• Tag Archives Olympics

  • Guts and Points

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                    Waxing Wild Moon

    Lindsay Vonn under the wild moon in Vancouver.  What a performance.  I referred a few weeks back to Michael Jordan’s game against Utah in the NBA finals.  He had the flu, was obviously sick, but put up a triple double and da Bulls won the game.  This was better.

    Vonn, skiing with a deeply bruised shin, plummeted down the 1.8 mile long, rock hard ice of the Olympic downhill course, favoring her right leg, favoring it so that she took the weight on her inside leg in turns and even skied the last several yards to the finish line on one ski.  Imagine the physics of that.  And won the gold.

    I don’t know if anything in sport is actually heroic, but this run was a monster testament to the human spirit, the will to win and the ability to block out pain when in pursuit of a goal.  Her reaction at the bottom matched her run.  She jumped, squeaked, pounded her fists in the air, lay down, cried, ran to her husband to cry some more, smiled and made others smile and cry along with her.  And to think she learned to ski at Buck Hill.  Go Minnesota.

    The flying tomato deserves a nod, too.  I don’t know whether snowboard half-pipe is a sport, but it’s certainly athletic and Shaun White, he of the long red hair and the dazzling smile, showed the heart of a champion.  He won the competition on his first run with a 45+ score out of 50 without laying down his public secret trick, a 1280 Double McTwist.  On his second run, when he could have coasted, instead he took his last run up the pipe to launch, execute and land this trick.  I saw it and I don’t get it, but the crowd and the judges did.  He got a 48.4 on his final run.  In other words, he increased his score after he had already won the gold.  An entertainer.


    📂This entry was posted in Sport 📎and tagged

  • The Tragic Element in Sports

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    70  bar steady  29.83  0mph NE dew-point 61  sunrise 6:18 sunset 8:16  Lughnasa

    Full Corn Moon

    There are times when the Olympics seem to drone on and on.  Especially gymnastics.  It’s hard to remember that the individuals have spent at least four years, in many cases more, preparing for these few seconds.

    There was another addition to the age revolution.  A Russian gymnast performing for the German national team, 33, won a silver medal.  Something’s going on here.

    Sport and sports develop a strange, distorted look from a distance.  Let me show you what I mean.  26 miles.  Get there as fast as you can following the path we lay out.  Grab the other person, twist them.  Stay inside the circle at all times.  Do this over and over.  We’ll decide whether you did it well.  Jump in the water.  Swim with your arms sweeping forward, together, over and over, for two lengths of the pool.  Touch the pad at the end.  Run down this path.  Dive forward onto your hands, then leap onto this.  Twist or turn in the air.  Land.  Again, we give you points.  Take this heavy metal ball.  Stand here.  However you can, throw it as far you can within this area.  Oh, don’t step outside the circle.

    Pull back another level.  At age 11 a coach spots a young boy with an unusual physique and dedication.  A swimmer.  Another, with fast twitch muscles predominant.  A Jamaican.  Run.  Run.  Run.  100 meters.  An Ethiopian.  Run. Run. Run. 26 miles.  Slow twitch.

    Sport finds human beings who excel in a particular physical activity, then polishes them for a chance to perform against others of similar excellence, all to see who is best.  I know this competition gets a lot of ink as a salutary, wonderful concept that “brings out the best in our young people.”  Isn’t it the opposite?  Doesn’t it lead to a focus on the short term.  On winning at all costs.  Is it any surprise that doping and cheating of many kinds follows this kind of ethos like a bad scent follows a skunk?

    Sport itself, the kinesthetic intelligence at work, has obvious beauty and requires, like art, years of discipline and study. The competitive aspect of sports, which I enjoy, has a certain doomed inevitability.  I don’t know whether the culture of sport has a way of being that would not force competitors, at least some competitors, to choose shortcuts.  I don’t think so and that leads to this element of the tragic, especially in an Olympic setting where the tone matters so much.

    Just thinking out loud.  This just is, it seems to me.


