Simone Biles and Jotdan Chiles Bowing to Rebeca Andrade
This viral photo from the recently concluded Olympics has been spoiled by the decision of some fusty Eurocrat to deprive Jordan Chiles of her bronze medal. For the complete story, check out CNN’s coverage of the story. There was a one-minute deadline for the U.S. gymnastics coach to protest the awarding of the bronze to a Romanian contestant (whose floor exercise was, in fact, quite excellent)’ and the U.S. was four seconds late (?!) in filing the protest.
Time to Introduce New Sports for the Next Olympics
The 2024 Paris Olympics were a smashing success. The Chinese continued their domination of track and field, while the Americans took medal after medal in platform diving. For the next Olympics in my home town of Los Angeles, it’s time to consider some new events to mix things up a bit:
SYNCHRONIZED PIZZA DOUGH TOSSING. Let’s face it: Pizza has become an international food and is due for some recognition by the Olympics.
THREE-LEGGED MARATHON RACE. I’ve always thought that Marathon runners had it too easy. I mean the only difficult thing about the 42.195 kilometer (26.219 mile) course is doing all the decimal math in your head while running.
FACEBOOK FACEPLANT. Let’s acknowledge the role of social media in our lives by having a race during which the participants must complete a series of responses to social media posts while running.
UNDERWATER GYMNASTICS. On one hand, you have greater buoyancy in the water; on the other hand, you don’t want to stretch out your routine too long.
CLIFF DIVING. For lemmings only. You dive off a cliff into a net. You can have a number of heights: 100 meters, 200 meters … the sky’s the limit.
After spending some five days in a hospital room, Martine was finally discharged today. She feels good, and there is no longer an issue with low sodium levels in the blood. The medical name for this is hyponatremia. According to the Mayo Clinic website, signs and symptoms can include:
Nausea and vomiting
Headache
Confusion *
Loss of energy, drowsiness and fatigue *
Restlessness and irritability *
Muscle weakness, spasms or cramps *
Seizures
Coma
On Tuesday, Martine was suffering from four of these (marked above with asterisks). In the hospital, she was immediately put on intravenous electrolytes which, over the space of two days, restored her condition to normal. Then she was kept on for observation for a couple more days to make sure her blood levels were normal.
What caused this? Martine thought it was that she accidentally took a second dose of Pilocarpine 2% ophthalmic solution for glaucoma two hours after taking a first dose. Although one physician I talked to in the emergency room said this couldn’t be the cause, the literature accompanying the drug indicated that it was indeed possible.
Whatever the cause, I am convinced that the treatment was correct.
The human body is a strange and wonderful thing, and doctors are not infallible. We tread a narrow path over two abysses. Thankfully, Martine is okay for now.
Martine at the Zimmerman Automobile Driving Museum
I have not posted any blogs during the last three days because Martine was hospitalized on Tuesday. By accident she took a second dose of powerful glaucoma eye drops instead of the medication she intended on taking. The result was weakness, dehydration, and a host of other symptoms that required an ambulance trip to the UCLA Santa Monica Hospital where blood tests revealed that the sodium levels in her blood were dangerously low.
For two days, Martine was literally non compos mentis—not in her right mind. On Tuesday night, as she was waiting in a temporary patient treatment area for a hospital bed to be assigned to her, she was shaking like a leaf and was barely able to recognize me.
When I returned home, I was shattered. Was this the beginning of something critical, or possibly fatal? On Wednesday, she was slightly better as the hospital worked at raising the sodium level in her blood. But she was still not quite right in her mind: She kept attempting to get up to go to the bathroom while multiple tubes were connected to her body. She kept insisting “This is a free country!”
In the end, a licensed vocational nurse was delegated to keep her safely in bed. I visited her twice, but she forgot that I was there. Fortunately, yesterday and today saw a return to the Martine I knew and loved. Essentially, she is still in the hospital mainly for observation to make sure that her blood work stabilizes.
At home, I was too upset to read or write; so I have just watched the Paris Olympics endlessly.
It looks as if Martine will probably be discharged tomorrow. I hope so: I desperately want to return to our normal lives.
He was one of the two greatest writers of fiction about the Civil War, the other being Stephen Crane. His short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” is one of my clearest memories from high school English. He also wrote some good horror stories, plus a book of sardonic definitions he called The Devil’s Dictionary (1906). As he wrote in the preface to that book: “[T]he author hopes to be held guiltless by those to whom the work is addressed—enlightened souls who prefder dry wines to sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.”
I thought I would present a few of my favorite entries from The Devil’s Dictionary that I found particularly witty.
ABORIGINES, n. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber: they fertilize.
ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.
ACTUALLY, adv. Perhaps; possibly.
COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor’s uneasiness.
EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.
FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
LIGHTHOUSE, n. A tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.
MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.
PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one’s self and to nobody else.
In 1914, Bierce is said to have crossed the border into Mexico during that country’s revolution and disappeared. In 1985, Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote an excellent book entitled The Old Gringo speculating what happened to Bierce during the fighting between Pancho Villa and the government forces of General Victoriano Huerta.
This is a repost from ten years ago today: August 4, 2014.
