If I Ruled the Olympics

Tags

editorial, Olympics, opinion, Sports

Let’s assume.

Since the very title is a presumption, it seems right and logical that we do.

So bear with me.

Let’s assume some things:

1. The Olympics as in “ancient” games were a serious quest to determine the best of athleticism.
2. That athletes from say Thrace or Carthage stood an equal chance as those of Athens and Sparta.
3. That judging was fair.

Okay, so perhaps we are not so sure of those things, but the ideals are what we are after here, and those are certainly the ideals of Olympic competition, along with brotherhood, the international symbol for ma and apple pie, and the general touting of human excellence, there having  been no Nobel’s or Oscar’s or Pulitzer’s at that time.

So of course we realize that all has gone terribly wrong in the ensuing millennia.

Today the Games are a nationalistic entertainment extravaganza wherein somehow one country is judged better than another by virtue of how it schemes to “help” its athletes win while still not getting caught for cheating. All kinds of political points are scored, lost, won, and wasted in the pursuit. Of increasing concern is the degree to which polluters, human rights violators, and countries unable to feed their own masses somehow manage to sweep, cover-up, board-up, or wall-off, these embarrassments  while “hosting” these circuses.

Everyone waits with bated breath, (whatever that actually means) to see what Vlad Putin and his “nipples on display” ego has in store for gays and other dissidents once all the lovely people have gone and Russia returns to its cold, stark realities. We politely have looked the other way “for the sake of the athletes” and most of us will sanctimoniously report that his “opening and closing” paled in comparison with Beijing’s and even London’s.

Meanwhile a half-dozen impoverished countries will bid for the right to use dwindling resources to build venues which often go unused once the games are over, while poverty haunts the senses within blocks of these palaces of extreme waste.

So if I were handling things, this is what I’d do:

1. Select permanent sites for both winter and summer games. The choice would be weather/sea level appropriate, but would attempt to locate in smaller, poorer countries if possible. They would receive “rent” on the space and a bit of the profits in return for their lease of the land.
2. The permanent facilities would be funded by say a 25-year average of all countries athlete count to the respective games. Meaning that countries like the US, Russia, Britain, and so forth would pay the greatest share. All countries would contribute to the maintenance of a security force both during and between games and to reasonable maintenance of the venues.
3. There would be no flag carrying and no flag raising at events or at medal presentations. Athletes would not wear uniforms defining them as representing countries but rather as Olympians. Every country will undoubtedly keep their viewers firmly educated in these matters without the formal Olympic committee being involved.
4. All athletes will use the SAME equipment. We are here to determine the best athlete not which country developed the best racing suit/bike/sled/goggles/skis/javelin. Developers of equipment will submit their designs and research to the committee who will maintain experts in all these matters who will choose the best for usage in the next games.
5. All athletes will have access to venues six months before the opening to practice on the track/field/course if they wish. A small fee for housing will be paid and for food. The rest is free.
6. For sports that are not subject to objective standards for “judging”, i.e., a stopwatch and verifiable goals, i.e., proper completion of the circuit, other rules will apply:

                   a. If you want to be a “sport” no bowing  is allowed. Conclude your effort and wave to the audience and depart.

                   b. Everyone will complete the same exact “routine”.

                   c. Athletes will wear appropriate clothing and not appear to be characters in a story.

                   d. Standards will be developed for each “part” of a routine, and graded on a scale of (1)completed satisfactorily (2)

                       completed but not cleanly so (3) partially completed (4) failed to complete.

                    e. If all parts are completed “satisfactorily” 1-3 additional points may be given for “extreme merit”.

                    f. No points will be given for “style”.

                   g. All judges will be publicly known, and are required  to turn in signed voting sheets which are also public.

                   h. No judge can participate who has a family/business associate/or other close relationship with a coach or other intimately

                        connected person to the athlete.

 

No doubt there are  a hundred things wrong with what I have devised. But seriously this stuff is getting to be a joke and something must be done.

And is it time to devise a definition of eligibility? Are we going to have professionals or amateurs or some of each? Since we cannot stop the corruption of countries paying and supporting athletes to give them a hand up, we need to figure this out too. I have no salient opinion on this at this time. It’s fraught with landmines I fear.

On to MARCH MADNESS!

