By Kit
Well, the swimming events in the Olympics are now over and, you know what? When Donald Trump we would win so much we would get bored of winning I had no idea he was actually referring to the US Olympic Swimming Team!
While Hope Solo was picking spats with Brazil and Sweden our swimmers Phelps, Lochte, Murphy, Dirado, Franklin, King, and, of course, Katie Ledecky were bringing home medals.
As Good Morning America put it, "There's fact... and then there's Katie Ledecky." And in that spirit, here are some facts about Katie Ledecky, who blew away competitors at the Olympics.:
Aquaman wears Katie Ledecky pajamas.
Katie Ledecky is a devout Catholic. Therefore, even though she is still alive, Pope Francis will declare Katie Ledecky the patron saint of swimmers and everything that is awesome
Many little girls like to pretend they are Ariel from Little Mermaid. Ariel liked to pretend she was Katie Ledecky.
Odysseus swam for 48 hours to reach home.
Katie Ledecky: "Bitch, please."
Anything to add? Open thread. Discuss the Olympics!
Well, the swimming events in the Olympics are now over and, you know what? When Donald Trump we would win so much we would get bored of winning I had no idea he was actually referring to the US Olympic Swimming Team!
While Hope Solo was picking spats with Brazil and Sweden our swimmers Phelps, Lochte, Murphy, Dirado, Franklin, King, and, of course, Katie Ledecky were bringing home medals.
As Good Morning America put it, "There's fact... and then there's Katie Ledecky." And in that spirit, here are some facts about Katie Ledecky, who blew away competitors at the Olympics.:
Aquaman wears Katie Ledecky pajamas.
Katie Ledecky is a devout Catholic. Therefore, even though she is still alive, Pope Francis will declare Katie Ledecky the patron saint of swimmers and everything that is awesome
Many little girls like to pretend they are Ariel from Little Mermaid. Ariel liked to pretend she was Katie Ledecky.
Odysseus swam for 48 hours to reach home.
Katie Ledecky: "Bitch, please."
Anything to add? Open thread. Discuss the Olympics!
21 comments:
Ledecky's performance was stunning, but Phelps is a legend. They guy is a swimming machine and is power in motion in the water. That he can do what he has done is sort of like Ledecky's freestyle 800M last night -- legendary.
Saw this asinine tweet: "Michael Phelps is the Katie Ledecky of men's swimming." I get the sentiment but the execution is completely flawed. I'll expound later. Dog wants to play fetch and is very insistent.
Katie Ledeky is awesome. She is one of those finest examples of what a human being can be. And even better, she's a totally humble nerd. I lover her.
I personally do not like Phelps. The things I've seen suggest to me that he's a real terd.
That said, I agree with tryanmax. That's one of those "clever for simpletons" turn of a phrase which is meant to show respect -- like calling every NFL player a "future hall of famer" or "underrated." It's sloppy thinking which underscores just how shallow the person's analysis is.
Now, one day, Ledecky may prove to be better than Phelps, but not yet.
On the Olympics, I find Hope Solo's comments about the Swedes being "cowards" to be the ultimate in poor sportsmanship.
Unfortunately, American women's sports seem to be plagued by this. Not the mature women's sports that have existed for a hundred years across all countries, i.e. swimming, tennis, gymnastics -- they seem to be decent people with good sportsmanship.
But the new sports, the sports that were basically invented in the US under Title IX and where the US dominated until recently because they were the only players (e.g. women's basketball, soccer, beach anything, etc.), that is where these assholes with poor sportsmanship come from.
I think this is the result of Title IX generating this PC attitude that any criticism of "women athletes" (an attitude which doesn't seem to include the older established sports) is sexist. Hence, you aren't allowed to criticize them when they whine after losing, when they smear opponents, when they beat up their lesbian girlfriends. "No one would bat an eye if this was a man!! Waaaaah!"
The end result is that a lot of these women, like Solo, are total shits.
And let me add this too about Ledecky. She's amazing, but let me offer a reason I am cautious about putting her into Phelp's class.
First, she can't beat him one on one. Sorry, but she's about 11 to 30 seconds slower in race to race comparisons. So while she is great for a woman, she is not a challenge for him. Hence, her greatness is only against lesser competition.
