In politics, there is a truism that you should be careful who and what you follow on stage, a maxim that is about to land on the Twin Cites with significant force in the wake of the much ballyhooed Democratic convention in Denver. …
The politically interested will now switch from one city to another — two really, since both Minneapolis and St. Paul will play a role — trading Democrats for Republicans, mountains for lakes, and cow town pride for Minnesota Nice. …
… the City of St. Paul recently bought more than 200 Tasers so that all of their officers have one.
Members of the a protest and activism group in St. Paul for the Republican National Convention say a Friday night raid on their organizing site was unwarranted, as evidenced by the lack of arrests after at least 50 people were detained. …
The group says they are now accused of a fire code violation. …
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
One of the best moments, for me, of the Olympics was watching Paula Radcliffe will herself to finish the women’s marathon. She’d been one of the favorites in Athens in 2004, but had to withdraw and took quite a lot of flak for it. At any rate, she was well back in the field in Beijing but she kept running and finished the race. I can’t find a video of her at the finish, but trust me: it looked like she was going to die.
When I was active in sports some of my friends coined a term: DFL. To “DFL” meant to finish Dead Fucking Last. I know for sure I DFL’d at least once and probably a whole lot more, as I pretty much stunk for the whole first year. But I got better and started to play tough against people who used to thrash me and eventually got to the point where I could beat them. It was a good feeling — not beating them, but knowing I’d improved. DFL’ing was an embarassment to some, but I’d rather DFL than lack the courage to face a challenge. And I have a lot more respect for someone who DFL’s in a tough competition than for someone who plays it safe and enters easy events so that they have a chance to win a medal. The journey is so much more important than the destination, which is why I like this Churchill quote so much:
Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.
What’s more highly choreographed: the Opening Ceremony at the Beijing Olympics or the Democratic National Convention?
Sure, the Republican Convention is bound to be orchestrated to death as well. I don’t know if they’ll be able to come close to the Ted Kennedy thing last night, though. Not unless Ronald Reagan comes back from the dead.
How cool is it for the Dems to have Ken Burns as the in-house filmmaker? (He did the video tribute to Kennedy.) It would be pretty crazy if Quentin Tarantino was in charge.
I didn’t watch every minute of the convention last night; I spent too much time watching the Olympics and don’t want to be tied to the tv every night anymore. Besides, most of what happens at the convention is pretty conventional: supporters express love for candidate and candidate’s family; disdain for opponent; etc. I do like listening to the pundits when they chime in (Mark Shields and David Brooks — I’m watching the PBS coverage) and the panel of historians (Michael Beschloss, Peniel Joseph, and Richard Norton Smith) bring perspective to the proceedings.
Kennedy’s speech was amazing; that guy can really bring it. It has made all the other speakers appear pretty weak, Re last night’s speakers: I liked Jim Leach’s historical/philosophical take (not a barn-burner, quite wonky); Claire McCaskill needs to stick to decaf.
Meanwhile, the governor of Pennsylvania reminds us that being smart is a bad thing for a politician:
“(Obama) is a little like Adlai Stevenson,” Rendell mused. “You ask him a question, and he gives you a six-minute answer. And the six-minute answer is smart as all get out. It’s intellectual. It’s well framed. It takes care of all the contingencies. But it’s a lousy soundbite.”
Personally, I want smart people running this country. I don’t need sound bites. Anyone that can’t pay attention long enough for a six-minute answer probably shouldn’t be trusted with a vote.
Being a member of the XX Sorority I had never heard the term “cup check” until today’s DP Show during his interview with A.J. Pierzinski. From the context of their talk I could figure out what it meant, but just to ensure that my education in the XY Fraternity was complete I googled the term and found this:
A locker room prank as common as the snapped towel has one Ponderosa High School student in danger of felony assault charges and another in danger of losing his testicles…
Geez, Louise. I would think that grabbing the Man Region would be a totally uncool thing to do. But I guess this is where the “boys will be boys” philosophy is supposed to kick in.
Ieeew ….
Every now and again I flatter myself by thinking that I understand men, and maybe I do compared to most other women I know. But then something like this L’Affaire Cup Check throws me for a loop.
Women should listen to sports radio. It’s like a window to a bizarre culture, one we can observe but never fully understand.
How well London will carry that flag is a question its representatives have found themselves asked repeatedly over the last two weeks.
What can they do to follow this no-expenses-spared Olympics, with its spectacular arenas, clockwork organization and attention to detail? The first problem for London is simply one of cash. Estimates for the cost of the Beijing Games, apart from the Beijing organizing committee’s operating budget, start at $40 billion. And that does not account for the difference in labor costs, which are considerably lower in China than they will be in London.
One thing I really enjoyed about the Olympics when I was growing up was that I got to see all sorts of non-mainstream sports. Table tennis, white water canoeing, fencing, badminton, Nordic skiing, biathlon … events that weren’t tremendously popular in America but were still really cool and really interesting. Over the years the Olympics broadcasts focussed more and more on mainstream sports and a lot of time was given to the usual sports: figure skating, basketball, track, downhill skiing. I guess it “helped” that the U.S. was competitive and even dominant in those events. But I missed seeing the smaller sports.
NBC is airing mostly mainstream sports during prime time but on the weekends during the days they’ve been showing the “other” sports. So far today I have seen synchronized swimming (where the song How Bizarre popped into my head) and now it’s women’s table tennis singles.
I’m having a hard time tearing myself away from the tube ….
An ex-U.S. diplomat who admitted taping his sexual encounters with teenage girls while stationed in Brazil and the Congo was sentenced Friday to 20 years, the maximum possible prison term.
Gons G. Nachman, 42, had sought leniency, claiming among other things that cultural differences in those countries made sex with teenage girls more acceptable.
But U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee took the unusual step of imposing consecutive 10-year terms for the two counts on which Nachman was convicted.
“I reject out of hand completely the idea that I should take into account cultural differences,” Lee said. He said even if such differences exist, Nachman was answerable to U.S. standards and U.S. law while working as a diplomat on embassy grounds.
I went to YouTube to look for a clip of Mark Isham’s score from the documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk” and didn’t find any, but it looks like someone has posted the entire documentary. It is a great film — heartbreaking but also very inspiring. The music is hauntingly beautiful. I can’t find it posted on the Web anywhere, but if you watch the documentary you will hear it.
I can’t embed the video player so you have to click here to get it directly from YouTube; the “Play” arrows in the above image will not work. The film has been divided into ten parts.
Isham has a very cool Web site and you should visit that, too: isham.com.
