Monday, July 30, 2012
NBC spoiled Missy Franklin’s victory moments before it aired
Moments before airing Missy Franklin's tape-delayed Olympic victory in the 100-meter backstroke, NBC ran a promo for Tuesday's edition of "Today" that said this: "When you're 17 years old and win your first gold medal, there's nobody you'd rather share it with."
The network had yet to show the Franklin's win when it ran the "Today" teaser that included this photograph of the teen sensation standing on the medal stand with the gold draped around her neck.
The short clip then cut to a video of Franklin hugging her parents outside London's Aquatic Center, presumably after the race that she had won seven hours before NBC showed it on the East Coast.
Due to the five-hour time difference between London and the eastern time zone, NBC is running its entire primetime program on tape delay. The decision has led to the usual criticism from media and viewers even as the network is posting record ratings through the first two nights of the Games.
Spoilers are difficult to avoid. Anyone with an internet connection or a talkative companion is bound to hear the Olympic news of the day, all of which happens well before NBC goes on the air at 8 p.m. ET. But to hear it from the network itself mere moments before the race? It's irresponsible, hypocritical and insulting. NBC needs to stop believing that 25 million casual viewers gives it a mandate to slap the minority of hardcore ones in the face. There's a dedicated corps of fans who dutifully avoid results throughout the day. The network ruins it enough by tape delaying coverage (which is their right). Don't compound the issue by spoiling it, too.
Those same fans would have also been flummoxed on Saturday when NBC News anchor Brian Williams led his broadcast by reporting the results of the highly-anticipated Ryan Lochte-Michael Phelps final in the 400 IM.
"Good evening from London," Williams said that night. "While we try to be sensitive about spoiler alerts for our viewers who like to watch the Olympic Games in primetime here on NBC and let the story play out, the news we begin with here tonight has already rocketed all the way around the world."
Related Olympics coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
Obama could be descended from African slave
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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A team of genealogists has found evidence that President Barack Obama could be a descendent of anAfrican slave — but not through the lineage of his black father, the most likely route researchers had followed and exhausted.
The link, genealogists with Ancestry.com said Monday, is, in fact, through an examination of his white mother's family history.
"We were surprised and excited to make that connection," saidJoseph Shumway, a member of the Utah-based Ancestry.com team.
Obama's father was from Kenya and his mother was from Kansas. It had been generally assumed that the president had no slave ancestors because researchers couldn't find it through the lineage of his father. However, no one had yet performed any exhaustive research into the lineage of his white mother, who turns out to have a mixed-raced family history.
Ancestry.com now said the maternal line traces back to one of the first documented African slaves in the U.S.
The company said Obama could be the 11th great-grandson of John Punch, an African slave in colonial Virginia. He is believed to have had children with a white woman, starting a family line that led generations later to Obama's mother.
The White House declined comment Monday.
The Ancestry.com team used DNA analysis and marriage and property records to trace Obama's maternal ancestry. The company says it can't establish a definitive link because of gaps in family history. Researchers are missing a record connecting Punch to a presumed son who by his early 20s owned 450 acres and grew tobacco in Virginia.
The records pick up when a grandson of Punch petitioned a court to marry a white woman — and was turned down, presumably because the grandson appeared of mixed-raced heritage, said Elizabeth Shown Mills, a former president of the American Society of Genealogists.
The Ancestry.com findings make for a tantalizing tale that wasn't uncommon in early colonial Virginia, and the team probably got it right, Mills said.
"They did the best job possible," said Mills, who reviewed the findings at Ancestry.com's request.
Ancestry.com said its team spent two years exploring Obama's maternal line. The puzzle starts with Punch, who is presumed to have arrived in Virginia around 1640 from west Africa, initially as an indentured servant obligated to work for years to pay for his passage.
"He jumped the gun and took off," Mills said. Punch was recaptured and made a slave for life. His punishment was tougher than white servants received for absconding, leading historians to call him the first African to be enslaved years before Virginia legalized slavery.
