Yep, I Noticed It Also

This year's Olympic Games, unlike previous years, have been heavily sexed-up when it comes to female athletes. Once again, broadcasters do not get it at all.

It isn't about the "right" of male viewers to masturbate to various female athletes when they are wearing makeup, elaborate hairstyles, bikini bottoms including events like track and field, but it is about the double standard involved when male athletes are not subjected to the same thing.

The men dressed in these events like they always have, and nobody sits there and talks about how they look like fashion models. They are considered competent, hell, exceptional, at what they do.

Women, however, are supposed to look like beauty queens even when they are setting world records in various events.

No wonder people like Caster Semenya feel so self-conscious, and I think that goes beyond the physical disability that she has. I watched her last night in the 800-meter women's finals, for which she won the gold medal but ran far short of the world record. She had such a sad expression on her face. That poor woman has been totally humiliated like nobody has ever been. I have mixed feelings as to whether she should have been allowed in the games at all, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for her because she had been so humiliated.

Of course the asshole producers at NBC weren't going to force her to sex up for the cameras. Ditto for the "older" female athletes--those past their early thirties which there were quite a few. They for the most part didn't get all gussied up for the cameras. It was mainly the younger women, those women who still are considered "fuckable" for male viewers.

You'd have thought Roger Ailes was producing the Olympics.

I hope it is not this way in 2020.

Bigotry is Bigotry No Matter What the Justification

I have been following this year's Olympic games, and one of the best stories is the achievement by double-amputee Oscar Pistorius of South Africa to run in the 400 meters semifinals. A tremendous amount of hard work and perseverance went into his goal of being in the "regular" Olympic games.

"Unfair advantage"? Oh, please. Critics have been watching too many sci-fi movies. It has to be very painful for Oscar to run on those "blades," at least as risky to run on those as "able-bodied" runners running on their own legs. If not painful, the blades are inherently a disadvantage up against "regular" athletes.

Of course Oscar didn't win; in fact, he finished last in the semis. It didn't end there:

"The Blade Runner" then further shocked the world by making last night’s semi-finals. Particularly remarkable is that even though the IAAF set a tone that the track and field community should be suspicious and resentful of Pistorius, the other athletes saw his accomplishment as something to celebrate. The winner of the semi-final race, Kirani James of Grenada, didn’t rejoice in his own victory in the immediate aftermath, but made a bee-line for Pistorius who came in last. They then in full view of the world, exchanged those paper-sized identification placards known as racing bibs, that are pinned to the front of their outfits. It was the ultimate show of camaraderie and respect

As James told reporters, "My hat's off to him, just coming out here and competing. I just see him as another athlete, another competitor. What's more important is I see him as another person. He's someone I admire and respect."

Take that, you bigots toward the disabled.

Miscellaneous II.

Dallas Augustine, daughter of slain Nevada controller Kathy Augustine, is planning to run for state assembly.
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Walter Witthoeft's truck engine didn't purr, it growled.

The dog is okay.
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The Olympic torch has made it to Mount Everest (no link yet).

As the World Turns.

Mostly white people were making the case for black "genocide" in opposition to a proposed clinic offering abortions in Portland, Oregon.
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According to this article, Don Ho had ten kids altogether.
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Chicagoans are pleased as punch they are going to host the Olympics. By 2016, I may not even be around, considering how rotten I feel in 2007.
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Education consultant Ruby Payne has made a lot of money pushing stereotypical and unverified theories about poverty.
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A retiree has learned to grin and bear it.
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