lbo-talk-digest V1 #6775

[Catherine Driscoll]

Hi Bill

> Heathen, know ye not there is but One True Football. Lucky for you 
> footy is not a jealous God. 

Oh I'm well aware that there is only one football code -- the question 
was about which only-one-football-code you were referring. I always 
thought Tasmania had both 'rugby' and the AFL, but I guess not. 

> Australians have found room in their 
> great big hearts to worship strange sports from every corner of 
> the globe, even the quaint "rugby" code practiced by some natives 
> of NSW and Queensland. 

Personally I have my limits, and league is outside some of them. I can 
listen to people talk about sport, it doesn't offend me or anything. I 
even know all of the main cricket bowling styles, and various other 
necessary social ephemera, but rugby league I cannot bear. This, of 
course, because I was raised on it. Nothing but family inspires such 
intolerance. OK, family or John Howard.

> Since there are seven days in every week 
> and 24 hours in every day and barely enough sports to fill the 
> whole schedule (especially with all the extra PayTV slots) 
> sectarianism doesn't get a look into the Australian psyche. In 
> fact it has been found necessary to invent entirely new sports, 
> such as sports lifesaving, to take up the slack.

Competitive supermarket trolley racing is my alltime all-Australian 
favourite. And surfing... televised surfing. I mean, please. 

> Australia is, by this measure, a tolerant multicultural society, 
> its people always willing to tolerate, yea even embrace, alien 
> sports. 

Actually, alien sports take a while. And some are too arcane and/or 
stupid. Synchronised swimming is one thing, but nobody watches American 
football.

>(Mind you, some of the actual people are a different 
> question. Camel racing gets a guernsey, of course, but middle-east 
> refugees can expect a red card from the umpire and to be thrown 
> back out to sea like an undersize catch.)

The size of the fish is not important. In fact, baby ones make a 
colourful and appealling display in an A-Current-Affair-style tank... 
what matters is culture, race, religion, and ideological function. Oh, 
yeah, maybe money too.

Catherine