Little Thinkers Quotes: Andy Warhol (5 of 16)

Greetings to our blog-readers in Israel, Ethiopia (?!, well perhaps) and Kazakhstan.

Today, we continue our Little Thinkers series with a quote from the great American pop artist Andy Warhol, who was famous for painting soup cans as well as avant garde portraits of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Mao Tse-Tung, among others.

In art, the Baltimore Museum of Art recently recovered a Renoir that was stolen form the museum in the 1960s, the person who had the painting claimed that it was purchased for seven dollars at the Harpers Ferry Flea Market in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

There is an Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

Here is his quote:

"Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets."


http://www.warhol.org

http://www.artbma.org

For Our International Audience_Let's Get the Times Right

Since the local times have changed in America as standard time replaced daylights saving time, we thought we would let our followers, especially those of you in other countries, know what time it is in New York or Washington, DC, both of which are here on the east coast, compared to your part of the world.

We did not go into eastern Asia (Japan, China) and Australia because of time and space considerations.

Here we go; it is now midnight here in the east coast of America, so here we go:

12:00 a.m.

New York

Baltimore

Atlanta

2:00 a.m.

Buenos Aires

3:00 a.m.

Rio de Janeiro

5:00 a.m.

Akureyri (Iceland)

London (pictured)

6:00 a.m.

Paris

Amsterdam

7:00 a.m.

Athens

Istanbul (pictured above, that is actually Burgaz Island near Istanbul)

Cairo

Tel Aviv

8:00 a.m.

Dubai (Fly Emirates plane pictured center)

Baghdad

Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)


http://www.baltimore.org

http://www.visitlondon.com

http://www.visitistanbul.org

http://www.emirates.com

Olympic Cities Distance Quiz (2 of 6)- Los Angeles to Tokyo

As the world gets ready for the 2012 London Olympics, we take a look at the distances between cities which have previously hosted the games. One thing we learned while putting this together is that Detroit tried many times to get the games, but they were unable to land them.

Los Angeles has had considerably more luck as they have hosted the 1932 Olympics and the 1984 Olympics.

Tokyo, Japan, was supposed to get the 1940 put an invasion of China sent the games to Helsinki, Finland. But, they were able to secure the games in 1964, becoming the first Asian country to host the Olympics. In more recent years, South Korea and China have hosted them as well.

There is an amazing contrast in the amount of international athletes who competed in each of the games. In 1964, they were athletes from 93 countries in Tokyo. 20 years later, in spite of a boycott from the Soviet Union, eastern block countries (except Romania and the now nonexistent Yugoslavia) and Cuba, athletes from 140 countries came to southern California.

In Tokyo, judo and women's volleyball become Olympic sports. Among the highlights in Japan were Soviet gymnast Larisa Latyrynina, a Ukrainian who is now 77, won two golds, a silver and two bronze medals. While Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila (1932-1973) won a second consecutive gold medal. For the Americans, recently deceased boxer Joe Frazier (1944-2011) won gold as a heavyweight in boxing.

In L.A., synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics debuted in the games where American gymnast Mary Lou Retton, now 44, won a gold in the all-around competition as well as a team silver and a silver on the vault. Carl Lewis won four gold medals in track. And, a barefoot runner from South Africa named Zola Budd, who competed for the United Kingdom, collided with American runner Mary Slaney*, who was wearing shoes, in a highly controversial and dubious 3,000 meter relay. Thus, many people have forgotten that Romanian runner Maricica Puica actually won the race.

So, what is the distance in miles between Los Angeles and Tokyo....

Is the answer:

A) 5,351 miles

B) 5,451 miles

C) 5,556 miles

D) 5,701 miles

PICTURED: A sumo wrestler and Sam the Eagle, who was the official mascot of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

*-Mary Slaney is now known as Mary Decker


SIDEBAR: As for the answer to our tv quiz entry from yesterday, "M*A*S*H" ran for 251 episodes.


http://www.marylouretton.com

Top Ten Lists- People with Long, Difficult Names (Males)

Here is an arbitrary list of famous or relatively famous people with long, difficult names. Since my name is Tilly Gokbudak, each of them has my full sympathy! A random top ten list of women with long names will be on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

1. Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul_ (pictured) Whew! We almost didn't spell this one right. But, I suspect many people would have this problem. The 40-year-old Thai director is known around the world by cineastes for his eccentric, off-beat 'small movies' like "Tropical Malady."

2. Siva Vaidyanathan_ This American author of Indian heritage (b.1966) is a media scholar and author. He teaches at the University of Virginia and his current book is "The Googlization of Everything." Yes, we are double-checking his name. It appears to be spelled right!

