{"id":79,"date":"2006-02-20T19:16:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-21T01:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/2006\/02\/20\/age-ski-jumping-and-desistance\/"},"modified":"2006-02-20T19:16:00","modified_gmt":"2006-02-21T01:16:00","slug":"age-ski-jumping-and-desistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/2006\/02\/20\/age-ski-jumping-and-desistance\/","title":{"rendered":"age, ski jumping, and desistance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/6608\/1089\/1600\/crash.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/6608\/1089\/200\/crash.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>according to olympic commentators, the best ski jumpers are baby ski jumpers. this is because ski jumping involves convincing one&#8217;s body to do something that one&#8217;s brain regards as, well, stupid. as any former teenager will tell you, really stupid physical tasks are most reliably accomplished in youth.<\/p>\n<p>one would think that older athletes might fare better at events privileging mind control, whereas the kids might prevail in events privileging speed and strength. instead, fortysomething cross-country skiers such as <a href=\"http:\/\/sportsillustrated.cnn.com\/2006\/olympics\/2006\/02\/16\/oldest.medalist\/index.html\">hilde pedersen<\/a> sieze medals in grueling tests of endurance, while <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcolympics.com\/athletes\/5056995\/detail.html\">nervy nineteen year olds<\/a> take gold in ski jumping.<\/p>\n<p>watching the broadcast, i saw close parallels between ski jumping and desistance from crime and other risk behaviors. i&#8217;ll bet that the age\/ski-jumping curve follows the age\/crime and age\/accident curves. no, i&#8217;m not <em>always<\/em> thinking about crime. for instance, i <em>also <\/em>wondered whether jumpers and spectators might enjoy a warm landing pool of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kraftfoods.com\/jello\/main.aspx?s&amp;m=jlo_family_pudding\">delicious banana cream pudding<\/a>. more seriously, i marveled at the quaint sexist rationale that keeps women from participating: international ski federation president <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abcnews.go.com\/GMA\/WinterGames2006\/story?id=1626658\">gian franco kasper<\/a> says ski jumping &#8220;seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.&#8221; sounds like pre-<a href=\"http:\/\/womenshistory.about.com\/library\/pic\/bl_p_rosie.htm\">rosie the riveter<\/a> talk to me, gian franco.<\/p>\n<p>like many boys and girls, i recall summoning up the courage to do really stupid things as a teenager (<em>just jump! do it!<\/em>) that today i&#8217;d reject without a second thought. i suppose this is why keeping <a href=\"http:\/\/www.soc.umn.edu\/%7Euggen\/QUOTE.htm#young\">the edge<\/a> becomes such a preoccupation as we get a little older. i&#8217;m tempted to challenge my lad to a ski jumping contest, but not until i get some action on this pudding idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>according to olympic commentators, the best ski jumpers are baby ski jumpers. this is because ski jumping involves convincing one&#8217;s body to do something that one&#8217;s brain regards as, well, stupid. as any former teenager will tell you, really stupid physical tasks are most reliably accomplished in youth. one would think that older athletes might [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}