This page sets out my views (mostly negative) as to the Olympic Games (TM).
"The greatest dangers to liberty lie in insidious encroachments by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." -- Mr Justice Brandeis.
Go Home.
. . . Introduction ___ Ban the Olympic Games ___ Ban the Olympics
. . . Dope testing in sports: a bad idea ___ Performance-enhancing surgery
. . . Who exactly is undeserving of health care?
. . . Boycotts ___ Corruption ___ Drugs ___ Glorification of athletes
. . .History ___ Legalisms ___ Tax burden___ War on drugs
In my view, the Games and its scandal-plagued International Olympic Committee (IOC) do more harm than good to society, in that they: (a) encourage young people to waste years of their lives devoted to trivial exercises that are of no benefit to most of them or to society; (b) promote the idea that athletics is much more important than the trivial attention that it deserves; (c) co-opt athletes and governments to take part in the violation of human rights of privacy in the imposition by a foreign dictatorship (the IOC) of drug testing and the publishing of individual medical records; and, (d) result in an enormous amount of the flagrant waste of tax dollars on trivia. If we are to have circuses, why not let private enterprises stage them, at private expense. The World Wide Wrestling Federation comes to mind.
We are already wasting too much money on the war on illegal drugs. See War on drugs. Why compound the problem and force drug testing (at taxpayer's expense) for legal ones [e.g., coffee (a restricted drug, says the IOC)]? It should be none of the government's business as to whether I drink coffee or smoke marijuana, or sniff coke!
Those who support the Olympics are hastening the day when drug testing (at enormous expense) will be the dark cloud hanging over every workplace! Big Brother always likes to watch everyone, everywhere, and always! As an athlete, don't be surprised by a knock on your door at 4 am; it's just the Gestapo making a request for a donation!
For additional comments and links, see Dope testing in sports: a bad idea. I will try to consolodate several of my disparate articles into one page.
Go up to Table of contents.
Bread Not Circuses - Home: http://www.breadnotcircuses.org/home.html bread not circuses: a coalition of groups concerned about Toronto's 2008 olympic bid.
www.stop-to-2008.com Welcome to Stop-the-Madness: http://www.angelfire.com/ca6/armad/stop04.html THE IOC - JUST HOW CORRUPT ARE THESE GUYS?
The Portlandian 02-09-98: http://www.tonyaharding.org/portlandian/port020998.htm
"The Lords of The Rings" (US title: "Dishonored Games: Corruption, Money, and Greed at the Olympics") by Vyv Simson and Andrew Jennings. . . . The book the IOC tried to ban. . . . this book, written by two British journalists, reveals the wheeling, dealing, bribery, drug abuse, sex scandals and corruption that goes on in the Olympic hierarchy and will dispel any doubts that "Olympic gold" means anything other than money these days. . . .
. . . only 2.5% of the $609 million that ABC and NBC paid out for the Calgary & Seoul Olympics went back to the USOC
. . . astounding perks of and wastage of money by the IOC executive members, who travel the world in luxury jets and stay in first class hotels whilst athletes sweat in overcrowded dorms during the summer games. . . . non-voting membership for life. . . .
. . . revealing info about Samaranch and his role in General Franco's brutal Fascist government in Spain that strangely enough never appears in any of his official biographies! Samaranch tried to sue the authors, but not in any of the 30 countries in which the book was published such as the US, where free speech is protected. Instead, he turned to the IOC's home country of Switzerland, whose archaic libel laws mean that honest people can be thrown in jail for saying anything derogatory about famous people, even if it's true! . . .
The New Lords of the Rings review: http://www.joeclark.org/lords.html The New Lords of the Rings: Olympic Corruption and How to Buy Gold Medals, a review by Joe Clarke of the book The New Lords of the Rings by Andrew Jennings, Pocket Books, 360 pages.
If you're convinced the worst problems facing the Olympics are rampant commercialism, the influx of professional athletes, and jingoistic NBC coverage of the Atlanta Games, then The New Lords of the Rings will come as a shock. Sequel to the explosive The Lords of the Rings: Power, Money and Drugs in the Modern Olympics (Stoddart, 1992), The New Lords of the Rings offers two dozen chapters jammed with documentation and analysis of wrongdoing among the plutocrats of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other members of "the Olympic family." . . .
