Observations from the Couch 7.31, Updates

With a win in the 4x200 freestyle relay American swimmer Michael Phelps became the most decorated athlete in Olympic history. His 19^th medal surpassed the 18 of Russian gymnast Larisa Latynina as he broke one of those sports records that will never be broken. For the record Phelps currently has 15 gold, 2 silver, and 2 bronze medals and he still has three races to go in London. This is one Olympic moment that deserves a drink and I shall have one.

In all fairness to Hope Solo I thought I should mention that she is far from the only athlete in London who needs to think before they talk. Before the games even began Kobe Bryant announced to the world that this Olympics' edition of the U.S. men's basketball team was better than even the original "dream team." That was the 1992 Olympic team which was the first made up of NBA players and has sometimes been called the best sports team of any kind ever assembled. To answer Kobe I'll just throw out a few names from that team. Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, and David Robinson. They won every game with the wins ranging from a 32 point win in the gold medal game against Croatia to a 68 point opening game win over Angola.

Hope Solo threw a shutout today, her second in three games, as the U.S. women defeated North Korea 1-0 in front of 30,000, evidently no empty seats at this game. The American women swept the opening round of the tournament and now play New Zealand on Friday. It is the first time in Olympic history the U.S. team has swept its group.

The U.S. women's field hockey team stunned the 2^nd in the world ranked Argentina today by a 1-0 score. It was a repeat of the Pan American Games where the U.S. earned an Olympic spot by defeating Argentina. Before that loss Aregentina had not lost at the Pan Am Games in 25 years. The U.S. is ranked 10^th in the world and will face Australia on Thursday. The win keeps alive hopes for a medal after the American team lost its opening game.

In a totally different sporting area the Penn State football team  began practice today for its first season since 1965 without Joe Paterno as head coach. The team was greeted by an early morning rally attended by thousands of fans. Also the University announced it would loan the Athletic Department $60 million to pay its NCAA fine. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbitt continues to tell anybody that will listen that no tax dollars will be used to pay the fine. This is easy to believe when you consider that under Corbitt the state has cut education funding to almost nothing at all.

And than there are the Phillies. Can you say fire sale?

Observations 2.9 Updates

I'm trying something a little different here. Usually if I want to update a post I do just that and than change the post date if I want it to go out in the email. The problem with that is it messes with the original flow if there are more than one posts on a subject. I'm just going to try it this way for now.

In my 2.6 post about Miley Cyrus I mentioned how I was pleasantly surprised to find out Disney was such a gay friendly company. A friend reminded me of Gay Days which is a loosely organized event in which LGBT people and their families spend a day at Disney World. It began with a few thousand people on a single day in 1991 but now has grown to a week long event and over a 100,000 people. Disney in no way endorses the event but at the same time it does nothing to stop it.

In my 2.7 post I wrote about states that are currently considering gay marriage legislation. Yesterday (2.8) the Washington State House passed a bill legalizing gay marriage which had previously been passed by the state senate. The bill now goes to Govenor Chris Gregoire who is expected to sign it next week making Washington the 8^th state to legalize gay marriage.

I also have this video I have been wanting to share but events got in the way and I never got around to using it. During the debate before the Washington Senate vote on its marriage equality bill State Senator Ed Murray takes the floor and announces he will soon marry his partner Michael Shiosaki. He also told his colleagues before the vote "regardless of how you vote on this bill, an invitation will be in the mail" to their future wedding.

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