Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category
KFC Australia have withdrawn a TV ad after claims it was racist.
Except that it isn’t racist. At all. Not remotely.
You would only think this was racist if you viewed it through a large number of racist assumptions. Or with the assumption that US stereotypes about African Americans apply in Australia to any non-European people.
The people in the ad are West Indians. Unsurprisingly, they are supporting the West Indies cricket team. The white guy is not West Indian. He is supporting the Australian cricket team. As in most sporting events, people tend to sit with people who support the same team they do.
Would this be an uncomfortable situation? Oh yes. Would sharing food everyone enjoys make a difference? Maybe. It’s pretty obvious the West Indians are having a good time anyway.
Although I dont’t know why they would be.
The misperceptions of a few whiners in the US don’t make a perfectly innocent and amusing ad into something suspicious.
KFC should have told the whiners to sod off.
Caving into pressure to cut the ad looks like an admission they had done something wrong.
They hadn’t.
via Hyscience
Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Can he recover as a person?
Brit Hume says it depends on his faith – what he needs is forgiveness and redemption.
Brit’s answer: Think about what the Christian faith has to offer.
Wow. It is interesting (and encouraging) to hear that kind of straight talking in a secular news commentary program.
A woman invites a group of footballers back to her room. According to Matthew Johns ”She encouraged the players to come forward, she actually says ‘Someone come forward and have sex with me.’ One player said he would, she said ‘No, no, anyone but you,’ and pointed to me, at which point I declined.”
During an interview on the ABC’s Four Corners, the woman said she had felt under pressure, and that the experience left her feeling degraded and suicidal.
But workmate Tanya Boyd has told Channel Nine tonight that the woman openly boasted about the incident with fellow employees. “I was disgusted that a woman can all of a sudden change her story from having a great time to turning it into a terrible crime,” she said.
Matthew Johns’ career is ruined, and an embarrassing moment of weakness and stupidity is public knowlegde. Johns has apologised to the woman. A rape counsellor says his apology is not good enough.
I am not sure he should have apologised at all. He had sex with the woman at her invitation.
She then invited other players to have sex with her. For them to do so was stupid, and unfair to their wives and girlfriends.
In as far as the word has any meaning any more, what they did was immoral.
So was what she did.
I am not surprised that after a few days and some reflection the woman felt ashamed of what she had done, and regretted her decision. But it was as much her decision as it was that of the footballers who accepted her invitation.
It is hard to have any respect either for her or for the footballers. But I would have a great deal more if she had accepted that even if she now regretted her choice to act the way she did, it was nonetheless her choice.
The woman was an adult. Part of being an adult is taking responsibility for your own decisions. Matthew Johns seems to have done that. She does not.
It is not respectful of women to treat them as children who are incapable of making reasoned choices, who have to be mollycoddled, and others blamed, when they make choices they later regret.
And is the first South American ever to win the US Masters golf tournament.
Angel Cabrera’s US Master’s prize money is a $1.35 million share of the $7.5 million dollar purse
That’s enough to park in Sydney for nearly 30 years.
Or to buy Kylie Minogue 270 facials. I hope the media isn’t too hard on Kylie for her recent beauty and relaxation expenditure. She deserves a little pampering. She works hard, and she’s had a hard battle with cancer, and she’s one of show business’s genuinely nice people.
Eighteen year old New Zealand golfer Danny Lee could become the first amateur winner of an Australian PGA event for ten years.
I’m not much of a sports fan really, but I’ll be keeping an eye on the final round today.
Good luck mate!
Serena Williams is an amazing athlete. The first set of the final over in 22 minutes without conceding a single point on serve.
This makes her the highest earning female athlete in history, with total earnings now approaching $25 million.
It also means she joins an elite group of only six other women with ten grand slam victories. At the top and surely unassailable is Australian Margaret Court Smith with twenty-four.
Congratulations Serena, and thanks for some great entertainment.