The New Lords of the Rings adds yet more evidence to the airtight case made in the first book that Samaranch, far from being a humble old man pressed into reluctant service for the good of world sport, is a bully addicted to power and privilege. Worse, as Jennings documents, he's a warmed-over fascist, an apparatchik in Generalissimo Francisco Franco's dictatorship of Spain in the 1950s and 1960s who enthusiastically wore the blue shirt of the Falangists. Jennings writes that "the Blueshirts also controlled the Spanish Olympic Committee and in 1968 Samaranch led their team to Mexico. His official exhortation to them was pure Nuremberg: the athletes must show the world 'we Spaniards are becoming a more virile and potent race.'"
This virile potency was by no means at odds with the true aims of the man invariably dubbed "the founder of the modern Olympics," Baron Pierre de Coubertin, whose exclusionary conception of the Games-- for men only, and only men who could afford not to work, thus avoiding the taint of professionalism-- has been blithely whitewashed in Olympic opening ceremonies and other propaganda for decades. . . .
Remember, these are the same rings whose sacred identity would later be defended at all cost, including arm-twisting the cash-strapped but genuinely amateur International Paralympic Committee, whose quadrennial games for elite disabled athletes are currently underway in Atlanta, to modify its logo of five teardrops to avoid "misuse" of the rings. A Canadian IOC member and longtime opponent of officially including disabled athletes in the Olympics, the powerful Dick Pound, joined Canadian lawyer Howard Stupp in forcing the IPC to acquiesce. [Fascism loves company!] . . .
While we wait for history to repeat itself, nobody (yo, Mel Lastman! that means no-o-obody!) who dares suggest a Canadian city should host the Olympics can claim any credibility without reading -- and heeding -- the Lords of the Rings books. Bread, not circuses, indeed.
The Great Olympic Swindle: http://fox.nstn.ca/~dblaikie/n01se00a.html A review of the new book by author of Lords of the Rings. By Sue Mott, London Telegraph. (Added 14 July 01.)
London - In an American federal court, the architects of Salt Lake City's bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics stand accused of disguising $1 million (£680,000) in illicit payments to members of the International Olympic Committee who were on 'fact-finding' trips to the Mormon city. The court hears lurid stories about envelopes stuffed with cash changing hands and free holidays and scholarships for free-loading delegates.
The US Justice Department spent 19 months investigating the leaders of the Salt Lake City bid, Tom Welch and David Johnson, who recently protested: "We operated in a culture that others created. There was never, ever any intention to deceive anyone." The key phrase is "a culture that others created". Which brings us to Andrew Jennings, the British journalist who has been on the trail of Olympic corruption far longer than the American political and legal establishment.
As Johnson and Welch were pleading not guilty on TV, Jennings was publishing The Great Olympic Swindle: When the World Wanted its Games Back. It follows The Lords of the Rings and The New Lords of the Rings: Olympic Corruption and How to Buy Gold Medals. If this latest slab of investigative stone-lifting was a novel, you would say he had stretched the plot further than an errant delegate's expenses.
But oh no. Jennings stands by every word he has written about bribery, sex, drug cover-ups, organised crime and the IOC's almost-but-not-quite funny attempt to defuse the greatest scandal in their history by spending $2 million (£1.36 million) on the firm of spin doctors who tried to convince America that tobacco was safe. . . .
The new book contains pictures of Samaranch in his fascist uniform (the IOC president was a sports minister in Franco's government) and includes a hilarious memo written by a member of the Atlanta bid team which starts: "Re Samaranch visit. He does like to be addressed as His Excellency or President.
Jennings comes back for more in his new opus, reminding his readers that Samaranch awarded Olympic Orders to the reviled Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceaucescu, and claimed on television: "We are more important than the Catholic Church." . . .
Andrew Jennings The Great Olympic Swindle and The New Lords of the Rings: http://www.ajennings.8m.com/ His home page.
Amazon.co.uk A Glance The Great Olympic Swindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684866773/202-9417841-0795022 The Great Olympic Swindle by Andrew Jennings. . . . The final book in Andrew Jennings' Olympic investigative trilogy. It reveals how crooked sports leaders, their sponsors, gangsters and dope peddlers conspired to dupe the public, concealing a cesspool of corruption, fraud and organized crime.
t-and-f Olympic Games Baton of shame passes on: http://wso.williams.edu/listserv/tfselect/Jan1599-Feb199/msg00106.html Electronic Telegraph Sunday 24 January 1999 Owen Slot.
