Flags seem to be in the news a bit at the moment, particularly over that pond. Is there nothing more interesting going on? Obviously not, because I can’t think of anything else to blog about at the moment. Anyway, the World Cup has enough of an excuse for flags to be discussed in the blogosphere anyway!

Anyway, flags. What a load of horse dung. I don’t mean that. I quite like flags themselves, as in the designs of them and so on. While we’re at it, I’ve been reminded of this website about flags that MatGB linked to a while ago. I didn’t link to it at the time because I don’t actually agree with a lot of it. Surely the Brazilian flag is one of the world’s coolest?

But what I really cannot stand about flags is the intense symbolism that surrounds them. Some people act like a flag is the most important thing in the world. I have been led to believe that in some parts of the USA a child could be swimming in his own shit outside a house, yet a passer-by would be more shocked by a tatty stars and stripes. That would probably happen in parts of Britain aswell, come to think of it.

I am one of these people who couldn’t really give two hoots about nationality. Sure, I like good aspects of Scotland / Britain / whatever, but that’s only because I was brought up here, and all of my memories are here. If I was born in Slovakia I would probably quite like Slovakia. Even if I was born in Scotland then moved to England when I was two years old I would probably feel more English than Scottish. Nationality is a load of old pish really. I am sorry if this makes me a wet old hippy. So be it.

So I think it would be kind of pointless to go around waving a Saltire. And I am not one of those people who thinks that it’s some kind of choice between the Saltire and the Union Flag and something else. I’m not a particular fan of either flag. The Union Flag is quite cleverly designed, but it looks like a complete mess.

Meanwhile the light blue used in the the “traditional” Saltire (to the right) just makes it look washed out, as though it’s been left out in the sun for too long (surely an impossibility in Scotland?!).

For what it’s worth, I quite prefer the design of England’s flag. Red and white is such a simple idea, and it works brilliantly. The English flag is bold, minimalist, and a dream for remixers to boot. So says Chris Applegate at least:

There is an important design element to it; many of the St George’s Crosses flying out there have been modified in many different ways. Corporate logos can be added to promote a brand, lions have been placed in the corners (alluding to the England team’s crest), or worst of all, “ENGLAND” is splashed across it (a big no-no in vexillology).

Defacing a flag like this is probably actually a hangable offence, but being a callous flag-hater I actually quite like the fact that people are claiming their flag in this way by adapting it to their own tastes (no matter how tasteless). I like this comment over at Qwghlm:

I think it shows a healthy lack of deference towards our prime patriotic symbol. The George Cross - unlike the Uion Flag - seems to have emerged as something to be enjoyed, not something to be revered. That’s about as healthy an approach to national identity as it gets, I say!

Davo the Bawbag is more a fan of Angola’s flag, so much so that he has adopted it as the header for his blog!

They also have possibly the most terrifying flag in the modern world - black and red with a fucking machete on it. That flag surely makes a statement. That statement being - “Fuck off or lose your legs. Your choice.”
They chose for their flag the colours of fear and blood, then stuck a fuck off big knife right in the middle of it.

Genius.

Anyway, on to the crux of my post. Given my indifference towards flags, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I find flag burning one of the most bizarre activities in the world. I don’t blame the flag burners themselves. They want to cause a fuss and get a big reaction, and setting fire to a particular piece of cloth certainly gets them that with the minimum of effort.

And therein lies the problem. People who act as though burning a flag is an act of war or something! In the USA flag burning is so awful that they are always planning on making it illegal (even though they never seem to have a problem with starting actual wars where people die and stuff). Apparently the American flag is such a strong symbol of freedom of speech that they need to curb freedom of speech in order to protect this symbol of freedom of speech, otherwise freedom of speech will be eroded and the terrorists have won!

Here is Longrider:

I’ve always viewed the behaviour of angry flag burning mobs as little more than playground temper tantrums that never quite made it to the adult world. Libertine views the matter similarly to the burning of books and I guess he has a point. There is something repugnant about it, which is why people do it. The desecration of a national symbol is deeply insulting and it is intended to express maximum displeasure. The counter to this, surely, is to ignore it; refuse to rise to the obloquy.

And via Longrider, in the Times Online News Log (dead tree, geddit?):

Speaking for the protection of Old Glory, the Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist said: “Countless men and women have died defending that flag. It is but a small humble act for us to defend it.”

A load of rubbish. I think if anybody died for the sake of a flag then they must have been a bit thick. As Longrider points out:

Surely they died defending what it represented and in passing this amendment to the constitution, it would no longer represent that, would it?