3. Eugeny Viktrorovich Pluashenko. This 28-year-old Russian figure skater won Olympic gold at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

4. Gebre Gebremariam. An Ethiopian long-distance runner who finished third in last week's Boston Marathon; he also won the 2010 New York Marathon.

5. Zach Galifianakis_ Famous Greek-American actor from Wikesboro, NC, who was in "The Hangover" and "Due Date." His father was a member of Congress.

6. Matti Hautamaki_ This 29-year-old Finnish ski-jumper won silver medals at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

7. Naim Suleymanoglu_ This 44-year-old former Turkish weight-lifter actually defected from then-communist Bulgaria. He went on to win Olympic gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Also known as the 'Pocket Hercules,' Suleymanoglu has alas suffered major health problems in recent years.

8. Rod Blagojevich. This disgraced former Illinois governor is one of the very few Democrats I would never vote for.

9. Volker Schlondorff. He is a legendary German film director best known for cinematic version of "The Tin Drum" (Germany, 1979.)

10. Ross Bagdasarian Jr. This Armenian-American is continuing his late father's legacy as the voice of "Alvin and the Chipmunks."

We hope we got all their names right!

Special Quote of the Week- Bono

We continue our series of quips from famous people from Ireland, in honor of Saint Patrick's Day on Thursday, with a quote from Bono who everyone knows as the lead singer of U2. Bono is also known for his civic activities, including helping third world countries like Ethiopia with their debt crisis problems.

My favorite U2 song is "A Sort of Homecoming" from the 1984 album "An Unforgettable Fire," which followed their classic album "War" (1983, pictured here). I did not know until researching this piece that another one of the songs on 'Fire' which is titled "Bad" (has the memorable lyrics: I'm wiiiiiiiddde awake") is about heroin addiction.

Apparently, Bono is also into reading as we gather from this quote:

"Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gifts one person can give another."

Speaking of books, I just finished Elif Batuman's excellent memoir "The Possessed" about her love of Russian literature (assuredly, she loves Leo Tolstoy) and the summer she spent in Uzbekistan as a Stanford student in 2002(she was either getting her graduate or doctoral degree at the time; Batuman was born in 1977)

Batuman, a fellow Turkish-American whom I've never met, also has a story in the March 7 issue of "New Yorker" about young fans for the Istanbul soccer power Besiktash. She will be in Ireland for an international book festival on April 14.

Olympic Athlete Profile (22 of 25) Robel Teklemariam/cross country skiing/Ethiopia

Robel Teklemariam, 35, seen here waving the Ethiopian flag in the stands during the Vancouver Olympics' opening ceremonies, finished 93rd out of 95 cross country skiers in the 15-km freestyle competition on Feb. 15, but his story is quite a unique one given that he represents a country in sub-Sahara Africa.

Robel (we'll use his first name to make life easier) has spent a considerable amount of time in America as he is an alumnus of The University of New Hampshire.

"The Richmond Times-Dispatch" reported that his mother Yeshaneg Demisse, who was in attendance to watch her son at the games, owns a restaurant called The Nile which serves Ethiopian food near the Virginia Commonwealth University campus in Richmond, Va.

Robel competed in his second Olympics after making his debut in Torino.

Dario Cologna of Switzerland won the gold in the 15km free-style with Italian Pietro Piller Cottrer getting silver and Czech skier Lukas Bauer taking bronze.

Robel told "The RTD" that he hoped to expose more Ethiopians to skiing, and that the diaspora community in British Columbia was very welcoming of him.

On Robel's wikipedia page, he is quoting as saying that his mission is a minimalist one:

"I'm a realist," Robel said. "My goals are for further down the road. I want this Olympics to open my eyes and hopefully the eyes of other Ethiopians."

Robel has also a kept a blog of his expeirences as part of the 5 Dreams project, which includes blogs from for other Olympic athletes. One of the other four is Turkish figure skater Tugba Karademir, whom we features in our second entry in this series. Karademir's short program was actually televised in prime time on NBC even though she was not a medal contender.

The story of how Robel flew in from the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa (ninth grade geography teachers may want to make this a bonus question on their next test!) to Dubai to Toronto to Vancouver is one that any road-weary passenger can relate to.

Robel said that an expected 20-minute stopover in Dubai became a two-hour nightmare because of the extensive time it took him to go through customs. Then, he boarded what would be an exhausting 14-hour flight to Toronto. After that, he had to get on a domestic Canadian flight to Vancouver which took yet another four hours.

But, he made it in time for the opening ceremonies, which were in his own words an unbelievable experience.