    📂This entry was posted in General 📎and tagged

  • Athletic Pinnacles, All On A Friday Night

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    69  bar steady  29.96  0mph NE  dew-point 64  sunrise 6:17  sunset 8:17  Lughnasa

    Full Corn Moon

    The Japanese have tea parties.  They sit on special decks built for one purpose.  Their artists have perfected its illustration.  The moon.  Moon viewing.  We have the same moon, but our utilitarian perceptual field notes the brightness.  Or, the sentimental connections of blue moons or harvest moons or over the moon, but we do not honor the moon sui generis.  If you have time the next night or two, take a moment, maybe more.  Look at this silvered neighbor, our closest ally, a chunk of earth separated now from home by 250,000 miles.  Full moons and crescent moons spark the fire in my heart, wonder.

    I watched three Olympic events tonight and each one in its way affected me.  The Romanian woman, Constantina Tomescu-Dita, ran away from the field at the ten mile mark.  She ran away, ran away, ran away home in an inspiring individual effort.  At 38 she was the second oldest contestant in the field.  I got caught up in her bravery, her grit and finally her perseverance.  When she ran into the bird’s nest stadium, I cheered along with everyone else.

    Michael Phelp’s 8th gold medal.  It was no gimme with a strong Australian team and a scrappy Japanese team right on the heels of the US, but Jason Lezk swam another anchor lap with great energy.  He’s 32.  Do you see a theme here?  Dana Torres, US silver medalist in the 50 metre dash (swim), is 41.  Phelp’s is in his prime and has done something no other Olympic athlete has ever done.  8 gold medals.  In one Olympic.  Some say it may never be done again.  Maybe not.  Maybe so.  What ever happens, nothing will ever detract from the disciplined, humble swimmer from Maryland.

    Ussain Bolt ran a 9.69 100 metre dash.  He did it with ease and elegance.  He, on the other hand, is 21.  This was his first Olympics. He was so far ahead of the field that he thumped his chest and opened his arms palm up to the crowd–while he headed toward the finish line, speeding up.

    3 riveting athletic feats.  Makes you proud to be a human being.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Great Wheel 📎and tagged

  • Men Always Need Help

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    61  bar steady 30.14  0mph N dew-point 57  sunrise 6:16  sunset 8:19

    Full Corn Moon  moonrise 2014    moonset  0554

    Whoa.  Did you see the 7th gold medal race for Phelps?  His long, long arms came out of an arcing stroke, reached for the touch pad and, by .01 of a second, arrived ahead of the silver medalist.  To the naked eye it looked like Phelps did not make it.  A later interview with Mark Spitz, also winner of 7 gold medals, showed Phelps a humble and more realistic viewer of his own accomplishments than others.  Others wanted to make him the greatest Olympian; he said he was happy to be among the ones considered great, like Jesse Owens.  All this and modesty, too?  A great American to represent us in a country which understands the value of modesty.

    With the Woollies here on Monday Kate and I have begun to get into preparation mode.  We don’t entertain often, hardly at all, but fortunately she’s an experienced suburbanite.  She can throw a party.  Best of all, she’s doing it on her birthday.  I’m lucky and the Woolly palate will be lucky.

    The garden will get a spruce up.  I’ll dead-head all the day lilies and pull the obvious weeds if there are any.  The weeds growing up between the patio bricks will come out, too.  They could have come out a while ago, but we’ve had other matters.  The fire-pit can hold a fire, though its not pretty, nor finished, but the pit itself exists.  A bit of shuffling papers upstairs,  some art to the living room, turning furniture in a group friendly circle and we’ll be ready.  I’m looking forward to having the guys over and discussing what it means to be an America.

    Kobe Bryant tonight on TV said he was proud to have USA on his team jersey. We’re the best, he said.  Not sure what that means, but that’s the question for Monday.

    Apropos of none of the above is a story from the last Sierra Club political committee meeting.  We decided the three Minnesota house races we would target and a male committee member looked at the list after we’d congratulated ourselves on sorting out a complicated task, “Yeah, except we picked all the guys.”  There had been six races, three with men and three with women.

