I've been thinking about Drip's posts below on the thread on culture and law in Iraq and I came across these two wonderful examples of how the rational and emotive side of culture is treated as a strange fact of life in faraway Kathmandu in this NYT piece today called "
Appeasing the Gods, With Insurance
Those goofy Nepalese! They didn't just run around and hire engineers to fix a broken plane but also sacrificed two goats to make sure the plane would fly. Knuckleheads!
Meanwhile, over in Chicago, the White Sox apparently don't spend any time, you know, training or learning to be better ball players. No, they turn directly to secret ceremonies of almost unrelieved bizarreness but this is treated in the most matter of fact way imaginable by the baseball players and by the newspaper reporting it. Even the few weirdos who complained (women, naturally) didn't point out how really stupid it was.
You've got to push'The gimmick, called a slump buster, apparently was put together to help the White Sox snap out of a recent losing streak. On Saturday, Sox players shaved the head of one of Guillen's coaches, another uneffective trick.
"This was in the same spirit," Sox spokesman Scott Reifert said. "In terms of taste I think people would find it tasteless. They were just trying to get the bats going."
Reifert said players have "burned bats, kissed bats, slept with their bats, blessed their bats, you name it."
On Sunday, the bats were circled around the two naked female dolls, one of whom had a bat inserted in its backside to prop it up. Each wore a sign over her breasts, one saying "Let's Go White Sox" and the other reading "You've Got to Push," the National Post in Toronto reported.
The coach's take on it?Guillen was asked about the prank Sunday and said: "Well, whoever did it spent a lot of money. That's the type of guys we have. The clubhouse has been quiet the last couple days and I don't like to see that. We have to stay at the same level of enthusiasm, no matter what happens. Because you worry about the game during the game, before and after, you can't do anything about it. I know it's not easy to enjoy yourself when you're losing, but I expect the guys to stay with the same attitude no matter the results of the game.''
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