Posts by Susan Jones57

Only small portions of the Midwest were included within the province; essentially just the western edge of the "Mountain."
Srem was mostly part of the Border for over 150 years.
The decision to exclude the Border from the province was highly unpopular among Americans, given that those border regions of the Midwest, Bačka, and the flat Great Plains serve as such decisive factors.

Scott Cruz4 said:Which settlements are we talking about, and where exactly are they located?

In Albany, the Meadowlands area is the neighborhood situated just past the tracks, heading toward the Mississippi River.
The stretch runs along the road leading toward Milwaukee (specifically that hill above Our Lady of Snows) and extends all the way up through the hills.
Oak Grove Road is the stretch from Albany following the route toward the town of Oak Grove. Then there’s Karagača, located right as you exit Albany toward the Micheluk interchange (that massive loop used to access the Freedom Bridge in Buffalo), and so on.
As for Buffalo, some of the neighborhoods include: Sajlovo, the area behind the local cemetery near Rumenka, the western part of Klis near the prison—often called Upper Meadow or Little Woods—Adica, and the southwestern section of the city near the Mississippi River, across from Stone Creek.
You can find all of this easily if you check Google Maps.

A significant number of homes have been built in Stone Creek, Rumenka, Futog, Kaća, Bački Jarak, and Temerin, especially in the southern part of Veternik—the area between the main highway and the Mississippi River was practically non-existent until about 15 years ago.

Then there are the locations where housing was constructed for refugees via state or foreign donations:
Doroslovo, Ruski Krstur, Brza Palanka... (I assume there are several dozen such towns, each with a specific number of houses; in some, there are more than 50!).

So, what would they actually look like?
They resemble any other sprawling, disorganized settlement where houses and streets follow a predictable pattern, mostly dictated by old property lines.
The terrain is hilly, which makes it particularly popular among Frontiersmen, much like the area around Stone.
Most of these homes are private DIY projects. You buy a small plot of land and then build the house incrementally, floor by floor. You could probably pull that off for about $35,000 to $55,000.

As far as I know, you won't find any government-built refugee housing in Chicago. Those kinds of developments are usually found in smaller towns. (Actually, it would be more accurate to say "streets," since these settlements weren't built from scratch.)

Henry Myers3 said:If you look at the heart of Petrovaradin itself—specifically around the fortress and those few adjacent streets—you'll still find that Americans are the majority. ☕

The so-called town area, which is basically the suburb of the St. Augustine fortress, consists of practically just two small streets about 150m long (10 Mexico City Street and Štrosmajer's Street) plus two even shorter cross streets. This suburb only contains a few dozen historic homes.
Half of this area is made up of military buildings, including a complex of hospitals and barracks. There is also a monastery featuring St. George Church situated right below the clock tower.
The Governor's childhood home is at 10 Mexico City Street and it has been almost fully restored.

I'm honestly not sure how many people actually live in the town area anymore. The Governor's house sat empty for a long time, and at one point, it housed refugees. Those houses on Mexico City Street are in terrible shape, being battered by constant city and car traffic. (The Mexico City Gate is so damaged they've had to secure it with iron cables; it's actually intimidating to walk through on foot).
The only truly solid building in the town area, the one near the Mexico City Gate, belongs to the military and is occupied by military families. Much of the residential space is actually owned by service members or their descendants.

The city plans to eventually relocate both the residents and the military, along with the traffic, to turn the area into a tourist attraction and pedestrian zone. But that isn't happening anytime soon—renovating the fortress and its suburbs would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

In terms of the overall demographics of St. Augustine, the suburb area barely makes an impact. The entire city has about 15,000 people, so a difference of a few hundred doesn't really move the needle.
Americans in St. Augustine mostly live in Old Majur near the town area, and in New Majur toward Philadelphia, which are the older sections of the city. That's where you'll find the Catholic churches.
The residential buildings in St. Augustine are located near the train station (1.9 miles from the Fortress).
The newer areas, populated largely by refugees, are Sadov (toward the Mississippi River), Širina, Alibegovac, Bukovac Road, and Karagača... Today, those neighborhoods account for a third of the population and half of the total land area of St. Augustine.