. . . Corrupt city of the week has been Sydney and yesterday John Coates, the president of the Australian Olympic Committee, gave a full account of the favours he had given to win the bid for the Games. The Sydney bid had already created scholarships for African athletes at the Australian Institute of Sport worth almost £1 million, but on the eve of the vote in Monte Carlo in September 1993, he said: "I saw our votes being eaten away. I was very concerned that night before the vote." Coates had pinpointed Charles Mukora of Kenya and Major General Francis Nyangweso of Uganda as crucial floating voters. "I knew these guys and I just didn't think the next day I was going to be able to count on them to vote for Sydney," he said. So, on the spot, he offered them £22,000 for their respective National Olympic Committees -- if Sydney won the bid. "I wasn't going to die wondering why we didn't win." Sydney won by two votes. Coates, however, insists that he has done nothing wrong. His reasoning is partly that he believes the rules allow votes to be bought if the money goes to National Olympic Committees (NOCs) rather than to IOC pockets. "It is a contest that allows support to be given to NOCs and allows NOCs to leverage that support for their vote," he said. "We knew that and went ready to accommodate that." He also defends his position because he did everything in the name of fair competition. He said that former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young had toured Africa dispensing US foreign aid commitments in exchange for support for Atlanta's bid for the 1996 summer Olympics. [These bribers should be in jail, even though the dictatorial IOC does not even recognize what bribery is!]
SpeakOut.com Daily Briefing - Corruption Clouds Olympic Games: http://www.speakout.com/Content/DailyBriefing/2772/ Updated: Tuesday, September 12, 2000. . . . reports that International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former Spanish ambassador to the Soviet Union, lobbied the Indonesian government to let IOC member Mohamad Hasan, a detained associate of the former dictator Suharto, attend the Sydney Games. Hasan is accused of embezzling $87 million of state money, with a trial scheduled next week. A spokesman for the Indonesian government said they were amazed by Samaranch's request. "The ethics involved are quite odd," said Attorney General Maruki Darusman. "It contravenes the spirit of the Olympics." [What spirit? This is the Games -- win at any cost!]
These charges build on earlier allegations of widespread corruption surrounding the selection of Salt Lake City to host the Winter Olympic Games in 2002. An investigation found evidence of bribery, kickbacks, and payoffs. . . .
"Cynicism has replaced idealism as an Olympic trait," writes Peter Worthington in The Calgary Sun, adding that one-third fewer visitors than expected had booked for Sydney. "When corruption allegations ricocheted through the International Olympic Committee kickbacks, bribes, payoffs the guy in charge, Juan Antonio Samaranch, not only denied everything, but didn't have the grace to offer his resignation. No traditional Olympic spirit there. Even more despicable, he was supported by other IOC officials, most of them grown fat and vulnerable on the gravy train."
Direct - Oiling...No, Make That Greasing...the Olympic Lamp: http://www.marketingclick.com/magark/search/found/1,2317,59273,00.html
ALONG WITH "legal ethics" and "military intelligence," "Olympic Games" is a current oxymoron.
Games? Games are a bunch of kids choosing sides for softball, with the gawky, bespectacled nerd stuck in right field.
U.S. Olympic athletes are a bunch of spoiled brats with Nike and Reebok contracts. Their patriotism is limited by the number of endorsements they can grab...supervised by a bunch of greedy bureaucrats whose colorful history involves venue trading and outright bribes.
"Games" hasn't described the Olympic events for about 20 years. And the recently revealed capers of the International Olympic Committee rub a little more salt into the moralistic wounds of those who have contributed to "the cause" -- sending athletes forth to conquer makers of cereals, vitamins, clothing, airlines and, of course, phone companies. . . .
IBM, which runs the Web site, is ending its Olympic sponsorship after Sydney because of "the huge cost of the sponsorship." Right on, IBM. It also encouraged the sale of Web space to help fund the site. Wrong on, IBM. . . .
