Johnny Weir – Poker Face by frutty87
(h/t commentor Felinious Wench)
Via commentor LAMH36:
The White House delivered a strong message of opposition to Russia’s anti-gay laws Tuesday with the announcement of its delegation to the opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics.
The White House delegation will include an openly gay athlete: tennis great Billie Jean King.
It will not include the president, first lady or the vice president, all who headed the previous four Olympic delegations, or a cabinet secretary, only a former one. This marks the first Olympics since the 2000 Sydney Summer Games that a U.S. president, vice president, first lady or former president has not been a member of the delegation for the opening ceremony, which will be Feb. 7 in Sochi…
The Washington Post ran two articles on the upcoming Sochi Olympics last weekend, an editorial:
… Mr. Putin’s actions place him blatantly at odds with Principle 6 of the Olympic Charter, which bans “any form of discrimination” by a host country. But the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which overlooked China’s crackdown on free expression and political dissent prior to the 2008 Summer Games, has declined to take notice — much less to put pressure on Moscow. Instead, IOC officials are pointing to statements by Mr. Putin that gay athletes and spectators will not be discriminated against during the Games.
That assurance is looking increasingly dubious. Mr. Putin’s rhetoric and the anti-gay law he supported have opened the floodgates for gay-bashing in Russia. State television programs regularly broadcast vile propaganda denouncing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement. As Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch recently reported on the opposite page, state television channel Rossiya 1, whose parent is an Olympic broadcasting franchise holder, recently used a secretly made recording of a meeting she had with Russian gay activists to support the claim that “Western, European sodomites are trying to infiltrate Russia and organize a protest movement here, among our Russian perverts.”…
… and a multi-page travel guide to the city, including the following:
“… We’re not used to a man kissing another man,” said [tour guide] Andrei. “Sooner or later, we’ll all follow your footsteps, but it’s not going to be this year or next.”
Sochi is home to two gay clubs, including the Lighthouse, which holds nightly drag shows. Owner Andrei Tanichev, who opened the establishment eight years ago, said that he has planned a special performance for the Olympics, assembling the country’s best “actors” (translation: drag queens). He is also preparing something smashing for the Group of Eight summit in June 2014.
“We are more tolerant than people in other cities,” he said from the comfort of a dimly lit booth at his club. “After some time, Russian people will be more tolerant.”…
Baud
Fabulous!
Baud
OT: Anyone watching Rachel? Apparently, Issa is the original Snowden.
Yatsuno
@Baud: lolwut? Is someone doing cheap Wal-Mart crack?
MikeJ
@Yatsuno: BTW, you have an ereader with you?
Narcissus
I think it would be cool if athletes, activists and media-types made Sochi the gayest Olympics ever.
Baud
@Yatsuno:
As opposed to the pricey stuff you’re now on…?
Actually, apparently Issa had a bad habit of leaking confidential documents that he would subpoena as Chairman of House Oversight, so now the White House is not giving him any more docs.
kindness
No I am not comforted by those assuring words.
But rather than pull out of the Olympics I think the best lesson would be to have the Russians get their asses kicked in the games by a LBGT Olympian.
NotMax
Would that the jumbtron be hacked, with this or something similar.
Yatsuno
@MikeJ: I forgot it. I could send Mom back for it but I’m not sure where it is. It’s just an old Kindle anyway. Pourquoi?
Yatsuno
@Baud: Oh I saw him bitch about that this morning. The man is a thief and a liar so I’m on the side of the White House here.
Violet
I’m going to miss Johnny Weir at the Olympics. He was always my favorite skater to watch.
MikeJ
@Yatsuno: Was gonna give you login to my library so you wouldn’t run out of stuff to read while confined. Text me if you need it.
Violet
@NotMax: A job for Anonymous maybe?
Baud
@efgoldman:
I didn’t mean to defame Snowden by comparing Issa to him. My bad.
schrodinger's cat
You know who else presided over an Olympics when he was the leader. Bow before the paw.
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
But he had Rick Warren speak at his inaugural!
Seriously, I’m glad the President made this move.
NotMax
Oldish joke (gonna get slapped for this):
Q: What do you get if you cross Billie Jean King with Bo Derek?
