I thought the sand pit diving was a joke but... umm... he trained by diving into a sand pit? WTF?

meanmutton: I thought the sand pit diving was a joke but... umm... he trained by diving into a sand pit? WTF?

"Lee -- who lives in SoCal -- says at his peak, he was five-feet-two-inches tall. Now, he stands less than five feet tall."

Well now we know how that happened.

Link

s1ugg0: meanmutton: I thought the sand pit diving was a joke but... umm... he trained by diving into a sand pit? WTF?

"Lee -- who lives in SoCal -- says at his peak, he was five-feet-two-inches tall. Now, he stands less than five feet tall."

Well now we know how that happened.

I know you can get shrinkage from being in a pool, but this is ridiculous.

He basically invented beach volleyball.

On a serious note: What is it about the ideal of America that it somehow manages to survive and transcend the bigotry of many actual Americans? Just today we have this Korean-American, and over in the Politics tab the Japanese-American who earned a Medal of Honor even while many other Japanese-Americans were interned.

czetie
On a serious note: What is it about the ideal of America that it somehow manages to survive and transcend the bigotry of many actual Americans?

Bigotry is innate, but anti-bigotry is encoded in the constitution. There is a ongoing struggle between the selfish, and those who realize that freedom requires sacrifice.

Will this kick off a few weeks of InsaniLee?

czetie: On a serious note: What is it about the ideal of America that it somehow manages to survive and transcend the bigotry of many actual Americans? Just today we have this Korean-American, and over in the Politics tab the Japanese-American who earned a Medal of Honor even while many other Japanese-Americans were interned.

Because there's a lot of bigotry pretty much everywhere you go, and there's probably a bit less of it in America than most places.

Holy shiat!

The guy is also the OLDEST gold medal winner (he got gold at the age of 32), and he was a medical doctor too.

Overachiever much?

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/sto ry/detail/keeping_the_dream_aliv e /6248/

Baji: Link

I pissed myself a little bit.

bdub77: He basically invented beach volleyball.

Truly a hero in my book

/ along with the inventors of spandex and the bikini

IAmRight: Because there's a lot of bigotry pretty much everywhere you go, and there's probably a bit less of it in America than most places.

Yeah, but no. I'm going to have to disagree on that. You look at America's record on civil rights for blacks; on gay marriage or on gays serving openly in the military; on women's rights including suffrage; on ending slavery (late, and it took a war); it's long history of explicit discrimination against various ethnic groups in immigration... on just about any topic, you have to say that America demonstrates more institutional bigotry than any other Western democracy.

And yet, despite this, the idealism of the people discriminated against survives. Personally, I think that's pretty damn interesting.

Dear Jerk: czetie
On a serious note: What is it about the ideal of America that it somehow manages to survive and transcend the bigotry of many actual Americans?

Bigotry is innate, but anti-bigotry is encoded in the constitution. There is a ongoing struggle between the selfish, and those who realize that freedom requires sacrifice.

I don't know about that... and neither do the blacks and indians whom the supreme court fked over while interpreting the constitution. he heard some pretty ridiculous reasons to exclude him from the pool. the question is: where did that shiat come from in the first place?

His example is the reason why 'you have to be twice as good to be considered just as good' is true. So did the US do him like Jesse Owens when he came back with the gold? How did that work for Asian Americans?

/dude even big-upped the Brits in this interview
//talk about hitting all the right notes

czetie: IAmRight: Because there's a lot of bigotry pretty much everywhere you go, and there's probably a bit less of it in America than most places.

Yeah, but no. I'm going to have to disagree on that. You look at America's record on civil rights for blacks; on gay marriage or on gays serving openly in the military; on women's rights including suffrage; on ending slavery (late, and it took a war); it's long history of explicit discrimination against various ethnic groups in immigration... on just about any topic, you have to say that America demonstrates more institutional bigotry than any other Western democracy.

And yet, despite this, the idealism of the people discriminated against survives. Personally, I think that's pretty damn interesting.

The Bill of Rights and the Constitution and the Flag and the Office are more important than the person. People fk up. Those four things above can merely be misinterpreted, but are not 'wrong' (see Dear Jerk's comment about anti-bigotry being encoded in the constitution). In monarchies, a person (or a family) is The Absolute Authority. Not here. That's why monarchies are weird.

And that's why people who are subjugated can have idealism about what a country is supposed to be in spite of the reality of what a country actually is.

He only did that because there weren't any pools full of crawdad to be found

czetie: IAmRight: Because there's a lot of bigotry pretty much everywhere you go, and there's probably a bit less of it in America than most places.

Yeah, but no. I'm going to have to disagree on that. You look at America's record on civil rights for blacks; on gay marriage or on gays serving openly in the military; on women's rights including suffrage; on ending slavery (late, and it took a war); it's long history of explicit discrimination against various ethnic groups in immigration... on just about any topic, you have to say that America demonstrates more institutional bigotry than any other Western democracy.

