AO 2015 - Day 8

First topic message reminder :

Order of Play - http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/scores/schedule/schedule13.html

Live Scores - http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/scores/index.html

Day 8 Preview - http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/news/articles/2016-01-24/day_8_preview_vikas_cause_for_celebration.html

My predictions...

Wawrinka in 4 close TB sets.

Murray comfortably in 3 sets.

Ferrer in 5 sets.

Want to see Kuznetsov move up and beat La Monf, perhaps in 4 or 5.

Very fair assessment from Tomic in his interview today. Came across well I thought. Latest on the Fed argument:

Q. You have had a steady rankings rise; last Aussie standing here. Do you get tired of every Tom, Dick, and Harry telling you what you need to do to crack the top 10?

BERNARD TOMIC: I know Roger said what he said. Maybe took it the wrong way. I explained it the wrong way. Look, I think he did mention and say we all know that Bernard is not far from the top 10. He keeps saying it.

I just would have liked Roger to say, Okay, look, he had an amazing 2015. Went from 70, 80 to being 16. He didn't mention it. I just felt like maybe Roger said the wrong thing.

legendkillarV2 wrote:End of the day we are species. Nothing divides us. Made with a mix of the same biology.

You live in an ideal world my friend.. how I wish we could level all the playing fields life would be so much simpler

HM Murdock wrote:British as a nationality is rather artificial. If lines on a map change, then the those who are British change.

I was born in the British Commonwealth and lived in country which was part of the British Commonwealth until the 1940s. I was governed by British Laws, till the Empire lost control and countries were formed, which did not exist.

HM Murdock wrote:But British culture is a far more substantive and important thing. Ideas such as Habeas Corpus, the rule of law, trial by jury, parliament etc either began or flourished in Britain (or, more precisely, England, as Britain didn't exist as a nation until 1707) and from there spread round the world.

Strangely, British culture has been massively downplayed over recent decades. America, for instance, retains a real respect for Magna Carta but our own dear leader famously didn't even know what it meant.

As are many others, the strength of any culture has nothing to do with how long a monarch has ruled half the humanity. Even the British Culture is a melting pot of many others. The identity of such a culture is very difficult to discern. It is a living, breathing entity and evolves every day. What was not in British culture in 1707 is now an integral part of it.

HM Murdock wrote:One might be tempted to point out how the state dogma of "multi-culture" effectively means "no culture" but I'm not going to go there...

Multi-culture means promoting all of them equally, while no-culture means promoting none. Discrimination sets in when such promotions are made under political influence. Separation of Church and State is critical, but Trump wants to trump that too.

BTW, this side-bar discussion indicates that there is room in the Tennis forum for such and some fantastic discussion can be had.

Haddie-nuff wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:End of the day we are species. Nothing divides us. Made with a mix of the same biology.

You live in an ideal world my friend.. how I wish we could level all the playing fields life would be so much simpler

Ah but the playing field is circumstantial. Like anything in nature. Some species thrive more in some places more than others. We are skin and bones. It unites us.

Depending on your views of civilisation and evolution, for me politics is just one of many un-necessary complications of life

laverfan wrote: Even the British Culture is a melting pot of many others. The identity of such a culture is very difficult to discern. It is a living, breathing entity and evolves every day. What was not in British culture in 1707 is now an integral part of it.

Yes and no.

Yes, in that we have adopted much from other countries. The English language has gorged itself on foreign words, British cuisine has taken dishes from foreign countries, British musical tastes have expanded or changed upon being exposed to foreign music styles.

But these have all been appended to existing culture. The principles upon which our law, government and society are built on are basically unchanged. Even relatively recent changes such as the enfranchising of women are continuations of ideas that have been bubbling away for centuries.

And it has been an organic process. Which leads me onto your next comment...

laverfan wrote: Multi-culture means promoting all of them equally, while no-culture means promoting none. Discrimination sets in when such promotions are made under political influence. Separation of Church and State is critical, but Trump wants to trump that too.

This, to me, does not hang together.

Multi-culturalism doesn't promote all cultures equally. There are cultures in the world in which women have fewer rights than men, and where apostasy is punishable by death. Multi-culturalism in "the West" does not promote these cultures (or rather it doesn't intend to). So it doesn't view all cultures equally and therefore does make moral judgments that some cultures are better than others

Multiculturalism also has to mean more than simply having foreigners and adopting/adapting bits of foreign culture because that has been taking place naturally for millennia.

So if multiculturalism:
a) does not mean that all cultures are equal
b) means more than the just the cross-fertilisation of ideas that has always happened between cultures

What is the purpose of it? Why would a country, with an established, prosperous culture, centuries in the making, downgrade it to simply "one of many equal options"?

The main result is not one of expanded horizons, as multicultures tend to just lead to people living in separate communities. The result is the loss of strength to the original "host" culture.

George Orwell once wrote:

England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God save the King” than of stealing from a poor box.

I think there is much truth in that.