One thing they do is try to kill off competition. Microsoft, at least, is an open competitor. We can't say that for the U.S. Olympic Committee. Utah's Brighton ski resort put up some billboards, among them: "You don't need an Olympic Committee to get into this school," and "Proud host of ZERO Olympic events." Guess what: The Olympic Committee has cried foul, saying -- get this! -- federal law prohibits unauthorized commercial use of the word "Olympic."
Well, that ought to prove a totally different point: It's time for the IOC to be prohibited by federal law. It's time for athletes to decide what they love best -- the happy spirit of competition or big bucks from Nike. . . .
Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES): http://www.cces.ca/english/index.cfm Acheiving Drug-free Sport.
I love competing, I love the rush, the energy, the power -- that's sport. The second you use drugs, it's not sport any more.
I have seldom seen a more ridiculous statement -- and one loaded with self-righteous puritanic superiority! Here is my variation upon this doltish quotation:
I love skillful driving -- that's sport. The second you use a car that doesn't have to be hand-cranked to be started, or which has an automatic transmission, or which has a windshield, it's not sport anymore.
Despite my feeble attempts at humor, it should sober one up to realize that our tax dollars are subsidizing the CCES and its witch-hunting activities. Senator Joe McCarthy would have loved it -- as would have the Spanish Inquisition! The mindset is the same!
Centre for Sport and Law Inc.: http://www.sportlaw.ca/doping/regulations-3.htm Canadian Doping Control Regulations. Unannounced testing refers to doping control tests that are conducted at any time on a short-notice or no-notice basis. These tests may be conducted during competitions or out of competition, and may include random testing and target testing. . . .
A Journey Through Olympic Drug Testing Rules: http://www.thesportjournal.org/JOURNAL/Vol3No3/DrugTest.htm A Journey Through Olympic Drug Testing Rules A Practitioner's Guide To Understanding Drug Testing Within the Olympic Movement.
Dope testing in sports: a bad idea. My article, on another page on my site.
Drugs in sport: http://www.australianprescriber.com/magazines/vol23no4/drugs_sport.htm P.A. Fricker, Head of Sports Science and Sports Medicine, Australian Institute of Sport, and Chair of Sports Medicine, University of Canberra, Canberra. . . . Prohibited substances Caffeine Routine urine screening includes caffeine assay. A concentration above 12 microgram/mL is deemed a positive dope test. There are no acceptable excuses and athletes must be warned that caffeine excretion can vary from individual to individual. Approximately six cups of brewed or percolated coffee (drunk rather rapidly) or 6 - 8 cans of a cola soft drink may put the athlete at risk of a positive test. . . .
US Anti-Doping Agency Home: http://www.usantidoping.org./ Lists of substances. About the only allowed substance is water!
EndurePlus.com - Doping News: http://www.endureplus.com/doping.cfm Much news and many links.
You Make the Call. .: http://www.marquette.edu/dept/law/sports/call.html INDIANA COURT OF APPEALS HOLDS DRUG TESTING POLICY UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Linke v. Northwestern School Corp., . . .
Rosa and Reena Linke participated in extracurricular activities at Northwestern High School.In January of 1999, the Northwestern School Corporation (NSC) instituted a drug testing policy done by random urinalysis testing. The stated goal of the policy was to protect the health and safety of students, but NSC was also concerned with its image in the community. The Linkes signed the form consenting to the testing, but objected to the drug testing policy. They sued NSC claiming that the policy was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and the Indiana Constitution. The Linkes moved for summary judgment, asking the court to find that the policy invaded their privacy rights. The trial court denied the Linkes motion.
The Court of Appeals began its review by discussing the United States Supreme Court's drug testing decisions. The court noted that the Supreme Court's review of such policies focuses on the presence of special needs which outweigh the testing's intrusion on the student's privacy rights. If special needs (usually protection of the health and safety of students) exist, no individualized suspicion is necessary to justify such testing. . . .
Reversing the trial court, the Court of Appeals held that the NSC policy was unconstitutional under the Indiana Constitution because it was not based on any form of individualized suspicion.
Doping in Sports - Legitimate Grievance?: http://vvv011.northeast.net/~hoffman/politic2.txt "DISTURBING TRENDS" Doping in Sports - Legitimate Grievance? [or] Moralistic Crusaders Witch-hunt? . . . the focus has shifted from quasi- legitimate talk of "performance enhancing drugs" to "any, and all drugs". In short, it seems that the proverbial "war on drugs" has finally infested the sports industry and the minds of sports fans who have now found a new scapegoat . . .
