Come for the Porn, Stay for the Volleyball

According to something I read on Yahoo!, the 2012 London games have been called "the women's Olympics."  They've also been called, by media critics, a lackluster performance by NBC Sports and, by me, "Frieda."  But that doesn't matter.

Anyway, this Olympics has certainly featured some breakthroughs for female athletes.  Record-setting performances!  Foxy boxing!

The first-ever Olympic appearance by a female Saudi Arabian!  (Sadly, in the diving competition and wearing a burqa, but still. . . .)  But in a clear case of two 100-meter dashes forward and one unstuck landing back, these games have also featured some shameful examples of blatant misogyny--and I'm not referring to the continued existence of rhythmic gymnastics as a medal "sport."  (Whose conclusion was it that plasticine women frolicking on a mat while playing with a ball represented an advance for the cause of women's athletics?)

No, I refer to "Bodies in Motion," a video celebrating female Olympians that was hastily pulled from NBC's website when someone pointed out that the video looks more like softcore porn than a tribute to athleticism.  Many people took offense at the video's apparent objectification of the female form.  Having, in the spirit of investigative journalism, watched the video myself, I have to agree: This video clearly presents numerous images of female athletes as sexually-desirable women.

And what exactly is the problem with that?

No, seriously!  Look, one could point out that, up until not too long ago, the words "female athlete" conjured for many people the image of a stocky field-hockey player or Martina Navratilova.  And I'm not taking anything away from Martina, perhaps the greatest female tennis player of all time, but couldn't it be seen as something of a step forward that female athletes can be seen as both highly skilled and attractive?  And for what it's worth, women have been "objectifying" male athletes for quite some time.  I remember MOS gawping over Jim Palmer and Bjorn Borg and Jim Plunkett (yeah, I don't get that last one, either).

The bottom line (slight pun intended) is this: Athletes, male and female, devote themselves to the highest level of achievement in their sports and, by extension, the greatest level of perfection of their bodies.  Audiences cheer the athletic achievements and derive--have always derived--aesthetic pleasure from gazing on physical beauty.  It's simple human nature.  And what's wrong with that?

Just Another Day at Solipsist Central

SOL: Y'know, I think that, if I were, like, the head army guy. . .

WOS: General?

SOL: Yeah, that!  Anyway, if I were that guy, and I had someone enroll. . .

WOS: Enlist?

SOL: Sure.  If I had someone enlist, whose last name was "Partz"?  I would never let him be promoted.

WOS: Uh-huh.

SOL: Get it?

WOS: Yes, we all got it.

SOL: Ahhhh. . . .   'Cause he'd be "Private Pa--"

WOS: I SAID WE GOT IT!

SOL: You don't have to shout.

Thursday Trendwatch

10. AGENT ORANGE: Why it's trending: The United States has begun a large clean-up project at a former US military base in central Vietnam, where the land has been contaminated by dioxin, a chemical component of the infamous defoliant.   Meanwhile, back at Solipsist Central, we have an orange cat that WOS refuses to let me name "Agent."  Or "Dioxin."

9. RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS: Why it's trending:  A comparative study of "biologic" drugs used to treat rheumatoid arthritis has found no significant difference in the risk of death faced by users of three common medications: Humira, Remicade, and Flerpelzam.  (I may have gotten that last name wrong.)  That's the good news.  The bad news is that the risk of death for all three drugs hovers around 92%.

8. BABY BELUGA DIES: Why it's trending: I'm not sure I want to know!  OK, in the interest of fulfilling my solemn obligation to report the news to you, my loyal followers, I will LOOK at the article.  I'm just hoping that "Baby Beluga" is the nickname of some Ukrainian wrestler. . . .

Well, turns out "Baby Beluga" wasn't a wrestler.  She was a whale named Kavna, but she wasn't actually a baby: She died in Vancouver at what I can only assume is, for a whale, the ripe old age of 46.  Kavna inspired the noted children's songwriter Raffi, who is not annoying at all, to write the hit song "Baby Beluga," which topped the heavy-metal charts for ninety-three weeks back in the 1980s.

7. HONEY BOO BOO CHILD: Why it's trending: Can't wait to check this out.

OK.

Well, Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson was the, God help us, "breakout star" of TLC's "Toddlers in Tiaras."  The six-year-old gained a measure of fame for such exploits (good word choice, that) as prancing around a stage in "'Daisy Dukes' and cut-off shirts."  She was so. . .somehow the word "successful" seems wrong. . . well, whatever she was, it was enough to prompt TLC to create a whole series around the adventures of Honey Boo Boo and her family: Mom June, Dad "Sugar Bear," and sisters "Pumpkin," "Chubbs" and "Chickadee."  No, I'm not making this up.

Sometimes, I think the terrorists might be right.

6. JOAN RIVERS: Why she's trending: Apparently, because she's Honey Boo Boo Child--or, at any rate, that's where the link took me.  Go figure.

5. DISH NETWORK: Why it's trending: DISH network reported a nearly 33% decrease in earnings compared to the same period last year.  As far as I can tell, this news qualifies DISH as one of the most successful companies in America.