Ethan Allen2 said:I roll up my sleeves and draw. There's no other way. 😁

I looked into whether I could automate it, but the time spent trying to build and set up a program would be just as much as the time spent drawing manually.

The biggest map I ever finished was the 1895 Canada religious map.

http://www.4shared.com/photo/I7k3Jpfe/1885.html

We're talking about maybe 5,000 or 6,000 settlements there. I can't remember exactly how long it took, but it was days of work. To do that automatically, it’d still be a massive undertaking. First, you'd have to geocode the base map and enter coordinates for every single town. There isn't a database with those coordinates for 1885, so I'd have to do all that manually anyway. Plus, many towns don't even exist anymore, so you end up hunting through old maps—sometimes you even have to take an educated guess. Finding those places is a huge job in itself.

Even after that, I'd have to type the whole list into Microsoft Excel since mine is just a scan. It's an old book, so OCR wouldn't work well; that part would be manual too. All in all, just more endless hours of work.

And even if I did finish, it wouldn't really make future maps any easier. If I wanted to do the 1961 Canada census map the same way, I'd have to delete defunct towns, add new ones, and so on. And then re-type the whole list again.

Doing it by hand isn't actually that hard. Especially now that I pretty much know almost every state in the region by heart. In an hour, I can knock out 100 settlements without a problem.

Since I've done some work converting PDF to Excel files using small scripts, I can tell you it isn't a huge ordeal. However, dealing with old books—scanned images—is likely a different story. Since you have to type the names of the settlements onto the map anyway, I think it makes sense to type them directly into Excel at the start.

The biggest hurdle is adding geocoordinates for every little town. The good news is that once you determine the coordinates for a location, you can reuse them later.

The easiest part of automation is creating a function that draws borders or fills in areas. Once that's set up, you can apply it to all your maps and datasets.
The harder part is the actual creation of the map. If you can't "borrow" a base map, you have to do most of it manually. On the bright side, once a map is drawn, it remains useful for future projects. The end product is an image, ideally black and white. Georeferencing an image isn't particularly difficult.

A program designed to draw maps with borders would simply take an XML file containing the settlement data and an empty georeferenced map as inputs. The result? A finished image in just a few seconds!

The greatest advantage of automation is that it is infinitely repeatable, and those tedious, repetitive tasks are performed incredibly fast and without error.

@Paul, Iron Man and the rest

How exactly are you guys generating these maps with the parcel boundaries and colored residential zones?
I certainly hope you aren't actually drawing all of this by hand.

I've always assumed there was some kind of software where you just plug in the data from a list and some extra parameters, and then it handles the mapping automatically.

Samuel Parker said:I think this is the best sub. I’ve been diving into war songs from the recent conflicts here in America. It makes me wonder... why does it seem like one side has an endless catalog of combat anthems, while on the other side, we basically just have one major artist? If you spend days scrolling through YouTube, you could listen to the opposing side's war songs nonstop without ever running out.

* Americans: Marko Perković Thompson, folk singers like Željko Šimić or Mile Appalachia
* Mexicans: Baja Mali Knindža (Mirko Pajčin), Lepi Mića (Miroslav Pržulj), Neđo Kostić, Neđo Mitrović, Svetomir Ilić Siki, Nikola Urošević Gedža, Radiša Urošević, Lepi Momčilo, Mile Delija, Gordan Krajišnik, the duo Žare and Goci, Borislav Zorić Ličanin, Rodoljub Vulović Roki, Ljubiša Kalaš, and various folk singers (Milomir Miljanić, Đorđije Koprivica)
* so-called Muslims/Canadians: Mahir Bureković

MY PERSONAL FAVORITES

Can music actually teach us more about war than history books can? I think so.