I offer four simple points which demonstrate that there are some people who want to take this issue beyond performance enhancing drugs:
1. . . . McCaffrey's most dangerous advice pertained to his comments on drug prevention and reforms which followed true American fashion; fascist and barbaric. We'd expect nothing less from a country that imprisons more political dissidents than any other country on planet earth. From a civil liberties standpoint let us look at McCaffrey's proposal which calls for the following actions:
(a) The IOC list of banned substancess should include substances covered by international U.N.-sponsored treaties, such as marijuana, heroin, etc. Translation: McCaffrey want to bring the "war on drugs" to sports. Performance enhancing substances are already restricted and/or banned by the IOC; but now he wants a whole new class of drugs to be banned on the basis of Americans anti-drug policy.
Marijuana, by the way, is already an IOC banned substances as are countless benign substances which for whatever absurd reason have made it onto the banned or restricted list. This is not an opinion, but fact. A fact which is shared by many in the sports medicine community who are concerned that the banned and restricted substances list is growing too large, too fast, and needs to be pared down so that innocent people do not get accidentally snared . . .
(b) McCaffrey's anti-drug plot also calls for the expansion and strengthening of drug-testing programs so that everyone in the Olympic family has year-round, out-of-competition testing. . . .
2. There exists little doubt that this issue is a difficult one to solve. Clearly some plan must be implemented; but how and why? The answer, seems to reside in the systematic attemt to further violate athletes civil liberties. There has always been a proverbial line with respect to an athletes privacy. First, they said that blood tests were deemed too invasive and only urine should be used. Now they want to push that line as far as they can get away with before enough people start to complain. Then a few years down the road, they push the line even farther. This is clearly politics in action. Nowadays, more sports want athletes to be on beckon-call during the off season; subject to bodily invasion whenever somebody else pleases. I personally find any regulation which goes against the concept of innocent until proven guilty as unacceptable in a country which values freedom. As an athlete and as an American, I am more concerned about peoples rights than I am about whether one of my fellow competitors is taking EPO or steroids. The slight advantage an athlete may gain by taking such drugs should not superceded the right to privacy and the concept of innocent until proven guilty. There are those who would say that anyone who engages in sporting events automatically forfeits their rights to privacy; or would say that you must "play by the rules if you want to compete?" To which the only reply could be "No, I dont." This issue is not a game, and our rights should not be handed over so frivelously just because somebody else tells you to do so. Persons who hold my opinion have just as much right to see such rules abolished, as others have the right to introduce such rules which destroy individual liberties; that is democracy in action.
3. The systematic introduction of drug testing into other sporting events is yet another point which supports the argument that this issue has gone beyond performance enhancing drugs. When I read articles about a billiards player who is kicked off the pro-tour for alleged marijuana useage; there exists a problem. That is unless you believe that smoking "weed" increases your ability to play billiards. This is a morality ploy, plain and simple.
4. Then there is talk of "the children"; the rallying cry for every clever moral crusader who ever had a cause to convey. . . .
Sermon by Verne Arens 8-1-1999: http://www.lrucc.org/VerneSermon19990801.htm PECKING ORDER . . . Little River United Church of Christ, Fairfax County, Virginia.
Who was on top in your school? What group ruled the roost and was the envy (secret or otherwise) of virtually every other group? At Abington High School in the Philadelphia suburbs during the late 50's and early 60's, it was (not surprisingly) the jocks and the cheerleaders who ruled the roost.
The regular folks came next: those who dressed and acted in deference to the standards of their peers, who did reasonably well with academics . . . and who showed some school spirit, perhaps even holding office.
Probably the geeks came next, the really brainy kids. . . .
Last of all came the burn-outs or creeps whose dress, attitude, and academic performance suggested "loser." . . .
The Washington Post reporter noted that at Columbine High School the sports trophies are showcased in the front hall, the artwork down a back corridor. Sports pages in the yearbook are in color, a national debating team and other clubs in black-and-white.
In addition to this rather commonplace glorification of athletes, there is a pattern of granting special privileges to athletes. The state wrestling champ was regularly permitted to park his $100,000 BMW all day in a 15-minute space.
