OK! We are trying something new tonight. Let’s live-blog NBC’s prime-time coverage of the Olympics, shall we? Tonight: The men’s figure-skating short program features fur-bearing mammal Johnny Weir. Snowboarder Cross! Downhill skiing! Let’s pretend all of this didn’t already happen!
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Live-Blogging the Olympics: Day 5
Filed under: Jay Leno Kevin Eubanks — the longtime bandleader on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” — may leave the show once it re-emerges after the Olympics.K-RTH radio in LA first reported the story this AM. NBC has confirmed Kevin wants to tour and record and — although … Permalink
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Kevin Eubanks May Bail on Jay Leno
Team Norway spices things up with these amazing argyle pants at the Olympics curling event. I wish Homer and Marge Simpson had worn these instead. View
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Tagged amazing-argyle, bennyhollywood, Hollywood, homer, marge, marge-simpson, norway, olympics, spices-things
Link: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery… There are a bunch of fancy new dog breeds at this year's Westminster Dog Show (which starts tonight, if you hate the Olympics and America and freedom). Let's get acquainted! Read
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Tagged america, dog-breeds, fancy-new, get-acquainted, hate-the-olympics, Hollywood, olympics, TMZ, westminster, Year
Tonight, the Olympics’ only black figure skater will perform Out of Africa with his white partner. And then there are the censored Russian ice dancers whose “Aboriginal dance” used to include brown skin suits, fake eucalyptus, and warpaint. Should we take offense, or take it with a grain of salt? Olympic diversity is, after all, stunning: Diversity of bodies, culture, and language, intermingling in a happy zone of sportsmanship and brotherhood. But with 82 nations parading through Vancouver this year—each angling for its moment of glory—multiculturalism may err on the side of trite. (See: Opening Ceremony, Parade of Nations. Natives beating drums! Bermudans in Bermuda shorts ! ) In no sport is this minstrelsy of nations more apparent than in kitschy, gimmicky, stage-crafted world of figure skating. Two examples from this year’s ethnic masquerade on ice, and whether you should be offended: Exhibit A: Mixed-Race German Pair Chooses an Awkward Song Tonight , the Olympic’s only black figure skater will fling a petite blonde woman in time with music from the movie Out of Africa . Here’s a preview of Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy ‘s Out of Africa routine, which led them to a first place finish at the 2009 ISU Grand Prix: Savchenko and Szolkowy are currently ranked second in the pairs figure skating competition. To be fair, “black” may not be how Robin Szolkowy sees himself—he is the half-African son of a Tanzanian doctor and German nurse, born and raised in Germany. (Which once colonized Tanzania! But mostly it was the Brits.) But then you add the fact that their coach, Ingo Steuer, used to work for the Stasi , which is culturally loaded in a totally different way, and at least one racially persnickety American (me) feels like she’s having one of those not-totally-racist-but-not-comfortable-either ” No, Grandpa Harry, nobody says ‘negro’ anymore ” conversations. Conclusion: Don’t be offended, but do avoid making eye contact with Grandpa Harry during this routine. Exhibit B: Russian Ice Dancing Champs Perform ‘Aboriginal Song’ World ice dancing champions Oksama Domnina and Maksim Shabalin first horrified international audiences when they donned brown skin suits, war paint, and eucalyptus leaves to perform an “Aboriginal Song” for an Original Dance in January: Indigenous Australians protested that the routine as ” very offensive ,” ” cultural theft ,” embarrassingly juvenile , and that the didgeridoo was all wrong . After some bureaucratic haggling, Domnina and Shabalin agreed to split the difference: They’ll ditch the costumes, but will use the original music and choreography for their Olympic performance next Monday . The pair say they meant no harm, they just didn’t want to do “another Slavic dance.” In an athletic field where women routinely don flamenco negligees to sashay like a gypsy to Carmen, where illusion netting is never quite the right shade, and in a nation where they don’t have aborigines, you can sort of see where they’re coming from, right? And yet, you sort of can’t, because how could a well-traveled world-class Olympic possibly think using a “skin suit” to alter the color of his “skin” is a good idea? Conclusion: Be offended, and pity the victims of cultural relativism. There are a lot of them.
