Showing posts with label olympics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label olympics. Show all posts
Friday, October 23, 2009
The Power of fear...
I was talking to my friend yesterday and we were walking around campus after my test. And the Olympics came up in our conversation. We talked about which sports we watch and then I said that I wished that the Olympics would have been hosted by Chicago instead of Brazil. What she said next surprised me. She goes, "I would never go if it was here. I'm glad that it's not the U.S. hosting it because the terrorists and Bin Laden would do something. They're just waiting to do something. " I'm like are you serious? I would go to the Olympics if it was hosted here, that's pretty cool to actually go to the Olympics and see the events in person instead of through a tv screen. I would never want to live in a bubble or be scared of doing anything just because there's a "threat" from terrorists. There's always going to be people who want to do harm but we shouldn't let them win by playing into their fear.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Rugby and Golf are now Olympic sports
Two new sports are added to the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, rugby and golf. Rugby which was last played in 1924 is finally coming back. I was hoping that they would bring back softball but at least they have rugby now. I'm really excited that they brought it back because it's a really interesting sport to watch and play. It's not a popular sport here in the U.S., but rugby is pretty popular outside the States. The games are not even shown on tv here, which I think is lame. I think once people see the game of rugby at the Olympics, it'll bring more popularity and fans to the sport.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Gender and Sex
This story had been in the news for a few weeks and it is atrocious. Its the story of the South African runner, Semenya, whose gender has been in question. First of all these people need to get their terminology correct, gender is the social disticntion that characterizes what society perceives to be masculine of feminine. They have claimed to be running gender tests, but what medical test is there to test someone's gender? Is there a tool that one uses to measure how masculine/feminine one is? Maybe they have a check list and they specify criteria such as length of hair, shape of nails, color of lipgloss, size of muscle, preferred clothing, or perhaps the way one speaks. If they were to be allowed to do any test it would be a test to determine one's sex. Yes sex! Sex is one's biological makeup that determines if one is male or female. So after much thought I figured they were indeed testing her for gender confirmation. I guess because she didnt look/act/dress/ feminine enough then she should definitely be in question. There is so much to this story that I want to discuss but I just wanted to shed a little light on the situation. I was looking at the view and they mentioned that the tests proved that she was an intersex. Now what category should this excellent runner be placed in? There is no intersex category and she has lived her entire life as a female so why try to mess her life up to prove some egotistical satisfaction.
Is this feminine enough?
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