[mrdct]

Debbie,

First let me congratulate you on your victory. Let me also congratulate you on your openness in contributing to this forum and straightening out a number of inaccuracies that have been bobbling along.

I'm not a lawyer, but ignorance of the law tends to not be a viable defence in most jurisdictions. Even without reading through all of the relevant conditions of contest and associated documents, commonsense would generally suggest:

• It would be most uncommon for a membership based national sporting organisation to not have something in its constitution, by-laws or similar document along the lines of "not bringing the sport or the organisation into disrepute". I’m a member of several sporting bodies and clubs and whilst I don’t know exactly how each one words it, I’m sure it’s there for all of them. We see sporting stars in mainstream sports get into trouble for one faux pas or another on a regular basis and routinely see their sporting bodies rub them out for a match or two with or without a fine and/or suspended sentence. I think it's reasonable to expect similar consequences for a faux pas at the top level of bridge.
  
• The efforts in recent years by the WBF to get bridge into the Olympic movement are widely know, particularly amongst "elite" bridge players through, for example, controversies around doping rules. It would seem to naturally follow that at a WBF event the general "vibe" of Olympic ideals such as conducting oneself in an apolitical manner would be implicit in the conditions of contest even if you hadn’t read them.
  
• When you are in a foreign country that may, and in this case probably does, have different standards for politeness and conduct than you are used to at home, the prudent thing to do is conduct oneself with the upmost decorum and discretion.

I am genuinely sympathetic to your circumstances, but believe that some sort of mild sanction is in order both for the USBF to save face and to minimise the chances of this sort of thing happening again. On balance, I think optimal outcome will be the USBF saying:

"You naughty girls! Please don’t do it again - and if you do, you will be grounded for a year!"

The apparent fact that The WBF and CCBA don't seemed overly concerned about the situation is encouraging.

This may require you to eat little bit of humble pie, but it won’t interfere with your bridge career and will allow this unfortunate affair to blow-over.

Guilia Nastase said:

Article 56 of the same charter clearly requests that [During the entire period of the Olympic Games, including all ceremonies, no speeches of any kind may be held by any representative of any government or other public authority, nor by any other politician, in any venue placed under the responsibility of the OGC]. Now, this puts the entire opening and awards ceremonies in Shanghai, as well as the WBF, in violation of the Olympic charter, as I recall a good number of Chinese government representatives/politicians delivering speeches at these ceremonies].

Now I can use one of my favourite puns applicable to situations where the Chinese do something wrong: "two wongs don't make a wight".

Dave.

[beatrix45]

For what its worth, imo. what you did was just free speech and OK. The subsequent threats from the authorities were childish and uncalled for.

Best of luck,

Trixi

[uday]

The original poster asked me to split off comments. hence this thread. original post is still pinned to the top of watercooler.

I (really) try not to get involved in micromanagement of our msg board - sorry - these seem like special circumstances to me, perhaps i'm wrong.

[jtfanclub]

I'm waffling again.

If the Venice Cup team signed something that said that they wouldn't do anything political, and they did something political, then they should be punished for breaking their word. It was my previous understanding that they did.

But if they didn't sign anything, and the only way to know that it was disallowed was to look at some reference in the bylaws which referred to something else which referred to another document in which page 84 said something...well, I don't know what your definition of "boilerplate" is, but that certainly fits mine. So in that case, no punishment is warranted.

One of those cases where as the facts change so does my opinion.

[kenrexford]

mrdct, on Nov 18 2007, 03:00 AM, said:

I'm not a lawyer, but ignorance of the law tends to not be a viable defence in most jurisdictions.

Not sure that this is responsive, but as a lawyer I'd suggest that some of the discussion might benefit from the idea of malum in se versus malum prohibitum.

"Bad because the law says it is bad" as opposed to "bad because it is bad."

[han]

Exactly (what Ken said).

Who cares whether it is a viable defence is most jurisdictions. This is not something that should be brought to a court.

[Bridge_Bain]

** This is also posted in the original thread that was 48+ pages when I posted it.

Since I never considered the sign particularly political or about the USA per se, I don’t think we should be talking about the politics of the USA in here. [The sign did, and still does, sound like a personal comment between the players at the event.] But the politics of the bridge world itself should be discussed.

When I read the article linked below in the New York Times, I was shocked, embarrassed, and very sad. Not because of the sign that was held up at the ceremonies, but by the image it portrayed about the bridge world, bridge players, and bridge organization’s leaders. I gave the article to some non-bridge players to see their reaction. They said, “I thought you said bridge is fun and stimulating. If the slightest irregularity leads to such a negative, vindictive tone talking about legal action and sever punishment, why bother? I don’t think I want to be involved with that type of neurotic personalities.” Note: these are their words, not mine. But, I too felt totally alienated by the response.

It seems that IF we are representing the USA, the USBF should have taken ownership and apologized to the WBF, upset sponsors (if the existed), and worked to deflect the issue away from being a [USA] political statement to what it appears to be, a statement to the other players. The stance taken by the USBF leadership did nothing but spread dissent, anger, us-against-them, and overall negativity in both the outside world and the bridge community. If these World Bridge Events are about representing countries/zones rather then just a conduit to bringing the great players together, then the USBF should have made it clear, after apologizing, that they intended to set strict dress policies about what members of the USA Teams may wear or display in the future so there are no future potentially embarrassing incidents occur regardless of it embarrasses the USBF, WBF, or bridge players in the USA. Such a reaction would have given a positive image of the bridge world instead of the black-eye it received.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/arts/14b...rss&oref=slogin