    As his comment settled on the group, Katarina, the Sierra Club intern from Lentz, Germany looked up, smiled, and said, “That’s all right.  Men always need help anyway.”  Ooofff.


    📂This entry was posted in Friends Garden 📎and tagged

  • Home Alone

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    62  bar steep rise 29.98 3mph NEE dew-point 47  sunrise 6:08  sunset 8:28  Lughnasa

    First Quarter of the Corn Moon  moonrise 1533  moonset 2334

    Kate’s been gone since Thursday morning.  I miss her.   There’s always a certain frisson being home alone, for a bit, but it fades and then missing her kicks in.  We talk things out, watch each others backs, fill in each others life.  Happily married, I’m happy to say, 18+ years and counting.

    Bumped the irrigation system up to 150%.  The rain has been scarce to none.  We’re in a severely dry period.  The grass has begun to turn brown, even with regular watering.  The crops need water now because many of them come to maturation in the month of August and early September.  Having our own well is a blessing when it comes to irrigation, it means we don’t have to worry about drawing down the city wells or abiding by their sprinkler rules.  Even so, I wonder about the water table and if our use of the sprinklers and our neighbors affects the city as a whole.  Don’t know enough about hydrology to know.

    A few of the Olympic events were on TV, but women’s soccer, the early rounds, and volleyball do not draw me.  The sports I enjoy are the track and field events. Even there, the participants are, for the most part, unknown and will not become visible again until the next Olympics.  I suspect I’m not the only one who does not enjoy sports where the narrative line has no visibility most of the time.  One of the things I enjoy about football is the back story I know from years of paying attention.  Almost none with the Olympics.

    Up too late. Again.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Garden 📎and tagged

  • Qin Shi Huang Di

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    67  bar steady 29.97  0mph NNW dew-point 58  sunrise 6:04  sunset 8:34  Lughnasa

    Waxing Crescent of the Corn Moon

    Last night I stood outside for a while and listened to the wind rustle the leaves of the poplars and oaks, an invisible hand caressing these giants.  Tonight stars dot the sky and the air is quiet, the temperature a cool 66 (dropped a temp since I added the info. bar above.)  These nights, summer nights, have stories that reach back in time, memories of cars pulling into neon lit drive-ins, dances in school gymnasiums and midnight rides through the countryside seeking bliss.  A special place, the summer night.

    Heresy Moves West will have two parts, I see no other way unless I perform drastic surgery on the introductory material, now seven and a half pages.  My plan is to finish the second half, the stories and threads of thought that directly result in the building of liberal congregations in Minnesota.  This is, of course, the assignment I originally gave myself, but I did not know then the complex of political, theological, institutional and intellectual lines necessary to make the story comprehensible at anything more than a superficial, potted history level.  After I finish part II, then I’ll see what can be done with the whole.

    The last piece of the whole considers the future, projecting a possible trajectory for the liberal faith tradition in a time of what I perceive as thinness and altogether too disparate a theological base.  Here I will begin to answer the problem I addressed in my late night post August 3rd.  Ideas have come to me of late and I have a way to go forward, at least one that makes sense to me.

    In the build up to the Olympic Games the History Channel and National Geographic have run programs on Qin Shi Huang Di, the unifier and first emperor of China (Qina).  His story makes for conflicted reading or watching since he brought the dreadful warring states period to an end by subduing the seven larger states that had survived.  He also standardized weights and measures, the width of axels, coinage, language and law.  As Chinese history developed after him, both the unification and these measures of standardization contributed to China’s long continuity in culture.  In these ways he is the father of China.

    He was, however, a cruel man who killed millions to achieve peace.  He killed at least a million more building the Great Wall and at least hundreds of thousands building his mausoleum. The legal system he instituted was draconian and ran against the grain of the Confucian thought world that preceded him.  His dynasty lasted only one generation beyond his and even that, from his perspective was a failure since he spent the last years of his life in a desperate search for an elixir of immortality.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Memories Weather +Climate World History Writing 📎and tagged