 

Listen to Me–A Recipe for a Sane World

Tags

God concepts, Internet, opinion, power, quotations, Sophia, thinking, women, writing

I often sit down to write with little or no idea where I might end up. I figure that’s a good thing mostly. And frankly, on occasion, I start one place and end another. There is no road map after all.

I picked up this article in the NYTimes, which seemed provocative and in the end enlightening. It warned implicitly at least that we are usually wrong when we form opinions mostly from anecdotal evidence.

It seems to me, that most of what we do is in the form of  concluding from whatever “evidence” we have acquired up to a certain point from actual research or reading and experiential events. Depending on how heavily weighted the former is, we are more likely right or wrong.

The article pointed out that while it may seem that we are being turned into attention deficit superficialities by the ready speed of the Internet, in fact we aren’t, as attested by any number of actual scientific studies. Okay, I can buy that. And frankly, I’m relieved.

But the unintended consequence of the article, was a off hand link to a site I’d never heard of, and that was worth ten times the article to me. Where I started in the direction of discussing how we prefer 500 words or less in our posts, I drifted into the realm of thinking my opinions mostly shit.

So I developed this tongue in cheek title and went looking for a suitable image. I, as most writers, undoubted assume that we have something you should hear, so I typed in “God Complex” thinking it an amusing image for the post. Alas, not a single one portrayed a woman as suffering from this. So I tried “God as Woman” and that got me “God as women?” and then mostly tons of images of God creating woman. Then I tried feminists as God, and I got more garbage in the form of symbols, and this went on for some time.

My frustration grew. Finally I got the above sweet nurturing image of God as Sophia. Not at all what I was looking for. No ripped abs portraying woman as conqueror or powerful overlord of earth–no I got sappy sweet mother goddess stuff.

And I was reminded that yesterday, the owner of The Daily Beast was on GMA. She was asked what it meant that most of the Tuesday primaries had been won by women. Her response was, “well it proves that women can be wingnuts too.” And I agree.

It’s not that I’m arguing that I want women to be power hungry, insensitive louts like some men are. I’m acceding that they already are, and probably always have been. Yes, I believe that there are differences between men on women on a whole plethora of levels, but given the right motivations, women are as greedy and blood thirsty as any man thought of being.

So why no women with God complexes? I dunno.

Finding Arts and Letters Daily, (the above link) is like finding nirvana. It’s like you want to redo your entire blogroll, and well, spend a few days, weeks or so meandering around. That for me is the point of the Internet, but it’s a little like walking into the Library of Congress or the MMA–you have a day–choose wisely.

Once upon a time it was possible for a man or woman to know virtually everything that there was to know about any given field of endeavor, and perhaps several. Today, you can but keep generally abreast of the trends in a field. There are more books, articles and such than you can ever hope to read or even know about.

And the amazing thing, is that we (the writers of whatever) in our pathetic egotistical sadness actually think that somebody has time to listen to our pathetic whinings. Yet, the human spirit appears to forge ahead, confident that somewhere an audience exists. Dangerously, this thought occurs to the serial cannibal as well and they can but be encouraged when they find their own among the billions who inhabit the planet.

It all leaves me with no depressed feelings, but a shrugging feeling. I distinctly felt a shrug coming on as I thought about it. I don’t care. I write because I like my own voice inside my head, and I think myself devilishly funny and acidic and witty. I’m always surprised when my best prose, my most humorous repartee is met with silence, but it’s simply not my fault if you are unable to see the genius I am.

Now that was supposed to elicit a huge guffaw, before you snap off thinking me insufferably arrogant. The fact is, there is more talent on planet earth that most realize. I am not exceptional but the norm I suspect. That is not cause for sadness, but gives hope that in the end, this planet will survive its experiment with the human species.

So as you can see, this post is a bit incoherent. I am aware of that! But it’s what I chose to do today. Wandering as the thought carried. Thanks for wandering with me. I like the company. After all, there is a worthwhile couple of links, and you can skip the rest.

Two quotes:

Speed reading is touted as letting you read much faster with good comprehension. Woody Allen read War and Peace in one day and proved the truth of that by responding: “It’s about Russia.”

Jean-Paul Sartre quipped:  In a football match, everything is complicated by the presence of the other team.