BS: Avoiding The Olympics

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 04:21 PM

According to the evening news, it seems the best way to avoid seeing the Olympics is to buy event tickets, fly to China and discover that the ticket agent is either a fraud or has been able to get more money for your seats and refuses you either a ticket or a refund. Try it Fool. It has worked for a whole bunch of people.
SINS

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 03:56 PM

I've prepared - I'm working three whole days instead of four half days, I've bought in a whole heap of DVDs to watch, planned days out for the ones I'm not working and I've got the bookshop on speed-dial....

Hopefully I'll miss all of it.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 10:49 AM

Ebbie, that is so sad about the rice fields.

My husband spoke recently of taking a trip to China. I told him, 'I'm not going. You can go and report back.'

As for the Olympics, I set up house in 1969, but I never have got round to buying a television.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: GUEST,Dv
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 10:44 AM

I find my planning this year was perfect--we'll be on a 10 day camping trip, leave tomorrow!

Yeeeeehaw!

What Olympics? What election?

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 09:59 AM

NBC News last night had a segment on the current water situation in China. In order to ensure that Bejing does not run out of water during the Games rice farmers surrounding the city have had their water cut off. Their fields are dry and dusty.

While Bejing has fountains that are spouting high.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 07:07 AM

I was planning to not watch anything from the Olympics, but now I may just Change My Mind ...

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 08:44 PM

Rival demonstrators face off in Canberra

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 08:29 PM

ROFL...

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Joe_F
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 08:20 PM

And all the world over, each nation's the same:
They've simply no notion of playing the game.
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won,
And they practice beforehand, which ruins the fun. -- Michael Flanders

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 08:14 PM

Yep - and there's the Radio... :-P

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Bainbo
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:59 PM

TV not have an "off"button?

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:55 PM

It would be nice to have the OPTION to not WATCH... i.e. have the option to watch some other program...

Maybe I'll go and watch some of my collection of Warner Bros original cartoons... at least Stalling's music is brillant.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Bainbo
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:48 PM

Why the fuss? If you're interested, watch it. If you're not, turn the TV off. It's not rocket science.

I manage to avoid "reality" shows, glorified talent contets, and freak shows along the lines of "half-man, half-tree" without any real difficulty.

I'd probably watch the Olympics, though.

If I had a TV.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 06:55 PM

AgggggghHHHH!

I got caught!

I turned on the TV just now and ALL the stations have the lighting of the torch, etc...

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 11:31 PM

"in hopes of seeing some wrestler, weight lifter, or race walker do something utterly transcendent."

If that happens, it will be on the News... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Ref
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 07:32 PM

Modern Olympics has always been corrupt, from de Coubertin's dream of making better soldiers of the upper classes to Brundage's blind insistence that Soviet professionals were not pros to present "athletes" and their drugs. I'll still watch, in hopes of seeing some wrestler, weight lifter, or race walker do something utterly transcendent.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 06:32 PM

Sorry Q you sound like you are spouting the Party Line.

The 3 Gorges Dam is going to be an environmental disaster. Few cities and town behind it have proper water treatment, that and the problem of silting are already affecting the area. The relocation of the people there has been a big problem and many have been relocated hundreds of miles away from the area. Some to areas where they cannot farm.

The Olympics will go ahead but it is going to be very nationalistic. Especially given the Tibet protests, The boys in Beijing will roll out a media frenzy to prove how good they are and how much they have done for the country. While that may be true in many areas they still control all media, so unless you are an educated Chinese with good language skills so you can read what is on the internet outside of China you will never be able to read anything but happy stories.

I have just left China and there was no mention of the protests over the torch on Chinese media. While I disagree with the violence of the protests, it is a case of you reap what you sow.

The work done in Beijing for the Olympics has been incredible, but at a cost to many people forcibly removed from their houses to make way for the sites.