Yesterday, I was drawn to the television by a segment on “Sixty Minutes” about the noted German art forger, Wolfgang Beltracchi. When Bob Simon of CBS asked him what painters he couldn’t forge, Beltracchi, without hesitation, answered Bellini. I took him to mean Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516) and not his brother Gentile (they were both brothers-in-law of the great Andrea Mantegna). The only time I remember ever seeing or original Giovanni Bellini was at the Frick Collection in New York City, which has a superb “St. Francis in Ecstasy” also painted in 1480. I have included an image below.
There is such an incredible sense of detail in a Bellini oil that I feel as if I could pick a background segment (say 1/64th of the total) and enlarge it to full size without losing anything. And the detail would be almost as fascinating as the foreground. Look at that fence following the upward path in “The Transfiguration” (above), and note the minor variations from post to post. Look at that dead tree at the lower left, or that couple meeting in the upper right near the tree.
I can almost imagine Bellini in an ecstasy such as St. Francis in the painting below.
St. Francis in Ecstasy (1480) at the Frick Collection
555827 19.07.1980 Вынос олимпийского флага на торжественной церемонии открытия Игр XXII Олимпиады. Центральный стадион имени В.И. Ленина 19 июля 1980 года. Сергей Гунеев/РИА Новости
Remember the 1980 Moscow Olympics? We weren’t represented because Jimmy Carter pulled us out after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. In 1984, the Russians got back at us by not sending anyone to the Los Angeles games.
It was a different world back then. It seems the Olympic contests were always being interpreted as Free World vs. Communists. Maybe that was mostly the news media’s doing, but not entirely. For instance, I remember the euphoria in the air when the U.S. hockey team defeated the Russians at the Lake Placid Olympics in February 1980 (that was when both Olympics were held the same year) by a score of 4-3. That despite the fact that the frantic Russians outshot the Americans 39-16.
Soviet Russian Athletes on the Award Stand
But after the fall of Communism things changed. It’s no longer just the Free World vs. the Communists. The rest of the world got better, across the board it seems. Early this afternoon, I watched three Caribbean island democracies medal: St. Lucia, Dominica, and Grenada.
Of course, Russia and Belarus are not represented because Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, with his assistance of his willing stooge Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus.
Gone are the lovely Russian women gymnasts. No more “White Swan of Belarus.” A few Russian and Belarussian athletes are participating under the Olympic equivalent of the Skull and Crossbones—and probably facing the ire of Putin and Lukashenko. It’s a pity, because they have some splendid athletes there, but the Olympics is nothing if not political.
I used to always root for the Free World. Then, I just rooted for the U.S. Now I’m just happy to see the rest of the world catch up.
Of course, China is developing an impressive sports machine, but at least they haven’t invaded anybody since they got their wings clipped in 1979 in Viet Nam by Vo Nguyen Giap.
Du Fu (aka Tu Fu) was born in AD 712 and died in 770. The following poem is from Kenneth Rexroth’s One Hundred Poems from the Chinese. It is a great favorite of mine.
Jade Flower Palace
The stream swirls. The wind moans in The pines. Grey rats scurry over Broken tiles. What prince, long ago, Built this palace, standing in Ruins beside the cliffs? There are Green ghost fires in the black rooms. The shattered pavements are all Washed away. Ten thousand organ Pipes whistle and roar. The storm Scatters the red autumn leaves. His dancing girls are yellow dust. Their painted cheeks have crumbled Away. His gold chariots And courtiers are gone. Only A stone horse is left of his Glory. I sit on the grass and Start a poem, but the pathos of It overcomes me. The future Slips imperceptibly away. Who can say what the years will bring?
I have just read for the third or fourth time William Faulkner’s short novel The Bear—this time in the version used for the author’s Big Woods (1955) collection of hunting stories. All the other times were in the version used for Go Down Moses (1942). Here Sam Fathers talks to Ike McCaslin and Ash about the bear Old Ben.
“He do it every year,” Sam said. “Once: Ash and Boon say he comes up here to run the other little bears away. Tell them to get the hell out of here and stay out until the hunters are gone. Maybe.” The boy no longer heard anything at all, yet still Sam’s head continued to turn gradually and steadily until the back of it was toward him. Then it turned back and looked down at him—the same face, grave, familiar, expressionless until it smiled, the same old man’s eyes from which as he watched there faded slowly a quality darkly and fiercely lambent, passionate and proud. “He dont care no more for bears than he does for dogs or men neither. He come to see who’s here, who’s new in camp this year, whether he can shoot or not, can stay or not. Whether we got the dog yet that can bay and hold him until a man gets there with a gun. Because he’s the head bear. He’s the man.”
The first Olympics I watched to any extent were the 1976 games of the Montreal Summer Olympics. The heroine of those games was the 14-year-old Nadia Comăneci of Romania. She made Olympics history by being the first gymnast to score a perfect 10—and not once, but seven times. That netted her three gold metals, a silver, and a bronze, which she is seen wearing in the above photo.
Nadia started the whole gymnastics mania that has grown up around the Summer Olympics, and that continued with Svetlana Boginskaya, nicknamed “The White Swan of Belarus” in 1988 and 1992, and with Simone Biles today.
What ever happened to Nadia? Actually, she was in the opening day ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympiad. Today, she is an American citizen, having hightailed it out of Romania before the fall of the Ceauşescus in 1989.
Today she is 62 years old, being some 48 years removed from the svelte little girl who enchanted all of us way back when.
Tarnmoor 
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