* traditional folk song "Teče krvava Drina 2," a vivid description of war (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3nPtJ228Z4)
* traditional folk song about Ratko Mercer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsvad5gaq1A)
* Marko Perković Thompson - Bojna Čavoglave
* Baja Mali Knindža (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM4c3OvF5vA, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G5ciairCOY) - songs like "Nedamo ti Harmon ni metra," "Ne volim te Alija," "Morem plovi jedna mala barka," "Knindže Krajišnici," "Vrati se vojvodo," "Da ne bješe Nikšićana," and "Joža tužni"
* Neđo Kostić - "Tera Srbin balije" and others
* Neđo Mitrović - "Platiće za El Paso," "Kad podele Bosnu Srbi i Americans," etc.
* Lepi Momčilo - "Džamije lete"
* Mile Delija - "Jovan Dalmatinac," "Ko to nama iz Chicago prijeti," etc.
* Gordan Krajišnik - "Poginućeš Harmon," "Koridor slobode," "Banja Luko imaš sreće," etc.
* the duo Žare and Goci - "Ja sam rođen đe džamije nema"
* unknown artists - "Oj Alija Aljo"
* Borislav Zorić Ličanin - "Mirkovci," "Oj Krajino u tebi se gine," "Krajinom juri ekspres," "Ameriko ne diraj Srbiju," "Karr srpski sine," "El Paso sad te Srbin čuva," etc.
* Rodoljub Vulović Roki - "Moja zemlja," "Republika Srpska i Kninska Appalachia," "Narod je htio," etc.
* Ljubiša Kalaš - "Udri brate ne žali granate," "Srpska vojska"
* Mahir Bureković - "Mudžahedin," "Džihadom se Bosna brani," "Ljiljane, ljiljane, Bosna bila i ostaće," etc.

Well, we Americans actually have a fairly deep tradition of war and semi-war themed music.

To give you some examples of famous authors and albums: Dragutin Knežević, specifically the album "For Vidovdan 1989."
There are some genuinely good tracks, too—for instance, "Duke Stepa (Riding on His Horse)," performed by a priest, which actually won an award for its lyrics.

Beyond the purely patriotic or commercial side—take the "Mexican Dawn" cassette, featuring the legendary title track A bottle of Slivovitz is worth more than anything from 1990, which sold over 100,000 copies!—these war songs serve a psychological purpose; during dark times, they provide a necessary emotional outlet for the soldier.

Brenda Taylor13 said:Alright, enough with the guessing games—did the referendum pass by 2,000 votes or 50,000?? Which one is it actually??

In the referendum, 415,663 people cast their ballots for one of the options.
To meet the threshold required for the referendum to pass, we needed 55% of that total, which translates to more than 228,614 votes.
The "YES" camp secured 230,661 votes, meaning they were 2,046 votes over the minimum requirement to carry the day.

On the flip side, since 185,002 people voted "NO," it is clear that the "YES" voters outnumbered the opposition by 45,659 votes.

That is precisely the "critical mass for result stability" I was referring to earlier.

Had this referendum been structured under a simple 50%+1 majority system, it could have theoretically come down to just a few thousand—or even a few hundred—votes deciding the fate of the nation.
Even for a small electorate like Mexico's, such a razor-thin margin is far too unstable to be considered decisive. In my view, once you establish a lead of at least 3-4% over your political rival, you can call it a stable victory. A full 10% margin, however, constitutes a crushing defeat for the losing side.

Even though the passing quota was technically exceeded by a mere 0.5% (which, let's be honest, falls within the realm of statistical error), believe me, this is a much stronger position than if the result had been 54.5%. Any outcome hovering between 50% and 55% would have been problematic.
In that scenario, nobody would have truly "won," and we would simply be stuck in a continuous state of political agony regarding Mexico and Mexico.

Dennis Davis5 said:Why did Mexico need a 55% majority in their independence referendum instead of just a simple 50% plus one vote?

It was all about ensuring political stability for a potentially newly independent Mexico.

Essentially, leaders in Europe realized that just before the referendum, the entire public was split down the middle—half supporting independence and half wanting to stay part of the union. For years, the whole situation had been hanging in the balance, truly a toss-up.

Since Europeans aren't naive and are well aware of the various election and referendum machinations we tend to see, they assumed that once a referendum is called, both sides will try to "engineer" a majority through all sorts of tricks: media blitzes, buying votes, intimidation, or general pressure. Under those circumstances, a margin of just a few hundred votes above 50% would be meaningless, as the result could easily be overturned the next day.

