My friend Prof. Alexandro Gradillo and Prof. David Leonard respond to Ruben Navarette Jr.’s CNN column on Leo Manzano’s celebration. I wrote very briefly about it here.
They inquire,
Given your demand for proper respect for the nation, we assume you will join in demanding that the confederate flag be removed from all state houses; we assume you will join us in condemning those fans who wave the confederate flag at football games and NASCAR races. Ruben, we assume you would support the NAACP in its activism about the flag. Is a column in the works about that?
I also look forward to that column.
The Mexico National Team poses with their gold medals after beating Brazil 2-1.
This is a largely American run blog, so our natural enemies are Mexico, but we didn’t even make it to the Olympics and they won the whole dang thing so we’ve got to give respect where respect is due. Congrats Mexico.
Hey buddy, Mexico is not your natural enemy.
As I recently drove through Greece I noticed repeated graffiti seemingly everywhere on every available wall. In large blue letters it said WAKE UP WAKE UP. It could almost have been written with the British public in mind, because although the spirit of 1939 Germany now pervades throughout media-brand Britain, the 2013 grotesque inevitability of Lord and Lady Beckham (with Sir Jamie Horrible close at heel) is, believe me, a fate worse than life. WAKE UP WAKE UP.”
Steven Patrick Morrissey [Pitchfork]
LOL, OMG.
Genetic Engineering & the Olympics
To begin with, Olympic athletes all start out with a completely unfair advantage over those of us who will never snatch, clean or jerk at a world-class level: genetics. Just like supermodels need to be born with the genetic code for high cheekbones and UNIX sysadmins need to be born with the genetic code for answering perfectly reasonable questions in a snotty tone of voice, an Olympic back-stroker must be born of ancestors who had to escape waterborne predators while keeping an eye out for flying predators.
Why not level the genetic playing field?
Here’s the plan: We use genetic engineering to create a human being who is genetically average in every way, clone him — or her, we can flip a coin — and issue one Average Athlete Baby to each country to raise as they choose. Then, 18 years later, every country brings their Average Athlete Adult to whichever world-class city hasn’t suffered enough, and all the AAAs compete. In every event. They all must run a sprint, and a marathon, and shoot arrows and wrestle each other and do whatever “dressage” is. (I don’t know, but it sounds even kinkier than clone wrestling.)
The great thing about this setup is that it makes it almost impossible to cheat with drugs. There will only be 200-umptyump athletes, so we can easily test and monitor each one of them. And we’ll have their genome on file, so it should be simple enough to see who’s gone past what their double helix could pull off on its own.
This would be a true test of each country’s climate, culture and food sources.
Relax, it’s satire. [Wired]
The Daily Californian ‘Calympics’ Issue | Thursday, July 26, 2012
Infographic: ‘A History of Cal in the Olympics’
Graphic Artist: Chris Chau/Staff
55.7% of our medals have been gold? I am disappoint.
This one is called, Triceps on triceps on triceps on triceps etc…
How the commentators for Telemundo’s Olympic boxing coverage refer to US Olympian Jose Ramirez during his boxing match against Algerian-born, French Olympian Rachid Azzedine. By the way, Jose Ramirez won by a score of 21-20.
I’m a big fan of this.
