Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.08.2012, Blaðsíða 8

8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2012 When he's not explaining stuff to us all in a fun, witty manner, Kári Tulinius
writes poetry and novels.
Iceland | Marginalized sports!
Icelanders as a nation have
never had very many great ath-
letes, just as one would expect
of a country of some three hun-
dred thousand people. Sure,
there have been a few Olympic
medals, but never a gold. In the
2008 Olympics, Icelanders won
one of their two silvers when the
national handball team lost to
France in the final.
For a nation the size of Iceland,
winning an Olympic silver must
be pretty nice.
Pretty nice?!? The whole of Iceland could
be divided into three groups depend-
ing on how excited they were: Those
who orgasmed, those who had strokes,
and those who got strorgasms. After
the team returned from Beijing they
received a welcome befitting a Roman
general who had just conquered Gaul. A
special plane was chartered to f ly them
home, which buzzed Reykjavík like the
city was Cary Grant in ‘North By North-
west.’ After they landed there was a pa-
rade in their honour that was almost as
big as the Gay Pride parade, which is at-
tended by a third of the nation.

So you Icelanders love handball
almost as much you love gay
people?

Yes, but even though we have a gay
prime minister, we have yet to have a
handball-playing prime minister. Some
glass ceilings are yet to be broken. Still,
the parade was even bigger than an In-
dependence Day parade, so we do love
handball more than we love freedom.
To add to the sentimental value of that
Olympic silver, five weeks after securing
the medal, the bank Glitnir collapsed,
which was the whistle that signalled the
beginning of the Icelandic financial col-
lapse. That silver medal was, for some
people, the last time anything good hap-
pened to Icelanders.

The handballers must be
national heroes.

Yes and no. Yes in that they are, and
no in that the esteem some are held in
goes beyond mere hero worship. Ólafur
Stefánsson especially, who at 39 is still
one of the best players in the world, is
revered like a ball-tossing saint. Jocks
love him because he is the best jock Ice-
land has ever had, intellectuals love him
because he reads Foucault, and geeks
love him because he plays role-playing
games with his kids. That said, as far
as the team goes, sport-love is born of
success, so to keep the good vibe going,
more success must follow.

The pressure on the handball
team must be intense.

Icelanders tend to have fairly realistic
expectations of their Olympic athletes.
But optimism started to swell in Ice-
landic hearts as the handball team laid
low team after team in these Games,
including the French, who always beat
Iceland because they are always better,
and Sweden, who have had a psycho-
logical grip on the Icelandic team for so
long that it was tempting to assume that
they included handball prowess in the
same deal with the devil that gave them
ABBA. Having triumphed against those
two formerly unbeatable adversaries,
Icelanders had started to entertain the
thought that anything is possible.

Did everyone get this excited?

In every society there is a sizeable group
that cares little for sports, but with the
exception of those people, most everyone
else did indeed get very excited. If the
handball team ever gets another Olym-
pic medal, the players will be hailed as
conquering heroes and will probably get
another triumphal parade in Reykjavík.
And if the team wins the gold, parlia-
ment will probably kick Christianity out
as the official state religion and switch
to handball. Jesus will not be let back
unless he can show that he is at least as
good at handball as he is at getting him-
self nailed to two planks of wood.

Did the handball team win it all?

No. They got beat by Hungary in the
quarterfinals in a tense, close game that
went twice into extra-time. This team
will not earn their triumphal parade
this time around. They will get the more
modest, appreciative welcome. They did
as well as could be expected, and went
down fighting. The Gay Pride parade
will not have competition this year for
biggest parade in Iceland.
So if they ever win the Olympic
title, they might get as big a
parade as gay people?
If they win a gold they might just get the
bigger parade, though really that will
still depend on the weather. Icelanders
are like cats: we like fish, gay people and
watching small balls f ly around a room,
but not so much being out in the rain if
not necessary. But given that the Olym-
pics end around the same time as Ice-
landers celebrate Gay Pride, maybe the
two could be combined into one super-
parade. Icelanders would be drawn to it
like cats to an especially smelly fish. Or,
indeed, like Icelanders to an especially
smelly fish.
So What's This Icelandic Handball
Team I Keep Hearing About?
Words
Kári Tulinius
Illustration
Inga María Brynjarsdóttir
www.lavatours.is - atv4x4@atv4x4.is - +354-857-3001
ATV ADVENTURES ICELAND
Caving ATV/Quad biking
4x4 Buggy3
facebook.com/atvtours
Included:
1 hour Atv/Quad biking tour
1 hour buggy tour ride along
Short Caving
Special offer 22.000 ISK p.p two on
each bike.
We are located only ve minutes from the
Blue Lagoon.
Pick-up is 3.500 extra per person.
i
n
1
Bad news if you
plan to live in
a retirement
home in Iceland:
the nursing
home Hrafnista was
denied an alcohol licence, which
means that the facility cannot sell
even beer or wine to folks that are
well over the drinking age limit.
However, the legal decision seems
to be based more on technicalities
than any moral outrage. Hrafnista
is by law defined as a residential
institution rather than a service
institution, which is the difference
that prevents them from getting a
liquor licence.
Icelandic conservatives, in particular those on the far
right of the economic agenda,
have created a kind of libertarian
think-tank called the Research
Centre for Innovation and Growth,
or RNH for short. The centre’s aim
is to “fight for market freedom and
against government intervention.”
The centre counts among its staff
political science professor Hannes
Hólmsteinn Gissurarson, historian
Þór Whitehead, Independence
Party Managing Director Jónmun-
dur Guðmarsson and, as the chair
of the board, economist Ragnar
Árnason. In addition, Friðbjörn Orri
Ketilsson will be the webmaster
for the group. Friðbjörn is also the
webmaster for www.amx.is, a con-
servative website featuring mostly
anonymously-written articles. It
should also be noted that they have
already reached out to the Cato
Institute and the Heritage Founda-
tion, two well-known conservative
lobbies, for financial support.
Speaking of the
wealthy, it
seems that de-
spite tax hikes,
Iceland’s wealthy
are not fleeing in
droves to lands where the wealthy
are taxed less. Director of the Tax
Office Skúli Eggert Þórðarson,
pointed out that quite the contrary,
the rich who are leaving Iceland are
going to countries with comparable
to or, in some cases, even higher
capital gains tax rates than Iceland.
NEWS IN BRIEF
NEWS IN ICELAND
EARLY AUGUST
Continues over