What?! Prodi's grandiose dreams of a unified EU superstate are starting to interfere with reality. Has he no shame? Didn't he see how people reacted when they won medals over the last 2 weeks, hugging their national flag and getting teary-eyed as their national anthem played? Wasn't he in tune with the hundreds of thousands of spectators who proudly displayed flags, shirts, hats, buttons, pins, and various other national paraphernalia? Doesn't he care that supporting one's own country (even though that isn't necessarily always the case... but I'll get to that next time) is one of the most important ideals of the Games?
I can only say that I am vastly disappointed in his self-serving proposal - but hey, maybe he's just feeling a little pouty since Italy only won 32 medals, while the US won 103. At least he doesn't have everyone in the EU on his side... God knows what could happen if he did.
I can only say that I am vastly disappointed in his self-serving proposal - but hey, maybe he's just feeling a little pouty since Italy only won 32 medals, while the US won 103. At least he doesn't have everyone in the EU on his side... God knows what could happen if he did.
Now where was I? Ah yes, athletes competing for their own countries... or not. Felix Sanchez, who, according to that biography, "[a] New Yorker by birth who grew up in Southern California," won the gold medal in the 400m hurdles event. Of course, despite the fact that he was raised in the United States, trained in the United States, and has only left the United States to visit his "homeland" once, he ran under the banner of the Dominican Republic, thus giving a medal that truly should belong to the United States to a scrappy little Caribbean country that has only won a single other medal in the past (a boxing bronze in 1984).
What's up with that? How can someone who has only become what he is thanks to American resources run for another country in good conscience? At best, it is a low trick - at worst, it is medal-stealing. I know, I know, a lot of other countries have the same dilemma, but that doesn't make it right. I also know that a lot of countries don't have the resources to train their own athletes, and that is also fine - as long as someone who is an American citizen isn't going and taking advantage of his parents' ancestry to do something as egregious as this.
On a completely unrelated note, I miss Misha over at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler - I mean, Sir George is hilarious and wonderful and all that, but Misha just has his own incomparable way, and now that he is not posting nearly as much as he used to, I find myself missing him. Oh well... no matter who's posting, at least it's still genuine conservative goodness.
What's up with that? How can someone who has only become what he is thanks to American resources run for another country in good conscience? At best, it is a low trick - at worst, it is medal-stealing. I know, I know, a lot of other countries have the same dilemma, but that doesn't make it right. I also know that a lot of countries don't have the resources to train their own athletes, and that is also fine - as long as someone who is an American citizen isn't going and taking advantage of his parents' ancestry to do something as egregious as this.
On a completely unrelated note, I miss Misha over at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler - I mean, Sir George is hilarious and wonderful and all that, but Misha just has his own incomparable way, and now that he is not posting nearly as much as he used to, I find myself missing him. Oh well... no matter who's posting, at least it's still genuine conservative goodness.