I will watch the Olympics, or should I say I will watch what the Chinese Department of Media and Propoganda allow us to see.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Amos
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 01:37 PM

"We are going to tell you the truth about China. We believe that for anyone who wishes to avoid a disgraceful Olympics, knowing the truth is the first step.

Fang Zheng, an excellent athlete who holds two national records for the discus throw at China's Special Sport Games, has been deprived of the opportunity to participate in the 2008 Paralympics because he has become a living testimony to the June 4, 1989 massacre. That morning, in Tiananmen Square, his legs were crushed by a tank while he was rescuing a fellow student. In April 2007, the Ministry of Public Security issued an internal document secretly strengthening a political investigation which resulted in forbidding Olympics participation by 43 types of people from 11 different categories, including dissidents, human rights defenders, media workers, and religious participants. The Chinese police never made the document known to either the Chinese public or the international community.

Huge investment in Olympic projects and a total lack of transparency have facilitated serious corruption and widespread bribery. Taxpayers are not allowed to supervise the use of investment amounting to more than US$40 billion. Liu Zhihua, formerly in charge of Olympic construction and former deputy mayor of Beijing, was arrested for massive embezzlement.

To clear space for Olympic-related construction, thousands of civilian houses have been destroyed without their former owners being properly compensated. Brothers Ye Guozhu and Ye Guoqiang were imprisoned for a legal appeal after their house was forcibly demolished. Ye Guozhu has been repeatedly handcuffed and shackled, tied to a bed and beaten with electric batons. During the countdown to the Olympic Games he will continue to suffer from torture in Chaobei Prison in Tianjin.

It has been reported that over 1.25 million people have been forced to move because of Olympic construction; it was estimated that the figure would reach 1.5 million by the end of 2007. No formal resettlement scheme is in place for the over 400,000 migrants who have had their dwelling places demolished. Twenty percent of the demolished households are expected to experience poverty or extreme poverty. In Qingdao, the Olympic sailing city, hundreds of households have been demolished and many human rights activists as well as "civilians" have been imprisoned. Similar stories come from other Olympic cities such as Shenyang, Shanghai and Qinhuangdao.

..."

From above link.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Amos
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 01:35 PM

The Real China and the Olympics the letter written on September 10, 2007 by Teng Biao and Hu Jia. They issued the open letter calling for the international community to look beyond the veneer of "munificence and normality" put up in Beijing for the Olympics, and to seriously examine to what extent China had fulfilled the promises it made to improve human rights ahead of the Games.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: PoppaGator
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 01:25 PM

After I posted my wonderment about how and why the torch was in San Francisco so soon after the start of the "relay," I got my answer in a newspaper article accompanied by a world map showing the route of this year's torch relay.

The Olympic flame is being flown all over the world, on an apparently random zigzag course, visiting major cities only. It is by no means the traditional relay whereby the torch is passed from one runner to the next along a route from Mount Olympus more-or-less directly to the current site of the Games.

I hate to say anything nice about the Nazis, but the original concept of the torch relay had some positive symbolic meaning and appeal. After 1936, when subsequent Games were held on contnents other than Europe, of course, the torch had to be flown across an ocean or two on part of its journey, but its route was basically point-to-point, and all overland segments of the journey involved hand-carrying by volunteer runners. No skipping and jumping from one capital city to the next.

I don't know if the current abbreviated and watered-down version of the torch relay is new this time around for Beijing, or if this has been going on for a while without my having noticed. But transporting the flame primarily by airplane, and by runners only for brief stretches in and around a few cities, completely negates the original athletic aspect of the relay and reduces it to an exercise in pure public relations.

And, of course, while the Chinese government may have hoped that the torch's puddle-jumping world tour would grant them positive PR, it has instead become very little more than a focus for protest. The Olympic flame touches down and disembarks from its airplane only at large population centers where activists can easily gather and try to dusrupt the exercise.

I suppose it serves them right (the bureaucratuc serrvants of the totalitarian state).