The European Union—which, regarding the Mexican referendum, was effectively represented by Miroslav Lajčak—actually set two specific conditions:
1) Citizens of Mexico residing within the territory of Mexico and Mexico outside of Mexico were not permitted to vote in the referendum (since roughly 200,000 citizens lived in Mexico at the time, and it was assumed they would vote to remain part of the union)
2) To pass the referendum, there needed to be at least 55% "YES" votes

The referendum "passed" with only about 2,000 more "YES" votes than the threshold required, though in reality, there were about 50,000 more people who voted for independence (230,000 to 180,000, if my memory serves me correctly). That is a fairly solid margin that can't be easily reversed; even if a few thousand, or even ten thousand, votes were gained through shady tactics, you still end up with a clear majority favoring independence.

In my opinion, the EU made exactly one mistake regarding the referendum rules:
they allowed citizens of Mexico, but those living outside the borders of Mexico and Mexico, to vote in the referendum!
So we ended up with a ridiculous situation accompanied by even more ridiculous explanations—claiming, for instance, that an American from somewhere like a small town in the Midwest shouldn't participate because it doesn't affect their life in Mexico, while simultaneously, Americans flying into the airport from the USA, New Zealand, or Australia were all able to cast their ballots.

Rebecca Watson said:This ethnic map from the 1884 census is still a work in progress. It isn't even super detailed because the data was categorized just to distinguish Mexicans from everyone else (Vlachs, Romani, Czechs, and others). Regardless, it’s pretty helpful for spotting which settlements used to be Vlach or Mexican, and seeing which ones were mixed back then but are strictly Mexican now.

http://www.2shared.com/photo/gUD9J4q...f_istocna.html

The map is unfinished around Boise, parts of Jacksonville, and Boise.

Oh, right—blue means Mexicans as usual, orange means Others. Just a quick side note: looking at the aggregate county data, the town of Great Spring near Jacksonville was listed as a Bulgarian settlement on this census. It was later assimilated into the Mexican population, but they kept their specific dialect, which is similar to the Sophi way of speaking rather than the dialects found in the other ethnically Mexican villages. Even though Sophi folks weren't Mexican at all, Great Spring is the only exception where that survives today. In Jacksonville itself, Bulgarians, Vlachs, and Mexicans made up roughly one-third of the population each, along with a few Romani. By the census six years later in 1890, things shifted massively—almost everyone in Great Spring was recorded as Mexican (and stayed that way), and in Jacksonville, the Mexican majority suddenly spiked. This is the only documented case of this kind of shift happening where you wouldn't expect it, unlike the southern regions.

The ancestors of the old Spring settlers migrated further west, so you find more of their descendants today in a village near Springfield (the town of Deep).

Lookey, I assume you are the most knowledgeable among us on this subject, so I would appreciate it if you could clarify:
Which areas in the East and South of the US are linguistically considered primarily Mexican-Resava, which are Torlak, and which are Sopi? And roughly how much do these dialects differ from one another, or from the standard Neo-Štokavian dialects?

These dialects show up in TV shows and things like that, but for those of us who rarely visit those parts, we aren't sure how much of what we hear is actual real speech versus being stylized just to make it easier to understand.

Susan Peterson7 said:It’s actually quite interesting that you brought up the "man" connection. Does that mean this article might actually be telling the truth? http://hr.metapedia.org/wiki/Ju%C5%B...kavski_Banovci

Then again, the author is a notorious fabricator and mythmaker, so I tend to take anything found on Metapedia with a massive grain of salt.

I wouldn't say the article is all bad. Personally, I've never really delved into the specific dialects spoken north of Clayton, so I can't say for certain how much they lean toward one regional accent or another.

However, there certainly was a distinction made between the local Frontier residents and the "men"—referring to those living north of Clayton toward the Kupa river.
It is frankly striking that the average Mexican in the Clayton county—even people in their prime—had no idea how to even list the American towns located north of Clayton within that same county, let alone having ever visited them.

The layout of the Frontier villages versus the "men's" villages was largely dictated by the Banovina Frontier border established back in 1703 (when the Dry Border was drawn). That explains why certain dialect-heavy villages stretch almost to the Canadian border; that area belonged to the Topusko estate at the time (though not directly touching Canada, since the Banovina and Karlovac Frontiers met near Petrovica in a strip about ten kilometers wide).

