Olympic ennui

As I opened my Sunday NY Times Sports Section, I was struck by the number of articles about the impending Olympics. All I can deduce from this is that somebody somewhere must give a damn. I certainly do not. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the athletes themselves, I do. That said, it seems that I have a lot more on my plate right now and I just can’t get worked up over what the hell is going to go on in Beijing. I mean, it’s the middle of baseball season for God sakes! And I have to get a haircut too.

 I have followed some of the Olympic stories in the news and they seem to fall into 3 categories:
1. What’s right or wrong with China (mostly wrong).
2. The hard luck or unique competitor of the week scenario.
3. Why our basketball team is going to kick everyone’s ass.

All this attention to the Olympics means that I can’t get any in depth news about the sporting events I really do care about: baseball and in particular, NY Yankee baseball. It also means we are going to be subjected to a ton of Olympic advertising in the weeks ahead. I wouldn’t mind this as much if I had created the ads myself but that’s another story.

Here’s my take on the 3 these Olympic categories:

1. China is a communist state trying to have its cake and eat it too. They want all the money and luxury perks but they want them on the backs of millions of oppressed people, including Tibetans, (where they have no business being at all) dissidents and working poor. They are also serious polluters and not very nice to their neighbors. Well, the IOC decided that it was important to have the games there so that’s the way it is and unless the US Government wants China to call in its notes, we are going to compete there so we’ll just have to get over it.

2. Every week there is a story of some athlete who has had to overcome some impossible obstacle just to be able to compete. Although I cheer these people on from afar, I don’t need to know their story. We’ve heard them all before. Just play the games and keep your stories to yourselves. The one exception might be the 41 year old swimmer who, if I might use a vulgar term to describe her, might be one of the biggest MILFs of all time.

3. This is one of the absurdities of Olympic competition. We send NBA stars because we feel we should win every time and to be defeated is a national embarrassment. Meanwhile, the Chinese don’t have ‘professionals’ but totally subsidize their athletes. It’s a sham. Why don’t we just pay all these athletes so they can have a nice life and be done with it.

The spirit of pure athletic competition died a long time ago. China is the most important country on the planet right now. They also have some great people in that country: artists, writers, etc, who might benefit from the light remnants being shed on them from the Olympic torch. If anybody is watching, let us know if anything really interesting happens. I’ll be watching something else.