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 09:07 PM

That's ONE way of keep the population of China down... but it doesn't help the world situation...

You should read "Play Little Victims".

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 03:50 AM

But it has also resulted in a generation of young Chinese men leaving China to find brides elsewhere in the world. How many do you think go back home to a land where they know their own child will have the same problems?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 08:00 AM

"If only one child is allowed they want it to be male."

Yes, and NOW, those families are discovering that most Chinese males can never marry! Daughters are now becoming "Little Princesses", and are much in demand from those families who have them - they can now demand whatever 'bride price' they want... law of Supply & Demand!

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 01:18 AM

Yes, Q, the sacrifice of a few for the many plays well in China.

1.3 million plus the other millions who are being displaced by other hydro-electric projects.

Yes, Q, hydroeclectricity is needed, but how about a little support from the govt. for the poor farmer who is displaced and displaced again and again. This is about human rights, not simply about energy needs.

As far as I'm concerned, the hardship imposed on these people (homelessness, hunger, backbreaking labour, lack of clean water) should be considered crimes against humanity. China has created this human catastrophe in the name of progress. Where's the accountability???

...and btw, apparently, an earthquake in the Three Gorges could cause another human disaster. Its all a crapshoot.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 11:26 PM

Birth control has a terrible down side in China. Sons are more desired than daughters so girls are much more likely to be abandoned at birth or aborted before. If only one child is allowed they want it to be male. As the father of three loving daughters I find this to be an obsenity.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 07:28 PM

Countries like China (and India), must control their populations; it does demand government direction, implementation and management. The alternative is frightening.

Projects like the Three Gorges Dam (The Yangtze Project) for the development of hydroelectric power is necessary if China is to become a great power. The system of locks will permit access of large vessels to central China, as well as control the water flow. People will be displaced, natural vistas changed, but outside of massive nuclear development, there is no alternative. Feasibility studies go back to 1919, and the development was not unexpected or precipitate. Approximately 400 sq. mi. will be flooded, and 1.2 million people displaced. China burns 50 million tons of coal a year, and the amount must be reduced.
New farms for 300,000 farmers are planned, and many rural workers will be displaced to urban jobs. Planning is complex, and will not be without problems.

The U. S. made its major strides in developing hydroelectric power and stream control in the first half of the 20th c.; people seem to forget the disruptions caused by the Tennessee Valley Administration and similar projects. Now one of the limits to U. S. growth is the lack of capacity for energy growth; stagnation is looming.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 06:37 PM

It's one thing to make birth control a conscious and self realised decision, it's completely different to be told by the State that you may only have one child.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 01:43 PM

I like sports but I am not an armchair athlete except when it comes to figure skating. As a resident of Vancouver who will be hosting the 2010 Olympics, I can tell you that my property taxes have sky rocketed, construction is booming and many people have been displaced. There is a critical shortage of rental accomodations and the condos that are being built are way out of the price range for most folks. The city is becoming home for the elite only.

Now the mayor says he wants the city to be open 24/7 so that it will be one continuous party during the Olympics. I'm selling my house and moving. I do not want to be here for the Olympics.

As to China - Their human rights record is deplorable. Read about the number of people in China who have been displaced (with little or no help from the govt.) by the Three Gorges Dam. The Chinese govt. treats those poor farmers like disposable human beings. People have no worth in China.

If anything, lets hope the Tibet/Olympics controversy, forces China to the table with Tibet. Its time for China to wake up and realize that human beings have rights. If China wants respect, the brutality must stop.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 12:12 PM

China should be congratulated on their attempt to control population. The one child policy has, of course, raised problems, but estimates by the family planning minister are that 400 million births have been prevented, and that the population will peak at 1.6 billion before stabilizing. We consider the policy draconian, but it was necessary.
The policy is enforced most strongly in urban areas; two children are permitted in many rural areas, but with added tax in some, and allowance for two children in ethnic groups with small birth rates.