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And the Gold Medal for Most Racially Insensitive Figure Skating Routine Goes to…
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Tagged alionasavchenko, dancing, german, grandpa, movie, Music, olympics, robin-szolkowy, russian, shen xue, vancouver, white
He may like to make you laugh, but “Silent Bob” found nothing funny about being kicked off a plane for being fat. Kevin Smith, director of the upcoming Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan laugher, “Cop Out,” turned to Twitter to vent his frustrations Saturday after allegedly getting booted from a Southwest Airlines flight. “I know I’m fat,” the 39-year-old wrote via Twitter. “But was Captain Leysath [sic] really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?” For the Full Story “Kevin Smith too Fat to Fly”… Kevin Smith VIDEO… http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/director-kevin-smith-too-fat-to-fl… The writer and director of “Clerks” and “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back” let loose in the tweet tirade after allegedly being told by a flight attendant he was a “safety risk” as he was about to fly from Oakland to Burbank. added by: ctpatriot1970
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Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday belittled Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's commitment to fighting terrorism as either “misinformed or he is misinforming” and said the Iraq war wasn't worth it because of “the horrible price” paid. The former vice president fired back gently at his successor, saying, “I guess I shouldn't be surprised by my friend Joe Biden.” Cheney also said that he disagreed with decisions by Bush officials to place shoe bomber Richard Reid on trial in civilian court and to release terrorism suspects from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The public back-and-forth between current and former administrations played out across the Sunday talks like a pingpong match: Biden's NBC appearance taped Saturday night from the Olympics in Canada, allowing Cheney to respond on ABC's “This Week,” before Biden answered later on CBS' “Face the Nation.” In getting in the last word, Biden said: “Thank God the last administration didn't listen to him in the end” on how to handle terrorism suspects. The vice president insisted again that the ongoing debate on the best way to bring terrorist suspects to justice ignored that the Obama administration was acting on the precedents set by the Bush administration. Cheney was vice president under Bush for eight years. “His fight seems to be with the last administration. We did exactly the same thing,” Biden said, and he accused Cheney of not listening to what's going on around him and of trying to rewrite history. Cheney has been a leading Republican critic of the Obama administration's handling of national security, contending that President Barack Obama is “trying to pretend” that the U.S. is not at war with terrorists. The result, Cheney says, is that Americans are less safe. Biden said that under Obama's direction, the U.S. has been more successful at killing al-Qaida leaders and their followers than it was during the years George W. Bush and Cheney were in the White House. “We've eliminated 12 of their top 20 people. We have taken out 100 of their associates,” said Biden. “They are in fact not able to do anything remotely like they were in the past. They are on the run. I don't know where Dick Cheney has been. Look, it's one thing, again, to criticize. It's another thing to sort of rewrite history. What is he talking about?” Cheney, Biden said, “either is misinformed or he is misinforming. But the facts are that his assertions are not accurate.” Biden also said the Iraq war hasn't been worth its “horrible price” and that the Bush mishandled it from the outset by taking its “eye off the ball.” That, he said, left the U.S. in a more dangerous position in Afghanistan, the al-Qaida stronghold where Osama bin Laden and his cohorts plotted the Sept 11 terror attacks. The war has also cost the United States support from other nations around the world, he said. Cheney took issue with Biden's assertion that the Obama White House had been successful in winding down the Iraq war. “For them to try to take credit for what happened in Iraq is a little strange,” Cheney said. “It ought to go with a healthy dose of 'thank you, George Bush.'” Still, Biden said Iraq will have successful parliamentary elections next month and the U.S. is likely to bring home some 90,000 combat troops by summer's end. More than 4,370 U.S. military personnel have died in Iraq since Bush ordered the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been wounded or killed. Turning to the main issue on the minds of most voters, Biden said Obama inherited a shrinking economy with financial institutions that were on the edge of collapse, threatening to move the world into a depression. Biden said the economy expanded at 5.8 percent during the last quarter and the U.S. has “stopped the hemorrhaging of jobs.” He said there was “tangible evidence” economy was moving in the right direction. By the time of November's elections, he said, “in addition to bringing home 90,000 American troops, troops out of Iraq, the story of this administration is going to be more clearly told, and we're going to just fine.” http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BIDEN_CHENEY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&… added by: xiola
