the birds and the seas

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Sun, 30 Sep 2012 05:57:25 -0400

"One of the questions asked in that study was, How many Vietnamese casualties would you estimate that..."

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 16:15:10 -0400

“One of the questions asked in that study was, How many Vietnamese casualties would you...

poptech: Infographics: Using The Olympic Rings To Show Vast...

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 13:02:06 -0400

Infographics: Using The Olympic Rings To Show Vast Inequalities

People living with HIV. Oceania: blue. Europe: black. Americas: red. Asia: green. Africa: yellow.

asianhistory: The weird opening ceremony hasn’t even come off,...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 10:51:21 -0400

asianhistory:

The weird opening ceremony hasn’t even come off, and the North Korean Olympic bid is already falling into the typical storyline of controversy and intrigue. On Wednesday, Olympics organizers proved themselves incapable of Googling when they introduced the North Korean women’s soccer team using the South Korean flag at their opening match against Colombia. The team stormed off, and only a hasty apology from the highest echelons of the Olympic organization could coax them back onto the field an hour later.

The flag controversy completely overshadowed the fact that North Korea went on to trounce their Colombian opponents, 2-0. The North Korean women’s team is good. Surprisingly good. The young and inexperienced team that hails from a country whose citizens are being increasingly starved by their leaders is second only to Japan in Asia. “Fantastic,” is how U.S. midfielder Heather O’Reilly described them. Nobody would ever mistake North Korea’s men’s team for “fantastic.”

One of the most fascinating aspects of North Korea’s Olympic bid is that women are by far the dominant force in North Korean international athletics, and their preeminence is in typically male sports. In the 2008 Beijing games, all but one of North Korea’s five medals were won by women, including both golds. In London, North Korea’s female weightlifters, judo fighters and soccer team are among the strongest of their 51-member olympic squad .

North Korea women’s prowess in these sports is all the more remarkable given that North Korean society is so patriarchal that in 1996 North Korean officials banned bicycling in Pyongyang for women because it wasn’t seen as sufficiently female. Back in the 80s, the government saw female participation in traditionally male sports as a sign of capitalism’s ultimate corruption. “The rotten and diseased world of capitalism does not spare women from kicking a ball,” wrote an official publication in the early 1980s.

But today, the best North Korean soccer coaches actually prefer coaching the women’s teams over the men, according to South Korean journalist Joo Seong-Ha. This imbalance has prompted some experts to draw conclusions about the North. Joo Seong-Ha offered the rather questionable analysis for why the women’s soccer team so outperforms their male counterparts: “North Korean women’s innate toughness must have played a factor. As the proverb goes, ‘Southern men, northern women.’” (South Korean men are thought to be strong and handsome, while North Korean women are strong and beautiful.)

But the North Korean women’s preemincence says more about the structure of international athletics than the character of North Korean women. The men’s competition is more intense, which means North Korean women aren’t as handicapped by the country’s isolation and poverty. They “get access to just as many facilities and coaches domestically [as men], and the worldwide game for women isn’t as high in quality relative to the men’s,” said Gerard Clare, who’s been covering North Korean soccer for NKnews.com.

— Why The Women of North Korea Are The Most Interesting Olympians

What this article is basically saying is that North Korea gives their male and female athletes the exact same facilities, whereas many other countries give their men and women’s teams different or unequal ones. The women’s team didn’t have to worry about finding sponsors because they were a “girl who’s built like a guy” (Sarah Robles). The NK team is there to play hard.

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Sun, 29 Jul 2012 10:51:12 -0400

"A 17-year veteran of the New York Police Department has been suspended without pay after a..."

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 10:50:47 -0400

“A 17-year veteran of the New York Police Department has been suspended without pay after a...

Photo

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:38:41 -0400

slutaeyang: fuckyeahhardfemme: kyssthis16: otterfuckerz: size...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:18:41 -0400

slutaeyang:

fuckyeahhardfemme:

kyssthis16:

otterfuckerz:

size10plz:

skinnyjabbers:

budgiebazooka:

Zoe Smith, gold medalist at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games at the age of 16.

Zoe Smith was harassed via twitter recently because some female stated she looked o manly and no guy would go for that. Here is the article. Seriously, shes an 18 year old Olympian in lifting, and you have a problem because she’s too muscular for you? wow.

Part of the article:

“We don’t lift weights in order to look hot, especially for the likes of men like that,” Smith wrote. “What makes them think that we even want them to find us attractive? If you do, thanks very much, we’re flattered. But if you don’t, why do you really need to voice this opinion in the first place?

“Shall we stop weightlifting, amend our diet in order to completely get rid of our ‘manly’ muscles, and become housewives in the sheer hope that one day you will look more favorably upon us and we might actually have a shot with you?

“This may be shocking to you, but we actually would rather be attractive to people who aren’t closed-minded and ignorant. Crazy, eh?! We, as any woman with an ounce of self-confidence would, prefer our men to be confident enough in themselves to not feel emasculated by the fact that we aren’t weak and feeble.”

BOOM!

the above gif sums up my feelings rather nicely.

weightlifting ladies just seem to be winning my heart left right and centre

glossolaliakaraoke: loveintheshadowsistheonlykind: flapjackstat...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:18:30 -0400

glossolaliakaraoke:

loveintheshadowsistheonlykind:

flapjackstate:

[image: aerial photographs of the olympic stadium in East London, with a vast site of metal cabins across the motorway].

revolyeah:

choongcommunist:

Cleaners at the Olympic Park are being housed ten to a room at a huge temporary compound.