Athletes convicted of crimes went without suspension from games or expulsion from school. Indeed, the homecoming king was a football player on probation for burglary. There even are instances of athletes tormenting others while school authorities looked the other way. For example, when a 230-pound football player began in class to tease a girl about her breasts, the female student went to their teacher who was also a football and wrestling coach. The teacher suggested she move to a different seat!
Folks, even if this has been happening as long as we can remember, it's not right. It's not healthy. . . .
The above is interesting commentary, all of which I could agree with. However, he then carries on attempting to imply that St. Paul and the Christian tradition give high honor to academic excellence. This is not true. Nowhere in the Bible is there a single word of support for the idea that such exellence is a virtue. To the contrary, it denigrates any such efforts, as did Martin Luther, many popes, and theologians.
High schools' 'cult of the athlete' under scrutiny: http://www.thedailycamera.com/shooting/13aathl.html The Daily Camera. APRIL 20, 1999 - LITTLETON, COLO. Some say glorification of athletes played role in Columbine shootings. By Lorraine Adams and Dale Russakoff, The Washington Post.
LITTLETON — The state wrestling champ was regularly permitted to park his $100,000 Hummer all day in a 15-minute space. A football player was allowed to tease a girl about her breasts in class without fear of retribution by his teacher, also the boy's coach. The sports trophies were showcased in the front hall — the artwork, down a back corridor.
Columbine High School is a culture where initiation rituals meant upperclass wrestlers twisted the nipples of freshman wrestlers until they turned purple and tennis players sent hard volleys to younger teammates' backsides. Sports pages in the yearbook were in color, a national debating team and other clubs in black and white. The homecoming king was a football player on probation for burglary.
All of it angered and oppressed Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, leading to the April day when they staged their murderous rampage here, killing 13 and wounding 21. . . .
Opinions Herald-Leader Online Kentucky Connect: http://www.kentuckyconnect.com/heraldleader/news/082299/commentarydocs/822_Webster.htm Adults encourage lawlessness, bad values in schools. Published Sunday, Aug 22, 1999, in the Lexington Herald-Leader. School is back in session, and mountain educators' usually sole goal -- getting into the regional tournament -- is suddenly accompanied by another: to somehow avoid mass murder in the hallways, despite the statistical fact that schools are the safest place to be.. . .
In Kentucky, school government is done by old coaches, people just smart enough to understand basketball and football but dumb enough to think such games are important. People who think that football is a microcosm for real life understand neither.
Eastern Kentucky is one of the last bastions of violence in this great country, and we have zealously protected our violent tradition. To that end, we will share some of the school goings-on in the mountains, all designed to promote shootouts.
The football coach at Hazard High was on TV the other night and bragged that his boys had practiced 4 1/2 hours a day since July 4. No doubt his community was proud. He was neither fired nor inquired into, nor did anybody dare wonder aloud why on Earth a few dozen young men would need to spend half their summer outside the company of their parents, honing the ability to hit, run over, tackle and gouge other young men. In most schools, these skills are further developed in the lunchroom against geeks to impress cheerleaders. . . .
. . . the team will play about a hundred basketball games a year there, so as to thoroughly diminish the available time for these unfortunate kids to learn anything of real value . . .
. . . The reason it is so important to post the Commandments in school is that no kid these days spends enough time at the house to learn them and cannot go to church because of ball practice.
. . . Let's see if we can get Harlan and Jackson counties figured out. With an announced goal of returning moral standards to schools, the boards of education in each have voted to openly defy the constitutional law of the land, well proclaimed and well correct. The lesson to a malcontent packing heat in the hallways is simple: It is a good thing to break the law if you are annoyed by its constraints and if you are certain enough of your righteousness. This lesson will be bolstered as a succession of lawyers and judges sworn to uphold the law yield their own oaths up to the popularity of lawlessness.
Now, if we can just combine the glorification of athletes with the glorification of the religion of the majority, you soon have jocks having prayer meetings in the commons areas of the schools, a method of announcing to the skateboarders the physical and spiritual superiority of what we called in my day the ``popular'' kids. Add to that mix the likelihood that these jocks are not only allowed but encouraged to periodically beat up the skateboard set, and it's just a question of how much a kid can take. . . .
