When did the world end as we know it? When we started handing out participation trophies.
I donât understand the hostility to participation trophies. The target seems to be participation trophies in youth sports. With the childhood obesity epidemic and the propensity for kids to be video-game playing couch potatoes, we should cheer any kid who goes outside and runs around for a few hours. If itâs part of an organized sport where they get coaching and learn to compete, even better.
90% of life is showing up. Kids arenât stupid. They know the difference between showing up and winning. Participation trophies reward showing up, an essential life skill.
Participation trophies are nothing new. Band of Brothers has a scene where a new guy gets hassled for wearing a Distinguished Presidential Unit Citation given to the entire regiment for fighting on D-Day. The guy gets the medal because heâs in the regiment despite not being in Normandy. Sounds a lot like a participation trophy.
That happened at least 100 years ago. This is the WWI âVictory Medalâ awarded to everyone who was in the service during WWI, and the Russian and Serbian interventions that followed WWI. Didnât matter if you worked in supply, in Ohio, never saw combat, you got a medal.
Today, that medal might be a little controversial with its rainbow flag and transgendered angelâŚ
Pete
Sailing has an age old participation trophy. The last boat in gets a can of sardines for endurance.
The Captain
# Participation Trophies Send a Dangerous Message
Or this could be another media created âcrisisâ to stoke hysteria over?
As another person said above, it means the holder âshowed upâ. Having some people not âshow upâ for work, consistently, leaving me to do their work for them, I would say âshowing upâ is a behavior that needs to be encouraged, because it seems to be beyond the ken of many.
Steve
[quote=âcaptainccs, post:6, topic:91952â]
Trophies should be given out for first, second and third; participation should be recognized, but celebrated with words and a pat on the back rather than a trophy.
Nonsense. Whatâs the diff between a pat on the back or words, and running off copies of a certificate that says whatever those words on the podium would have been? Where is that law of physics? Getting a trophy/cert/pat/ for participation is exactly the same as winning first place. It recognizes the thing itâs recognizing. The not-very-well thought-out gratuitous b!tching sounds a lot like what Grownups do. (But boy, they love their participation trophies!)
On more relevant note, Iâd like to swing it on back to the original posterâs subject matter. Media and special interest contrived mass hysteria.
A pretty low bar for an exceptional people.
The Captain
I recall Porto has a strong sardine culture. Hope youâre enjoying them.
Barbecued & tinned.
The Captain
You beat me to the rainbow. I didnât notice the androgynous angel.
So participation trophies are the cause of GCC - the things you learn on TMF.
That is why I dubbed the US âShiny-landâ, with very large buckets of snark. How could the âfirst worldâ country with the highest poverty rate, highest GINI coefficient, highest incarceration rate, and worst health care outcomes, in spite of the highest health care costs, be Shiny? Well, it looks good compared to Guatemala. But, as a âthought leaderâ whined a few years ago, not many people move here from Norway.
Steve
I think the facts still show that more people still want to move here than to elsewhere (Norway?)
Adding up the populations of Mexico, the Central American banana republics, and a healthy chunk of South America, makes a sizeable number of people. As for Norway, there are several other âsafeâ destinations for the streams of people bailing out of Africa and the Middle East to settle, before they get to Norway.
As I have wondered, for years, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, are as blessed with size and resources as the US. Why are they not as peaceful, prosperous and stable, as the US and CanadaâŚgiven the events of 1/6/21, Iâm not that sure Shiny-land is all that stable anymore.
Steve
Good question. A friend of mine lived in Argentina for many years. Told me that at one point Argentina was looking like it was going to be quite a power house. The US did things to make sure that stopped. Canât have another powerhouse in this hemisphere.
The problem with the border is not that it isnât âsecureâ. Show me a country with a large, long land boundary that has a âsecureâ border. This is all just an ultra right wing red herring. The problem is that the quality of life on one side of that border is very different than the quality of life on the other side. And that will always make people want to cross over, legally or otherwise.
I am not smart enough to get the connection between climate change and participation trophies.
Only because itâs the path of least resistance. Other countries usually make it harder to enter plus thereâs more âhereâ here.
There are two kinds of people who like to move here.
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First Worlders from developed countries with a high-end saleable skill. They take their medical/engineering/chemistry/whatever degree made possible by their fellow country-folk for the purposes of making their country a better place while earning a nice living. Then they take that degree/skills training/experience and sell it here for âbig American bucksâ to paraphrase Steve Martin, and shive the society that made them.
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2nd and 3rd Worlders from places so bad anyplace else by definition is better. This always makes me chuckle. It is a social meme in this country to extol those who come from poor or wretchedly poor backgrounds to work. Thatâs it. Work. Like a mule. One might say like a Communist because the old Iron Curtain peeps used to talk about work-work-work all the time. Like a slave. Work for workâs sake. IOW. America! Itâs at least a half step better than a 3rd world hell hole. SEE!! They come here all the time. Isnât it wonderful?
Then they get ripped off same as native workers, maybe more.
When did the world end as we know it?
Perhaps today.
So far the US Main Stream Media has pretty much ignored the story.