The campsite in East London, hidden from public view, has 25 people sharing each toilet and 75 to each shower.

They sleep in portable cabins, some of which have been leaking in the rain.

On arrival, some were horrified to be told there was no work for two weeks. But despite this, they were made to pay the cleaning company £18 a day in ‘rent’ to sleep in the overcrowded metal cabins, which works out at more than £550 a month.

Others who had come to the UK desperate for the jobs turned back, describing the camp as ‘horrible’, with showers and toilets ‘filthy’ from over-use.

Id say I’m surprised but I’m not….Disgusting. Fuck the Olympics.

Fuck. And people still ask me why I hate the olympics.

DESTROY THE OLYMPICS

unhistorical: Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics, August...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:18:19 -0400

unhistorical:

Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics, August 1936.

In August of 1936, American athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals, setting three world records and tying a fourth in the 100 yard dash - all in front of Adolf Hitler, who had planned to use the Games as a tool to promote the physical superiority of the Aryan race.

Video here.

more-commonsense: Of course not. The GOP just want to allow...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:18:07 -0400

more-commonsense:

Of course not. The GOP just want to allow the Keystone people to run the a pipeline through it, digging up huge trenches for a heated line that could leak harm the environment from the first and/or destroy the topsoil, environment, and underground water supply later if there is a leak. The truth is that there is always a leak sometime in the future.

suzy-x: Brooklyn women make their building theirs The rent...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:17:02 -0400

suzy-x:

Brooklyn women make their building theirs

The rent strike started two years ago when Sara Lopez woke up early one morning. No one sleeps much in these three buildings — in the winter there’s no heat, in the summer there’s no electricity, and all year there are rats and cockroaches scurrying in the walls — but that morning Lopez had slept even worse than usual, and she was mad.

“I thought and thought and decided that I needed to do something,” she said. “So I knocked on 51 doors because I got mad of so much injustice.”

At each door she and Trelles spread a clear message: Stop paying rent. It wasn’t an idea born out of an ideology regarding private property or capitalism or self-governance. Instead, Lopez — a retired public employee who says she still has faith in the power and intentions of the local government — was espousing a radicalism born from necessity and experience. She knew that tenants could run the buildings better than Petito, whom she called un payaso, which means “clown” in Spanish but sounds far more poisonous than that when hissed in her Honduran accent. In the winter of 1982, after a former landlord simply abandoned the buildings without heat, Lopez brought the buildings’ families together, and they governed themselves — collecting money to pay the bills and replace the boiler, and forming teams to clean the hallways, put the trash out and make repairs.

Read the article in its entirety, it’s so good. These ladies know what’s up.

gowns: josé julio sarria, gay latino who ran for public office...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:16:37 -0400

gowns:

josé julio sarria, gay latino who ran for public office in 1961 - many many years before harvey milk

he ran for the san francisco board of supervisors and almost won by default, until people noticed there was a gay man running and immediately submitted everyone possible for the position. he didn’t win, but he still got 6000 votes, which shocked conservatives

he was also a drag queen popular at many of the balls at the time…and he still does it today (lookin good for a guy in his late 80s)!

thebengalcat: Palestinian Olympic runners Worood Maslaha fixes...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:16:11 -0400

thebengalcat:

Palestinian Olympic runners Worood Maslaha fixes her hijab and Bahaa al-Farra combs his hair before their training sessions in the West Bank and Gaza in the build up to the Olympic Games in London. Some of these athletes come from humble backgrounds, and don’t have high-tech sports centres, equipment, monitoring devices or teams of experts observing their progress, as other competing nations do. Bahaa al-Farra was donated sportswear to train in.

May the odds be ever in their favour, and may their hard work and dedication pay off!

Photos via Reuters

lovevolve: artisnteasy: She handles this wonderfully but dude,...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:15:56 -0400

lovevolve:

artisnteasy:

She handles this wonderfully but dude, ask her real questions.

Maybe about, oh I don’t know - her character.

Not about her costume, or how she fit into it.

Jesus fuck.

But UNF dat pixie cut.

FOUR FOR YOU ANNE HATHAWAY

theatlantic: These Are the First Female Saudi Arabian Olympians...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:15:41 -0400

theatlantic:

These Are the First Female Saudi Arabian Olympians in History

[Images: Reuters]

Photo

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:15:10 -0400

wickwareboisseau: Eskimo Toddler

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:14:32 -0400

wickwareboisseau:

Eskimo Toddler

"The third white privilege that Tim Wise and other so-called white anti-racists enjoy is the..."

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:13:20 -0400

“The third white privilege that Tim Wise and other so-called white anti-racists enjoy is the...

jeuxdeau: “If I ran for Sudan, I would be betraying my people....

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:13:11 -0400

jeuxdeau:

“If I ran for Sudan, I would be betraying my people. I would be dishonoring the two million people who died for our freedom. I want to bring honor to my country. People who just want glory, the spotlight of the Olympics, they don’t care about other people. I’m fighting for independent status because I do care. When I run, I want people to see me and say, ‘He is from South Sudan.’”
- Guor Marial, running under the Independent Olympic Athletes flag in London, 2012