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| Bolton Hardwood Diplomacy - Security Council & basketball |
| 2006-02-23 |
| (H/T NRO Corner NEW YORK --It was a night for the U.N. Security Council to forget scandals, global conflicts and divisive debates and watch cheerleaders, tumbling acrobats, a lopsided basketball game -- and even catch a glimpse of Woody Allen. At the invitation of U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, council members headed to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday to watch the New York Knicks get trounced 103-83 by the Miami Heat, their 17th loss in the last 19 games. "It was a fun game despite the outcome, and I think it gave the ambassadors a real view of what happens in everyday America and gets them out of their bubble," said Bolton, who holds the Security Council's monthlong rotating presidency. "I can't think of an event that's both more international ... but more American as well." To get in the spirit but maintain his neutrality, National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern handed out red NBA caps to the ambassadors. "We think that basketball is the international language," Stern said. "It's a sport that was invented in America, but it travels the world. It's been an Olympic sport since 1936, and we have worked with many of the countries here." Ambassador Kenzo Oshima of Japan, where the sporting passion is baseball, said he had watched basketball on television but was very excited at seeing "the real thing on the ground." "I enjoyed it very much," he said. "But the closest the Knicks came was 10 points behind -- bad night for New York." But Russia's Ambassador Andrey Denisov was thrilled about Miami's victory; he's a fan of the team, and especially its star, Shaquille O'Neal. He said he had long been trying to make time for a basketball game. Danish envoy Ellen Margrethe Loj, the only woman on the 15-member council, arrived saying, "I don't know a thing about basketball." She got a crash course from former NBA player Mike Bantom -- now the NBA's senior vice president for player development -- who watched part of the game with her. The experience was no first for China's deputy U.N. Ambassador Zhang Yishan. It was in Madison Square Garden that he saw his first basketball game over 30 years ago -- soon after communist China took over the Security Council seat from Taiwan in 1971. "We have some minutes of being ordinary people," Zhang said. "Forget about the security, forget about the peace, you just enjoy yourself." The diplomats later attended a VIP dinner where Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi Previn were at one table. "Am I in any danger?" the film director quipped when asked if he knew he was sharing the room with the Security Council. Did he want to meet Bolton or any of the other council ambassadors? "No, I'm not a very social person," Allen said. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #4 the UN? they were only creeped that she was a girl... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-02-23 17:53 |
| #3 ...and all agreed that seeing Woody and Soon-Yi together "creeped them out". |
| Posted by: tu3031 2006-02-23 17:14 |
| #2 Reminds me of a scene out of "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest," where the insane folks were led out of the insane asylum for a day out. I hope Bolton fed them their meds beforehand. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-02-23 16:54 |
| #1 Taking them to a Knicks game; that'll piss 'em off... |
| Posted by: Raj 2006-02-23 12:06 |