Parent was correct. In British English, "athletics" means almost precisely what Americans mean when they say "track and field," though athletics may also include long-distance (cross-country) races not typically held in a stadium.
Derision looks particularly tetchy on someone who can't be bothered to do what they lament others will not do themselves.
> It's really a marketing trick - kinda like how these startups call something 'sharing (economy)', when in fact people are trading, not sharing.
What is the use in assuming that anyone who has come to a conclusion other than your own has had the wool pulled over their eyes? No self-respecting Swede believes that university is 'free' in the sense you mean it; the costs are palpable to all taxpayers. The argument in favor of 'free' higher education—that is, education for which the costs are borne collectively, rather than by individual students who are presumed not to have funding to match their abilities—typically runs that a better and more widely educated country is a more productive country, and that students of higher education will as a body more than pay back the money given them in the form of schooling. What's more, they will pay their costs forward, offering the same opportunities for succeeding generations.
You argue against this belief, after misrepresenting its proponents as people 'tricked' into thinking that no money has changed hands. That showed poor faith—something that is discouraged on this site—but, I'll move on. You insist that students given a leg up are more likely to squander their chances and to become parasitic, taking more than they put in. But you've given absolutely no evidence for this. Your 'reality check' is nothing more than supposition. Please direct us to numbers that indicate that Swedes are more likely to take degrees which you deem 'worthless,' and less likely to take STEM degrees or study a trade, than countries without 'free' education. Perhaps compare these figures to the US (you're clearly American, as shown by your line about the fervor surrounding Bernie Sanders among Swedish undergraduates). The US has quite high post-secondary tuition, even at its public universities, so if you're right in your thinking there should be far fewer 'parasites' there.
On what grounds do you speak about the left-leaning faculty in the Swedish university system? I certainly have no first- or second-hand experience that I could counter your claims with, but I suspect you have none by which to make them.
In general, a system of 'free' education is at least intended to give each generation as clean a sheet as possible. People may be self-made, but their children are not. 'Free' education provides (better) opportunities for those willing to put in the effort and do the work, regardless of their parents' abilities to land them in a good situation. No system rewards work and only work absolutely; but this is one attempt to do so, and it behooves anyone who wants to engage in actual conversation (as, for instance, on an online forum) to address it as such.
The author blames the modern sitcom's remoteness from working and lower-middle class concerns with their creators' immunity from the recent recession. In place of everyday situations, we have shows set in "soundstages and writers’ rooms," the haunts of the out-of-touch in New York and LA. So you wind up with a show with this sort of genesis:
Our creator was once a prominent writer and performer on a comedy sketch show, which aired live every Saturday night from an NBC studio in New York. It ran for 90 minutes. After their time on the show came to an end, our creator decided to pitch a sitcom based on their experiences there. The lead character is the head writer on a comedy show, similarly produced in New York. They must balance their work in the writers' room and their personal life, though this turns out to be difficult. A pilot is made, and our creator plays the lead.
Modern viewers may recognize this as 30 Rock, but it is in fact The Dick Van Dyke Show. It is based not on SNL but on a direct ancestor, Your Show of Shows. Carl Reiner's performance in the pilot may have dissuaded executives from casting him in the commissioned series (hence Dick Van Dyke), while Tina Fey remained the lead in her own version. But otherwise the parallel rings a sight near perfect.
The author stumbles over himself insisting, however, that while The Dick Van Dyke Show did not give vent to working and lower-middle class concerns, it did at least feature characters who "had careers" and were definitely of a class. As if the same were not true of shows like 30 Rock (which is at times obsessed with class difference), or of Parks and Recreation and The Office. These do not depict realistic workspaces, but why place that demand on a sitcom? And why not place the same demand on, yes, The Honeymooners,Taxi,The Mary Tyler Moore Show,I Love Lucy,The Beverly Hillbillies,Green Acres,The Andy Griffith Show, and on and on. In all cases the demands of the form—and in almost all cases the demands of overly long tenures—stretched the premises and the rare attempts at realism very thin.
I think you can make an argument that the most popular comedies available right now—whether on TV or at the movie theaters—are unflinchingly escapist. (Though, as the article notes in its discussion of an episode each of Horace and Pete and Girls, this has not gone unnoticed or unremarked by all of the shows' writers. Still, these two are not the most popular things around by any stretch.) Similarly, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were seen to traipse across exclusive resorts, high-class stages, ballroom floors, and Venice, in elaborate dresses and a "top hat, white tie, and tails"—all during the Great Depression. Sometimes hard circumstances produce a public clamoring for comment; sometimes the public just wants a reprieve.
Lilyhammer? The mafia and the Witness Protection Program have thankfully not become "ordinary" and "everyday." Certainly the main character tries to play the part of an everyday ex-pat in Norway convincingly, but the sustaining premise of the show is that he fails to do so.
Perhaps a mention of Malcolm in the Middle would be part of a more complete history. But the author uses 2007 as the tipping-point between "yesteryear" and the modern sitcom; a show like Malcolm, which ended in 2006, would fall in place quite nicely in the author's argument and not prove an exception to the rule.
I haven't seen The Simpsons in about 15 years, so I won't comment on it—except to note that it debuted only a year after Roseanne, and the two overlapped for about eight years.
There's plenty to complain about regarding Pittsburgh's gray, gray weather, but this up-and-down spring is wildly atypical for the area and not localized to southwestern PA. The same thing is happening in Ohio, across the rest of Pennsylvania, through New Jersey, and into the NYC area - and I'm sure in neighboring states as well.
Derision looks particularly tetchy on someone who can't be bothered to do what they lament others will not do themselves.