I wanted to add to my small lapel pin collection. I have 15 of them, most of which I’ve just collected over the years. About half of them were given to me. I have little case to display them in, and lapels on which to wear them. And so it seemed a good time to add a few to the rotation. This is tricky, I figured, because they should have some sort of meaning to the wearer. How many meaningful lapel pins can you be autobiographical about?
It turns out you can get custom made lapel pins for pretty cheap. So I made and purchased two of them. They arrived late last week, and I’m slapping one on today.
I like the old logos. And the quality of these is pretty good. So it is probably a good thing that lapel pins ought to mean something, otherwise I might be adding more to a medium-sized and growing collection.
But no one needs that. Least of all me.
Today in Rituals and Traditions I wrapped up the last of our lectures. I shared this video, which is all kinds of great. It has just the right amount of spiteful, prideful, “Make me.” What’s more, FIFA deserves attitude, at the very, very least. It’s a shame they won’t get more.
We also talked about the future of stadium design. No one in my class is in architecture or engineering, so they’ll never do that themselves, but you never know where you’ll wind up working, or what the facility circumstances will be. So today we discussed a recent trend of removing the cheap seats from venues, in favor of more lounges and escalators and clubs and restrooms. The cheap seats are important. They are typically thought of as a gateway into the sport. And we have discussed how fans spend more money inside the stadium — food, souvenirs, etc. — than they do to get in the place. So I asked them to think about how all of these changes might effect the fan experience and stadium choreographies and everything downstream of such changes.
I had a colleague come in to proctor the student evaluation process. I summed up the semester, gave my last little lecture and handed over the room. We’ll get together one last time, Thursday, for their presentations.
In Criticism we talked about this story, Suns’ Devin Booker calls out ref by name in furious NBA playoff rant after baffling call, which allowed us to talk about sources and source credibility. It doesn’t really seem to figure into this particular story, but it is the Post, and it should figure into every bit of their copy.
We also talked about Hailed as a ‘football goddess’ by many, yet sexism, hate and misogyny remain for this soccer trailblazer:
Marie-Louise Eta received a typical German welcome at Union Berlin’s Stadion An der Altern Försterei on Saturday.
“Fußballgöttin!” (“football goddess”) they bellowed in deafening unison.
Eta, 34, was named interim manager of the Bundesliga club last week after the sacking of the under-performing Steffan Baumgart. As a result, her unexpected appointment became a historic milestone as the club smashed through a glass ceiling in men’s professional soccer.
In the April 18 match against Wolfsburg, Eta became the first woman to take charge of a men’s soccer team in any of Europe’s top-five leagues (England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain).
Here, we talked, obviously, about representation. This example also let us consider a great deal about the notion and value of context, for the CNN copy omits a lot.
(Update: She was successful. Union Berlin finished 11th of 18th after going 2-2-1 under Eta’s tenure. She will coach the Union’s women side next year, as planned. Tapping Mauro Lustrinelli to run the men’s team returns the club to the old European boy’s club. Pretty much everyone expected that.)
We also talked again about watching out for fake stories. There’s a set of skills involved in that, and we were due a refresher. So we discussed psychological literacy, basically understanding our own psychological biases so that we might be, hopefully, less at risk of manipulation. We also talked lateral reading (check up on the source you’re reading and read others besides, basically).
It sounds better in the lecture. Maybe it sticks with people.
And for me, two more classes to go for the semester.
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
This amazing video is from An Bhinn Bhuí.
