Tuesday, December 22, 2015

A Rare non-Chess Rant

     This is a chess blog and I rarely write anything about non-chess subjects, but the incident involving the Miss Universe Pageant sticks in my craw. 
     Because I am denied 'remote privileges' between the hours of 7pm to 10pm I have to watch what the wife watches on television. Naturally that meant watching the Miss Universe fiasco Sunday night. For those that don't know the details you can read about it HERE
     The whole thing (the Miss Universe Pageant) is pretty insignificant in the over all scheme of things, but it involves big money for everybody involved, so I guess that's what makes it 'important.' But, that's another issue. 
     The host, Steve Harvey, made a real gaffe, but so what? Ever watch professional sports? We see mistaken calls all the time. When they are made, they go through a tedious review which makes the on field referees look bad, but they are corrected and the game goes on. It happens. 
     Anyway I have two observations. First, Steve Harvey manned up and went back out on the stage on live TV and took full responsibility. There may have been extenuating circumstances, but he didn't try to make excuses...he said it was his fault and he took full responsibility. In my book that makes him a big man. 
     I always admired Samuel Reshevsky. Our views on religion were different because I believe Jesus is the Jewish Messiah; he didn't. But when it comes to religion, as Reshevsky said of Fischer, “He has his views. I have mine.” To me the important thing was Reshevsky always put his faith and family first. He had his priorities straight and I admired that and I think it made him a big man.
     The other thing coming out of this whole mess was the way the fluff of Miss Universe got almost all the headlines while the incident that happened outside the hotel was given only passing coverage. A lot of lives were traumatized to a much greater extent than anybody who was involved in the Miss Universe fiasco was, but few seem to give hoot. It just wasn't a money maker for the media.  
    There, I'm done.  The next post will be about chess.

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