And yet, despite this, the idealism of the people discriminated against survives. Personally, I think that's pretty damn interesting.

Wait, are you a troll or are you seriously that ignorant of European history and politics?

18% of the French population voted for Marine Le Pen for President THIS YEAR.

Nearly every country in Western Europe has an organized Nationalist party so it's not just France who has a party dedicated to expelling immigrants. (Danish People's Party, Belgium's Vlaams Belang, The Finns Party, National Democratic Party, Netherland's Party for Freedom, UK's Democratic Unionist Party, etc.)

In Switzerland, women were universally barred from voting until the 70s and were unable to vote in Appenzell Innerrhoden until the Supreme Court forced them to in 1990.

Same-sex marriage is illegal in the UK, Ireland, Greece, Italy, France, and Luxomburg. In France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland same-sex couples can't adopt children together.

In France, it's illegal for Muslim students to wear a hijab.

Oh, and while the US was interning Japanese-Americans while at war with Japan, the Germans were systematically exterminating the Jews and Roma.

IAmRight: Will this kick off a few weeks of InsaniLee?

czetie: On a serious note: What is it about the ideal of America that it somehow manages to survive and transcend the bigotry of many actual Americans? Just today we have this Korean-American, and over in the Politics tab the Japanese-American who earned a Medal of Honor even while many other Japanese-Americans were interned.

Because there's a lot of bigotry pretty much everywhere you go, and there's probably a bit less of it in America than most places.

Pretty much this. If any history buffs like to correct me feel free, but I'm pretty sure a Japanese-American regiment was one of the most decorated American units in WW2 [citation needed].

\Hey, I'm lazy.

meanmutton: czetie: IAmRight: Because there's a lot of bigotry pretty much everywhere you go, and there's probably a bit less of it in America than most places.

Yeah, but no. I'm going to have to disagree on that. You look at America's record on civil rights for blacks; on gay marriage or on gays serving openly in the military; on women's rights including suffrage; on ending slavery (late, and it took a war); it's long history of explicit discrimination against various ethnic groups in immigration... on just about any topic, you have to say that America demonstrates more institutional bigotry than any other Western democracy.

And yet, despite this, the idealism of the people discriminated against survives. Personally, I think that's pretty damn interesting.

Wait, are you a troll or are you seriously that ignorant of European history and politics?

18% of the French population voted for Marine Le Pen for President THIS YEAR.

Nearly every country in Western Europe has an organized Nationalist party so it's not just France who has a party dedicated to expelling immigrants. (Danish People's Party, Belgium's Vlaams Belang, The Finns Party, National Democratic Party, Netherland's Party for Freedom, UK's Democratic Unionist Party, etc.)

In Switzerland, women were universally barred from voting until the 70s and were unable to vote in Appenzell Innerrhoden until the Supreme Court forced them to in 1990.

Same-sex marriage is illegal in the UK, Ireland, Greece, Italy, France, and Luxomburg. In France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland same-sex couples can't adopt children together.

In France, it's illegal for Muslim students to wear a hijab.

Oh, and while the US was interning Japanese-Americans while at war with Japan, the Germans were systematically exterminating the Jews and Roma.

ExperianScaresCthulhu: Dear Jerk: czetie
On a serious note: What is it about the ideal of America that it somehow manages to survive and transcend the bigotry of many actual Americans?

Bigotry is innate, but anti-bigotry is encoded in the constitution. There is a ongoing struggle between the selfish, and those who realize that freedom requires sacrifice.

I don't know about that... and neither do the blacks and indians whom the supreme court fked over while interpreting the constitution. he heard some pretty ridiculous reasons to exclude him from the pool. the question is: where did that shiat come from in the first place?

His example is the reason why 'you have to be twice as good to be considered just as good' is true. So did the US do him like Jesse Owens when he came back with the gold? How did that work for Asian Americans?

/dude even big-upped the Brits in this interview
//talk about hitting all the right notes

Did any European country in that Olympics have a Jesse Owens?

czetie: Yeah, but no. I'm going to have to disagree on that. You look at America's record on civil rights for blacks; on gay marriage or on gays serving openly in the military; on women's rights including suffrage; on ending slavery (late, and it took a war); it's long history of explicit discrimination against various ethnic groups in immigration... on just about any topic, you have to say that America demonstrates more institutional bigotry than any other Western democracy.

Freel free to check out meanmutton's post up there.

Oh, and the whole "ending slavery late," we pretty much exist "late" if we're comparing it to European countries. The U.S. abolished slavery within 100 years of its founding. We have a FAR more permissive outlook toward immigration than damn near every other first-world country, whether you think it's offensive or not. Fortunately Europe hasn't had any recent cases of ethnic cleansing to show how bigoted they can be. Hell, there have been genocides in Europe IN MY LIFETIME and I'm only 28.