And, via Guardian Unlimited’s Newslog, Jonathan Alter:

For dad - and me - any member of Congress who supports amending the Bill of Rights for the first time in the history of this country for a nonproblem like flag burning is showing serious disrespect for our Constitution and for the values for which brave Americans gave their lives. Such disrespect is a much more serious threat than the random idiots who once every decade or so try (often unsuccessfully) to burn a flag.

Some people obviously care very much about what a flag represents but at the end of the day I say it is just a piece of cloth. And if people didn’t get so worked up about it, flag burners probably wouldn’t burn flags.

I remember hearing years and years ago about a study that suggested that talented footballers were likely to come from a background of poverty. It seems to make sense. I have a romantic picture in my head: a group of kids, at the end of a hard day’s slog pushing bikes up hills and climbing up chimneys, kicking a ball around in a street of tightly packed terraced houses; jumpers for goalposts, driver angrily beeping his horn, and so on.

Of course, such things are not allowed these days. The complex of council flats at the bottom of the street contains a huge space in the middle, with nothing filling it but lots of pavement. It is surely the ideal place for youths to kick a ball about, socialise and get fit. There is one stumbling block though: “NO BALL GAMES” pinned to the wall. Some old curmudgeonly busybody comes out of his flat, acts all frail and vulnerable, and threatens to (and sometimes actually does) call the police, acting as though a little kickabout is the beginning of the end of civilisation. So instead, youths these days spend their time standing on corners and knifing people.

Anyway, I can’t find any reference to any hint of a suggestion that being in poverty makes you more likely to grow up to be a footballing genius, so maybe I just dreamt it, or it was a narrow-minded and prejudicial assumption of mine. Greg Mankiw asked on his blog why per capita (rather than total) GDP is highly correlated with success in the World Cup, unlike in the Olympics where total GDP counts for a lot.

This week’s Economist has a little editorial about the World Cup, and notes that the footballing hierarchy is delightfully out of step with political hierarchy. This makes the World Cup refreshingly free of the political issues that sometimes mar the Olympics.

Think of all those robotic East German sprinters, Romanian gymnasts and Chinese swimmers churned out by state-backed programmes. By contrast, a winning football team needs not just athleticism but also a spark of creativity and style that cannot be manufactured by sport’s central planners.

If GDP and success in football are linked, how do you explain poor Brazil’s world dominance and rich USA’s relative mediocrity in football? A comment by Colin on Mankiw’s blog had me convinced for a second:

I believe every one of Brazil’s players competes for a European club. So a big reason Brazil is so successful is that wealthy Europeans are helping to develop their players.

You’ll find that a heavy presence of players in Europe is also found among the more successful African teams.

So really your own GDP can be somewhat irrelevant if other countries are paying to develop your players.

So this kind of turns Brazil’s success on its head a bit. Brazil’s GDP doesn’t matter because talented players will be picked up and developed by European clubs. Maybe the link between GDP and a strong domestic league (rather than a strong international team) is stronger. But while South America has weak domestic leagues, GDP still wouldn’t explain why the MLS in the USA is a load of old pants. Surely, no level of GDP can bridge cultural differences.

I also found this paper on game theory and penalty kicks (via the comments in Mankiw’s post to here to here). At university, the penalty kick was the scenario used to introduce us to the concept of mixed strategies, so I was interested in reading this. I didn’t actually read it all, because I am a lazy bastard. But I want to comment on this quote:

Probably only a trio of economists would have watched videos of 459 penalties taken in the French and Italian football leagues. The authors were testing a complex point of game theory. What they found was that the best place to put a penalty was the middle of the goal, largely because goalkeepers always dive. Yet few penalty-takers actually choose the middle. “I think one reason people don’t is that it’s just incredibly humiliating to a kicker if he kicks in the middle and doesn’t score,” guesses Levitt.

I’m not so sure about this. The paper seems to assume that penalty takers and goalkeepers have only three choices during a penalty kick: left, right, middle. That is far too simplistic in my view. I asked my dad what he thought about penalty takers not aiming for the middle of the goal. We came to the conclusion that, even though the goalkeeper almost always dives, a quick-witted goalkeeper can always use his feet to save a ball heading for the centre of the goal.

So I guess it is actually wise for a penalty taker to avoid aiming for the middle of the goal. Say the goalkeeper is 50% likely to dive left and 50% likely to dive right, and in both instances has a chance to save a ball heading for the middle. If the keeper dives left, he won’t be able to save a ball heading for the right, but he could be able to save a ball heading towards the middle. So surely a striker will always have a better chance of scoring a penalty by striking away from the middle.