Crying Shame

Aqua Letifer

I dunno.

Sports are inherently inspirational. Sorry if you don't think so, but you get no conversational brownie points for being out of touch with your own culture.
Sports are inherently inspirational, and therefore so are athletes. What they do publicly makes us aspire to be as great as they are at their best. Again, sorry if you don't believe athletes should be role models, because they are anyway. Nobody cares what you think.
Considering these, I suppose you could argue that the mask-wearing further normalizes their use. Showing that they aren't above wearing them could be a kind of public service. Because yes I do believe masks are a good thing and while that's only an opinion, no I don't care if you disagree.
Aside: Olympic athletes—many of them anyway—have crap immune systems.

I can see a case to be made for the masks. But I dunno, I also think #3 above is a bit of a stretch. We're too selfish to even admit to the existence of role models anymore.

Mik

I believe I said We watched some events and enjoyed the whole show.

The skateboarders today were pretty impressive, as were the kayakers.

Aqua Letifer

@doctor-phibes said in Crying Shame:

I thought nobody cared about the olympics, or was that just last week?

I guess anything that means we can complain about masks can't be that unimportant.

Loki

On the topic of empathy with the struggles faced by the those impacted by Covid, it would be interesting to see where athletes forced to wear masks would rank.

Doctor Phibes

Which is worse, missing funerals, canceling weddings, losing your job, losing family members, or having to wear a mask while you collect your medal?

We've lost our minds alright.

Jolly

Wrong topic.

Catseye3

@mik said in Crying Shame:

And forever more the pictures of that incredible moment will be marred by the masks. It's a damn shame.

I dunno . . . making it to the platform, even more making it to the center platform, means a lot more than how the pictures turn out, I would think. Getting there, mask politics or no mask politics, might be thought too enormous to be marred by the photo op.

I don't know.

Jolly

There is only that one picture, that one piece of videotape. A crystallized one moment in time.

You know that part of the ceremony where the minister or official says, "You may now kiss the bride" and the photographer snaps that picture? You can recreate it. You can do it over again. But it will never happen again.

Ever.

Horace

@doctor-phibes said in Crying Shame:

Which is worse, missing funerals, canceling weddings, losing your job, losing family members, or having to wear a mask while you collect your medal?

We've lost our minds alright.

Because we can’t discuss a particular application of a mask rule, without extrapolating to a blanket notion of whether COVID is bad for people and whether we should have empathy for that.

Mik

Well, Cats, that's a matter of perception. We may not agree on it. While I am very pro-mask if needed, I hope they don't have to come back. It can be taken to the point of the ridiculous.

Jolly

@doctor-phibes said in Crying Shame:

Which is worse, missing funerals, canceling weddings, losing your job, losing family members, or having to wear a mask while you collect your medal?

We've lost our minds alright.

Empathetic bastard, aren't you?

It's a closed room, no audience, everyone tested out the whazoo. And just a few minutes to hours before, that athlete was competing without a mask. You don't think they can take the damn thing off for 180 seconds for maybe the most important moment of their lives?

Doctor Phibes

@horace said in Crying Shame:

@doctor-phibes said in Crying Shame:

Which is worse, missing funerals, canceling weddings, losing your job, losing family members, or having to wear a mask while you collect your medal?

We've lost our minds alright.

Because we can’t discuss a particular application of a mask rule, without extrapolating to a blanket notion of whether COVID is bad for people and whether we should have empathy for that.

Having to wear a mask for a medal ceremony pales into insignificance next to a lot of the other things that have happened because of Covid.

And last week many of us were saying how little we care about the olympics. What changed?

Suddenly, there's something to talk about, and it isn't even the actual sport? It's masks. The never-ending saga of masks. This isn't about the olympics at all. It's about masks.

Catseye3

@jolly said in Crying Shame:

There is only that one picture, that one piece of videotape. A crystallized one moment in time.

For the viewers. Not for the athletes. For the athletes, it is one moment among thousands.

Which moment will leave the greater impression on the athlete's own soul? Standing on the platform with the medal? Or the time she was running by herself, pushing, driving, dying, striving for that one more half minute, nobody around, just her and the dawn, and when she collapses, it's with the knowledge that she DID IT?

I don't know, either.

Mik

@catseye3 said in Crying Shame:

@jolly said in Crying Shame:

There is only that one picture, that one piece of videotape. A crystallized one moment in time.

For the viewers. Not for the athletes. For the athletes, it is one moment among thousands.

No, not at the Olympics. That's the pinnacle.

Catseye3

@mik said in Crying Shame:

That's the pinnacle.

The pinnacle, not the only. Not the one.

Doctor Phibes

@jolly said in Crying Shame:

Empathetic bastard, aren't you?

I admit that I've never been particularly good at knowing what others are thinking and feeling.

I realise that puts me in the minority. In fact, I frequently don't know my own motivations for having a certain belief before somebody endowed with an excessive amount of empathy puts me straight.

Horace

@doctor-phibes said in Crying Shame:

@horace said in Crying Shame:

@doctor-phibes said in Crying Shame:

Which is worse, missing funerals, canceling weddings, losing your job, losing family members, or having to wear a mask while you collect your medal?

We've lost our minds alright.

Because we can’t discuss a particular application of a mask rule, without extrapolating to a blanket notion of whether COVID is bad for people and whether we should have empathy for that.

Having to wear a mask for a medal ceremony pales into insignificance next to a lot of the other things that have happened because of Covid.

And last week many of us were saying how little we care about the olympics. What changed?

Suddenly, there's something to talk about, and it isn't even the actual sport? It's masks. The never-ending saga of masks. This isn't about the olympics at all. It's about masks.

COVID is bad for people and it is sad when they get it.

This podium mask rule is unnecessary and takes away from a special moment an athlete has worked towards for most of their lives.

There, I made it through a whole post without contradicting myself.

Larry

This thread is a very good example of how the brain works on each side of the political spectrum. Those on the right are able to see, understand, and focus on the point being made, those on the Left are not.

Doctor Phibes

@larry said in Crying Shame:

This thread is a very good example of how the brain works on each side of the political spectrum. Those on the right are able to see, understand, and focus on the point being made, those on the Left are not.

And some of can see that there's quite possibly a sub-text to the point being made.

It's funny that you capitalise the Left, but not the right.

Larry

@doctor-phibes said in Crying Shame:

@larry said in Crying Shame:

This thread is a very good example of how the brain works on each side of the political spectrum. Those on the right are able to see, understand, and focus on the point being made, those on the Left are not.

And some of can see that there's quite possibly a sub-text to the point being made.

Nah, that's just your paranoia kicking in.

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Crying Shame