Quick look at the first day of the Paralympics from an admittedly U.S.-centric point of view:

– Six medals for the USA, including gold for swimmer Jessica Long. (Great global swimming roundup at SwimSwam.com)

– Matt Stutzman, the armless archer, took first in the ranking round (qualifying).

– Women’s goalball: USA 5-1 Sweden.

– Men’s wheelchair basketball: Turkey 59-50 USA.

– Women’s wheelchair basketball: USA 63-24 France.

(First person to make a comment about Title IX gets banned from this blog for life. Well, first person to make a dumb one, anyway.)

Total medal count so far: China 15, Australia 9, Ukraine 8, Britain 7. Tied at 6: Germany, USA, Spain.

Gold medals so far: China 6, Australia 3. Tied at 2: Britain, Ukraine, Germany, Russia.