Have to decide for myself

 

The headline of this Daily Mail article caught my eye, and thus required further investigative effort.

Italian tennis star Camila Giorgi who reached the Wimbledon quarter finals is targeted by sexist trolls who say her raunchy lingerie snaps make her look more like a 'porn star than an athlete'

OK, first of all, let's note that the headline says the trolls are stating she looks MORE like a porn star than an athlete. That doesn't mean she looks like a porn star;   it just means that on the dial with "porn star" on the left and "athlete" on the right, the needle is leaning at least a bit left for those appraising the pictures (and being a bit sexist).

Now wait a minute.  I've written posts on this blog noting the lingerie-wearing photographs of the lovely (and now married) Caroline Wozniacki.  Did she look more like a porn star or an athlete in those pictures?  She even posed topless (with hands in the right places) and in bikinis for Sports Illustrated.  Athlete?  Porn star?   And many other female athletes have posed in swimwear or lingerie.  At what point do they look more like porn stars than athletes?   

So I guess one must appraise the photographs in which Ms. Giorgi is featured.

(tick tock, tick tock)

My own opinion:  no, despite a low level of sensuality, I don't think she looks like a porn star (based on particular body attributes and makeup), and I don't think she looks like a porn star or even a glamor model in the early stages of a shoot with the eventuality of getting nakey.   She looks like a woman wearing lingerie, and in one particular picture (shown below), she looks like an athletic woman wearing lingerie.

OK, so now, when she's doing her athletic (tennis) thing, does she look like an athlete?

I'd have to say yes, she certainly does.

More power to women who can look sexy in lingerie and also look athletic while being athletic, because of course they can do both.  And she does both well.  She's not the world's best female tennis player, but she's won tournaments and advanced several rounds in majors.  Good luck to her in whatever she does next (which I believe, in her athletic career, will be the Australian Open).

Some comments on Devin Nunes getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom

 

First, my comment. 

Sickening.  Atrocious.  Ridiculous.  (And in the greater scheme of things right now, January 9, 2021, kind of inconsequential.  But still -- nauseating.)

Trump to give ally Nunes the Presidential Medal of Freedom

"Nunes has long supported some of Trump’s more outlandish conspiracy theories, including claiming that the intelligence community improperly “unmasked” the identities of several officials working on Trump’s presidential transition."

Now, here's someone else's (Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley Jr.) comment:

Mr. Nunes gets his medal

"The White House announcement of Nunes’s garlanding is remarkable for many reasons but specifically for its historical claims and the in-your-face aggressiveness of its language.

Nunes deserves the honor, it reads, for his actions to “thwart a plot to take down a sitting United States president”; for his efforts to “unearth the crime of the century”; for exposing “the full power of the Deep State.” It concludes that he is “a public servant of unmatched talent, unassailable integrity, and unwavering resolve. He uncovered the greatest scandal in American history.”

DON'T skip this next part.

"Translation (if I may): He worked like an amphetamine dervish to thwart a government investigation into Russia’s connivance in President Trump’s election and, later, to keep Trump in office after pellucid evidence surfaced that he tried to blackmail a U.S. ally to help him crush a political rival. Or more concisely: The “deep state” did it."

Exactly.  

When you see the list of who has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (not counting those who Trump gave it too), it's pretty clear that both of our opinions are valid;  Nunes is getting it for trying to thwart a valid investigation into Trump's corruption, and that's just plain sickening.

 

Highway 41, proceeding on the lakefront

 

Three more StreetViews as Highway 41 / Lake Shore Drive (now North Lake Shore Drive) proceeds northward parallel to the Lake Michigan shore in Chicago.

The big black building is Lake Point Tower. Navy Pier is behind it; better view coming up.

Entrance to Navy Pier and the Chicago Children's Museum.

Looking back at the Pier, with the Navy Pier Ferris Wheel visible.

 

Wheel keep pushing on (that was bad, I know).

The comeback of Arecibo

 

I just saw this article that the government of Puerto Rico is going to recover and refurbish the heavily damaged Arecibo radio astronomy telescope.

Fallen alien-hunting Arecibo Observatory will be rebuilt as Puerto Rico commits $8 million to its reconstruction

I'm not sure where they're going to get the money, but that's good news for science.

'The government of Puerto Rico is convinced that the collapse of the radio telescope brings a great opportunity to redesign it taking into consideration the lessons learned and the recommendations from the scientific community to make it relevant for decades,' said Vázquez Garced, through La Fortaleza's official website.

Let's all hope it works.

 

Kilauea's Christmas gift

 

In case you don't follow the news of erupting volcanoes around the world, Hawaii's Kilauea decided to provide a Christmas gift of a summit eruption.   In the collapsed caldera (collapsed and deepened after the big flank eruption that ended about two years ago), vents opened on the side of the crater, and poured lava into the bottom, where there had been a lake of water.   That didn't last very long.

Since then, the lava lake has filled and deepened, to the point that the lower vents have been submerged, but are still pumping out lava, raising the level of the lake.  

The lake even has a floating island of solidified lava, which if I remember correctly was a feature of the famous Halemaumau lava lake described by Mark Twain more than a century ago.

If you want to see what happened, dial back the time machine in the Kilauea Photo and Video Chronology.

Here's a photograph from December 30;  one of the vents is still above the lake surface, spattering lava as the lake circulates.

New Year, more Chicago on Highway 41 / Lake Shore Drive

 

Let's see a few more sights on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive as we start the New Year.

Going around the curve, just another city view. This is just past the point where South Lake Shore Drive becomes North Lake Shore Drive!

The harbor here is DuSable Harbor.

Crossing the Chicago River where the river meets the lake.

More views coming up, very soon!

On the subject of breakups

 

I had thought I have expressed my admiration for actress Aly Michalka on this blog, and I was stunned to discover that apparently I haven't.  However, I can note that she and her sister A.J. also have a long-running musical partnership.   So, since I just posted about the crash and breakup of iceberg A38a, this particular post about their updated adult version of "Potential Breakup Song" (featuring more profanity) was also worth noting.

Aly & AJ send fans wild with the release of explicit version of their hit 2007 anthem Potential Breakup Song

So, since I haven't expressed my admiration for Aly previously, I'll just have to provide something admirable below.

This is a recent shot:

And this is a less recent, hotter shot, from a Maxim appearance.