Consider these Oft used so called PC, yet vague decriptors when referring to individuals of a certain persuasion or affiliation and you realize how lame it sounds-
1. You and your loved ones
2. Men and women in uniform
3. People familiar with the matter
4. Highly placed sources
5. Significant other
Switching gears I began wondering why certain sports or what are defined as a sport get notoriety to where people pay lot of money to see it in person or on other mediums sponsored by large advertising budgets.
Consider the 100 m dash and all other dash variants and you just might see how insane this activity seems. At the end of the 9 or so seconds it's all over and yet it enthralls the minds of many. What exactly does one achieve after running very very fast or cycling till the cows come home that they become national heroes? Not to mention some are later found to be lacking in moral fiber and the same nitwits that paid their last paycheck to see these clowns are up in arms about shattering their role model.
Large sporting equipment makers pay top dollar to have these athletes once from an impoverished continent wear their footwear.
But consider the trapeze artist on a high wire or the contortionist in a circus and there is not that adulation. What makes some act of human exertion Olympian vs the other? It's marketing.
Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry. Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while. Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...
Read Umberto Eco for his take on why all organised sport watching is a fairly useless activity. Worse, it takes away from actually doing something useful to yourself or to others. Except making some (not all) athletes rich, as you point out.
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