Nothing is known about Punch's presumed relationship with a white woman. But his landowner son is presumed to be John Bunch, either because the mixed-raced family changed its name or because records transcribed it incorrectly, Shumway said. Researchers were able to make a definitive connection between the successive Bunch family line and Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995.
Researchers concluded John Bunch had to be the son of John Punch, Shumway said.
"He's in the right place at the right time, and he's the right age," he said, adding that to this day, Bunch family members who appear white share the DNA profile of people in west Africa.
Mills said she was not surprised by the slavery link that came through the lineage of Obama's white mother.
"There are many Americans discovering they have African ancestry. It's something that is whispered, not something families want the world to know," she said. "This is what is so fascinating about American history. You see how people felt in the past, and how we think about it today."
President Obama related to country’s first enslaved man
President ObamaA study from Ancestry.com has determined that President Obama is related to John Punch, the first black African enslaved for life in America--which would make Punch the 11th great-grandfather of Obama.
The connection is made through Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunhan. The website's records say she had ancestors who were white landowners in Colonial Virginia who descended from an African man, Punch.
According to the site's press release, Punch tried to escape indentured servitude in colonial Virginia in 1640 and was punished by becoming enslaved for life. The records show that Punch had children with a white woman, and her status as free was passed on to her offspring. Punch's descendents became successful landowners in the slave-owning state of Virginia.
This would mean that the first documented slave and the first African American president have a shared lineage, claim researchers. Said Ancestry.com's genealogist Joseph Shumway, "John Punch was more than likely the genesis of legalized slavery in America. But after centuries of suffering, the Civil War, and decades of civil rights efforts, his 11th great-grandson became the leader of the free world and the ultimate realization of the American Dream."
Genealogists seem to be fascinated with the current president's family tree: The site has also traced anIrish branch of Obama's family. And researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Societyclaim he is the distant cousin of movie star Brad Pitt and six past presidents, including George W. Bush.
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Angkor Wat- Cambodia
Angkor Wat
Constructed : Early/Mid 12th century, 1113-1150Religion : Hindu
Style : Angkor Wat
King : Suryavarman II ★ 1113 - 1150 ★
Location : On the small circuit.
Comment : There are few places anywhere on earth to match the splendor of Angkor Wat that is one of the largest monuments to religion ever built and is truly one the wonders of the world.
Believed to have been constructed as a temple and mausoleum for King Suryavarman II at the peak of the Khmer empire in the first half of the 12th century, Angkor Wat is probably the best-preserved of the Angkorean temples. As with other Angkorean temples and walled cities such as Angkor Thom, the central theme of Khmer architecture revolved around the idea of the temple-mountain. By the time building on Angkor Wat was begun early in the 12th century, this had been elaborated to a central tower surrounded by four smaller towers. The central monument represents the mythical Mount Meru, the holy mountain at the centre of the universe, which was home to the Hindu god Vishnu. The five towers symbolise Mount Meru's five peaks.
It is difficult to express in words the enormous scale of Angkor Wat, but it can be explained in part by a look at the dimensions of the complex. The temple is surrounded by a moat which makes the one around the Tower of London, built at roughly the same time, look like nothing more than a garden trench. At 190 metres wide and forming a rectangle measuring 1.5 km by 1.3 km, it is hard to imagine any attacking force overwhelming the defences. But the moat was more than just a defensive bulwark, in line with the temple's Hindu origins it represented the oceans of the world. A rectangular wall measuring 1025 metres by 800 metres borders the inner edge of the moat.
There is a gate in each side of the wall, but unusually for the mainly Hindu-influenced Angkorian temples, the main entrance faces west. This entrance is a richly decorated portico, 235 m wide with three gates. However, the temple's greatest sculptural treasure is its 2 km-long bas-reliefs around the walls of the outer gallery and the hundred figures of devatas and apsaras. This intricately carved gallery tells stories of the god Vishnu and of Suryavarman II's successes on the battlefield. The whole complex covers 81 hectares.
