Great diving performance in Tokyo Olympics

Diving, like gymnastics, involves a lot of acrobatics in the air and it takes place too quickly for me to be able to judge it in real time, which tells you something about how difficult it must be to judge the event. The only indicator I have for how good it is at the very end. In the case of gymnastics, it is the landing. In the case of diving, it is how small a splash the diver makes upon entry into the water. In the Tokyo Olympics Chinese diver Quan Hongchan broke all manner of records with her gold-medal winning performance. Even an ignorant observer like me could tell that she was spectacular.


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The demise of the general opinion columnist

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how Bernie Sanders handled an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, where he managed to force her to deal with serious issues instead of the superficialities that are her forte. After writing it, it struck me that Dowd had not crossed my mind for a long time. I do not subscribe to the New York Times and never seek out their opinion columnists though once in a while I will read an article if a link comes up to their work that looks interesting. It has been ages since I came across any mention of Dowd. But she is not alone in being ignored. There was a time when regular opinion column writers like Dowd, David Brooks, George Will, Thomas Friedman, the late Charles Krauthammer, Richard Cohen, and the like would be referred to by others as sages or barometers of some issue. Now they seem to be largely ignored.
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John Oliver on Emergency Medical Services

On his show Last Week Tonight, he points out the surprising fact that in the US, emergency medical services, the ambulances and the medical technicians who come in an emergency and treat and transport people to hospitals, are not classified as essential services in the communities they serve, and as a result the workers are paid very poorly and lack benefits despite being hailed for their life-saving work.

More disturbingly, private equity firms are now moving in and taking over some of the private companies that provide these services, which usually means that they will be stripped of assets, workers will be treated even worse, and prices will rise.

This is the madness that results when health care is privatized.

Silly gift giving

My family knows that they should never buy me any gifts for my birthday, Father’s day, Christmas, or any other occasion. The reasons are simple. Some gift giving traditions are purely driven by commercial considerations to benefit businesses and I do not want to be part of this mindless consumption. I also do not see the point of giving gifts to adults who can well afford to buy anything they need or want for themselves. I also know that it is very hard to buy a gift for me because the things that I might like are very unlikely to be guessed by even those close to me because my wants are few and highly specialized. I hate getting clothes and books because I know that there is a 99% chance that I will not wear those clothes or read those books.
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The walls are closing in on vaccine and mask deniers

We are now in the third, fourth, or fifth wave of the pandemic in the US, depending on who’s counting. What is undeniable is that following an average low of around 80,000 weekly cases on June 22, we have now reached about 640,000 cases, an eightfold increase. Death rates reached a low of 1,500 on July 5th and have started rising since then, following the expected pattern of death rates lagging infection rates by about two weeks. Almost all this rise is among the unvaccinated and these people tend to be concentrated in places where there is a high level of vaccine hesitancy and outright resistance, mostly in Republican-dominated areas. But there are encouraging signs that those people who have been vigorously campaigning against vaccines and masks and other measures to combat the pandemic are losing the battle.
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Disappointing election result in Ohio

Unfortunately, progressive Nina Turner lost the primary race for the Democratic nomination for the seat held by Marcia Fudge. She lost to Shontel Brown, a candidate who was backed by the corporate wing of the Democratic party as well as wealthy Republican donors and the Israel lobby.

As Michael Arria and Philip Weiss write:

Turner, 53, had been co-chair of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign and is a leading advocate for poor and working class voters. She supported conditioning military aid to Israel, in stark contrast to Brown, 46, a Cuyahoga County councilperson, who embraced Israel in her campaign and was rewarded with substantial donations from pro-Israel groups.
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While Israel was seldom mentioned in mainstream coverage, it was certainly a component of the race. While not a public supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), Turner has consistently defended the right to boycott. After Israel attacked Gaza this spring, she tweeted support for Palestine.

In contrast Brown positioned herself as a staunch supporter of the Israel. She condemned the BDS movement, opposed calls to condition military aid, and referred to the country as a “bustling democracy.” During the attack on Gaza, that killed almost 70 children, she asserted that Israel has the “right to defend itself.”

This is undoubtedly a boost for the more right-wing elements in the Democratic party led by Hillary Clinton, James Clyburn and the rest of the party establishment who want to prevent progressive policies being adopted such as Medicare for All and a more even-handed treatment of the Israel-Palestine issue. They are determined that the one-party nature of US politics, where both Democrats and Republicans differ on just a few social issues while maintaining a pro-war, pro-corporate, pro-Israel consensus, continue.

Why is Andrew Cuomo still governor of New York?

There are many political reasons why Andrew Cuomo is a terrible governor of New York even excluding his abusive practices. He had seemed to weather the storm over allegations of multiple sexual harassment allegations by taking a Trump-like stance of refusing to acknowledge anything. But the latest report from New York’s attorney general Letitia James about his abuse should, by all rights, end his career. Even since the wide range of allegations about men sexually abusing women over whom they had power and Trump’s infamous tape about how he can grab women’s genitals and get away with it because he was famous, no one should be surprised at what such people do. But the latest report (thanks to Death to Squirrels) still manages to evoke disgust. (The Executive Summary (pages 2-6) describes the main allegations.)

One of the weird things in the report is the way he asks so many women to find dates for him. He comes off not just as a creep but also as pathetic and needy.

This news story about the release of the report summarizes its findings.
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Zoom backgrounds

In these days of Zoom meetings, I have seen people exploit the Zoom feature that allows you to use their stock backgrounds and also allows you to create your own to create the most exotic and even bizarre backgrounds. I myself, being the old fuddy-duddy that I am, use just the boring but real background of my living room.

(Speed Bump)

True sporting spirit

It is good to note those moments during the Olympics when sportsmanship won out over the intense drive drive to win.

Days later, at the Olympic Stadium, Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy and Mutaz Barshim of Qatar found themselves in a situation they’d talked about but never experienced — they were tied.

Both high jumpers were perfect until the bar was set to the Olympic-record height of 2.39 meters (7 feet, 10 inches). Each missed three times.

They could have gone to a jump-off, but instead decided to share the gold.

“I know for a fact that for the performance I did, I deserve that gold. He did the same thing, so I know he deserved that gold,” Barshim said. “This is beyond sport. This is the message we deliver to the young generation.”

After they decided, Tamberi slapped Barshim’s hand and jumped into his arms.

“Sharing with a friend is even more beautiful,” Tamberi said. “It was just magical.”

Watch the moment.
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