Bronze, Silver, Gold... Platinum?

The purpose of this blog is to make everyone a champion at the Shabbat table....try printing and sharing...

A question for your table about the Olympic Games:

Is the Olympics a net-good for the world? 

Arguments for:

a. They provide friendly (mostly) non-violent competition between countries.
b. They motivate human beings to push themselves to their highest level of performance, which makes great entertainment for spectators.
c. They generate economic activity and serious profits for all kinds of corporations.

Arguments against:

a. They're a hotbed of corruption, corporate greed, propaganda, and cheating.
b. Take a look at this week's top results in the men's downhill alpine skiing event:

	Country	Competitor	Time	Difference
1	SUI	FEUZ Beat	1:42.69	0.00
2	FRA	CLAREY Johan	1:42.79	+0.10
3	AUT	MAYER Matthias	1:42.85	+0.16
4	CAN	CRAWFORD James	1:42.92	+0.23

So number 2 (silver medal) Johan Clarey lost by 1/10 of a second.

Number 3, Matthias Mayer, missed out on silver by 16/100 of a second (hey kids, can you simplify that fraction?).

And poor James Crawford was 23/100 of a second too slow to get any medal. Had he been ½ second faster, he would have had gold.

But because he's #4, he's a NOBODY. He's a loser. No big endorsement contracts, no picture on the cereal box. No breakfast of champions for him!

But there's no point in talking about it, it's not going to change, right?

If you've been reading this blog long enough, you may recall a few years ago when I wrote about the greatest Olympian ever - who lost his race. 

So here's a proposal - please tell me what you think:

Let's create a 4th medal — platinum. Platinum goes to any athlete the judges find to have shown exceptional sportsmanship (sportspersonship?). During the ceremony, platinum stands at the same podium level as gold. And if the judges don't judge anyone in that competition to be deserving of platinum, then that position on the podium remains awkwardly empty.

For your table: What do you think? Should we start a campaign to get the platinum medal created in time for the next Olympics?


Shabbat Shalom


PPS -  This week's 8-minute podcast is called "90,000 Pushups?" and there are 10 ways to hear it:

iTunes/iPhone … YidPod … Spotify … Google Podcasts … Pocketcasts … Stitcher … Podbean … Amazon Podcasts … RSS … or just on the web.

(Also - I send out a separate email on Sunday night when the new podcast episode is available - if you'd like to be added to that list, let me know.)

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