Angkor Thom
Constructed : Late 12th/Early 13th centuryReligion: Buddhism
Style : Bayon
King : Jayavarman VII ★ 1181 - 1218 ★
Location : Just to 1.7 km in the North of Angkor Wat, a gigantic unit that one cannot miss, would not be this that because of the gate of entry and the bridge which precedes it. In the order, Angkor Wat, Ta Phrom Kel, Phnom Bakheng, Baksei Chamkrong, Prasat Bei and South Gate of Angkor Thom.
Comment : Angkor Thom (large Angkor ) is a royal city of 10 Km² surrounded by walls and ditches. There still, a book would not be enough to describe all the richness of this unit. The tourists in a hurry will cross the site in less than one hour, but those which are interested a little in this style of construction can largely envisage a half day on the spot! When Jayavarman VII started the construction of Large Angkor, Baphuon and Phimeanakas existed already but had been devastated by Chams.
Five majestic doors, whose stones sometimes mix with the roots of splendid trees, crowned giant heads, decorate the four cardinal points of the city and the access road to the Royal Palace. The construction of Large Angkor was the celebration of a victory (from where probably the door of this name) for Jayavarman VII after it drove out the Cham enemy at the end of the 12° century.
Angkor Thom is enormous temple which is protected in the rampart and the ring moat. As for the rampart around to be made accurately with the laterite, height approximately 8 meters. As for ring moat around 100 meters in width, as for depth 5 or 6 meters. Angkor Thom the north east which keeps reducing altitude - is located with respect to pivot southwest. Because of that, north east angle to be high southwest angle is low. The vertical separation presently approximately 10 meters. It took in the water of the ring moat from north east angle making use of this vertical separation, inside the castle flowed and accumulated in Angkor Thom in southwest angle, from here was discharged in the ring moat.
There is a Bayon temple on the Angkor thom center. You say that there were five ports, there was a door of the wood product in those and was closed in the night. There being a court of the woodwork inside, the king lived, in addition was a many temple and a reservoir. By the way, Angkor Thom (big capital) with being afterwards, it is the name which is accustomed.
Bakong
Constructed : Late 9th century - 881Religion: Hindu (Shivaism)
Style : Preah Ko
King : Indravarman I ★ 877 - 889 ★
Location : Roluos Group. Located at Au Luok village, Ba Korng Commune, Prasat Bakong District in 15-kilometer distance from the provincial town of Siem Reap by the National Road No. 6. Then turning right.
Comment : They are first ones as the large-sized mountain type temple which was made with the sandstone in the process of evolution of the temple construction in Angkor period. Also the constitution where you can feel the central hall small lightly the stylobate (especially) in comparison with heavy appearance more, it probably will be considered as one process of evolution. View helix from near the central hall it seems, calls the artificial mountain it is suitable.
The ring moat of Bankong, presently being covered in the grass, has become like the swamp land. The ring moat was possible with the laterite, there was a stairway which it is possible with the sandstone which lap it is low is surrounded in the wall, in addition descends to underwater, but the part of that remains on east side participating road both sides. Lap there is a wall in the place which crosses the ring moat, furthermore lap there is a wall mark even in the inner part. In the halfway right side the Buddhism temple, is elementary school in the left hand. Foreward reaching to the stylobate section, the building which it is possible to left and right, with the sandstone systematically has lined up
Furthermore when it advances, in the front the stylobate of five layer which is heavy-looking increases in pyramid type, the central hall of thinness one stands on that. In order from under and under one of the first section for the tower hall whose 12 is small to surround the central hall in fourth layer, it is arranged.
The stylobate section and the central hall are covered with the sandstone, but in order to surround around the central stylobate, eight hall groups which stand are the brick making. In addition, in order the small hall group of the brick and the sandstone where each one has specific name, to surround the central hall completely, it stands even in the forest outside the ring moat.
Among these it seems that the hall which remains on south side state is best. Also verifying the extent of such temple limits, probably will be useful to the scale of Bakong and knowing constitution.
Baksei Chamkrong
Constructed : Early/Mid 10th century - 910-947Religion : Hindu
Style : Bakheng
King : Harshavarman I ★ 910 - 923 ★
Location : With less than 200 meters of Phnom Bakheng, on the left, right
before arriving at the Southern gate of Angkor Thom.
