If I’m not confused by timezone differences, today is election day in Britain and the outcome seems pretty much a foregone conclusion (I haven’t checked the omniscient betting markets, I must admit). So, I’ll look at a more trivial question. If the British government wants to increase voter turnout, why don’t they hold elections on Saturdays instead of Thursdays?
I looked into this question in the case of the US, and there’s a complicated historical explanation, but the central point that, at the time Tuesday was chosen as a polling day, the standard working week was six days, and Sunday was excluded for religious reasons. So it didn’t really matter which day was chosen.
But in an economy where, even with a 24-7 service sector, Saturday is a day off for most people, it seems like a much more convenient choice. For a bunch of reasons, I can’t see the US ever making a change like this[1]. But in Britain it would be easy, and presumably modestly beneficial to Labour, which could therefore push such a change through Parliament any time it wanted.
fn1. First, the US is very conservative in relation to traditions of this kind. Second, although it had an excellent record on this issue up to the 1960s, the Republican party now routinely opposes measures to increase voter turnout.
by Chris Bertram on May 3, 2005
“Good 1 — Evil 0”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/4501277.stm
Orlando Patterson and Jason Kaufman trail their forthcoming American Sociological Review paper on why cricket failed in the United States in today’s New York Times (it seems to be subscription only). Their thesis is that the egalitarian culture of the US caused elites to be extremely insecure, and therefore to hog cricket to themselves; which in turn helped out the entrepreneurs who were able to sell baseball as a game for the masses. In contrast, the self-confidence of the colonial elites in northern India and the Carribean enabled them to share cricket with the masses. This, of course, undercut any potential market for baseball, cricket being intrinsically superior (sorry, that last comment was from me, not them). You can hear them discuss it with Laurie Taylor here. In the interview, by the way, Kaufman claims never to have seen a game!
by John Q on April 27, 2005
Via Rafe Champion at Catallaxy, I found this NYRoB review of a book Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values on the vexed topic of sport in US colleges. Bowen and Levin view the US system, where colleges use all sorts of inducements to recruit students who will play in their sporting teams, as entirely deplorable, and spend a fair bit of time on its various pernicious effects, but don’t really seem to have much of a solution. The reviewer, Benjamin DeMott has a more favorable view, pointing among other things to the fact that sports provide a route to college for working-class kids who wouldn’t otherwise get in, but doesn’t have a very effective response to the central point made by Bowen and Levin about the negative effects of a group of students who are mostly well below the average in ability, not academically motivated and are effectively employed full-time in their sporting careers in any case. Proposals to restore the ideal of the amateur student athlete have gone nowhere, and it seems unlikely that the radical approach of getting large numbers of colleges to pull out of the game altogether will do any better.
I’d like to suggest an alternative that is probably still too radical, but would not challenge the existence of college sports, and would overcome at least some of the problems aired by Bowen and Levin along with many others. College should recruit athletes as they do now, but let them defer all their classes for the four(?) years they play for the college team (unless they get cut earlier on). At the end of that time, a minority will make it into the professional leagues and big money, and won’t need a college degree. The rest will no longer have sporting commitments or the illusory hope of sporting riches. At this point, the college should give them their deferred education, with an explicit recognition that they are likely to need more help than the average student.
This seems like an improvement all round to me, but no doubt there’s lots of things I haven’t thought of, so I’ll let better-informed readers set me straight.
by Chris Bertram on April 12, 2005
I’ve been doing some sums following a conversation last week with Daniel and John Band. Tesco, as is well know have just announced “their fantabulous corporate profits”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4435339.stm . They have “639 stores in the UK”:http://www.ethibel.org/profile/uk/tesco_en.html (OK that figure is a couple of years old), and a UK turnover of £29.5 billion. This gives us turnover per store of just over £46 million. UK higher education has, according to “HESA”:http://www.hesa.ac.uk/ , a turnover of about £15.5 billion and 171 “outlets”, giving us a turnover per store of just over £91 million. Chelsea football club — expected to win this year’s premier league — has “a turnover of £92.6 million”:http://www.givemefootball.com/display.cfm?article=4009&type=1&month=8&year=2004 . All of this gives us the useful equation of
1 average university = 1 top football club = two branches of the leading supermarket.
