Gus Kenworthy Is Olympic Silver Medalist And Dog World's Gold Medalist

OK, so I was impressed with American athlete Gus Kenworthy's silver medal winning performance in the slopeside ski event at the Sochi Olympics.

Gus Kenworthy with one of the
stray puppies he's trying to
rescue from Sochi and bring
back to the United States.  

But the guy has been making news and waves that gives him a total gold medal in this dog lover's mind.

Sochi was overrun by stray dogs as the Olympics neared and the Russian government hatched a plan to poison and kill them before the cameras and kleig lights captured them during the games, thereby ruining the nice photo opps that go along with the Olympics.

A lot of people of course didn't want the dogs killed. After all, it's not their fault humans let them reproduce and run roughshod over the city. So Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who underwrote much of the financing for the Olympics, is paying for their care. 

Kenworthy is trying to arrange to have as many dogs as possible shipped back to the United States for adoption.  He seems particularly attached to a mom dog and her four puppies. 

He's doing the legwork to get them back to the United States.

Meanwhile, there's an underground railroad of sorts going on around Sochi, in which Russian volunteers are smuggling stray dogs out of the Olympic area to other spots in Russia where the volunteers hope they can be adopted and live out their lives in peace.

That effort is part of what the billionaire Deripaska is helping pay for.

Canadian Group Has Awesome Olympics Ad Protesting Russians' Hate of Gays

Much has been made of the horrible, hideous attacks on gay people in Russia from the top levels of government on down to many people on the street. 

A still from "Luge" a Canadian group's ad
protesting anti-gay idiocy in Russia.  

The government goes after them, vigilante groups brutally attack gay people there. Disgusting beyond belief.

A silver lining to all this is that the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are shining a spotlight on these abuses. I don't know if it will force any changes, but there is pressure on the government and the people of Russia to back off.

Sometimes, the best forms of protest involve humor, and a group called the Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion put together an AWESOME 30-second, Olympic themed ad calling the homophobic Russians out.

Here's the video, Enjoy:

"Sochi Problems" Is The Hot New Social Media Destination

Nowadays, when a problem people want to kvetch about pops up, it's all over social media.

And when the topic really takes off in a super viral fashion on Twitter and Tumblr and all those places, you know you have problems.

Some yummy looking tap water at
A Sochi Olympics hotel.  

Which brings us to the Sochi Olympics,  don't seem to be getting off to a great start. Mostly because construction on the venue isn't finished yet, and the work that has been done is, shall we say, shoddy?

If an American contractor worked like this, their reviews on Angie's List and Yelp wouldn't be very good, let me tell ya.

The Twitter account @SochiProblems had more than 58,000 followers as of early Thursday morning. That number was rising fast.

These urinals don't appear to be connected
to any plumbing.  

If you haven't seen some of the issues with the hotels, particularly, and other aspects of the accommodations they're simultaneously sad and hilarious.

Here's a sample:

• Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi reports, via Twitter: "My hotel room has no Internet, no hot water, no curtains and no furniture. On the plus side, three of the four lights work.

• Here's an alarming Tweet send by a Stacy St. Clair, who is in Sochi: "My hotel has no water. If restored, the front desk says, 'Do not use it on your face because it contains something very dangerous.' 

• A sign in one bathroom read: "Please do not flush toilet paper down the toilet. Put in in the bin provided." At least the photo showing this sign indeed shows that the bin has been provided.

• Among the rules of toilet use in the hotel bathrooms is you can't take your rod and reel and go fishing out of the toilets. (?!?!?!?)

• Another sign demands that nobody go tobogganing in a restaurant.

• Some urinals are not connected to plumbing. Some toilets can't be flushed. 

• One hotel had no floor installed yet, but the hotel room did have a welcoming picture of Vladimir Putin in a stern pose.

• NBC reporter Richard Engels demonstrated how his computers were almost immediately hacked as soon as he turned them on upon arriving in Sochi.

So, there are some definite glitches there, on top of the security worries and the Russian government's horrible human rights abuses against gay people.  

I have to wonder if this will ever work. Let's hope so.