74-Year Old Man Killed by Spear Chucker…It’s Not What You Think.

In Germany, on Monday, a sports official was tragically killed. He was killed by a 15-year old kid. He was killed with a javelin. Damn…how does this not happen more often!?

Javelin is not a sport. Javelin, or “spear chucking,” (does anyone see the irony of a white guy being called a “spear chucker” without a racial overtone? I giggled a bit myself) is just a celebration of what Cro-Magnon hunter/gatherers did to survive. This is how I feel about most Olympic sports, actually. Swimming is what you do to keep from drowning. Running is what you do to either outrun a serial killer or catch an ice cream truck. Frankly, all track and field sports are derived from some aspect of the prehistoric man’s daily life.

Is it any wonder that someone was injured in a spear throwing contest? A pubescent German was given a spear and told to throw it as hard and as far as he could. A judge stood downfield to measure distance. Not from the safety of a booth, or being behind the thrower, but within striking distance. So, he got struck. In the throat. He died.

What the hell was he doing that he got hit by a spear? Those things don’t break the sound barrier. You can see that shit coming. What was an 74-year old man doing judging a javelin competition anyway? That’s retirement age and he’s out the getting spears thrown at him? I would think that if they needed a “veteran” judge for a youth competition, he would remember the old adage we applied to baseball, “Keep your eye on the spear at all times.”

I can only feel so bad for everyone involved. A child was given a sharp stick and a man stood close enough to be hit by it. This is like the YouTube videos when dads stand behind children swinging a bat and take one to the testicles; I just have to laugh a little. You had that coming.

We have technology that measures the distance of a home run. We have technology for slow motion replays. Hell, we’ve had binoculars for a long time. Why are people still standing downfield? This is like an official at a sharpshooting competition standing next to a target to judge a shooter’s score…while he’s still shooting!

The fact that javelin is still around in its current form is the same as if we hadn’t put the kibosh on lawn darts. “Hey, stand behind a circle across from your friends and throw giant, metal darts as close to them as you can for points!” Yeah, we saw the light on this one after a couple of kids took a dart to the torso…Oh, but javelin is an Olympic sport. If a baby got killed by a discus we’d be up in arms over the safety. Javelin kills an old man? Not up for debate.

Unfortunately, this 15-year old kid is fucked. His career is over. He has to live with the memory of that day he killed a 74-year old German with a spear. That’s a tough road to hoe, and no amount of schnitzel makes that shame any more palatable.

I know it’s all tragic, but this judge wasn’t killed when he took a gymnastics ribbon stick to the eye during an especially vigorous routine; this wasn’t a shocking, freak accident. This was the odds proving out. He was hit by a spear that was thrown at him while standing in an area known for its heavy spear traffic. He was a 74-year old javelin judge. That’s house money if I’ve ever heard of it.

Run Lola Run review

Ever been in a car accident? Been late for a bus? Run into someone and spilled your coffee all over yourself? You sat in that situation and thought, “Had I been one minute later, or one minute earlier, then I would have just gone on my merry way.”

The world conspires sometimes, or so it seems, to just jam you up. You are 30 seconds late and watch the train roll away from the station. Whatever the situation you find yourself in, there are a thousand moments that come together and decide your fate. You could have walked faster, taken a short cut down an alley, etc.

Run Lola Run is a film by Tom Tykwer. Franka Potente plays Lola, a woman in love with her boyfriend who loses 100,000 Deutschmarks that belong to a very dangerous man. To get that money back, her boyfriend Manni decides to rob a grocery store. The film is about Lola trying to raise the money and/or keep Manni from robbing the store.

Simple enough, right? What sets this movie apart are three alternatives to the eventual outcome. The movie literally is a short story told multiple ways with the smallest changes in the story line. Little coincidences, moments chosen or passed on, her falling down, running in to a car or missing it completely, finding her father having an affair, etc. Each little change in the story time and time again adds up to a very different outcome for Manni.

The movie is fast-paced, exciting, and very well shot. From animation scenes to exciting music tracks, this movie keeps you hooked. You might think it would get old, watching the same story over and over again, but with the subtle changes, the kizmit moments, the universe smiling or frowning on her goal, Lola lives out a new reality in every incarnation of the story. It is not the same story even once. From her leaping down the stairs to her running in to an old friend driving out of the side street to nearly hit her, Lola seems to be running up hill the entire time, and you kind of hope the best for her. As they story keeps getting retold, little things make you feel bad for her, or to feel differently about characters who seemed good earlier, but now are revealed as just shitty people.

It is a great film, a little obscure (being a German import), and as always is a clever retelling of an old story that explores the idea of the world being just a series of random moments, moments that can have dire ripples and effects despite seeming completely innocuous at the time. See this movie.