I like your ideology but like Utopia it doesn't exist
A world without politicians and politics ? what a concept.
Like asking for world peace. what a fantastic dream.......wake up and smell the coffee

Haddie-nuff wrote:I like your ideology but like Utopia it doesn't exist
A world without politicians and politics ? what a concept.
Like asking for world peace. what a fantastic dream.......wake up and smell the coffee

It's not utopia I seek. It will never exist. Life can't continue without the demise of others. I am what Paul Simon calls "Boy In A Bubble"

Well lk let no one burst your bubble...because it is a harsh world out here
and I see only stormy times ahead whilst the world's politicians suffer  with the ostrich syndrome.  

I can see why BB is agitated by the British press pushing Konta as one of their own certainly. However, defining one's inner feelings is tough. By this I mean one born and brought up in Britain may be and feel far less patriotic and passionate about the country than one that has adopted Britain as their country.

Take football and say Duncan Ferguson - a born and bred Scot who gave up playing for Scotland and despite various manager's asking him to rethink he refused. And then we have players born outside of Scotland who played for Scotland and ran through brick walls for the team. Okay gene-wise Ferguson was Scottish but heart-wise he was not. Konta may be like the player ready to run through brick walls for all we know.

I have lived in Spain for 15 years and and as a  legalised resident of the country I  now have voting rites, I love this country that has adopted me and welcomed me  and I have no inclination to want to return to my country of birth.. but I cannot, however much I have integrated here, and love the people and their culture, feel in my heart anything but English.
If I was never given the opportunity to represent my country in any sport but given the chance to represent Spain I might give it consideration but I cannot see myself actually doing so.

Everyone is different. Some born and bred countrymen have no love for their country of birth so much so they turn traitor. Others who perhaps are not born and bred British (or any nationality in particular) can and have shed blood for their adopted country.

HM Murdock wrote:The principles upon which our law, government and society are built on are basically unchanged. Even relatively recent changes such as the enfranchising of women are continuations of ideas that have been bubbling away for centuries.

At one point, there were humans burnt at the stake, and now there is a differing view. We have come a long way from slavery to personal freedoms. Was the idea of freedom around when slavery was rampant? My point is, cultures evolve.

Every religion has persecuted some other at some point in time. Where is the Law and Law-abiding citizen then? Human history is dark when you start examining it closely.

I do not recall who said this, but laws are written by the victor, and broken by the vanquished. Not a single war has any basis in law, yet start in 1066, and make a list of wars, where is the law, culture, freedom, appending to a culture, then? Falklands or Gibraltar, anyone?

Please do not take this to be an attack on a specific person, culture, or society. All such notions, of law, culture, and society, are notions of convenience, when fancy strikes.

CaledonianCraig wrote:Everyone is different. Some born and bred countrymen have no love for their country of birth so much so they turn traitor. Others who perhaps are not born and bred British (or any nationality in particular) can and have shed blood for their adopted country.

Quite true. I have an example where the same country supported two different sides. India had soldiers in the Allied (British) and Axis (German) armies, both, in World War 2. And this is not just one or two individuals, but numbering in thousands, on both sides.

laverfan wrote: Was the idea of freedom around when slavery was rampant? My point is, cultures evolve.

As you will know, the US Congress said this in the Declaration of Independence in 1776:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness wrote:

Yet the 13th Amendment did not abolish slavery until 1865.

Every society has been and remains a bundle of contradictions - although I would not for one moment slip into the despicable Corbynesque fantasy world of moral equivalence and suggest that all societies are equally advanced or civilised.

CaledonianCraig wrote:I can see why BB is agitated by the British press pushing Konta as one of their own certainly. However, defining one's inner feelings is tough. By this I mean one born and brought up in Britain may be and feel far less patriotic and passionate about the country than one that has adopted Britain as their country.

Take football and say Duncan Ferguson - a born and bred Scot who gave up playing for Scotland and despite various manager's asking him to rethink he refused. And then we have players born outside of Scotland who played for Scotland and ran through brick walls for the team. Okay gene-wise Ferguson was Scottish but heart-wise he was not. Konta may be like the player ready to run through brick walls for all we know.

CC - Ferguson gave up on Scotland due to his treatment by the SFA.

Tattie Scones RRN wrote:

CaledonianCraig wrote:I can see why BB is agitated by the British press pushing Konta as one of their own certainly. However, defining one's inner feelings is tough. By this I mean one born and brought up in Britain may be and feel far less patriotic and passionate about the country than one that has adopted Britain as their country.

Take football and say Duncan Ferguson - a born and bred Scot who gave up playing for Scotland and despite various manager's asking him to rethink he refused. And then we have players born outside of Scotland who played for Scotland and ran through brick walls for the team. Okay gene-wise Ferguson was Scottish but heart-wise he was not. Konta may be like the player ready to run through brick walls for all we know.

CC - Ferguson gave up on Scotland due to his treatment by the SFA.