Make of that what you will.
by Chris Bertram on March 29, 2005
I spent Sunday afternoon at Bristol’s Memorial Ground watching the “Bristol Shoguns”:http://www.bristolrugby.co.uk/10_5.php demolish the Exeter Chiefs and thereby edge closer to promotion to the “Zurich Premiership”:http://www.zurichrugby.co.uk/partners/index.shtml . Great fun, an entertaining performance, a good atmosphere, a diverse crowd, a chance to stand together on the terraces, home and away fans mixed together and exchanging friendly chat, a programme with the head coach’s telephone number there for all to see, a pint of beer with the game if you like, and a ticket you can buy without having to sell the children into slavery … I could go on. I’ve watched Bristol four times this season, “Leicester”:http://www.leicestertigers.com/3_8.php once and England (v Scotland) once. In the same period I’ve not been to a single game of football (though I’ve watched a few games on the telly). Why? Aggressive atmosphere, crowd segregation, surly stewards, beer illegal, expensive tickets, cheating players, arrogant managers, and, above all, the fact that a Russian billionaire has made sure that the whole competition is sown up before the start. The downside? I think few rugby players can do things quite as breathtaking as Denis Bergkamp or Ronaldinho can (though Geordan Murphy can be exciting). But the bullshit and the money around football have just depressed me too much this season. This could be a long-term switch.
by Chris Bertram on February 5, 2005
The multinational character of Crooked Timber means that there’s bound to be more than one view about who is going to win “Rugby Union’s Six Nations tournament”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/international/default.stm this time around. The smart money is on Ireland who have the best player in Brian O’Driscoll and home advantage against the stronger teams. I’ll be tuned into Wales v England this afternoon and there’s every chance of an upset this time. Unfortunately for Kieran and Henry (and for Brian who is an interested neutral) I shouldn’t think that a microsecond of this will get transmitted in North America.
by Brian on December 24, 2004
Since it’s the season for spreading good news stories, here’s a “delightful story about Pedro MartÃnez”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/sports/baseball/23pedro.html?ex=1261544400&en=734c78e5d89f0103&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland and the resources he’s put back into his home town of Manoguayabo. It’s easy to feel jealous (or worse) towards sports stars for all the money they earn, but these feelings are hard to maintain when the star does so much good with the money.
For years Pedro has been my favourite player on my favourite (non-Australian) sporting team, and it was rather sad when he left so he could get more money from the New York Mets. But it’s hard to feel bad about Pedro getting the extra $13 million or so the Mets were offering when so much of it will be returned to Manoguayabo.
by Chris Bertram on November 18, 2004
I may be the only Timberite who was both able to watch last night’s “Spain–England football”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/4013477.stm (soccer to you guys) “friendly” international and who also had the inclination to do so. It was a miserable spectacle on nearly all fronts (the only mitigating factor being the brilliance of some of the Spanish passing). There was petulant violence from the England players, especially the child Rooney who was subsituted before he could be red-carded. Rooney threw the black armband he was wearing for Emlyn Hughes to the ground as he left the pitch (a gesture which won’t be forgotten when he visits Anfield next). England’s footballing display was miserably inept, but though I admired the Spanish on the pitch I was willing Jermaine Defoe or Sean Wright-Phillips to score at the end (they didn’t) as every touch of the ball by one of England’s black players was met by loud monkey-chants from every corner of the ground. Anyone who deludedly believes that the population of Europe consists largely of liberal sophisticates would have received an education from last night’s game.
by Brian on October 20, 2004
It’s impossible to think about anything other than baseball today, so time for a little Yankee-bashing. One of the odd things about the Yankees self-promotion (which I’m sadly exposed to being back in NY) is their frequent comparison between themselves and all other teams in _the world_. This can lead to problems, because while the Yankees have won more titles than any other team in major North American sports, they haven’t won more titles than lots of teams in major sports outside America. But it can also lead to interesting questions. Here’s an example from “Steven Goldman”:http://www.yesnetwork.com/yankees/news.asp?news_id=675, who is in general one of the best sportswriters on the internets.
bq. New York has won more sporting championships than any other city in the world.
Is this true?
