A soccer tactic and its parliamentary analog
[ by Charles Cameron — a Croatian filibuster on the football field ]
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In extra time, Croatia’s Mario Mandžuki? had a nine-minute, operatic breakdown, a syncopated series of stops, starts, and seizures, which defined the match and took it away from England.
I jeep looking for sports metaphors in political reportage, and now, in a New Yorker article titled World Cup 2018: The Tragicomic Opera of Croatia’s Mario Mandzukic I find out all about players feigning cramps as a delaying tactic when games go into overtime —
— and it’s a clear analog of the Senate’s filibuster tactic. Either one could be a metaphor for the other, soccer for politics or vide versa.
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Sources:
New Yorker, The Tragicomic Opera of Croatia’s Mario Mandzukic US Senate, Filibuster and Cloture
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Oh, and, The England vs. Croatia World Cup Match Made for Some Awkward Television:
One segment of the pre-game show was given over to a National Geographic Channel report on Russian Buddhism. If this was intended as outreach to soccer fans so ardent that they always burn in suffering, then perhaps it did some spiritual good. But, as an effort at a culture-enriching sideshow, it was unsuccessful, so out of sync with the analysis and hype surrounding it as to be charming. The correspondent said to the monk, “O.K., so, if everything is an illusion, what’s truth, then?”
I couldn’t exactly miss that, given my interests, could I?
July 13th, 2018 at 4:16 pm
Quid est veritas? I must remember to watch the pre-game shows more often.
When you think about it, the un-graspable essential nature of reality does seem like an appropriate metaphor for the long suffering English fans and their un-graspable World Cup triumph.
July 14th, 2018 at 3:23 pm
it’s my understanding that veritas corresponds to two terms in sanskrit — sat, for eternal truth, ie brahman, and vrit (if i recall) meaning truth in this fleeting world. the answer to quid est sat would be the unspeakable, the unspeakable name, the great mystery &c.. the answer to quid est vrit would be different — and fleeting. but i believe i heard this distinction from a meditation teacher in India decades ago, and haven’t seen any conformation here today