According to Minister Zhang, the policy will be adjusted in ten years; the percentage of older people will become a pressure on the system, and the problems of growth and globalism will require adjustments to meet needs. As more and more people adjust to 'middle class' lives, they will practice their own controls and less state intervention is necessary.

Our population in Europe and North America has stabilized as people have realized that birth control is necessary in our social system.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 01:25 AM

It never will as long as they restrict families and encourage the abandonment or termination of female babies.

A good friend of mine was teaching in China when the riots started in the 1980's. All non-Chinese inhabitants were forcibly expelled from the country. He vanished. Enquiries to the Chinese Embassy in Britain were ignored or else they said they'd never heard of him and several others. Enquiries to the British Embassy in China received a similar answer, no one knew what had really happened to him. Everyone, including his parents thought he was interred, or worse, dead.

He was lucky. He and his girlfriend were actually on holiday 'up country' when the rioting started and they managed to get out of the country on foot.

On their 4 month journey through China, where they were helped and supported by the general populace, they saw first hand the life of the average Chinese country person, and it is not good. Later, when they married and decided to adopt children, they chose to adopt a Chinese baby. On their journey through China, they'd spent a couple of nights hiding in an orphanage and worked out that over 2/3rds of the children there were girls, and most of them had been abandoned shortly after birth.

Incidentally, also on their journey out, they passed one of the remote internment camps and were able to confirm that there were Europeans being held there, for no reason other than they didn't leave China quickly enough.

This was only about 20 years ago... China has a very long way to go before they're anywhere near the democratic state we would all wish for.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 12:40 AM

The best meet at the Olympics. Like Poppagator, I was glad to see the end of the amateurism nonsense.

I suppose that I am a minority of one here, but I wish the Chinese the very best with the Games.
For millenia, China has been governed from the top down (imperial or communist, it's all the same), but with the rise of a middle class dependent on developing globalization (like the rest of us), change is taking place.
They have become a major player in the world. It may take a generation or so before the Uigars, Tibetans, etc. become a proper part of the development in China, and the, as a whole, conservative Chinese learn how to ignore or deal with cuckoo cults.

It was only a hundred-two hundred years ago that Britain et al. were showing how to boss wogs and blacks and how to plunder the Chinese, the U. S. built a fortune on slaves and later took over the Philippines and parts of Colombia, etc. etc. and it was manifest destiny that American Indians were herded into hardscrabble reservations and Mexico was torn apart. The U. S. is now trying to dominate the Middle East but is doing a poor job of it- perhaps a last gasp of their imperial days.

I believe that the Chinese will move much faster towards what we call democracy, the rights of man, or whatever, than we did.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: PoppaGator
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 05:43 PM

I like sports ~ yes, even spectator sports, especially as I grow too old to participate as I used to ~ and I usually enjoy most of the Olympics.

The customary approach to network TV coverage of the Games in the US is not completely to my taste. I'll watch, because bad coverage is better than none at all, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

The network "suits" seem to think that their broadcasts need to appeal to a "general public" that is not particularly interested in or knowledgable about sports, so they invest hours in maudlin "human interest" pap when they could be showing us actual Olympic competition.

They also seem to think their viewers are xynophobic superpatriots who have no interest in witnessing great athletic feats by human beings from around the world, but are interested ONLY in watching Americans win. This precludes not only coverage of great international competitors, it also rules out showing us sports that the US is not expected to win ~ even when there are American participants falling short of medal-winning status but putting on a decent show nevertheless.

And to those of you who bemoan the advent of "professionalism" ~ Puh-leeeeeeze!

The nineteenth-century European cult of "amateurism," within which the modern Olympic movement developed, was the private reserve of the idle rich. Young adults able to live off the interest earned by their family fortunes needed something to do with their time, since they fancied themselves above actually working for a living, and so they developed amateur athletics.