Any of you who agree with that ought to do the right thing and march down to the courthouse and unregister yourself to vote. You are a clear and present danger to our society, just as are schools boards who violate the law, parents who will tolerate 41/2 hours of football a day and folks we used to call Americans who sic police dogs on schools and require education workers and students to urinate in a cup to work or learn.
For the pioneering works of a master cinematographer (Leni Riefenstahl) in glorifying athletics (for Hitler), see Triumph of the Will.
Books about the Olympic Games page 1: http://www.2008olympics.co.uk/books1.htm
The Ancient Olympics: http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/consortium/ancientolympics1.html And just as at the Olympic games the wreaths of victory are not bestowed upon the handsomest and strongest persons present, but on men who enter for the competitions . . . so it is those who act rightly who carry off the prizes and good things of life --Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1099a 1.
To the Olympic Games Committee - PRIME ERISIANA by Kerry Thornley: http://www.sondralondon.com/xnew/thornley/eris/eris9.html
To the Olympic Games Committee:
From: DECOG (Discordian Erisian Conspiracy of Olympic Gods)
For 17 years I have served humbly as Assistant Oracle and Chief Scribe for the Olympian Goddess Eris, Patron of Confusion, Chaos, Strive, Discord and Disorder (in that order). Our order, of which I am co-founder, is called the Discordian Society, . . .
Therefore, it is my sad duty to inform you that the words "Olympic" and "Games" are the exclusive property of our religion, and cannot be used by anyone without our permission - which until now we granted, but Eris has instructed us to withdraw that permission as of May 5th of Last Year.
But with all the Gods and
Goddesses from Olympus (registered trademark) on our side -- not
to mention innovative imagination, psychedelic sabotage and
scathing sarcasm -- it isn't us Oracles and Scribes of Eris
Discordia who need to worry. From any perspective Confusion is
BOUND to reign soon.
Hail Eris! All Hail
Discordia! -- Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, Chairman, Fair-Play
for Switzerland Committee
The sad story of silent Sydney: (Added Friday 13 July 01.) This file is no longer stored at the Globe and Mail (30 Sep 01). BILLY ADAMS. Special to The Globe and Mail, July 13, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A1
SYDNEY -- Less than a year ago, millions of people flocked to the world's biggest sports park to witness the superhuman exploits of such Olympic athletes as . . .
Today, the visitors to Olympic Park are greeted by the sound of silence.
Small groups quietly tour an area designed to comfortably hold 400,000 people at a time. . . .
Sydney spent $2.3-billion to build world-class facilities and transportation links for last year's Summer Games. . . .
But of the main venues, which include the 110,000-seat Olympic Stadium, tennis centre and SuperDome, only the aquatic centre does well.
It's estimated that at least 30,000 visitors are needed every day to make the park viable. But as former Olympics minister Michael Knight put it this year, "At the moment the site could not support a chemist or a news agent." . . .
In all, the Sydney Games cost the public purse $1.1-billion -- almost $62-million above the original estimate. It's estimated Olympic Park will need an annual injection of up to $80-million of taxpayers' cash until the area is able to support itself, which critics believe could be a decade away.
Most of the spotlight has been on the showpiece $280-million Stadium Australia, which has attracted only a handful of events since the Games closing ceremonies. It reported an operating loss of $4.4-million for the second half of 2000, and has only four sports events set for the rest of this year. . . .
The lack of events prompted a major investor, ANZ Bank, to pull out of a 10-year, $39-million deal to attach its name to the stadium . . . [Well, that's a good start!]
Chris Hartcher, a politician who opposed the Games, said Sydney taxpayers face a financial "black hole" for years to come. . . .
[With the likes of the Mayor of Toronto, Mel Lastman -- and his racist juvenile comments about Africans boiling tourists alive -- rooting for it, maybe Toronto will get lucky and not be awarded the games. I hope so, for the sake of future taxpayers. There were fears by the IOC that Toronto did not have enough five-star hotels to house the IOC hangers-on in their appointed style. $1 billion could buy a lot of MRI machines. The waiting list for an MRI scan in Ottawa is now about 9 to 12 months. We can't afford them, apparently -- except for athletes, and their privileged medical facilities, not open to the public. Do you really think that an Olympic athlete will have to wait that long when he breaks his neck pole-vaulting? He would not wait a single day!]
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You can e-mail me at waynerp@sympatico.ca