If It’s 2010 The Olympics Must Be On Somewhere

But where?

As of now, this here is officially an Olympic no-go zone.

If you’re dropping by to get updated medal counts or the skinny on if there’s snow up on Sugar Mountain or wherever, don’t. We could care less and realize now with horror that we should’ve booked the next 2 weeks in someplace warm with an affinity more for dengue than Olympic fever. So loath are we of the whole shooting match that we have come to detest the normally soothing velvety tones of Canadian actor Donald Sutherland, due to his ubiquitous voice over plugs of CTV’s Olympic coverage. What is with you and Dirty Sexy Money, Donald?

And no, we are not petulant, bitter Torontonians who have looked on helplessly as the Olympic fairy has touched down 3 times now in Canada without ever alighting upon our humble burg. After the public fleecing and bequeathing of monstrously useless behemoths like the Big O on Montreal in 1976, we should’ve learned a valuable lesson and taken a pass on any further buggerings. Thanks but no thanks. From here on in, how be we just send a contingent of passable contestants and watch the proceedings on TV. Is what we should’ve said.

Instead we are all aflutter over hosting what has to be the biggest corporate clusterfuck after free trade, globalization and neoliberal economic theory. (Boo-yeah!!) It is simply faux patriotism; more benign than war but still mindless in its own right. How be instead of measuring the worth of our country in terms of its gold medal haul, we take pride in being the greenest country in the world? Or having the fewest people living below the poverty line? Or the fewest people dying homeless in the street? Or having the best educated high schoolers the world has ever known!?

But what about the athletes who have been training so hard? Hey. We all make choices what to do with our lives, and if you choose to spend your time hurtling down an ice chute at 4000 k an hour, my hat’s off to you. I don’t think we should be spending too much of our tax money so that you can do it faster than anyone else in the world. No, you aren’t that much of an inspiration to our youth. You are an inspiration to our videogame makers who will create virtual simulations of your sport for our youth to “experience” the thrill of from the safety of their couches without the fear of suffering massive head trauma. At least not of the physical kind.

So to all you Olympic haters out there? Let the ignoring begin!! It’s going to be a long, dark 2 weeks but there will be a brighter future after Vancouver 2010.*

*(Brought to you by the official sponsor of The Olympic Resistance Network. OK, not really. But we think you should give the site a read anyway.)

— proudly submitted by Cityslikr