A: A DC-10.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
WORSE THAN BUSH!
Botsplainer
@efgoldman:
Been reading Amazon book reviews for “direct to kindle” releases, I see.
Comrade Jake
What’s awesome about this is that the wingnuts are going to freak, only to realize they’ve aligned themselves with… the Russians.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That’s not fair. Congressman Darrell Issa made a lot more money from arson and insurance fraud than he did from stealing cars. At least that’s what People Are Saying.
Pffft. O-bot. He’s been dead to me since Donnie McClurkin sang at a rally for him. (Don’t know who Donnie McClurkin is? Turn in your PUMA card!).
MomSense
@Violet:
I love watching Johnny Weir. I also love it when gofugyourself reviews the ice skating costumes.
http://gofugyourself.com/us_national_fugure-skating_championships2010-01-2010
dmsilev
@Comrade Jake: A lot of the wingnuts love Putin. Good authoritative leader with Solid Conservative Views, and as a bonus appeals to those wingnuts with latent or repressed homosexual feelings.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Comrade Jake: Some wingnuts are proud to ally themselves with Vladimir Putin, including this high-ranking member of the Reagan administration.
Comrade Jake
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: LOL – Pat Buchanan FTW!
My favorite Buchanan story. He was in the GOP primary in NH, and the usual charges of anti-semitism came up. He was giving an interview and was claiming he obviously didn’t have anything against the Jews, because, gosh darnit, look at all of his Jewish friends.
One of the local TV stations interviewed one of the rabbis in Manchester and asked him what he thought of Buchanan’s explanation. The rabbi said “I believe him. After all, I have a lot of friends who are anti-semites.”
raven
Bonnie Blair is from Champaign. Go Illini!
NotMax
@efgoldman
True story.
Back in the Bronze Age, there was one reviewer for a paper who just hated my guts. (He was the live-in lover of a woman on the theater’s board of directors who was bent out of shape that I wouldn’t bow and scrape to her as did most everyone else.)
I had directed a show, and the review was (paraphrasing):
“Fabulous production. Don’t know when I’ve had a more enjoyable night at the theater. Rarely experience staging and performances of such stupendous vitality. Drop whatever you’re doing and get tickets now! Oh, by the way, the direction sucked.”
I laughed at it then, and still do.
P.S.: Show sold out every night of its run, and was the only production done that entire season which turned a profit. A hefty profit.
Ash Can
Johnny Weir is tremendous. That is all.
jenn
As an aside to someone in one of the previous threads, who thought Brian Boitano was Canadian, and then thought, well, maybe they were thinking of Kurt Browning, I postulate instead that they were thinking of Brian Orser. The Battle(s) of the Brians got a lot of airplay back in the day.
/not that you really care!
Omnes Omnibus
I hope the Sochi Olympics will be fabulous.
Belafon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Good. I know a little of my grandparents time, and I would not want this country to go back there. My grandfather, who only had a third grade education, made my grandmother quit high school after the eleventh grade because it was useless.
El Caganer
Maybe I’m not reading as much about this as I should, but it doesn’t sound like the Russians are running this dog-and-pony show for us. Sounds more like they’re pitching India and any Muslim-ruled countries they can find.
Keith G
The massive ineffectiveness of the camera crew in the above video sure give one reason to respect the professionalism of American production values in such events. Wier was out of frame way too much.
Cacti
President Obama has easily been the most gay-friendly POTUS in US history, and that by a comfortable margin.
I hope that this establishes a new normal for Dem presidential candidates going forward.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: You are clearly forgetting Grover Cleveland.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
I’m hoping a couple of athletes on the medal stand raise their fists wearing rainbow colored gloves in the gay power salute.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I am expecting someone to do something – maybe not that, but something.
Bubba Dave
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
A rainbow fisting for Putin!
Ripley
@Bubba Dave: Yeah, like that’s never happened before.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ripley: Ew.
AxelFoley
Someone told me Bamz hated teh gayz.
fuckwit
Wow… the ex-commies are now seeing commies, erhm, Americans, hiding under their beds, trying to destroy them by corrupting the Purity of Essence of their bodily fluids!