Much of the early distaste for professional athletes stemmed from the fact that young athletes who could compete in sports ONLY if they were able to earn a living thereby were ipso facto members of the despised lower class, and often of the "wrong" ethnicities.

I would think that that competitors whose livelihood depends upon their competitive and athletic skills are those most likely to give us a good show: not only great physical skills, but also superior gamesmanship and a "never say die" approach that is always admirable and often provides high drama. But not to the 1890s aristocrats who founded the Olympics based upon their cult of amateurism, which really meant "only for true gentlemen, like us."

Since at least a half-century ago, the idea of amateurism in world-class internation sport has been a joke, anyway. In some sports ~ skiing is the best example ~ there were no skilled competitors who were not professionals, and so the rules were bent further for some events than for others. And also, of course, as several folks have mentioned, many nations groomed and trained full-time athletes for international competition by signing them up for the military assigned to positions that they never truly filled as they trained and practiced and competed in their respective sports on a full-time basis.

I'm glad that the obsolete, hypocritical, and completely inconsitent requirement for amateurism has finally found its way into the dustbin of history. At the Olympics, I want to see the best competing against the best, and in most sports, that means pros.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: fat B****rd
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 03:37 PM

If Beijing is seven hours ahead of us does that mean that all you lot reading, dying handycrafts and loathing the Olymlics will be doing all those things overnight?
For some strange reason I used to be wary of putting my real feelings in these threads. Then I thoiught Fuck it. I like to watch female athletes in little shorts, so there.
AS it happens I think the 2012 Olymics in London, or proposed for London, will be a shambles, costing a fortune and if it does start on time it'll be only just.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 01:55 PM

Then they'll probably slip in a rule that states no team is allowed to compete unless they participate in the opening and closing ceremonies which are there to promote peace and harmony (and sell Coke/Budweiser/Depends). Bit like not being able to drive a fork lift unless you've read the safety manual.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 05:20 PM

Horses for courses folks.

People who hate sports can raise enough energy and co-ordination to find and use the TV "OFF" switch.

Everybody has his/her likes and dislikes, and I can't see why we find it so hard to be nice to people who don't share our particular preferences.

I will watch as much of the Olympics as arouses my interest, and ignore the rest, and I would expect everyone else to do the same.

I will not decry the morals or sanity of those who do not share my interests, and I hope they will afford me the same respect.

I WILL moan about having to pay for 2012, as I think that the corporations who stand to make a fortune should foot the bill, and if they cock it up, with overspends and oversights, I should not be asked to help make good their losses.

The one serious comment I would want to air is this.

I believe I have the answer to the human rights protest, and it's really very simple. All participants from beyond the Chinese border to ignore the opening ceremony, and turn up for the start of competition.

The Chinese government couldn't hide THAT from the population.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 08:43 AM

Aussies to turn backs on torch

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: kendall
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 07:53 AM

I have no strong feelings one way or the other about sports, except when they show some silly ball kicking thing instead of Law & Order reruns.
When I was a boy I loved to play baseball. I outgrew it.
I also was a fight fan. Did some boxing myself, but the day I hurt a guy real bad, I outgrew that too.

My two brothers will sit and watch a gang of Bubbas going round and round all Sunday afternoon. I just don't get it.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 06:52 AM

Backwoodsman - I think I need to rephrase that but I'm not entirely sure how...

Latest news today - the 2012 Olympic park is going to cost more than twice the original estimate - the Water Stadium alone has quadrupled in cost...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 07:42 AM

Found a brillant newspaper cartoon - a while ago - which showed the torch trunner in the middle of a circle of armed guards beating back a huge faceless angry mob... prophetic, wasn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 02:32 AM

Well I may be at festivals, dancing - the ones with decent dancing that is. Or at a ceilidh or happy-tapping but I doubt I will be watching much of the Olympic drugfest.