My first instinct was that Glasgow would have more championships that New York running away, but maybe that’s overlooking the New York teams (especially the baseball Giants) that have left. Or maybe it’s unfair to include Glasgow. It’s certainly unfair, for example, to include all the AFL championships won by Melbourne teams from back in the years when all, or all but one, of the AFL teams were from Melbourne. So which is the most successful sporting city _in the world_?
by Kieran Healy on October 11, 2004
Speaking of the “nature of excellence”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002651.html, my sister-in-law “Sarah Dupré Healy”:http://www.fast-women.com/photos/adidasindoor03/big17.jpg ran her first marathon today — the “Chicago Marathon”:http://www.chicagomarathon.com. She “finished seventeenth”:http://www.chicagomarathon.com/page_L2.aspx?subMenu=11&Page_ID=291&Nav_2_ID=309&Page_Title=Race%20Results in the Women’s Race, which is not too shabby, given there were about 40,000 people running altogether. Conditions were windy and she suffered a lot over the last 10k or so, dropping a few minutes off what had been a 2:38 pace. But I think it’s just fantastic that she finished in the Top 20, which is why I’m telling all of you about it.
by Chris Bertram on September 23, 2004
My head is clearly stuck some time in the 1970s, because “I just can’t understand this story”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/3682358.stm :
bq. The Amateur Boxing Association is set to offer Amir Khan £70,000 a year, tax free, to stay in the amateur ranks. Khan has said he wants to remain an amateur with the ABA planning to make a formal offer to the Olympic silver medallist on Friday. …. [Lennox] Lewis said he did not subscribe to the view that Khan needed to turn pro to make the most of the commercial opportunities available. “There is a lot of amateur money out there,” said Lewis.
Huh?
by Chris Bertram on September 20, 2004
bq. “If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he’d have put grass up there.”
The “BBC reports”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/3673568.stm that “Brian Clough”:http://www.brianclough.com/ has died. A sad loss after a sad decline. But his “achievements”:http://www.brianclough.com/new_page_4.htm — including back-to-back European Cups with an otherwise unexceptional team — speak for themselves. Bill Shankly said of him “He’s worse than the rain in Manchester. At least the rain in Manchester stops occasionally.” Now he’s stopped forever.
by Kieran Healy on September 8, 2004
Alan Keyes “said today”:http://www.nbc5.com/politics/3712293/detail.html that “Christ would not vote for Barack Obama,” apparently because Obama is pro-choice. But clearly the reason that Jesus would not vote for Obama is that there is just no way He would move from California to Illinois in the first place.
by Kieran Healy on August 30, 2004
Ireland “won a gold medal”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics_2004/equestrian/3606042.stm at the Olympics this year, but after the “appalling intervention”:http://sport.guardian.co.uk/olympics2004/athletics/story/0,14782,1293496,00.html of ex-priest and arch-gobshite Neil Horan in the “marathon”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics_2004/athletics/3610598.stm, Cian O’Connor’s performance in the showjumping competition wont’ be remembered as Ireland’s main contribution to the games. Dressed in a kilt and green hat with a handwritten sign on his chest reading “The Second Coming is Near,” Horan attacked the leader of the race, Brazil’s Vanderlei de Lima, at around the 21-mile mark. He knocked the guy over into the crash barriers. Amazingly, de Lima got up and — though he looked like he was in agony — continued running, only to be beaten into third place. Horan’s last public appearance was at the “British Grand Prix at Silverstone”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/northamptonshire/3081921.stm last year, where he ran onto the track. You’ll notice from the “news photos”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/northamptonshire/3081921.stm that he was wearing the same outfit then as now.
I am of course horribly embarrassed on behalf of Ireland generally, and I hope some of Horan’s “sneaking regarders”:http://www.the-kingdom.ie/news/story.asp?j=10631 back home will be feeling bad now that they’ve pissed off the whole of Brazil and forever burned their already-slim chances of hitting it off with any of their volleyball players. At the same time, I despaired at the behavior of the Greek officials at the race. Although de Lima had a policeman riding alongside him, and the route was lined with people in official T-Shirts, and this was supposed to be games with the highest degree of “camera surveillance”:http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/08/10/olympics.security.ap/ in history, Horan had no trouble running out onto the course and attacking the leader. The crowd reacted faster than the police. Even if you didn’t know that Horan had a history of interrupting major sporting events, you’d think that _someone_ at the race might have suspected that the guy in the leprechaun costume with a Star of David on his leg and a message about the end of the world plastered to him _just might_ have been planning to do something when the leading runners and the TV cameras hove into sight.