Maybe they should dig up old Tailgunner Joe, teach him to speak Russian, and ship him over there?
The irony of this is astounding.
The Russians, who American betwetters were once terrified of, thinking that rock music and marijuana were communist conspiracies to destroy our moral rectitude and collapse our society, are now themselves convinced that gay people and porn are an American conspiracy to destroy their moral rectitude and collapse their society.
NotOnScript
I guess the Russians must be protected from learning about the history of Christianity. The kiss of peace is obviously a Western idea. (Link to Wikipedia article containing a picture NSFW in Russia.)
Ramalama
I recently watched the Billie Jean King special online at pbs.borg and was kind of amazed at how outwardly shitty people (men and the occasional female British tennis champ) were towards … women. Not amazed the people are shitty, just how out they were – not just Republicans of a certain ilk about their attitudes against women.
I became aware of tennis when Martina still had brown hair (she’s the reason why I fell in love with the sport), and not so much BJK. I was really young and I didn’t know how key a role women’s tennis, Virginia Slims, played in staging the case for equal rights.
The fact that BJK is also a lesbo and not apologetic about it, makes her appointment to represent such a great burn to Russia. Thanks a lot, Obama.
mikefromArlington
Obama = Bush
C.V. Danes
The reason the International Olympic Committee overlooks these kinds of things is because of the star$ in their eye$.
sparrow
@fuckwit: Wingnut is a universal phenomenon.
Every day I look around me and realize humanity as a whole is way too stupid to survive for very much longer. Sigh.
Vanya
@El Caganer: “it doesn’t sound like the Russians are running this dog-and-pony show for us.”
No, it’s for internal consumption. In order to stay in power Putin needs the population to believe the West presents a threat. Now that Russians have embraced markets, mass consumption, etc. it is getting harder and harder to do that. Railing about the West’s shallow consumer culture rings pretty hollow, while everyone in Russia knows people live much better in Europe and that there is no military threat coming from Europe. He can’t use religion directly as the wedge because promoting Orthodoxy too aggressively would alienate Russia’s significant muslim population as well as Russia’s muslim semi-satellites like Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan. Gay rights are just the simplest issue available to get Russian cultural conservatives and xenophobes of all stripes unified against the “Western threat”, and convince them that Putin is protecting them. Since Russians have traditionally been more tolerant about people’s private sexual practices than Western Europeans or Americans, I’m not sure how effective Putin’s strategy will be long term, I tend to think not very.
mai naem
Is there a reason they have Janet Napolitano going? I know the rumors but did Janet ever come out as gay? I was wondering if they’re sending her because of Snowden or because of the possible ghey.
Matt McIrvin
A dissenting opinion from Curt Thompson on Google+:
https://plus.google.com/u/1/+CurtThompson/posts/VtTkp5HNJkk
Johnny Weir has been getting a lot of heat as well for mocking people who want the US to pull out of Sochi.
john b
i don’t see how screwing a bunch of athletes out of a lifetime’s preparation for the olympics would accomplish much. It seems it would piss off a lot of Americans, and improve nothing in Russia.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
I didn’t realize that killing off DOMA and making it possible for gay servicemembers to have their marriages recognized was something that just “looks good without having any substance behind it.”
I also didn’t realize that protesting at the place where the discrimination is happening is inferior to protesting 5,000 miles away from it. Live and learn, I guess.
ETA: I can understand people wanting a boycott, but to turn a lack of one into yet another example of Obama slapping LGBT people in the face prepatory to throwing them under the bus is just dumb.
Three-nineteen
@Matt McIrvin: I met some members of the 1980 Olympic swim team. They were so happy and excited that all their hard work and sacrifice was leading to fulfilling their lifelong dreams. Then the US pulled out. Some of them never made it back on future teams. All for a political statement that had nothing to do with them.
Dashing the hopes and dreams of American Olympic athletes, some of whom are LBTGQ, will not do any good. It will just up the medal count for Russia.
Thursday
Side note: the delegation from the previous host city – Vancouver – includes openly gay city councillor and deputy mayor Tim Stevenson. They were considering a boycott, but decided instead it was a better option to simply show someone who was, well, normal. People voted for him because he could do his job, not because he was gay.