The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
World Cup Wednesday:
I've been really happy so far! Many exciting games and for a variety of reasons! With most of the first round over the usual suspects seem to be doing well, although the absence of Italy is a scandal again. The US actually looks good? I feel like I'm seeing a lot of older faces I expected to be gone, which is a treat and sad at the same time.
Some Football Culture War:
The expansion in number of teams has been a point of controversy but I'm liking it. You see some teams with no business holding on and drawing or keeping games tight, at the same time it's obvious who the eventual quarterfinalists are likely to be. On the balance of it I'm happy to let some of these smaller countries get to the stage.
On a less positive note...the hydration breaks. Yikes. Putting aside the American obsession with ads, which is not ideal and against the spirit of the game, I am concerned about the clear momentum changes these breaks seem to be creating.
Real Culture War: (These ones have the possibility to get a little heated, please try and keep it to the spirit of the Wellness thread).
Everyone online and some in the media are criticizing America hard for handling of logistics and immigration, however from what I can tell Canada and Mexico have both caused more serious problems. Putting aside the anti-US sentiment, I do think it is interesting that despite our increasing sclerosis we are actually doing better than our neighbors.
Racism continues to be the "worst thing in the world" one of the new rules is that you can get a straight red for talking near an opponent while covering your mouth. Supposedly this is to prevent racism and other bad-talk. One thing that is not apparently to me is this - growing up in sports in the US homophobia and racism was the default and beloved by all, being close to some of the generations younger than mine they all affirm this. Has this changed now in the US? Was Europe always different? Is it just ethnic tensions?
I'm not sure I agree. Even growing up in philthy philly at the Vet, while I still have my "Romo's a Homo/Dallas Sucks T.O. Swallows" t shirt and heckling is a proud city pastime, I never heard anyone use racial slurs against opposing players, and if you had asked me about it at fourteen I would have said "well we all sing about T.O. overdosing on pills, but if you called him a nigger you'd probably get banned from the Vet." The only place I recall hearing racial slurs directed against opposing, and their own, players was in Boston, which is notorious for it, and even Fenway says that any use of racial slurs will result in a permanent stadium ban.
((As an aside, some of the best heckling I remember was the Bleacher Creatures in the Bronx chanting at Adam Jones in centerfield that the batting coach was fucking his wife))
Europe has significantly larger problems with racial abuse hurled at opposing players, it's just a different animal over there. And it seems reasonable to label racist slurs as "fighting words" within the context of a contact sport, you don't want to have players taunting each other into a rage. Some things we understand to be so offensive that we can't blame the taunted player for engaging in physical violence in response. The rules are seeking to cut off escalation at an earlier stage. The "no hiding speech" rule seems eminently reasonable, there's no reason to hide your lips unless you're saying something that you don't want publicized. I actually think the American leagues should police players' on-field speech a lot more heavily, and would if the unions weren't so unreasonable.
I'm amazed at the success of the world cup. I'd bought into a lot of the anti-FIFA, TDS negative reporting on the world cup, and so far it's been a complete success. I do think the efforts to restrict travel for the Iranian team is a little disgusting, the Spartans used to be the enforcers of the Olympic peace, but it's overshadowed by the joy that European travelers are bringing to the country. The saga of Lawrence, Kansas is so good that I have shitlib friends of mine saying that it adjusted their own feelings about the American heartland. Scots are reportedly drinking Boston dry. Selfishly, tickets are staying way too expensive around me, I was kind of hoping that I'd be able to snipe $20 tickets in the nosebleeds, but they haven't appeared yet.
And fuck it, the USA will probably fall apart in the round of 16, but I BELIEVE
I feel like the racial dynamic of European Soccer is a bit different to US sports. Locals have been replaced by random Africans within the last couple decades, and did so at a far quicker rate than the diversification of the general population. The USA's always had more of a mixed population and US sports have had huge African admixtures for far longer. Also the Draft means that there's way less of an expectation/idea that say the Green Bay Packers as an organization represents any sort of a local population directly. Soccer academies (prior to big business and international scouting atleast) meant that Football clubs would frequently be a lot more hyperlocal.
Hurling racial slurs at the only Black Person you're going to see day-to-day in a second-tier Italian city when he's ostensibly 'taken the job' of a local player is a lot easier than when you might offend somebody else in the stands.
Europeans don't throw bananas at black players because of their economic anxiety, dude. They do it because European soccer fans are aggressive and offensive in ways that make American football fans look like they're at a golf game. Philly fans threw some batteries at somebody once and we've never lived it down as a city; that's barely a Tuesday in a European minor league.
But I was making the point to my learned frined throwaway that a) racial slurs haven't been acceptable in American sport in my lifetime, with near certainty of being ejected from the game (if you get caught...) and b) racial slurs are considered offensive enough that they are likely to inflame tempers on the field, potentially leading to escalating fouls and violence. Both are, if anything, more true in Europe.
And anyway, you're a professional fucking soccer player. We can teach you to use your feet with unnatural dexterity but not to throw around racial slurs during the game? That's an unreasonable degree of discipline?
I mean, they have been hit in the head a bunch of times.
Honestly it's surprising it isn't more of a problem in any sport with head injuries.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link