Mind you I do want to know what the world champion at the diving will achieve. Not only is Tom Daley British (and English I think) but Gordon only Bennett mate - he is only 13! No side on him either.

And If Miss Breeze is competing in the weight lifting maybe that too. She would make an excellent commentator too.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Ernest
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 01:33 PM

I generally avoid the Olympics - as I do with sports in general.

And now this is p.c. too...

LOL
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 10:27 AM

"I shall be having my fun with creative crafts and my extensive DVD collection"

Ooooh Liz, you just made an old man come over all unnecessary! LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 03:30 AM

It's certainly no fun for us who live in the Stadium zone, who are already paying for the damned games in more ways than monetary ones, and I can sure as sh*t tell you the council tax won't go down when it's over... especially as the construction is already way past its budget. It affects the council tax of everyone within the M25, so I'm not the only one.

Oh, and now there's the security bill for protecting that wretched torch that must never be allowed to go out.


If you want to have fun watching them, then have your fun, I shall be having my fun with creative crafts and my extensive DVD collection.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 07:45 PM

"...people having fun" - that's the last thing the Olympics today seem to be about

Now a "Fun Olympics", that might be worth something.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Nick E
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 07:35 PM

First I will comment on the "Professionals" being part of the games. It was just a way to level the playing field so to speak, as there were any number of "Army Personnel" from countries that did very little soldiering, and a lot of Hockey, volleyball, whatever. The fact is they were professional athletes. I am all for seeing the best compete.

And as for most of the rest of the comments, what a bunch of joyless curmudgeons! Don't watch people trying to be the best at something, trying to represent their country, stay in your funk, getting gray and growing crustier at each and every ominous tick of the clock while you add up the imaginary cost of people having fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 05:26 PM

So they want to gag the competitors? They'd better start gagging the spectators if today's procession of the torch through London was anything to go by? The Torch travels through London...

Personally, I'd like to find the guy with the fire extinguisher and buy him a pint... and my reason for doing so would have nothing to do with my opinions of Chinese politics.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 08:54 PM

"Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some large unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies these absurd contests....

. . .

"Organized games are more likely to flourish in urban communities where the average human being lives a sedentary or at least a confined life.... In a rustic community a boy or young man works off a good deal of his surplus energy by walking, swimming, snowballing, climbing trees, riding horses, and by various sports involving cruelty to animals.... In a big town one must indulge in group activities.... Games are taken seriously in London and New York, and they were taken seriously in Rome and Byzantium: in the Middle Ages they were played, and probably played with much physical brutality, but they were not mixed up with politics nor a cause of group hatreds.
If you wanted to add to the vast fund of ill-will existing in the world at this moment, you could hardly do it better than by a series of football matches between Jews and Arabs, Germans and Czechs, Indians and British, Russians and Poles, and Italians and Jugoslavs, each match to be watched by a mixed audience of 100,000 spectators....

-- George Orwell, "The Sporting Spirit" (December 1945)

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 07:21 AM

Actually, last time we had quite a lot of footage of the clay pigeon shooting - but then we had both male and female high ranked athletes.

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: folk1e
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 06:18 AM

"never mix politics with sports , don't belong together ." .... Skarpi

Hey you could be on to something here!
How about having a combined games section?
Party Official Arrow Catching Event! Javelin Dodging Event! Discus Ducking?
With all the pollution it could be realy interesting!

On a serious note (honest)
The take up of my own favourite sport, ARCHERY went up dramatically due to the last olympics. The archery (all 10 minuits at 03.35) was a joy to watch, even if the camera shots were controlled by someone who clearly had no idea of what archey is!

I will not be watching too much of the games, but then again I will not be watching NASCAR eather, or OPERA, or .....
but I am sure someone will, and I wish them well!

Subject: RE: BS: Avoiding The Olympics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 03:01 AM

Unfotunately, Ebbie, pies in the face don't stop bastards like Ay-dolf and inscrutable Chinese political leaders.