Winter Olympics 2010

I haven't updated this blog for awhile and am not feeling really inspired.  So it's time for some "filler."  I've been spending quite a few hours in the last weeks watching the winter olympics.  For whatever reason, I find the winter olympics more entertaining than summer.  Maybe because the summer games are all about the short "power" events: weight lifting, shot put, track and field (less than 200 M).   I'm more into the thrill of speed and the drama of a tight competition between top athletes (the 400 M and above do offer that in summer).  In the winter olympics, skiing (downhill and x country) are my favorite sports to watch.

Downhill skiiers like Lindsey Vonn (pictured at left) go screaming down the slopes at a death-defying speed ... and make it look sooooo easy.  And then sometime they crash, giving us viewers what we were HOPING to see - a spectacle of a near-death experience (I missed Lindsey's crash).  I ski a little bit - really, not very well.  It allows me to appreciate what those athletes do.  I wish I had a picture of me on skis to compare to Lindsey.  That would be funny.

My favorite athletes of the games?  I don't know ... our U.S. downhill women (Vonn and Mancuso) are great competitors, and beautiful too.... but I think I like the Canadian men's curling team.  Here are a bunch of guys that could be working in my office at Kaiser, competing in the Olympics.   Featured below are Kevin Martin and Marc Kennedy of the Canadian curling team.  I wish NBC would show this sport!

It's frustrating to have to watch so much figure skating.... all that glamour, drama, and pretty outfits make me feel old, inflexible and lame.

My final rant is about the "new" sports: snowboard half pipe, free style skiing, ski cross, aerials, moguls, etc.  It's like a showboat competition.  I get it - you have diving in the summer, you can have aerial ski jumping in winter.  But really .... diving at least lets you watch the athlete up close and nearly naked.  With aerial skiing, you see a bunch of youngsters clad in heavy clothing doing crazy stunts in the air.  Am I supposed to really be able to tell the difference?  Sadly, they have created so many new "games" for the winter olympics in recent years (and I realize, curling is one of those) that it's impossible to watch any particular sport for long enough to really appreciate it.  I am thinking of how NBC hops to the next event as soon as the top contenders are done.  It's anticlimactic.  How about the bottom finishers?  I suppose I could subscribe to some kind of pay-per-view, and get those sports I want.  But cable TV?  please... don't want it.

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Berkeley Daily Planet to cease printing

It is truly a sad day for free speech when the East Bay's most independent-minded, intellectual and progressive newspaper announces it will cease print operations.  I just read about it in their online edition (which will continue, for the time being).  Basically their funding problems are varied, but all revolve around the lack of advertising money.  It appears that the tipping point was the just recently disclosed fraud committed against them and other area non-profits by a payment processing company, Clickbooks.com, whose owner absconded with millions of dollars to the Philippines.

The BDP, in contrast to other "free newspapers" in the Bay Area (like the East Bay Express or the SF Bay Guardian, which are valuable information sources in their own right), did not rely on pages upon pages of "personal ads" which mainly appear to be semi-legal sex advertisements.  It included sections devoted to local politics, national politics, poetry, gardening, the environment, and of course, their most popular feature, the letters to the editor and the op-eds (to which I myself have contributed).  The Berkeley Daily Planet was certainly widely read preceding the 2008 city council elections in Berkeley.  I found it a valuable resource for keeping up to date on happenings in the City of Berkeley (being a Sierra Club volunteer leader I am supposed to know what's going on in cities in Northern Alameda County).

The BDP is truly a reflection of the intellectual breadth, depth and power of the people living in Berkeley and the East Bay.  Its passage - which I hope is temporary - is a loss for everyone.