Yes I know that but he was playing for his country not the SFA. And his isn't the only instance.

barrystar wrote:Every society has been and remains a bundle of contradictions - although I would not for one moment slip into the despicable Corbynesque fantasy world of moral equivalence and suggest that all societies are equally advanced or civilised.

Quite true. And I am not stating that the number of such contradictions is directly or indirectly proportional to the level of such advancement. In fact I have no basis for assigning numerical and comprehensive levels, but there is perhaps a qualitative measure of such advancement.

Taking your example one step further, should I consider my adopted country advanced because it crafted/drafted such a constitution, or should I consider it immoral because it incarcerates its own citizens the most (of any so called advanced countries)?

Good discussion. Thank you.

I get that people hate the idea of countries but would we seriously have sport without them? After all the first real sporting events date back to Ancient Rome and competitors there were from Sparta, Abyssinia, Egypt and such-like. Would sport have evolved without countries which brought laws and order, organisations and inventions and such-like?

I think (personally speaking) religion has more to answer for in terms of the nastiness in this world.

laverfan wrote:

barrystar wrote:Every society has been and remains a bundle of contradictions - although I would not for one moment slip into the despicable Corbynesque fantasy world of moral equivalence and suggest that all societies are equally advanced or civilised.

Quite true. And I am not stating that the number of such contradictions is directly or indirectly proportional to the level of such advancement. In fact I have no basis for assigning numerical and comprehensive levels, but there is perhaps a qualitative measure of such advancement.

Taking your example one step further, should I consider my adopted country advanced because it crafted/drafted such a constitution, or should I consider it immoral because it incarcerates its own citizens the most (of any so called advanced countries)?

Good discussion. Thank you.

I don't find the answer to your question that difficult.  With the notable and despicable exception of Guantanamo Bay nobody is incarcerated without a trial at which they are entitled to respond to the case against them and the rest of us can examine the evidence against them for ourselves.  Of course, it's not worth getting too starry-eyed about the US justice system (or ours), there are cruddy public defenders and slick lawyers who do better jobs in less important cases for the super-rich - but comparing reality against a degree of perfection which no other society has managed is not a v. good starting point for a relative criticism of the US.  Perhaps more significantly, you are able freely to doubt the efficacy and morality of the incarcerations.  You can protest, you can write about the formulators and enforcers of the policies which lead to it publicly in the most pungent terms - even to the extent of questioning their motives.  You can vote against it.

There are many countries where upsetting the leadership (or the delightful clerics who stand behind it) would get you incarcerated or worse without a trial, and to protest about it would land you in the same place as the imprisoned, or worse.

For all that we can criticize US and UK society for - and there is a lot and there's no room for starry-eyed complacency - don't forget that (a) we can criticize safely and (b) it's tough to find other places where they've got the whole package better - certainly that seems to be the view of many migrants.  I have a lot of common cause with BB's view about the centrality of rule of law and the common law - that's probably more important to stable democracy than merely giving people votes.

@Barry... if you get a chance, please read http://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/im-free-now-how-eric-glisson-proved-his-innocence-behind-n123966 . There are numerous examples of overzealous police, (slick) lawyers and others who are partly responsible for wrongful incarceration.

I do agree that ability to guarantee Free Speech is an important right, but hateful speech under such guise is the abuse that causes concern.

I watched a documentary on how Iranian clerics are vetting election candidates, which, in contrast to the current election campaign in the US, makes me grateful for what I have. Being able to write this response, without being blocked is wonderful.

CaledonianCraig wrote:I think (personally speaking) religion has more to answer for in terms of the nastiness in this world.

FUD being used to control masses, various paths to salvation being controlled with toll roads by religious gateways. What an ingenious way to imprison humanity using their own free will?

laverfan wrote: I do agree that ability to guarantee Free Speech is an important right, but hateful speech under such guise is the abuse that causes concern.

How you define "hateful speech" is extraordinarily important.  I think lying, inciting hatred against people for things they can't help, such as the colour of their skin or their race or nationality or sexuality is despicable (and mostly it's unlawful), but having a go at someone's opinions or their religion or their actions is fair game.  Far too many people are trying to create a quasi-right not to be offended by saying that statements of opinion with which they disagree falling outside the narrow confines of what should be illegal are hate speech.  In our complacency we are failing to see how dangerous and pernicious that is.

John Kerry is the case in point par excellence, unbelievably he said this about the Paris attacks:

There's something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of -- not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, 'OK, they're really angry because of this and that...  This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn't to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That's not an exaggeration.

This sort of outrageous nonsense is where worrying about hate speech and not offending people can take us if we are not extraordinarily careful about how we define hateful speech.  The whole point of freedom of speech is that you cherish the right of others to challenge your deepest convictions, to portray your strongest views as irrational, hateful, and disgusting and by so doing to cause you the greatest possible offence (you appreciate in turn, that by holding those beliefs you are offending your critic, but you both have the right to defend your positions).  An attack on a satirist by the person who is offended by him is every bit as much an attack on everything we stand for as an indiscriminate killing, arguably more so, and even for those who don't like Charlie Hebdo's mocking viewpoint.