Body Parts

Southern California Dominates California's Medals at 2012 Summer Olympics

I counted a total of 54 medals achieved by California athletes at London's 2012 summer Olympics, more than half of the US total medals. Of the 54 medals won by Californians, 40 were won by athletes from Southern California. I counted 7 medals taken by Sacramento region athletes, 5 medals by San Francisco Bay area athletes, and 2 medals by Central Valley athletes. If Southern California were a separate nation, we would have come in seventh in total medals won! Extraordinary accomplishment by a group of extraordinary athletes! Congratulations, So Cal for outstanding support of a wide spectrum of athletic sports!

Posing for Photographs, Muscle Contest, Culver City, California

 

You Get Older Enough and You Aren't Offended by this Behavior

Nope. You envy the energy and excitement of youth which has won a tremendous, hard fought victory in a fair fight, er, contest. Way to go, girls!

I Didn't Watch the Superbowl and I'm Not Proud of It

I just don't care enough about fut-bawl to be proud of or ashamed of my absence from its audience.

Outlaw Football as a Cruel Sport

Football is an inherently injurious sport, where the degree of player skill is directly related to the injuries they inflict on opposing players. NFL players suffer head injuries at a rate many times higher than the general population. The average NFL career lasts less than four years, partly because of player injuries.  Football players are 19 times more likely than other men of their age to suffer dementia, which can be traced to their sport injuries. Heavy football players (and player weight has been increasing) have a higher rate of death before 50 years of age than less heavy team members. It is also an inherently dangerous sport for youths. Youth head injuries are especially serious, affecting future brain development. An astonishing 28 percent of youth football players sustain injuries each year requiring visits to a hospital emergency room.

Why do we as a society tolerate such a vicious sport that destroys the lives of its players?

It's Football? Oh, I Thought It Was

Sex. It proves all games are alike.

67 minutes of standing around (foreplay)

3 seconds cheerleading (your bff on Twitter)

17 minutes of replays (you phoning your bff)

11 minutes of action (ah! scoring!)

A football game, according The Wall Street Journal.

What did they forget?

Tiger Woods's Accident and Affair

The sports commentariat is discussing the likely truth of the rumor, apparently first reported in the National Inquirer, that Tiger Woods has had (is having?) an affair with another woman than his wife. His marriage and his family are also reportedly "in trouble". None of this should surprise any normal adult human being. For two reasons. First, women continually throw themselves at and harrass male celebrity personalities (just as men throw themselves at female celebrities). The more famous the celebrity, the more effort admirers put into their pursuit. This is not news and it is not sexism to point it out. Second, in the anthropology of fertility, very little mating selection between men and women results from deliberate or willful choice by the men. Sexual selection is one of the most highly programmed human behaviors. The pheromones and other aerosol secretions of men and women perform a complicated chemical and biological dance in each others' bodies long before the man and woman consciously realize they are attracted to (or repelled by) each other and long before cultural norms come into play. The chemistry is nearly all but irresistable. This is not morality; it is biology.

Smart men recognize the illusions that testerone raises in their view of the opposite sex. Prudent men and women recognize how nature has programmed them and try to construct social relations in such a way that they can keep their intimate and casual relations within the bounds of conventional morality, if that is what they want. Tiger must want such convention, since personal distress was apparently involved in his accident. Often, such stalwart faithfulness requires seculsion and avoiding close contact with the opposite sex. Celebrities, alas, do not have this option to protect themselves. They must be in the public. It's the public that makes their living for them. As for judging Tiger Woods, mature people don't do that either. No one but Tiger and his wife know what goes between them; and, given the drivenness of human behavior, they are undoubtedly unaware of all that goes. Just be grateful you aren't a celebrity.

The First Women's College Basketball Slamdunk

By Georgeann Wells, in 1984 in a game between West Virginia University and the University of Charleston (WV). Video made of the play surfaces to provide proof. I normally don't pay attention to sports stories, but this one has a local interest. Can you guess why?

Not Watching the Super Bowl

Nope. Never have. Don't intend to. Can't imagine why I should.

Didn't Watch Super Bowl

Nope. I didn't watch it. I've never watched superbowls. Or televised football, baseball, soccer, hockey, basketball, or any other professional team sport. I never watch ESPN. I do watch and love the Olympics and sometimes a rising tennis star will catch my attention (not easy to do, since I don't read the sports sections of newspapers) and motivate me to watch televised tennis. I have several times been glued to the broadcast of the French bicycle competition--now, what is it called? I rode horses for a time, and loved horse competitions. My wife loves me, I mean, really loves me, not just tolerates me, for this quirk in my personality.

Why? Oh, the usual reasons, I suppose; but I've not been psychoanalyzed, so I can't be sure. Annoyance with working class high school jock culture. Rebellion against father, who had been an outstanding local athlete in faraway New England village. And then, there were the women of the arts, whom I first met in college. I loved--I should say, I love--the women musicians, dancers, artists, and writers who hung around concert halls, galleries, museums, and studios. I fell in love with my first wife listening to her play the piano in an empty, darkened university concert hall. I fell in love with my second wife at a polo match. There you go. Pattern affirmed.