Secondly, women's sports are not nearly as competitive as men's sports. It reminds me of the NFL in the 1960s where natural talent made these guys like Jim Brown and Dick Butkus seem to be giants because the NFL did not have the consistent level of talent it has today. I suspect that if they played today, they would seem much more average.
So I don't know how Ledecky would do if the women's competition was as stiff as that Phelps faces. She could still be amazing. Or she might look more average. I don't know, and that makes it hard for me to rank her as amazing without an asterisk.
Andrew, exactly. You pretty much touched everything I would have. I would add that the "Y is the X of whatever" formulation only works when what X does is commonly known and is regarded as the apex of that thing. Also, X generally precedes Y, hence the way I put it.
It's not that Ledecky isn't good at swimming, it's that her name isn't synonymous with swimming and she didn't come first. Neither of these things has anything to do with her gender, as that asinine tweet would like to imply.
So it's apparently racist to criticize Gabby Douglas for not cheering for her black teammate. Wow, racists are complicated!
tryanmax, People are stupid. I had an argument this week with a woman who is rather anti-male and only cheers for women (and thinks no one notices). She kept claiming that Ledecky was "a better swimmer because she's a woman so she's overcome more."
Naturally, she couldn't come up even a suggestion of how being a woman hurt Ledecky. And when I tried to suggest biology, she got angry and said "women can do anything men can do."
I said, "ok. Let her swim against the men."
Then she said, Ledecky should because she would beat the men too because she's so awesome. So I pulled up her times and pointed out that she wouldn't even be in the top 8 males in any of the races. That angered this ditzy and she stopped talking about it. Guess I cheated using facts.
I'm also annoyed by the first African American to do something at the Olympics thing. American blacks have been competing and winning gold at the Olympics since 1900 and 1908 respectively. (Yay, Google.) At this point, the racial firsting seems desperate.
tryanmax, I find it interesting that we are told to ignore race and not to group people on race, but the first chance liberals get they separate people by race.
I just heard this and had to laugh...
"Bill Gates was a drop. Yeah, but he dropped out of Harvard, not 7th grade intensive reading."
LOL! I love this. It drives me nuts when anti-education types point out that Gates was a drop out. This is a beautiful retort.
No article tonight, folks. Sorry. I just never got the chance this weekend.
Madness in Milwaukee. Violent riots after a cop killed a career criminal armed with a stolen handgun who videotape indicates was on the verge of shooting the cop.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/violent-protests-erupt-in-milwaukee-after-police-kill-suspect-at-traffic-stop_us_57b054d9e4b071840411b466?
Also, Marion Barry's 36 year old son (his only descendant) died of a drug overdose. I remember in the 90s when people would ask me what was up with his racist, populist, crack smoking demagogue of a father. Sounds like the son's lifelong plan was to follow in his father's footsteps so him dying like he did was sad but inevitable.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/marion-christopher-barry-dead_us_57b08071e4b069e7e505a2c6?section=&
On the lighter side of the news, Weiner is still sexting. I wonder if any new Bill Clinton antics are going to come up between now and November?
http://www.mediaite.com/online/anthony-weiner-calls-himself-strong-like-a-mongoose-in-new-sexting-incident/
According to the New York Post, Weiner had an online conversation where he got really flirty when he thought he was talking to a female college student. Instead, it would seem that Weiner gave his phone number and offered his location to a male New York college student who was using a friend’s Twitter account to troll him into a trap.
The student, who called himself “Nikki,” baited Weiner by talking about “strappy black heels” and “porn scenes,” to which Weiner responded with some suggestive-sounding double entendres. One part of the exchange shows that Weiner told “Nikki” he was only wearing a towel, while another part shows him describing himself by saying he is “deceptively strong … like a mongoose.”
Hillary continues her pattern of avoiding anyone that might ask her an unflattering question.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/hillary-clinton-podcast-campaign-22696
The result is a casual conversation that steers clear of politics -- and it's the latest example of how Clinton is trying to control her storyline. She has been criticized for limiting press access by not participating in press conferences and being slow to grant reporters the level of access that has become common and expected of candidates vying for the Oval Office.