…has produced the best wire report maybe ever . Johnny Weir has to stay in the Olympic Village with all the funky Eastern Europeans and people who don’t speak awesome because he is being threatened by fur activists …for being fierce . Johnny Weir is terrified of the same passionate furpeople who like to throw paint on catwalks and pie Michael Kors because Canada’s full of crazies who show up to the Olympics that might wild out or something and who definitely send him crazy angry letters. Vogued Weir: “All these crazy fur people definitely changed my mind. Security wise, staying in a hotel would be very difficult,” Weir told reporters after turning up for an 0800 news conference s porting a striking red and white silk scarf looped around his neck and with his nails manicured. That’s an actual quote, with actual context (“a striking red and white silk scarf,” Reuters?), from a wire report. And if you can’t trust an Olympian whose style icons include Dr. Frank N. Furter and Liberace, who can you trust? Weir’s actually switched to faux before after receiving death threats and the like, but never renounced the Real McCoy, and now appears to have crossed the threshold again. This man’s safety must be protected. “I decided to stay in the village and my team has made it as comfortable as possible. I don’t want any outside influences to hurt my chances here. Even though I’m not always comfortable rooming with somebody or being in a communal village sort of situation, it’s what I’ve got to deal with.” The American figure skater had talked about staying in a hotel because he didn’t enjoy his experience in the Olympic village four years ago. Your passe, pedestrian, protie Olympic Villages simply aren’t fab enough for Johnny Weir, bottom line. So instead Johnny Weir is rooming with Olympic Ice Dancer Tanith Belbin , who will help Weir do Weir things, like, I don’t know, eat brunch? He’s also spruced up his previously underwhelming pad: The self-styled diva makes no secret of liking his own space and creature comforts but for the second Winter Games in succession, he has been forced to “rough it” — albeit in a room lit with scented candles and decorated with pink bath mats. Also, via the AP, this : Weir is sharing a room with American ice dancer Tanith Belbin, which will feature “our icon,” Lady Gaga , on the wall. “She needs to be there watching over us, protecting us,” Weir said. Our Lady of the Immaculate Penis will indeed protect you, Johnny. But all of this begs the question: What the fuck is the big deal on either side that this warrants death threats and/or standing your ground like Weir? Weir notes that fur activists find the Olympics prime time to get their cause out in the spotlight, and are capitalizing on Weir for their cause. Well, yes. Exactly. But on the other hand, Weir’s got a significant bone to pick, and we’re not talking about Lady Gaga’s penis: “There are humans dying everyday. There are thousands if not millions of homeless people in New York City. Look at what just happened in Haiti. I tend to focus my energy, if there is a cause, on humans. While that may be callous and bad of me, it’s my choice.” While it’s not the “eat it, bitches” I wanted to hear: well, yes. Exactly. No, Johnny, they can’t read your Poker Face, ’cause you’re gonna keep rocking that fur, and in spite of the assholes putting death threats his way, can you blame him? Tell ’em, girl. Requisite video of Johnny Walker/Lady Gaga fabulousness in action: How can you not like this person?* Previously: That Dude Geigh? *I have no doubt some of you humorless awfuls will find a way. And for that, I’m sorry. For you.
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The Fiercest, Fabulousest, Glitteriest Olympian Johnny Weir Battle with ‘Crazy Fur People’
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Switzerland's Simon Ammann, a Harry Potter look-a-like, won the first gold medal of the Vancouver Winter Olympics in ski jumping. It was simply magical. The Best Links: Ammann soars to Games first gold View
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Georgian racer was killed while training for upcoming Olympics events. By Josh Wigler Paramedics attend to Nodar Kumaritashvili after his fatal accident in Vancouver on Friday Photo: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after an accident at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, according to multiple reports. He was 21 years old. While practicing on the Olympic luge track, Kumaritashvili was ejected from his sled at a speed of roughly 80 miles per hour and, according to the Seattle Times, “flew completely off the track at a high rate of speed. He immediately smashed off of metal poles adjacent to the track.” According to Agence France Presse, Kumaritashvili was placed on a stretcher and taken away on an ambulance immediately following the accident. He died shortly thereafter. “It is a tragedy for his family and the team,” said Thomas Bach, vice president of the International Olympics Committee. “It casts a shadow over the opening ceremony.” Kumaritashvili’s death comes shortly after another recent accident on the Olympic luge track. Days ago, 2002 and 2006 gold medalist Armin Zoeggler of Italy also suffered a crash on the course but survived the incident without serious injury. The back-to-back accidents have raised some serious safety concerns amongst competitors, officiators and others. “Our first thoughts are with the family, friends and colleagues of the athlete,” IOC president Jacques Rogge stated in a press conference attended by The Vancouver Sun . The whole Olympic Family is struck by this tragedy, which clearly casts a shadow over these Games.” “This is a terrible accident,” added Josef Fendt, president of the International Luge Federation. “This is the gravest thing that can happen in sport, and our thoughts and those of the ‘luge family’, are naturally with those touched by this event.”
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Olympic Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili Dies In Crash
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