a note about the Olympics

My roommate has inspired this post since she likes to watch curling when the winter Olympics are on TV:

As we all know, the Olympics originated in Ancient Greece as an athletic contest. Only free, Greek-speaking men were allowed to participate in the events, which were originally only just foot races. Boxing, chariot racing, and discus throwing were added later. So basically the modern Olympics are not very much like the ancient predecessor since we neither speak Greek, all live in Greece, or just run in footraces (there are currently 26 summer Olympic sports). Hopefully we can all read and are freemen, but that doesn't have to be the case.
But here's a fun fact about the origin of the ancient Olympics: it was founded by King Pelops. Now that might not seem very interesting, except mythologically he is the son of Tantalus. Tantalus actually killed his son Pelops and served him to the gods as a meal. The gods punished Tantalus with eternal hunger and thirst and then restored Pelops. Pelops wasn't a nice guy. After literally being mincemeat he cheated during a chariot race to win Hippodameia as his wife. Basically his whole family is cursed since his sons (Atreus and Thyetes) are totally d-bags who also like to make people into pies. And we wonder where Shakespeare thought up some scenes from Titus Andronicus.

But this rant was really supposed to be about curling. Let's see: ice, brooms, rocks? Sounds like communism if it were a sport.

Curling is actually Scottish and has been an Olympic sport since 1998. But they take curling pretty seriously; ice professionals monitor the ice to make sure it stays at the right temperature. That's crazy! There is also handicapped curling, so the Special Olympics can have curling as well.

sticky sap

Story:
Today I noticed that PKE, a local sorority, had decorated its front door with wrapping paper to make it look like a present.

Rant:
It is November 14. Thanksgiving is still over a week away. I'm very much against Christmas decorations going up so early. This is not wholly directed at you, PKE. Wal-Mart and CVS have their decorations up as well. Oh Christmas, you consumer holiday! It's not surprising though, considering that even the wise men brought Jesus gifts. They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Gold, well, is gold. That's a pretty nice present.
Frankincense is a type of incense that comes from a tree. It was also used to make Egyptian eyeliner. Nice smelling makeup is still a good gift.
And myrrh. Well. The Romans used it as an additive in their wines as well as a cover up for the smell of burning corpses. According to a Greek myth later adopted by the Roman poet Ovid, the myrrh tree was created when Myrrha was punished. Myrrha, daughter of either Theias or Cinyras (Ovid), was in love with her father and slept with him. She became pregnant and bore Adonis of all people after turning into a tree. Adonis was the most beautiful man that ever lived, which says something really weird about incest if you stop to think about it.
But backtrack another second. Myrrha was punished for wanting what you can't have. The wise men gave Jesus myrrh. Is this a subtle message that we want what we can't have!?!?! That's a little too philisophical/theological for my taste, but it just seemed interesting.
On a last interesting side note, Myrrha also appears in Dante suffering from rabies. How she got rabies is unknown, especially since she is a tree, but it's worth mentioning.

That was a long rant that really didn't have much to do with Christmas.