Now, she has gone a step further, creating a safe space from which to present the image of herself that she wants voters to see.
“You can call me whatever you want to call me,” a relaxed-sounding Clinton tells Linsky. “You can call me Hillary, you can call me Madam Secretary. You can call me, ‘hey you.’” (He settles for “Hillary.”)
With 87 days to go to until the election, Donald Trump’s name does not come up once in the conversation. Nor is there any discussion of new emails that have once again raised questions about the relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton-lead State Department.
Instead, Linsky appears more interested in getting Clinton to discuss the emotional and human experience of running for president. He asks her what was going through her mind after hugging her daughter on stage at the convention (spoiler alert: “such a rush of emotion”), how she keeps up her stamina, how she stays engaged with the people she’s meeting and what she thinks about before she goes to bed.
There you all go, ruining my fun. ;-)
I love the Olympic probably because they only come every 4 years. Ledecky is awesome and had a great event. Phelps too is incredible. The competition is starting to catch him but he is still an amazing, once in a century athlete. Bolt is a prick but a really fast one.
Our men's gymnastics team blows but the women's is great. Gabby does look bored and pissy. We should give her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she is on her period.
I love the line re: Trump that "he cannot stop stepping on his own dick". Fits like a glove (or condom?). Maybe if he only had smaller hands...
God, I hate Hillary.
Trump just gave a major foreign policy speech in which he condemned nation building and promised to focus on fighting radical Islam alongside anyone willing.
Unsurprisingly, he wants closer relations with Putin :) .
This week he sees a use for NATO.
He wants stricter screening of people coming from countries with Islamic terrorist problems.
Good speech whose reasonable proposals should help him with voters.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/15/trump-end-nation-building-focus-on-fighting-radical-islamic-terror.html
On the lighter side of the news, Larry Wilmore's liberal snoozefest has been cancelled. As a sometimes fan of the old Daily Show, I tried to watch it a few times. Wilmore just wasn't funny.
Keep in mind, since 1972, political pundits have all tacitly agreed that anything a campaign accomplishes before October is essentially worthless.
No one has given Trump a "bad week" or whatever duration other than himself. From the get-go, he has fashioned himself as the shock-jock of electoral politics. If you'll notice, he keeps saying increasingly outlandish things, and making targets of just about anyone. For heaven's sake, he's got the media fact checking whether Obama and Hillary are the founders of ISIS!
Clinton, by contrast, has studiously maintained a low profile. Oh, she's had her slow-burning, hum-drum email scandal. But scandals and Clintons go together like donuts and diabetes. Who cares? That means there is greater potential for something shocking--from the public's point of view--to come out about Clinton and really affect her numbers.
We'll have to wait and see what happens, of course. But in the meantime, ask yourself, what would have to happen for either of the candidates to truly surprise you? I already know the bar is set differently for each candidate.
Tryanmax,
I agree elections are not over until they are over, but I also think that stuff said and done even before October can and often does hurt candidates. I thought the 47% comment to the fat cat donors was devastating as was Obama's dismissive God and guns comment.
If/once a quote(s) defines public perception of your attitude towards X changing said perception is incredibly difficult.
I agree Clinton and scandal are synonymous but I suspect that makes it harder for scandals to damage her. People who overriding concern is ethics in government aren't voting Clinton. As with Trump, if Hillary and Bill work hard they can still piss off supporters, but it takes a lot.
Anthony, I agree, the 47% story broke before October. September, in fact. There's a lot of evidence that Obama never suffered politically for the God and guns thing.
I don't think Trump is at all interested in changing his public perception, except maybe to seem more friendly. His competition isn't stiff in that arena.
Yes, Clinton is scandal-proof, in terms of legitimate shenanigans-based scandal. That doesn't make her shock-proof. Another item of note (there are so many) is that Trump hasn't--ISIS jokes notwithstanding--yet gone after Hillary. Does he know something? Probably not. But somebody does and Trump can make anything a fact check worthy story.
For all the talk I've heard in prior elections about political timing, this is really the first time I've ever seen a candidate give it deserved attention.
Remember, I'm in the "interested to see if he can pull it off" camp. Doesn't mean I care for a lick of it.
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