Dispatches From The War On Women: Sexism Constant At Olympics
The London Olympics have demonstrated how much women have achieved in the world of sports and how far our culture has to come before accepting these accomplishments outright. Meghan Lewis highlights the accomplishments of these five women while exposing the poverty some female Olympians live in because endorsement dollars only go to certain kinds of female athletes. Just look at how the media scrutinized Australian Olympic swimmer and eight-time medalist Liesel Jones.
Visualization of Twitter chatter about the Olympics as compared to the NASA Mars landing. It’s great to see so many people excited about science! Created using TopicWatch.
(via sunfoundation)
Source: noahmp
Chief is water of the elements; gold too, amid ennobling wealth, shines eminent, like fire, flaming in the night: but my soul, if thou desire to blazon combats, seek not, during day, any brilliant star, wheeling through the desert air, more radiant than the sun: neither any list, more excellent than Olympia’s, (whence, to resound Saturn’s son, proceeds the song of fame, framed by the poets’ skill) can we speak, coming to the wealthy, happy mansion of Hiero.
Pindar, The First Olympic Ode [excerpt], translated by Gilbert West
via Poem-A-Day by Poets.org: http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/345
tuaw:
Events of the 2012 Geek Olympics. Good luck to all the competitors.
(via The Joy of Tech)
(via thenextweb)
Source: geekculture.com
While NBC has been airing wall-to-wall coverage of Olympic Games in London, little attention has been paid to what has taken place behind the scenes and just outside Olympic Park. London police arrested 182 people Friday for taking part in the monthly Critical Mass bike ride during the Olympics’ opening ceremony. Meanwhile, public outcry is growing after thousands of fans were told the Games were sold out, but prime seats reserved largely for sports federations and corporate sponsors have remained empty. Although many locals cannot afford to attend the Games, this year’s Olympics is estimated to cost British taxpayers a staggering $17 billion. Residents have been subjected to sweeping censorship laws enacted by their government at the behest of the International Olympic Committee. Meanwhile, activists are outraged that the Olympics’ long list of sponsors include Dow Chemical and BP, companies with human rights records that critics say are at odds with the Olympic ideals of global peace and goodwill. We go to London to speak with scholar and former U.S. soccer team member Jules Boykoff, who has been in England since April researching a book on dissent and the Olympics. ‘The Olympics provide a real opportunity for activists,’ Boykoff says. ‘We often say [at protests] that the entire world is watching, the whole world is watching. And, in fact, at the Olympics, it almost is. This is a real opportunity for activists to put their ideas in front of people who might not otherwise be able to or willing to listen to them.’
182 Cyclists Arrested for Maybe Protesting the Olympics
British police clashed with hundreds of cyclists for allegedly riding too close to the Olympic Opening Ceremony on Friday, reports The Guardian. Police, who used pepper spray on the crowd and arrested 182 of the cyclists, claimed that the cyclists’ presence might have disrupted the Olympics, while many of the cyclists insist they had no such intentions.
After having their bicycles confiscated, the cyclists, including a 13-year-old, were handcuffed en masse and kept in concrete rooms without windows overnight due to a lack of adequate prison space. It is believed to be the United Kingdom’s largest mass detention in the past year.
Only three of the 182 cyclists were charged with a crime. The other 179 were bailed out under the stipulation that they not return within 100 meters of an Olympic venue or ride on a bicycle in a borough that is hosting the Olympic games.
Most of the cyclists were part of a Critical Mass bike ride that has passed through the same area on the last Friday of each month for the past 18 years. 300 cities celebrate a similar tradition each month with hundreds of cyclists assembling to join in their love of bicycling.
Despite Critical Mass’s regular presence in London, the police seemed to think this particular ride had an Olympics-focused political agenda. “They’ve really made it into some kind of anti-capitalist, horrible thing,” said an arrested cyclist who wished to remain anonymous. “I couldn’t care less about the Olympics.”
“People have a right to protest and it is an incredibly important part of our democracy,” said an official police statement. (But? There’s always a but.) “What people do not have the right to do is to hold a protest that stops other people from exercising their own rights to go about their business – that means athletes who have trained for years for their chance in a lifetime to compete, millions of ticketholders from seeing the world’s greatest sporting event, and everyone else in London who wants to get around.”
In other words, people are free to protest unless it is an inconvenient time like the Olympics, in which case people will be arrested en masse for giving the slightest appearance of protesting… even if protesting was not actually occurring.
BBC News - Find Your Olympic Athlete Body Match
npr:
Olympic athletes come in all shapes and sizes, from the lithe limbs of Japan’s Asuka Teramoto to the gargantuan frame of China’s Zhaoxu Zhang. But how do you measure up in comparison? Try the app and find out.
— tanya b.
I am most like a Chinese shot-putter ;-)