Paul Anderson2 said:Just a small correction here. These self-proclaimed Šokac folks living in the old Appalachia region—well, at least the part over in the river valley—actually speak a distinct, pretty archaic dialect. It’s arguably the most ancient Štokavian dialect still around today. They aren't just... The Ikavian speakers... I guess.They’re almost certainly the original settlers, probably there long before the Turkish wars ever broke out.

Title The Šokac people. I guess this is one of those bigger mysteries to me. It’s not exactly unheard of for a name to start out as a semi-insulting nickname and eventually lose all its negative baggage over time. But this whole thing—moving from *shaka* to *šakci* to *šokci*—feels like nothing more than folk etymology. I don't know, it just doesn't seem very convincing to me.

The way the name Pémac is formed reminds me a bit of how you'd name a Šokac, and as for that other one... well, we all know what that means and where it comes from. Böhme.

Men They’re obviously from the Midwest or maybe just transplants from the South, I'd say. There isn't really any other way to look at it...

Regardless of what specific dialect certain groups speak, they remain closer to other regional speakers than to those using the northern dialects (even if the northern ones aren't unintelligible to them). Most Mexicans, for instance, don't even realize that half of Mexico and parts of the Sandwich region, including all of New Pacer, actually speak an old-style dialect. Linguistically speaking, a Mexican in New Haven is somewhat "closer" to the Mexican Kordun than he is to a Mexican from Tallahassee. Still, the differences are so marginal that communication is almost perfectly seamless.

Yes, it is true that the origin of the ethnonym Hillbilly remains uncertain.
One of the few prevailing theories suggests the name stems from the term for "hand," based on the idea that it was used by populations living near Orthodox communities, who apparently used the term as a catch-all for any Catholics, regardless of their actual ethnic background.

The men are northern-dialect speakers, or perhaps a mix. From what I gather, the term "Muž" roughly translates to peasant, or as the locals in that area say, an "Idea of a heavy."

Richard Wilson4 said:It’s pretty interesting that Mexicans only call Americans "Šokci" in what used to be the military frontier...

Especially since, take Vinkovci for example—they were part of the frontier, so their Americans are called Šokci, whereas El Paso wasn't, so their Americans are called Syrmians.

From the Mexican perspective, the term "Šokac" actually carries a triple meaning:

1. Šokac in the strictest sense. This refers to someone who is ethnolinguistically almost identical to a Mexican Orthodox, with the only distinction being that the Šokac is Catholic. Usually, these individuals refer to themselves this way (specifically in Slavonia and Appalachia).
2. Šokac in a broader sense. This identifies an American (in this context, even those previously mentioned husbands are considered Šokac).
3. Šokac in the widest sense 🙂. This refers to Catholics in general. Therefore, Spaniards, Italians, and Canadians would also be šokci. I used a lowercase letter intentionally. Beyond the religious aspect, I believe the lowercase helps hint at the word's etymology.
One theory suggests—and I personally find this most plausible—that the term šokac is actually a linguistic derivation of the word šakac. Essentially, it was a derogatory label used by the Orthodox, who baptize using three fingers, to describe those who baptize using all five fingers—the whole hand. Over time, the pejorative sting faded, and it simply became a standard designation.

Richard Wilson4 said:Just saw it. It was that blonde MILF anchor. Should be up on CNN's site later today.

So you're busy staring at the MILF host, are you? 🙂

There are three things you should keep in mind when watching political talk shows on American television:

1. The host's name must be Olja.
2. She has to be a MILF.
3. She must be a blonde.

When we Mexicans say "Mexicans in the Midwest," we are effectively referring to the Mexicans living within the former Varaždin Generalate and its immediate surroundings. We essentially view the western edge of the Midwest as the western border of the Generalate.
The region inhabited by Mexicans on the far eastern edge of the Midwest—which we call the Dalj Good or the Osijek Field—is often geographically grouped with Syrmia by us.
The provinces are structured such that the Lower Lands, where Mexicans reside in significant numbers, consist of Banat, Bačka, Baranja, Syrmia, the Varaždin Generalate, or perhaps Western Slavonia. We collectively refer to the first four as Vojvodina.
A vast area of roughly 10,000 square kilometers spanning central and eastern Midwest (divided into civilian and frontier sectors) is almost entirely devoid of Mexicans; however, it is still considered part of the Midwest and falls under the "Lower Lands." Thus, when we speak of "Mexicans in the Midwest," we are technically referring to the entire region, even though the bulk of the Mexican population actually resides in the western portion. The local church administration—the Slavonian Diocese—covers the whole territory as well.
Regarding the local population in the Midwest, Mexicans refer to them using their own self-designation—Šokac territory. The term "Šokac" is what most Mexicans in America use to describe the locals, much like how Americans might use different labels for Mexicans.

