Temeraire (and therefore not human) in that aspect. For me such differences make absolutely no sense, though it’s obvious that for a lot of people (likely most of them actually – which is why we need to come up with something better than democracy as soon as possible) it makes absolutely no sense for these things to be seen as similar. Maybe time will change things… Hopefully… But how much of it do we still have?
You should also take a look at one of the first “problems” listed as being mentioned in the complaints, namely that it made parents have to explain same-sex relationships to their children. (Though the ad could not have been aired during children’s shows because the product is considered unhealthy.) Excuse me, but that’s great! If your child can already understand the concept of relationships then they should also understand the concept of same-sex relationships and it’s your job as a parent to make sure that happens! If an ad makes you no longer be able to delay such a talk with your child then it should be praised and you should be scolded for delaying it until then. But, of course, most parents think they’re Gods when it comes to their children, they have all the answers and can never be wrong. I think laws can be partially blamed for this, but that’s another story…
While I don’t believe them when they say they had something else in mind when they came up with the idea for the ad, it was obviously meant to draw attention, I’m certain they expected viewers to be far more tolerant. They wanted people to talk about it, but not complain so vehemently. But whenever you make the mistake of thinking people are not that bad they strive to prove you wrong.
Still, what this proves is how a small group of determined people can make a difference. Their cause was not a good one, I don’t think intolerance and ignorance can ever be considered good causes, and 200 complaints certainly isn’t that many, but they acted quickly enough and were loud enough to have an impact, which resulted in them having things go their way. A lot of us should learn from that. Always make yourself heard by any means necessary, it’s very hard to make a difference otherwise… Unless you are already in a position of authority, of course, but we’re not talking about those.
Not long ago there was a card shown on PostSecret that said “I wish energy prices would keep rising. People will never use less just because it’s right.”. I often feel the same way, from an environmental point of view it makes perfect sense. Make using resources more costly and people will tend to use less, no doubt about it.
Of course that means the wealthy might use slightly less but in fact the poor will be hit hardest because they’ll be able to afford even less when they already barely manage, but looking at that very objectively reveals advantages yet again for the environment. Some will revolt and others will try to adapt. Part of both groups will end up dead one way or the other (and those who’ll revolt will likely take some of the wealthier ones down with them), therefore reducing the population and the amount of resources required by it.
Yes, it’s brutal, but it certainly seems quite effective. I’m not seeing any gentler methods working well enough these days… Besides, from that same very objective point of view, we’re talking about a certain number of individuals from a single species, one that is in desperate need of a culling actually, who would be sacrificed in order to give a chance to all other species that make this world their home. Looking at it like that, it’d be very fair to eliminate humans as a whole if that’d truly help, but unfortunately I think we’ve made things so bad that we’re the only ones who might have a chance to fix them before sending the world too many hundreds of millions of years back down its evolutionary path.
But to go back to the issue at hand, when even US Republicans start including a few ideas that might actually help the environment among their plans simply because the costs of destroying it are becoming too high, you know you’re getting somewhere. Of course those ideas are only in addition to their dreadful plans aimed at increasing production instead of lowering consumption, not instead of them, but you have to start somewhere…
We could do this fairly, but that would probably be too much to ask. By that I mean there should be taxes on the things that harm the environment and those money should be used to subsidize “green” technologies and products in order to make them more attractive to the customers and also speed up the research and development process. Also, any increase in price should be justified by real costs (including the environmental ones) and any additional profits should mean higher income for the workers (and perhaps, to a lesser extent, middle managers), not for the ones at the top who earn way too much as it is. But, as I said, let’s take it one step at a time…
Some time ago I started to notice that my playlists were getting shorter and more restrictive, an obvious sign of getting bored of most of the music I had. So I decided to start looking for something new instead of trying to see if the bands I already have released something new or try to fill in some blanks as I’ve been doing in the past. And by “new” I really mean new for me, thought it was a good time to look only for bands I had never heard of before.
Now that I think about it, I guess stumbling upon the lead singer of a new band on OkCupid had something to do with this desire to descover new things. (In case you’re wondering, the band is Crimfall and the growling sent me scampering away, but I think her voice is great.)
Either way, YouTube was the starting point, getting a few band names that showed up as related, then I searched for those on DC, looked through what else those who had those bands had and got some more names. Of course I got overloaded, ending up with a list and even some downloads that I’m unlikely to go through too soon, but I found a few interesting ones before that happened. I’d say this just proves how this so-called piracy should be seen as free advertising instead of as a problem.
The first find was Demether (I’d link to their official site but it says the domain name has expired, which makes me wonder if they still exist). Never listened to a Serbian band before… It seems you need to dig quite a bit to find something by them, but I did manage to get their first album, Within the Mirror, and it’s an interesting symphonic-power-gothic mix. They have a video for Silence and that’s what got my attention initially, like that “deep” sound, but Diving is the one that got stuck in my mind the most after listening to the whole album. Her voice seems really good and they often make decent use of their growler, coming in alongside her to emphasize certain lines and often keeping his voice soft enough not to bother me even when he has parts just for himself. Their other vocalist (also keyboardist and songwriter) seems to need some more work because I like the tone a lot but he seems to falter at times. As for the instrumental part, they have a thing for guitar solos towards the end of songs and I frown at those, but overall that’s also quite good in my opinion.
The other band I stopped at so far is Atargatis. They’re not easy to find either, though not as hard as Demether from what I’ve seen. Managed to find both their full-length albums eventually and the first, Wasteland, is quite impressive. Her voice is memorable, to me at least, a tone I haven’t often heard so far, and any male vocals stop short of growling, though sometimes they seem to break up the song. But excepting those moments the songs are very well put together (I’m not the only one impressed by it). The title song burned itself into my mind after the first listening, though the lyrics have something to do with that as well. The second album, Nova, didn’t have much of an impact on me, however. Might need to listen to it again and see if that changes, but it lacks the “strength” of the first one and her voice is also softer, which isn’t a good thing in their case because what makes the first one memorable is the way her voice sounds.
There are a few others I have already listened to that caught my interest and quite a lot I might be looking into, but so far I know I’m going to keep those two. Of course, any opinion is my own and even other fans of the genre might hate what I like… This feels strange anyway, since it’s the first time I write such a post (there was the one about Nightwish, but that’s different)…
