It was thirty years ago tomorrow that the US Hockey Team defeated the Soviets in one of the greatest upsets in sports history. I watched from my grandparents’ house and I’ll never forget the excitement. Looking back on it from thirty years on, it seems like an especially innocent time. We lost my grandmother later that year, and my grandfather died in the year that followed, but during that week of ice, we were all together, cozy and warm in the midst of the brutal western New York winter, and filled with so much joy…
The March 3, 1980 cover of Sports Illustrated, which, to this day, is the only one in the magazine’s history to run without a caption or headline.
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That was a hell of a US Open!!
Women’s champion: Kim Clijsters (who is a new mom)
Men’s champion: Juan Martín del Potro (who shares a birthday with G-Dog and a whole bunch of other cool people!)
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OK, so this will get me off of health care. I can’t get enough of this guy! And Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell are right up there with Usain. Sunday was a fun-filled day in Berlin! The records are falling, and nobody can blame anything like the technology of a swimsuit…
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It’s been a while and these things do pile up…
• How The Average U.S. Consumer Spends Their Paycheck — this is an interesting chart. We’re by no means average (we’ve never carried a car loan, for one thing, and we probably spend more on food and alcohol, even though we don’t eat out much), but the proportions seem to be generally true.
• Have you tried goofram yet? It’s a combination of google and wolfram|alpha.
• Think you’re a geek? Have you mastered the essential skills?
• The Young Republicans have elected an Aryan as their leader.
• Barney Frank visited the Daily Show last week.
• Just how rich is Fitzwilliam Darcy? (Here’s an interesting bit of trivia: Pride and Prejudice is not only my favorite novel, it’s also the first book I ever read aloud to Emmie — starting when she was about a week old.) And speaking of Jane Austen, today is the anniversary of her death.
• How’s your sense of pitch? (I scored a 26 out of 26 — which, if you’ve ever heard me sing, you know must mean that I hear pitch perfectly — I just can’t produce it that way.)
• White Men Can’t Judge.
• Local coverage of Zach Wamp’s psooper psekret christian adultery cult (read about yet another C Street philanderer here — and here!).
• You Suck at Craig’s List is pretty funny (via Joe. My. God.).
• Badass of the Week, featuring Blenda, the Viking Heroine!
• Rick Perry is apparently rethinking that whole Texas-as-a-country thing (seriously — who voted for this guy?).
• If you want to see the Great Barrier Reef, you better go soon.
• Can someone find Glenn Beck a nice small room with soft walls and a good therapist?
• … and speaking of health care (that’s what set Beck off)… Glenn doesn’t have it quite right when it comes to France’s system. The current American system is fine until you get sick, but will the next one be any better?
• This can’t be said enough times: the only thing abstinence-only “education” produces is unbelievably stupid kids.
• I loves me some Usain Bolt footage. He makes all the other best runners in the world look like my grandma.
• Understanding our economy.
• Drunk people doing yoga.
• And finally, Pat Buchanan: he really stepped in it this week — even more than usual!
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I meant to run through these things over the weekend, but that ended up being too busy and fun-filled, and before I knew it, it was Monday! Ack!
• Are there cancer vaccines on the horizon?
• If you’re into gymnasts or stunts, you’ll dig this guy.
• Why are so few Christians vegetarian?
• Oh, dear Dog, Tennessee has distinguished itself yet again. I’ve been living here for almost 20 years, and I’m still waiting for us to get a bit of national press for something that isn’t humiliating…
• Here’s a no-brainer: kids need to move around more. In other breaking news, crunchberries are not really fruit.
• Widimedia Commons Picture of the Year results!
• I don’t know if I can go through life without experiencing a Kogi Taco.
• A lovely collection of iconic portraits.
• Bill O’Reilly: ignoramus or liar?
• Buy beer, not porn.
• Awww. A rat and his cat!
And finally, what looks like the Topic of the Week, health care. Here are a few links, and then come commentary from Bill Maher:
• Wow. In today’s America, Sixty percent of bankruptcies are due to medical bills. That is a staggering number. Is there still anyone left out there who doesn’t believe we need health care reform, and fast?
• Here’s another sobering tidbit: People are now not filling prescriptions to save money.
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(On a wet track?) And he’s not even sucking wind at the end…
I’m so running tomorrow… :-)
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This is all you need to do: just hit the ball back. Be Björn Borg — one of the greatest tennis players ever (from one of the best eras of tennis ever), he hung out at the baseline, just hitting the ball back, not trying to do anything fancy, not going for the putaway shot, just hitting the ball back, over and over and over again. That was his game: calm consistency. And he kept it up long enough so that most of the time, the other guy screwed up and Borg won the point (often times, if the player was someone volatile, like John McEnroe, his victories would come amidst lots of spitting and crying).
Anyway, my point is to be calm and consistent, and don’t try to score the gotchas or the zingers, because your opponent is inexperienced and has a lot to prove, so chances are she’ll be overreaching. If you just keep hitting the ball back to her, she’ll eventually screw up — and she doesn’t need any help from you to do so. So be chill and mellow.
(And in the case of Obama, this goes doubly, because John McCain is flailing all over the place, like a drunk trying to find the door in the dark, AND he’s got a pissy temper. He’ll totally play the John McEnroe to your Björn Borg, if you’ll just let him.)
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It’s official. Rafa Nadal became #1 in the world tennis rankings today. He’s a clay specialist no more — he does it all.
photo by Christophe Ena
photo source unknown
photo by Clive Brunskill
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• A team of paleontologists have discovered a huge Stone Age cemetery in the Sahara desert. Here is a woman and two children who were found holding hands, arms outstretched toward each other, with evidence to suggest they were laid to rest on a bed of flowers (follow the link for more photos and a video about the find from National Geographic).
• American team members to watch now that the Olympic games have moved on from swimming to track & field.
• What if Karl Rove were working for the Obama campaign?
• This is just the kind of thing that long ago made me resolve to never do business with AT&T again. I found myself on more than one occasion trying to get my money back from AT&T after they over-charged me for lame or inept reasons. For them, screwing customers while hoping they’re not paying attention is the #1 item in their business practices manual. And in this case, someone turned their frustration into to a bit of silliness.
• Everyone’s favorite East Tennessee politician is back once again! This time, she’s talking about Jesse Helms, who she says is a great American. (Of course, as much as I loves me some Griffiny Juneness, I gotta wonder what sort of crack heads are running the KNS these days!)
• Sunday roundup of Tennessee liberal bloggers!
• The McCain behind the myths.
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