Named for: It’s a long story, but probably Greek, γεωργός Georg, tiller of land, from Gaia + ergos. Although it could be Persian, Gurj; or gurgan, land of the wolves. The Georgians call their country Sakartvelo (საქართველო; ‘land of Kartvelians’).
Capital: Tbilisi (თბილისი)
Long/Lat: 41.4 N/44.4 E , 6900 mi or 14 hours West of Castro Valley
Main industries: Mining, transport, ancient wineries
The ancient region between the Black and Caspian Seas was called Colchis,
The ancient Greeks called it Colchis (Κολχίς) which was their version of what they thought people said, now Anglicized. They told a famous ancient story about a golden ram, whose pelt hung on a tree guarded by a dragon. The mythical explorer Jason sailed the Argo across the Black Sea and, after seducing the king’s daughter, took the golden fleece and daughter back home. Later, he cheated on her, and Medea was not pleased. She ended up poisoning the paramour and killing the children.
Ironic caption that, given that the photo isn’t of people watching, but cameras watching. Are they interfering or are they essential to the audience? Where does the athlete fit in this alliance?
The only thing worse than the networks’ coverage of the Olympic Games would be if the TV networks didn’t cover the Games. We could play a drinking game: name all the things you hate about NBC (or the BBC or ….)’s coverage of the Olympics. You’d be plastered before the athletes started marching into the stadium.
The packaged, preselected narrative ruins the live experience as TV aims for the most photogenic, the most “American-looking,” the most-likely winners, and ignores most everyone else. The nightly entertainment package is full of insipid chatter by the hosts, incessant shots of family members, content-less interviews with athletes who aren’t competing, and not enough competition to show the competition. And don’t get me started on the idiotic obsession with the medal count. So much to dislike about the way the entertainment media “crafts” narratives about the sports, so much that interferes with the sports, themselves.
In fact, I was planning on a good ol’ fashioned rant about the lousy media as the Opening Ceremonies approached, but I started thinking about the history of the Games. The media changes the Games because the media curates the Games, with its intrusive format controlling the content as that guy McLuhan would say. But is it THAT different today than before?
As much as we prefer our athletes to be unsullied by the watchers, we might think about how their performance has always been about both the audience and purveyors. We want to watch; they want to compete. The media is in the middle. The media has changed the game, but it always has been doing that, from the time of the ancient Greeks to the 1896 reboot to the introduction of television to the drones and ubiquitous cameras. AI will introduce some other ruination and perversion, but…same as it ever was. There’s always been an unholy alliance between the athlete, the audience, and the curator.
The Kajmeister backyard has its own small but cheery arrangements.
Imagine you are a tiny speck attached to a giant rotating space ship, not spinning too fast for you to fall off, but enough so that you notice that things change in your environment. Sometimes, there is a nearby furnace with plenty of light and heat but you can’t get close to it all the time because of the spinning, so you have to plan your energy use carefully. Also, some time ago, way before you were born, the space ship was hit by a big rock, so hard that it tilted sideways, so now the whole thing is tilted and wobbly. Although it’s so big and you’re so small, you don’t really notice. EXCEPT! that when you’re on the side tilted toward the orb, it’s plenty warm but when you’re on the side tilted and wobbling away, it’s not always warm enough. You kind of count the hours until you start tilting toward the orb again.
That’s the Solstice. Happy Solstice.
We carbon-based lifeforms like our solar radiation, that light and warmth that’s much better when we’re tilted TOWARD and not away. We’ve been tilting away, but now, starting yesterday we started TOWARD again. Our ancestors liked this so much that culture after culture dragged giant stones up mountains, across logs, along ramps, just to put together towers big enough so that everybody knew when the space ship would start spinning toward the orb again.
