Word: mountains
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...their first week, the Vancouver Olympic Games looked well on their way to a gold medal in winter calamity--tragedy on the luge track, slush on the downhill course at Whistler and drenching rain on Cypress Mountain that eventually washed away the standing-room spectator zone, costing organizers around $1.4 million in refunded ticket sales. The signature snafu may be this: the Canadians couldn't make ice. A men's speed-skating final had to be halted for more than an hour because two ice-resurfacing machines were in various degrees of breakdown--sort of like the Games themselves. Still...
...accident wore off - and face it, we tend to quickly move on from such tragedy - the Vancouver Games offered the wonderful highs, and head-scratching lows, typical of any Olympics. In hindsight, all the early whining about glitches, like the need for snow to be helicoptered onto a dry mountain, and malfunctioning ice machines, seems silly. We'll remember the likes of Joannie Rochette, the Canadian figure skater who displayed genuine bravery while toe-looping and triple-axling two days after her mother died of a massive heart attack. We'll also feel for Sven Kramer, the Dutch speed skating...
Used to be that seeing a man apologize was a little like catching a glimpse of a Bengal tiger in its natural habitat: rare, thrilling, attainable only for truly patient souls. Now it's more like seeing a mountain lion on a busy highway. People wince, wonder how he managed to get himself in this situation and hope it will be over soon...
...Stretching west of the Hudson River for about 200 hectares, this mammoth park is big enough to justify the tram tours. Notable works include Alexander Calder's The Arch, a fearsome structure that looks like something left behind by alien visitors, and Louise Nevelson's City on the High Mountain - a piece in black steel that abstractly suggests an urban dystopia and might remind visiting Manhattanites not to hurry home. More details at www.stormking.org...
...change this harmful mindset? The answer goes back to childhood. The expectation for girls in early youth is to behave in a way that minimizes risk; girls are not often praised for successfully navigating a bike down a mountain or jumping off a swing and landing on her feet. We must change the tacit expectations girls encounter in childhood, or our daughters will irrevocably internalize the risk-averse mentality that so many of us subconsciously face even today...