For decades I found Olympic ice dancing somewhat disdainful, but I thoroughly enjoy what it has become today, and, keeping in mind that Ayn was into ice skating and ballroom dancing as well as anything that projected a joyous sense of life, I think she would have enjoyed Davis and White's perfomance in the short pogram...and may have even embraced the song lyics "I only know when he began to dance with me I could have danced, danced, danced all night."

That sounds like hero worship (her idea of the essence of femininity) to me.

Nothing I ever read that was written by or about Ayn Rand gave me the impression that she was into cross country skiing or shooting.

Just watched it-threw up in my mouth a little bit. I think Ayn's sport would be the biathlon, winning based on timed speed and shooting score and not a panel of judges made up of people from the countries that are competing.

It's probably not be on the internet...yet.

No apology needed. But, not to be obtuse, I will be. The current system of encouraging what you call stacking with the stuff that gets the highest points is what makes me cringe when a beautiful, "romantic" 10-15 second phase turns into a set up for a throw which, for me , degrades the romance, erases the romance and turns the performance from romantic artistry to technical expertise. Torville and Dean were, compared to today, clean, romantic and the entire performance was romantic and beautiful. And they got a perfect score. So, there!!

Given the nature of this website, I was using the word "romantic" in the same sense Ayn Rand used it.

Last night's short program was a three minute image of the happiness and joy that is possible in life and the pefomance, in that sense was romantic.

It think it would be terribly unfair to compare a 30 year old peformance to what you will see tonight...if you watch. Torville and Dean may indeed have deserved perfect scores 30 years ago. The same performance today might not even get them on an Olympic team. The bar is so much higher today.

I saw no joy or happiness Torvill and Dean's performnace in the 1984 ice dance long program. It would be impossible to skate in a way to meet today's standards with such a droll piece of music.

As I watched the youtube recording of Torvill and Dean earlier this afternoon I found myself hoping that Davis and White will skate tonight to Rimski-Korzakov's Scheherazade.

As much as I hate to be pedantic, I will proceed to be so, w/apologies in advance.
Under the new, post-SLC IJS (international judging system), there is no longer such a thing as a "perfect" score (the old 6.0 that so many remember w/varying degrees of fondness). The new system is -- for better or worse -- highly mathematical: skaters learn to stack their programs w/the stuff that gets the highest point count from the judges. The better skaters also manage to elevate their performances to get a high GOE (grade of execution), which is intended to take the place of the old "second mark" for artistic impression. And the very best skaters manage to throw down enough solid technical content, done w/a high enough GOE, that they have the time to do some of the lovely older skating moves that don't garner a lot of points under the new system but that make the rest of us go "Ooooooh!"

I have to say I don't know how any libertarian could support the Olympics. Listen to Stef Molyneaux's YouTube video or podcast on the truth about the Olympics.

The whole thing is a huge government shakedown not Just in Russia but China and the US as well .

It's fine to enjoy ice skating or any sport sports are great and very healthy .

Just don't force us to pay for them.

Same goes for the NBA and NFL. Colleges are basically state-funded farm systems for those two leagues and most stadiums are financed by tax dollars.

It will never go to zero, just to one cent.

"The prices of many imported goods, however, have increased by about 30% since January 1st."

And so has the value of the dollar!

Oh?

Just watched it! Amazing :)

comin to visit...

The dollar buys much less real estate than it did in 2006 but just as much toliet paper than ever.

Last year my property taxes were about $120 US dollars.

They did not increase this year (in pesos), but thanks to the recent "devaluation" they are just under $100 dollars for 2014.

The prices of many imported goods, however, have increased by about 30% since January 1st.

thanks shrugin-how's the currency holdin up?

I used to intensely dislike ice dancing, especially the short progam when all pairs had to skate to the same music and peform virtually the same routine.

Times have changed, but Meryl Davis and Charlie White's peformance in the short program was actually "old school" compared to all of the other contestants...and they achieved a new world record score for the short program. It looked more like ballroom dancing than any of the others...and the peformance was as close to pefection as any I've ever seen.

I remember reading that Ayn loved ballroom dancing and apparently enjoyed ice skating as well (if we can draw that conclusion from a scene in the film "The Passion of Ayn Rand").