Olympics and etc

I guarantee you our highly mentally disturbed president is not enchanted with the Olympics, you know, like, ah, man, how do I deal with these different colored athletes competing together, sharing lives together, embracing, honoring each other? I can hear his little weeny brain asking: You mean they actually respect each other? How can Trump possibly understand, coming from a lily-white, closeted environment of the super rich, and how absolutely color blind the world of sports is today? Probably, he wasn't watching the Olympics anyway, having embraced the recent statement of Fox News' Exec VP, John Moody, that there are just too many gays, coloreds, etc in the Olympics. By the way, how come Fox News hasn't fired that bigot and racist? Oh, yeah, I forgot, it's Fox "Klan" News.

Speaking of non-whites, did anyone see the performance of  Japan's Yazuru Hanyu's flawless and exquisite short program and his Gold winning performance on the ice last night? What an athlete! Both nights Winnie the Poohs by the hundreds sailed down from the stands onto the ice as he took his bows. And this young man's performance took nothing away from the three skaters who followed him onto the rink, his fellow Japanese teammate, Shona Ono (Silver) and the marvelously elegant Spaniard, Javier Fernandez (Bronze). All of them were Baryshnikovs on ice.

Sorry to see Mikela not make it to the podium in the slalom, but she won a courageous Gold the day before in the giant slalom. Let's hear it for the redhead Shawn White. What an athlete. As a team sports guy, I've always been impressed by the focus of individual sports athletes. On a team you always have your teammates to motivate you during the game. The skiers, the luge riders, the snowboarders, the cross country skiers, the jumpers, once the event starts, they're on their own. Individual sports are lonely sports that require amazing will power and the kind of physical and mental meditation of a Zen master. 

Lindsey Vonn gave it her best shot in the Super G but no medal. But in my mind she gets a medal for heroic comeback. Heroic comeback award also to Nathan Chin, who's short program mistakes were painful to watch, but his long program performance showed he'd be back in four years for another attempt at the podium.

Got to love the courage of our Warrior coach, Steve Kerr to stand up to the NRA. When will our politicians ever have the courage of Lindsey Vonn, and legislate into law a truthful and effective gun law? Perhaps  we should all pray for one. Praying and grieving seems to be all they are capable of doing for these poor slaughtered children.

I love how the poet connects the grace of swooping swallows to ice skaters in the following poem:

The Skaters    by John Gould Fletcher

Black Swallows swooping or gliding
In a flurry of entangled loops and curves;
The skaters skim over the frozen river,
And he grinding click of their skates
as they impinge upon the surface
Is like the brushing together of thin
Wing-tips of silver upon the surface