DNC kickoff party!

DNC: Recreate 68

I took the kids to Denver today for some pre-DNC activities orchestrated by RECREATE 68. There were self-defense trainings, Know Your Rights tutorials, drumming instruction and a whole ton of media -- local, national and international.

There were also cops galore: on foot, on bicycle, on motorcycle, inside cars, outside cars, standing around in groups, staring, and acting generally creepy. Their omnipresence gave the day an eerie overcast. Ick.

As exciting as it was at Civic Center Park, the kids tired of it and pleaded for a trip to the nearby Denver Art Museum.

A muffin and a Monet later, we headed back to the safety of our own little police state down south.

If it sounds too good to be true

...it probably is.

Jamaica's Usain Bolt won both the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints in world record time, something that hasn't been done in 32 years. The Jamaican women, led by Shelly-Ann Fraser, swept the 100-meter race. Today another Jamaican woman, Veronica Campbell-Brown won the 200 meter sprint. A single country winning gold in all four sprints hasn't happened since the USA did it in 1988.

All this metal begs the question, what the hell is going on with the Jamaican runners?

I'm much too sweet to have a taste for sour grapes, but it seems likely that the Jamaican sprinters are doping. Their current coach's association with Trevor Graham -- a Jamaican silver medalist in 1988 and coach of Beijing silver medalist Shawn Crawford -- who recently received a lifetime ban from the sport for helping athletes obtain performance enhancing drugs, further fuels suspicion.

Of course, the Jamaican Track Federation vehemently denies the doping charges pointing out that the athletes have been tested and retested and, according to team doctor, Herb Elliott, remain "ready at any time at any hour to be tested."

Sounds convincing...NOT. The dopers are always body lengths ahead of the U.S. Anti-Doping agency. It makes no difference how many times you test if you're not looking for what they're taking.

There is a Jamaican saying likkle likkle mek nuff nuff. Loosely translated it means "a whole lot of a little bit amounts to a whole lot." Or, more simply, it all adds up.

Yep, to a whole lot of gold.

Jane Fonda meet Tiki Barber

Beware. This is going to be a rant.

Today, I met with great misfortune. I watched MSNBC's unbelievably sub-par coverage of the Olympics. Jenna Wolfe, know-nothing sports commentator extraordinaire, was recounting her favorite moments of the Games. To her, the most poignant moment was American swimmer, Dara Torres, being wonderfully gracious in defeat. Torres didn't win, but the moment was inspiring nonetheless. Wolfe's asswipe co-commentator back home, tight-pants Tamryn someone-or-another, chimed in "if you're not first, you're last."

You have got to be fucking kidding me. Dara Torres, 41-year-old mother of two children, is competing in her FIFTH Olympic Games. She's medaled in each and every one. In Beijing, she took silver in the women's 50-meter freestyle race, .01 seconds behind the 22-year-old winner, Britta Steffen. About 35 minutes later, she won another silver medal as part of the American 4x100-meter medley relay team. Her 12 Olympic medals tie the all-time medal record for a female Olympian.

What a loser.

When Jenna Wolfe wasn't supplying us with completely asinine commentary, she was mocking co-host and NFL phenom, Tiki Barber, for not having a Superbowl Ring.

My favorite moment of the Games? I'd say it was when Tiki Barber called Jenna Wolfe a cunt on-air for all the world to hear. He's taking all the heat for the "lack of chemistry." But for those of us who understand and revere sport, Tiki's words are pure gold.

Tea-horse road to the sky

Lady, lady, I take you today. No ticket! No tourist!

I'm standing in the town square reviewing my inventory of polite rejections when, lo and behold, my rogue intuition wrests its way to the forefront and I hear myself saying, "Okay, so where are we going?" An abnormally large Naxi woman emerges from the shadows and sizes me up. "You ride horse?" she asks rather skeptically. "Sure, I ride horse," I respond indignantly, at once calling to mind a favorite movie, True Grit.

Rooster Cogburn: Mr. Rat, I have a writ here says you're to stop eating Chin Lee's cornmeal forthwith. Now it's a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of the same. See, doesn't pay any attention to me.
[shoots the rat]
Chin Lee: [Runs into the room] Outside is place for shooting!
Rooster Cogburn: I'm servin' some papers!

Okay, I know that had nothing to do with anything, but I liked it.

Anyway, thanks to trusty intuition, and the kind attention of my guides Richard and Li, I had a most magical day. I rode a shaggy little horse four hours up a steep mountain trail -- the very path that for hundreds of years has linked southwest China to Tibet. At the summit were views of the Yangtze River and the breathtaking Snow Mountains, known to us as the Himalaya.

When the blue haze lifted, I could see all the way to everywhere.


TO THE LEFT OF THE CENTER PEAK IS THE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE

ALPINE FLOWERS AND CROPS

MARIJUANA MAKES A PRETTY CONTRAST

THE NAXI VILLAGE

VIEW OF LASHI LAKE

ME LIVING LARGE ON A TEENY TINY HORSE

PEPPER BERRIES


NAXI WOMEN PICKING PEPPER BERRIES

A BOY HIDING BEHIND HIS CABBAGE

AFTER TEN MINUTES OF CAJOLING HE'S READY TO POSE

ALPINE DOGHOUSE

THE MASTER'S CAMPSITE

THE YANGTZE RIVER

LOOKING TOWARD TIBET

MY TRAIL GUIDE

OUR TRUSTY LITTLE STEEDS

MARIE AND RICHARD INCONSEQUENTIAL

THE NAXI MEN AFTER I BLEW THEM A KISS!

Beautiful Bird's Nest