4. KERRI WALSH JENNINGS: Why she's trending: She and Misty Mae Treanor just won gold at the Olympics: 

Apparently, these ladies were participating in some sort of sport.  Who knew?  (I mean, sure, neither one of them is Honey Boo Boo Child, but still!  Sorry.)

3. JOAN RIVERS: Why she's trending:  Ah, here it is.  The comedienne handcuffed herself to a shopping cart at Costco as a protest against the retailer's refusal to carry her latest book.  Keeping things in proper perspective, she stated of Costco's actions, "This is the beginning of Nazi Germany."

First they came for the elderly female stand-up comics, and I said nothing, for I was not an elderly female stand-up comic. . . .

At her next protest, Rivers plans to chain herself to something that cannot simply be wheeled away.

2. POWERBALL JACKPOT: Why it's trending: The Powerball jackpot has climbed to over $250 million!  I am so relieved that nobody won yesterday: See, yesterday, for the first time in, like, ten years, I forgot to buy a lottery ticket!  I'd hate to think I missed out on the jackpot.  Anyway, this Saturday, I'll play the numbers I always play: 3, 7, 11, 15, and 28, with a Powerball number of 12.

Hey, WOS, what were yesterday's winning numbers, anyway?  Wait, why are you hiding the newspaper . . .

!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR--

1. ANN CURRY: Why she's trending: Oh who the fuck cares?!?!?  Look it up yourself!

Where was I?  Oh, yeah:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

The other day, I found a message in my e-mail from the good folks at Cuisinart, hawking the "Cuisinart for iPad."  Sounded great!  I downloaded it immediately.  But then, when I tried to press carrots down into the thing, I cracked the damn screen!

Now how am I supposed to make guacamole?

Back from the New York Groove

Annnnnnnd, we're back!  I am truly sorry to have left you all to fend for yourselves over the last nearly-two weeks.  Hopefully, you amused yourself with the exploits of Sleep-Talkin' Man or other stand-in blogs.  (And, yes, "Anonymous," I realize I used "hopefully" in an improper sense, but, then, I have always been more of a de- than a pre-scriptivist, so deal with it.  Just be glad I'm back!)

New York was the proverbial hoot.  I consider myself relatively lucky that the temperature remained for the most part south of 90 during my stay.  Aside from a couple of times when I made the mistake of over-exerting myself (by, y'know, breathing), I stayed fairly comfortable.  I had the opportunity to see MOS and FOS and Ex-Roommate of Solipsist (I'm not going to refer to him as EROS) and generally to reacquaint myself with the sights and sounds of the old stomping grounds.

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Drove down to Jersey to see Aunt of Solipsist.  Neither she nor MOS is moving particularly well these days.  Various combinations of age, arthritis, and general deterioration have slowed them both.  We went out to lunch at a waterside restaurant.  Afterwards, I walked ahead to the car and waited for MOS and AOS.  They walked toward the car.  And walked.  And walked.  And. . . .  Let me put it this way: You know that scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" when Lancelot (John Cleese) is charging toward a castle, and the camera keeps cutting back and forth between him and the people watching in the castle, and Lancelot never seems to be getting any closer to the castle?

Yeah, it was kind of like that.

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Just remembered that MOS now has a little Netbook with which she can access the internet and read this column, so never mind what I just said.

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Managed to get caught up on all the superhero movies.  Saw "The Dark Knight Rises," "The Amazing Spider-Man," and "The Avengers."  "DKR" was excellent.  Upon further reflection, there are some minor quibbles, but overall it did everything one could have hoped for, short of resurrecting Heath Ledger.  "Spider-Man" kind of disappointed.  Andrew Garfield is nowhere near as good a Peter Parker as Tobey Maguire.  It's not his fault, though: The character was poorly written.  I'm a Spider-Man purist and, to me, Peter Parker should be a geeky, gawky science nerd, not some tormented emo dude.  I also enjoyed "The Avengers," especially since I watched it on the flight back to California.  Nice way to kill two-plus hours.  On the whole, though, "DKR" was better, but that could also be chalked up to the fact that I saw the Batman movie in IMAX and "The Avengers" on a five-inch seatback TV screen.

I will say, though, that Robert Downey, Jr., gets the lifetime achievement award for best performance by an actor in a superhero role.

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Couldn't actually find the Ground Zero memorial.  I met EROS (there, OK?) down in the financial district and got a nice close-up view of the Freedom Tower under construction, but though I constantly saw signs with arrows pointing to the memorial, I couldn't actually find the place.  Oddly enough, I asked EROS--who works in the area--and HE wasn't sure where it was, either.  I was disturbed but not overly disappointed: Not disappointed because it would have been worth checking out, but it wasn't worth a full-fledged search.  Disturbed because I worry that EROS may have done some serious damage to his mental/observational faculties during his time in college.  It would explain a lot.

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So New York was lovely, bright and hot.  Good to be back to Solipsist Central, though.  I promise not to desert you all any time soon.