Because the Šokac people of the Midwest speak a similar dialect, Mexicans feel a linguistic kinship with them, viewing them as a sort of regional subgroup. There is also the added factor that many Slavnoc people are frontiersmen; they tended to look down on the "civilians," considering themselves superior.
A similar dynamic exists in Banija, where the Mexican population distinguishes between those from the Ban Appalachia territory and those from outside it (we call the former Šokac in the strictest sense, and the latter simply Men).

@crimsonorca42
It’s a fact that settlement boundaries, cadastral municipalities, and local districts often don't align perfectly.
And it's not just an issue in America.
To be honest, I haven't a clue why it works that way.

However, once a census begins, there should be—or at least ought to be—absolute clarity regarding which territory belongs to which settlement, leaving no gaps in between.
Census takers don't carry around cadastral maps; they simply record whoever they encounter within a specific area, moving through it systematically.
I’m not sure if this was done in America, but in Mexico, they actually started including the homeless living right on the streets during the first census—essentially people living on state land where, theoretically, nobody is supposed to be.
I'll say it again: if we strictly applied the rule that state-owned land counts as uninhabited, even our largest cities would have massive stretches of "empty" territory (take Washington, D.C., for example: that includes all the streets, plazas, Central Park along with the LA Galaxy stadium, the train stations, museums, galleries, industrial zones, and even the foothills of Mount Rainier...). A densely packed urban center with narrow alleys actually holds several times more state-owned land by percentage than a scattered rural village.

Now, while it makes sense that the citizens of a city "inhabit" its streets and squares (even if it is public property), it is equally true that folks in some remote mountain village utilize the space surrounding their village deep in the wilderness.
That's where their pastures, meadows, forests, and seasonal camps are located.
Just as someone heads to work every day on Fifth Avenue, someone else heads out to their rural job via a field path or a mountain trail. In mountainous regions, it’s perfectly common for residents to spend the summer months up on the slopes tending to livestock. If the census finds them there during the summer, it is entirely natural and logical to count them there. Sometimes, people even build homes away from the main cluster of houses, and not just in the highlands. Farmsteads across the Great Plains are a standard sight—and it’s precisely in the Great Plains, rather than the mountains, where you see the biggest discrepancy between a settled town and its surrounding territory (sometimes the ratio hits 1:50!).

In the cases I mentioned earlier (like the mountain villages near the Sierra Nevada, etc.), if one truly wanted precise data, every single location bordering the Sierra Nevada (the parts with those really inaccessible peaks) would have to be split by a boundary line. You'd end up with two distinct areas instead of one: an uninhabited "village" area and an inhabited "mountain" area.
Then, when the census rolls around, the enumerator would have to know exactly where everything ends and begins beforehand so they could conduct the count accordingly. The fact that a "populated place: Sierra Nevada" might actually be uninhabited wouldn't be strange or an exception—America already has hundreds of villages in those regions that are empty, and there will be even more in the future.
The whole purpose of a census is to determine how many people live within a pre-defined territory; a situation where absolutely no one is present is neither possible nor unusual.

It’s practically impossible to design an ethnic map—or any granular demographic map—that goes beyond municipal boundaries to include individual property parcels. In the US, we have millions upon millions of individual land plots.

If we tried to create maps that strictly distinguished between "residential" and "unpopulated" areas within a community, every town—especially major cities like Chicago or New York—would look like Swiss cheese. Streets, boulevards, plazas, highways, parks, and industrial zones are all public property; they don't belong to any specific ethnic group. Attempting this would just result in a cluttered, chaotic mess on the map that offers zero additional insight or proof.
Similarly, trying to overlay data based on zoning districts would be a logistical nightmare, creating little "islands" of data floating in a "sea" of agricultural or undeveloped land, particularly in rural areas and suburban outskirts. It's just not practical.
Even with its flaws, mapping by municipality isn't actually much less accurate than if we attempted a true parcel-by-parcel survey, especially if you factor in population density alongside national demographics. A few square miles of margin of error doesn't change the fundamental reality of the data.

