Through her father she's an ethnic Tabasaran of Dagestan. Tabasaran is an ergative language related to Lezgin. The Tabasaran are 100% Muslim and in desperate need of a viable Christian witness.
So where's the comment?
Right there at the top of the page.
Her mother is Russian, so maybe not.
This seems an appropriate place to recommend one of the greatest short films of all time, which happens to be a documentary of sorts about pole-vaulting: Arthur Penn's "The Highest," part of the 1972 Olympics film Visions of Eight. Wordless, epic, and all of about ten minutes long. Sadly, also hard to find.
She is on record as wanting to be a sex object like Sharapova.
Wow, Dagestan has a lot of ethnic groups and languages for a 2.5 million person country.
The Caucasus has more different languages than all the rest of Europe.
Probably because of all those mountains.
For her sake, we should all vigorously and enthusiastically objectify, objectify, objectify!
In an interview with The Guardian, Isinbayeva makes fun of the fact that female pole vaulters are seen as sex symbols for "male couch potatoes", as their usual muscular, but slim build makes them highly attractive.
There are no male couch potatos here, of course, but we can all make the proper adjustments.
That clip does look improbable, as if he were attached to a motor. Are you sure it's f'real?
With the moving camera, I find it hard to judge. It looks crazy fast, but not in a way that I'm sure is valid rather than illusory.
About Popov:
As an emerging star, he was asked which movie stars he most admired. "I don't dream about actors and actresses," said the youthful Russian. "They should dream about me. I'm reality, they are not."
I remember seeing that interview on NBC. I don't think the reporter was prepared for that answer.
So, taking this as a sports open thread, did anyone see the awards ceremony for the Australian Open? My mother was completely indignant -- she said that the presenter fawned over Sharpova at length, praising her astounding performance, and then flipped the first place trophy at Williams dismissively. Mom's not the most reliable witness, but she thought it was pointedly unpleasant.
That clip does look improbable, as if he were attached to a motor. Are you sure it's f'real?
Yeah, I clipped the early part where you can see his feet. He's unbelievable. Since you're probably the only person who'll download it, later tonight I'll upload the whole 50MB file.
He swims as though he's being towed along.
I would make fun of ogged spending his evening this way, but, well, you know.
Her picture on the Times home page is enticing.
That Serena Williams win reminded me a lot of this mostly-bad '90s movie called The Great White Hype starring Damon Wayans as the heavyweight boxing champion of the world and Samuel L. Jackson as his Don King-like promoter.
SPOILER (not like anyone's going to watch it anyway)
Wayans' fights haven't been drawing well because he's too dominant, so Samuel L. finds a good looking white guy to be his next challenger and hypes him up as an all-American underdog/Cinderella story, and the fight becomes a huge media spectacle. Wayans is insulted so he gains about 50 pounds, shows up at the fight with an enormous potbelly, and knocks out the white guy in Round 1.
OK, back to lurking...
So, taking this as a sports open thread, did anyone see the awards ceremony for the Australian Open?
Didn't see it, but I'm fascinated by what a nightmare for pro tennis the Williams sisters are. Not so much because they're black, but because they (and in specific, Serena) are so much better than everyone else. Federer right now is unbeatable on the men's side, but I don't think he is that much more dominant than Serena was a couple of years ago. And apparently she can just stop playing for a while, and then kick the crap out the top players in the world. That's the sort of supremacy that starts to undermine a sport.
The awards ceremony. Show some initiative, people (at least enough to watch it and tell me about it).
First Wimbledon victory I've seen dedicated to someone shot by some Crips.
Doubt it. It's the Australian Open. Hence the accent.
John is now freely inventing whole new ethnic groups. He'll be rattling on about Smallgarians and Canuckistan any minute now, and y'all will believe it.
Yeah, next thing you know he'll be talking about the Bozos or something.
Popov is truly amazing to watch. It's like the water only moves just as much as it has to to let him through.
31: There was a New Yorker article that appeared during the lead-up to the last summer Olympics about the next great hope of American swimming, a girl whose name I forget. The gist was that the sports' insiders were excited about her because she had what they considered to be the true determinant of a great swimmer, viz. a "feel for the water," vaguely defined as the ability to slip through, rather than fight against, the medium.
It does make the sport seem more attracive to think that greatness in it is still a matter of a skill that resists analysis.
Ah, right on the front page of Yahoo.
Ancient Persian relics attract Mexican museum goers
I have a rare copy of Wixman's book on Soviet language policy in the Caucasus. It lists about 70 languages and dialects that none of you have ever heard of, including both Caucasian dialects and also rare Persian dialects such as Tat (the Persian dialect of the Mountain Jews).
Maybe I bluff occasionally, maybe I don't, but just try me.
And I love this picture of pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva
I'm partial to this one.
22 - that movie was none too good, though. The high point was when the promoters went into this grunge club to hire the singer of a band as their great white hope, and the song the band is playing is just the album version of a Local H song. That was nicely unexpected.
a "feel for the water," vaguely defined as the ability to slip through, rather than fight against, the medium
Also used to describe the ability to "hold" the water, which means that when one is executing a stroke, one pushes against the water (generation propulsion) for as long and as efficiently as possible, as opposed to just having one's hand or leg slip back through the water, without generation much forward propulsion. Both these things: being streamlined and holding the water, are fiendishly difficult to teach to people who don't already have some feel for them.
