:03 From Not Being Retarded

I'm watching :03 From Gold, for the 56676th time, and I'm about to write a post about the fact that the two greatest floor-length in-bounds passes (the one here when the Russians "won", and the Laettner shot) in basketball history were both completed withOUT a man in front of the passer - Kentucky because Pitino decided not to, and the USA cause Tom McMillan was confused:

On the third inbound try, American center Tom McMillen, with his 6 foot, 11 inch frame, was assigned to defend the Soviet inbounder, Ivan Edeshko, and make it difficult for Edeshko to pass the ball into play. However, as official Artenik Arabadjian prepared to put the ball into play, he gestured to McMillen. McMillen responded by backing several feet away from Edeshko, which gave Edeshko a clear view and unobstructed path to throw a long pass down the court. McMillen later said that Arabadjian had instructed him to back away from Edeshko, and despite the fact that there was no rule which would require him to do so, he decided to comply, fearing that if he did not, the officials might impart a punishment to the American team. For his part, Arabadjian has denied that his gesture was intended to instruct McMillen to back away from Edeshko. In any event, now with no American defender challenging his pass, Edeshko was able to throw the ball the length of the court toward teammate Aleksandr Belov. Belov and the USA's Kevin Joyce and Jim Forbes went up for the pass near the basket. Belov caught the ball, and both defenders landed out of position. Belov then made the uncontested layup, scoring the winning points as the horn sounded for the last time.

Artenik Arabadjian, the referee who spooked McMillan, is from Bulgaria; his native tongue was Bulgarian. And when being interviewed for the doc, he admitted that part of the problem was that at the time he didn't speak English; other than Bulgarian, he only spoke French.

Like I said, I've seen this a thousand times. And tonight is the first time it's dawned on me that you know what...FOR THIS INTERVIEW (30+ years after the game), HE'S SPEAKING IN ENGLISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This, to me, is one of the reasons America will never really figure out the rest of the world. Here's a guy born in Bulgaria, and also speaks French (who knows what else.) Now, of course you can't be THAT surprised whenever Europeans learn each others' language - either of proximity or necessity. But then we find out that here's a dude that, even after having reached the peak of his profession, at who knows what age, took the time to learn English. Not just how to speak English, but how to speak English well enough to be interviewed by HBO. How foreign would such a thought be to most of us here in the States? It would be gay enough to learn a language in school - if you learned one later on, how gay would that be? "I own the biggest cow tongue-puffs seller in the country, FUCK everyone else, you fags!!!!!" That guy learning French? Non.

I dunno. Seems like an insight to the way the rest of the world works. Which I would think would be something we might wanna be privy to. Or not.