(0814 Volleyball Girl)
970 WBLF. I’m Wes Richards with some thoughts on Kazakhstan’s Volleyball sweetheart.
When it comes to beauty queens, Kazakhstan likely isn’t the first country that comes to mind.
But Sabina Altynbekova might change your mind. She’s 17 years old. She’s a member of her country’s national youth volleyball team which competed in an all-Asia tournament in Taipei.
And her coach says she got too much attention.
So what? So, he says, this takes away from attention that “should” be paid to the team’s athleticism.
Pardon us, coach. But nobody paid any attention to your tournament for ANY reason. Ever. And before Sabina’s too-beautiful-to-play accusation, no one would have. Or should.
The Kazakh paper “Vesti” has joined in on the side of the coach. It says everyone’s just staring at Sabina instead of watching the game.
Too distracting? Probably. So what? She sells tickets. And sports is a business. Even high school-age sports.
Some of her teammates agree with her coach and reportedly have begun shunning her.
But not the fans. Overflow crowds. Newspapers. TV. People from western Europe and the US marveling over a child from a country we wouldn’t have heard of without the movie “Borat.”
So, some suggestions to get people to watch the game:
1. Tell them to watch the game.
2. Let the TV people “tile” her out of the picture.
3. Tell everyone you’re watching the game and not the girl and then watch the girl.
The “official” and journalistic responses add up to bullying.
It’s not only the overweight, the unattractive and the people who get straight a’s in class who are subjected to being cornered and threatened or isolated or ignored.
Yes, the beautiful can be bullied. And they hurt, too. Just like regular victims.
A year from now when Sabina is on the cover of Vogue and has a multimillion dollar contract with the Ford modeling agency and is a spokeswoman for Chanel or Versace and a color commentator for ESPN, this will all blow over.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
----
(0819 Kids/Restaurants)
970 WBLF, I’m Wes Richards with some thoughts on kids in the restaurant.
Like all other retail stores, restaurants are entertainment. They’re not just places to eat.
Screaming babies and hyperactive toddlers are not entertainment. Not on planes and boats and trains. And certainly not in restaurants.
And neither are their doting parents or grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
“Oh, look! Little Jimmy is going ballistic again. Don’t you just love it? They’re so cuuuute at this age.”
No, you don’t love it. It gives you indigestion before you have anything to digest.
“Oh, look! Little Jimmy is racing around the dining room, darting under tables, yelling and screaming and that’s just so darling!”
Nope.
And should some other patron complain, the parental retort is always something along the lines of “Little Jimmy is so good at expressing himself. We wouldn’t want to stifle that, would we?”
Oh yes we would.
There’s little more maddening behavior than some spoiled brat exploding his lungs at you when you’re trying to have a private meal in a public place.
Then, there’s Chris Shake. Shake owns a seafood joint, The Old Fisherman’s Grotto. It’s on the wharf in Monterey, California. And he’s up to his gills in hot water.
Grotto now bans strollers, booster seats and high chairs.
There are signs in the place telling you so. On the restaurant’s website, he adds (in huge type) “Children crying or making loud noises are a distraction to other diners… and are not allowed in the dining room.”
Score one for peace and quiet. It’s a small restaurant and although the policy isn’t new, there’s a shipwreck-caliber storm brewing about it.
One parent was heard to harrumph “I’ll take my business elsewhere.” Fine. Please do. And while you’re at it, pick another airline or tour bus, too. And tell us which ones you’ve chosen so we can avoid them.
It’s also great publicity for a small business. You can’t buy this kind of advertising.
The United Mommies of America will try to fry Chris Shake.
Batter up.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
----
970 WBLF. I’m Wes Richards with some thoughts on the experience trap.
It’s an old story. You’re fresh out of school looking for work. Employers want someone with experience. You have no experience, therefore you have no job.
But you have to. But you don’t. But you can’t. An endless loop that eventually gets you to put your B.S. in subatomic physics from Caltech on the shelf and start experience saying “welcome to megamart.”
The other side of that rock goes like this: “You’re overqualified.” So you put your 25 years of experience at Big Burger on the shelf and get a job pushing broom at the Caltech physics building.
You can’t un-do “overqualified” any more than you can break the first-job loop.
Looking for a solution here? You won’t find it. But what you will find are adventures with yet another overused and devalued piece of word currency, experience.
Your shopping experience. Your customer service experience. Your volunteer experience. Your concert experience.
What?
Yes, it’s right there on the Velveeta box. “You could win … a concert experience.”
They probably mean you could win tickets to a concert. That would be nice as your printer keeps churning out those resumes.
What is a “concert experience?” Do they strap you into a concert simulator and play videos?
Then, there’s “Experience Washington dot com.” That’s a tourist site for the state, not the nation’s capital.
Just what is a “Washington experience?” Rain? Legal pot? Or just another tightly grouped Starbucks and its competitors. Couldn’t they just say “Come to Washington and thread the Space Needle” or something?
And not to pick on Washington, how about “Experience Grand Rapids?” Put that on your bucket list.
Soon we’ll be training our cats for a litterbox experience.
McDonald’s or a competitor will get the bright idea and advertise their dining experience.
Once we tire of the word, we’ll need a substitute. And waiting in the wings is “adventure.”
Let’s all forget about the concert experience and wait for a concert adventure.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
----
(0822 Crime Rate)
970 WBLF. I’m Wes Richards with some thoughts on the State College Crime rate.
Figures don’t mean much on the radio. They’re something you want to look at, compare and refer back to. So I won’t go into the details.
But about a week ago, cops put out the word about what’s happened here between January and June and the figures are down.
Big crimes. Little crimes. Everything in between. Lower. Good news for most of us.
But there’s really only one crime rate if you’re a victim. So for you and me, the crime rate can be only one of two figures, 100 percent or zero.
Someone scrawls something on the side of your house or your car, it’s really no big thing in the scheme of big things.
But it is to you. You feel violated. You get angry. You get frustrated. And when the cops can’t turn up a suspect, you feel even more violated.
Or if they do and the offender gets off with a slap on the wrist, you feel still more violated, angry and frustrated.
You start being angry at cops and lawyers and the DA and the corrections officers and “the () System.”
And who can blame you?
You start thinking that the “justice system” works for the other guy but not for you.
You think about revenge.
And if the crime is more serious, the feelings are more intense.
And who can blame you?
I’d like to see a geographical breakdown of the figures. Anecdotally, the closer to the center of things you are and farther you’re away from it seem more dangerous than what’s between them. That’s bound to change as the population grows, that’s likely to change if it’s true as it seems in the first place.
Still, your chances of being a victim here are lower than they are in a lot of places.
But the era when you can leave your doors unlocked or a key under the potted plant on your porch are long gone
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
----
No comments:
Post a Comment