I love sport, but the Olympics are creeping me out. The eerily empty venues. The massive torch on the stadium at a time when the world is sucking oil–very Munich. The way the Chinese hurdler, the gold medal guy at Athens, tried to run so as not to disappoint China even though he had a damaged Achilles, grimacing in the blocks about to destroy himself. The reports that the Chinese calculated how many sports were up for grabs, x years ago, and began molding children to win them. The absence of diversity in the pool or on the diving boards. The underage Chinese gymnasts and the lies to cover it up. The weird fakeries in the opening ceremonies– the lipsynching, the dressing up of majority Han ethnic children in native garb to impersonate ethnic minorities who were not invited. The superpower rivalries, the American pole vaulter saying she wanted to "kick some Russian butt…" The general absence of the Third World and Europe, Africa, the subcontinent. The general atmosphere of joylessness/nationalism/air conditioning…
I like the Visa ads where Morgan Freeman says, Go World. Would that it were true.