Description : Baksei Chamkrong is a 12-meter tall brick and laterite pyramid. Combine with a visit to the South Gate and Phnom Bakheng. Lighting is best in the morning. Harshavarman I began construction or perhaps dedicated statues at the site. The temple was later improved/restored by Rajendravarman II shortly after the capital was returned to Angkor from Koh Ker. According to inscriptions on the doorway Rajendravarman consecrated the temple with the installation of golden Shiva image in 947AD. It may have also served as funerary temple.
Banteay Chhmar
Constructed : Late 12th centuryReligion: Mahayana Buddhism
Style : Bayon
King : Jayavarman VII ★ 1181 - 1218 ★
Location : 23Km from Sisophon and to the north-west of Angkor, this was one of the capitals of Jayavarman II. It was rebuilt during the reign of king Jayavarman VII and dedicated to his son, who was killed in battle.
Comment : Banteay Chhmar is not popular to tourists but very interesting temple located near by Thai border. Temple itself is mostly destroyed and Lost almost all of it's devatas and other bas-reliefs but some good curvings are still on the wall of galleries and gopuras.
Banteay Chhmar is the enormous plane surface development temple of the Bayon style. East west 800 meter north and south 600 meters. Inside the ruins collapse is terrible, but you can see the motif which is similar to the Bayon in the relief which barely remains.
Temple Detail : The temple complex of Banteay Chhmar was constructed by Jayavarman VII. There is debate over its origins, with some scholars suggesting it was built in tribute to Jayavarman VII’s son Indravarman and the Cambodian generals responsible for defeating the Chams, while others propose it was intended as a funerary temple for the king’s grandmother.
Originally enclosed by a 9km-long wall, the temple housed one of the largest and most impressive Buddhist monasteries of the Angkorian period. Today, it is one of the few temples to feature the enigmatic, Bayon-style visages of Avalokiteshvara, with their mysterious - and world famous - smiles. On the temple’s east side, a huge bas-relief on a partly-toppled wall dramatically depicts naval warfare between the Khmers (on the left) and the Chams (on the right), with the dead - some being devoured by crocodiles - at the bottom. Further south (to the left) are scenes of land warfare with infantry and elephants. There are more martial bas-reliefs along the exterior of the temple’s south walls.
The once-grand entry gallery is now a jumble of fallen sandstone blocks, though elsewhere a few intersecting galleries have withstood the ravages of time, as have some almost-hidden 12th-century inscriptions. All the remaining apsaras (nymphs) have been decapitated by looters. Banteay Chhmar was deservedly renowned for its intricate carvings, including scenes of daily life in the Angkorian period similar to those at Bayon.
Unique to Banteay Chhmar was a sequence of eight multi-armed Avalokiteshvaras on the outside of the southern section of the temple’s western ramparts, but six of these were hacked out and trucked into Thailand in a brazen act of looting in 1998. Still, the two that remain - one with 22 arms, the other with 32 - are spectacular.
Bat Chum
Constructed : Mid 10 th century - ???-960Religion : Buddhism
Style : Pre Rup
King : Rajendravarman II ★ 944 - 968 ★
Location : At the end of the road of the circuits, between Banteay Kdei and Prasat Kravan, at the end of a road of a few hundreds of meters, on the left, little bit away from the road.
Comment : The small road which passes through rice plantations is very pleasant, especially with the lighting of end of day. One arrives then on three small brick towers under restoration but of which large-thing should not be awaited. The surprise comes from this built Buddhist temple in the 10 century, whereas the Hinduism was still very present among Khmers.
Ba Phnom
Constructed : N/AReligion: N/A
Style : N/A
King : N/A
Location : Located at Chheu Kach commune, Ba Phnom District, Prey Veng Province in the distance of 78 Kilometers from Phnom Penh.
Comment : Ba Phnom is the place where it assumes that there was a king capital Vyadapura. But whether or not really capital existed is here, as for those which become evidence there is no at all. It has several tops, there being a low hill, there is a Buddhism temple in the top vicinity. The road which from the hill extends to the straight line on north probably at one time kingcraft.
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