Since I’ve been off-line most of the week, I haven’t had much time to compile a week’s worth of good news. But I have wanted to say one thing about the summer Olympic games: what a tremendous boost for women’s sports! From our awesome women’s beach volleyball teams, to the gold-medal-winning U.S. women’s soccer team, to the incredible 17-year-old middleweight boxing champion Claressa Shields, to our women’s gymnastics team, to all of our amazing track and field athletes … well, the U.S. women are rocking the Olympics this year. Heck, even our water polo team brought home a gold! Women’s sports have arrived, bay-beees!
And also, Claressa Shields notwithstanding, these athletes aren’t all teenyboppers. I was impressed with all of the women gymnasts, who for once actually looked like women, not pre-pubescent linebackers. They have hips and breasts and some of them even have kids! I’m not just talking about the Americans here, now: check out 27-year-old Beth Tweddle, bronze medal winning gymnast for Great Britain! A 37-year-old was competitive in the vault. Didn’t all of the female gymnasts used to be, like, eight years old or something?
Finally, I caught some of the dressage competition yesterday. What a completely ridiculous, douchey spectacle. The horses dance to music? I had no idea. I can’t believe the IOC ditched women’s softball but left this. You know, if John Kerry did dressage instead of windsurf, the “real Americans” in the Republican Party would have had a fucking field day.
On to our news roundup:
• Afghan civilian deaths are down.
• We can’t wait! 5 GW of renewable energy get fast-tracked.
• Not good news but an update from last week: Belarus expelled all of Sweden’s diplomats in the wake of the pro-democracy Teddy bear drop.
• Things that don’t kill birds: housecats and wind turbines.
• The Houston janitors strike has ended with the janitors securing a 25-cent per hour raise.
• Fearing that NewsCorp hasn’t changed its ways after the devastating phone hacking scandal, the Church of England has sold its shares.
• Two major investors pressured JM Smucker into agreeing to some sustainability goals in its coffee operation. The company agreed to a goal of 10% certified fair trade/sustainable coffee by 2016 and to partner with the Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung Foundation in adopting climate change initiatives on its coffee plantations. While 10% may not sound like a lot, Smucker’s sells such major brands as Folger’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. It adds up.
• The Perseid Meteor Shower peaks this weekend!
Good News, Tennessee Edition:
• Brentwood, TN-based Christian publisher Thomas Nelson Publishers has halted publication of David Barton’s factually-challenged book on Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed about Thomas Jefferson. Barton, a Glenn Beck acolyte, ran afoul of even the conservative Discovery Institute with his error-riddled and credibility-destroying book, which attempted to portray Jefferson as a conservative Christian.
• The Murfreesboro mosque opens its doors for prayers for the first time today, after a long, arduous battle fighting local (and national) bigots. I pray this religious community is left to worship in peace, in the Constitutionally-protected manner they choose.
This week’s cool video: a never-before-heard interview with John Lennon recorded by a 14-year-old fan who snuck into his hotel room. Cool animation, too:
Southern Beale 
Hey, SB, I really enjoyed this week’s selection…two faves:
The support of renewable power by this President
and
The news that our Muslim friends will finally be able to worship in their mosque and community center in Murfreesboro. I hope and pray that the haters and thugs will leave them alone.
Southern Beale:
I was talking to a gentleman fro AR at a local think/drink tank the other evening while NBC squeezed as much drama as possible out of the women’s volleyball gold medal match (the game needed NONE of their commentary to be enjoyable). He was following the game until the crawler on ESPN (next television to the right) announced the result. He and I agreed that both teams were excellent.
I then said, “Give it a couple of cycles and you will see some great BLACK women’s volleyball teams. He mulled that over for a second and then said that he could see that happening. He also said that he’s a big college baseball fan and was a bit dismayed to see so few black baseball players in the last CWS. He attributed the dominance of white players to the collapse of programs that used to take inner.big city youth onto the diamonds. I think that he’s probably correct–it’s a shame.
I love volleyball; there’s a place in it for someone like myself who used to be younger, doesn’t want to destoy their knees for the first time at my age, and has a touchy back.
The parallels of volleyball and basketball are made often, but boy, every four years we view Olympic team handball, and I’m just gobsmacked at how Americans aren’t getting somewhere with this sport.
I mean, we have enough gold medals in this country. (That’s a risky thing to say, isn’t it?) But it’s an incredible sport to watch, and our “surplus” of basketball talent–running, jumping, floor vision, hand/eye coordination (unlike soccer, which I love)–can’t not make a difference. I see a niche that can really make inroads here.
The Womens “Conventional ” V’Ball teams has a number of black stars. Worhty of note was the 6’3” Korean who gave them fits in the Semi’s.
Speaking of the Olympics…
Obviously Willard is not prepared to be President.
General Election Fox News Obama 49% Romney 40%
I seriously love this segment of your blog Beale. You’ve got a really good thing going even when you have no Internetz!
Aww thanks!!!!
Southern Beale:
RE: Cats and windpower killin’ teh birdeez. I think that cats are wonderful. I also think that there are WAY too many of them, both those living with humans and the feral variety. I think that programs for feeding feral cats are misguided and counter productive.
Trapping and euthanizing them is, I suppose, cruel but the alternative is to have them becoming food for coyotes and roadkill.
I do not think that teh kittehs are responsible for huge numbers of songbird deaths (which is pretty much the only birds most people give a shit about) but probably do take a lot of starlings, house sparrows and other “non-native” avian species. If they could teach them how to hunt in prides they could turn them loose in the Everglades to deal with the thousands of Burmese pythons and other large contrictors that have been dumped there. {;>)
One species I rarely hear people talk about in terms of bird predation is the squirrel (Ratticus arboreas copulatinus). There are many millions of those critters living freely in every city and town in the U.S. which has lots of trees. They, raccoons, skunks and possums (all species that do WAY better than coyotes in an urban envirtonment) are responsible for, among other things, property damage; the spread of diseases–including rabies–to both humans and domestic animal populations and hazards to drivers (who swerve to avoid them) and pedestrians (who swerve to interact with them).
My city has a burgeoning population of black squirrels which are displacing the native grey squirrels. Rats is rats in my opinion but the blacks seem far more aggressive. Both colors take nestlings and birds’ eggs every chance they get.
One of the biggest killers of birds are power lines. No one talks about that, either.
If everyone would spay or neuter their dogs and cats we wouldn’t have the massive pet overpopulation problem that plagues this country. Our companion animals deserve better from us.
“If everyone would spay or neuter their dogs and cats we wouldn’t have the massive pet overpopulation problem that plagues this country. Our companion animals deserve better from us.”
On that we agree completely. I am quite fond of my roommate, he was neutered long before he moved in and it has not dampened his ardor for pissing on everything in his path or toned down his aggresiveness around other non-human mammals (he’s a total lover–with people). He will live a longer, healthier and happier life without his balls.