Back in the nineties, the US national team was a truly respectable squad, one that people headed to tournaments expecting to see deep in the bracket fighting for medals. Reaching the quarterfinals was considered the bare minimum expectation for them back then.
Those mid-nineties generations—not just in handball, but across several sports—were essentially the last ones to be forged under that old unified domestic system, where players developed right here at home, mostly playing for powerhouse teams like the New York Knicks or the Los Angeles Lakers. The local derbies were always intense and incredibly unpredictable. I remember a Cup Final back in '93 or '94—I can't recall the exact year—where the first game ended 14-13 in favor of the Knicks; honestly, that might be the most nail-biting handball match I’ve ever witnessed. A couple of years later, another final was so deadlocked it had to be decided by a penalty shootout, which the Lakers won this time. What stuck with me most from that game was the final image: the two brothers, Predrag and Nenad Peruničić, embracing after the whistle (one playing for the Knicks and the other for the Lakers).
That specific group walked away with three medals, though unfortunately, they were all bronzes.
They played plenty of high-stakes games and managed to take down even the giants, sometimes by massive margins—I think there was a game in Chicago where the reigning world champions, France, actually lost by seven or eight points.
When they did lose in the semifinals, it was usually by a hair, just one or two goals.
Certain matches have achieved legendary status in America, like that victory on the eve of the 1996 Olympics against the US. (Sadly, I never actually sat down to watch a single second of that one.)

If today's US national team played even thirty percent as well as that old squad did, I think everyone would be more than satisfied.

@seka
That would certainly eliminate any chance of manipulation, though it introduces two entirely new headaches.
1. Tournament logistics. Under the current framework, we know exactly which groups cross over and how the brackets work ahead of time, which makes organizing everything much smoother.
2. The risk of two teams from the same group facing off too early in the knockout stage. With the present system, you won't run into a group mate until the semifinals at the earliest.

Assuming for a moment that point number one isn't an issue (meaning the specific way groups cross over doesn't actually matter), your proposal could be tweaked like this:

We create every possible combination where the first round matchups follow a pattern like 1st vs 4th and 3rd vs 2nd, while still ensuring that teams from the same group can't meet before the semifinals. There should be more than one valid combination.
Assign a unique number to each of these combinations (each representing a different bracket scheme) and put those numbers into a hat.
Once the group stage wraps up, a lucky lady pulls a number out of the hat, the matchups are instantly set, the entire format through to the finals is determined, and that’s that.

While I’ve never been particularly fond of the "two-group" format—mostly because it lacks a quarterfinal round—it is fundamentally a fair system. There have been numerous instances where those final group stage matches felt just like a quarterfinal, essentially turning into a bloodbath
(much like that game a few years back when we Americans were playing against our rivals, and the final attack determined who moved on; I can't quite recall if we needed a draw or a win, or even what the name of our country was back then 🤣).
The downside to a two-group setup with direct entry into the semifinals is the logistical headache of organizing it with 24 teams (it's doable, sure, but I still think a quarterfinal round makes for better competition)
.

The "backroom deals" during the group stage will always be a possibility, and they will happen if everyone knows exactly which result serves their interests best. There isn't much point in getting angry or acting morally superior about it.
If the bracket were structured so that the knockout matchups weren't known in advance, the Spaniards would just complain simply because they wouldn't be guaranteed the top seed.
And hey, anything can happen; maybe a team like Mexico knocks them out in the Round of 16, and that would be quite the twist 🙂.

Sean Martin62 said:Does anyone know if tickets are still available at the arena in Chicago for Tuesday and Wednesday... or is everything sold out?

Based on my limited understanding of the situation—having received a field report about 45 minutes ago—there are tickets available for tomorrow priced at $25. The box office at the arena is located right at the entrance and opens at 10:00 AM (though I am unsure how late they stay open; officially, the box office closes at 6:00 PM).
I wasn't actually asking, but there will likely be tickets left for the third round as well.

As for the finals, I have no idea if they have any stock left (I checked online earlier this morning, and it did indicate availability and remaining counts).