The best Olympics ever

August 19th 2008 – After 10 days of Olympic competition, three aspects of Beijing’s Games have maintained international attention. Firstly, the pretty little girl that didn’t sing as opposed to the ugly one that did. Secondly, the unfathomable amounts of money spent by the Chinese gouvernment to hold these Games. Finally, the mutant called Phelps and his status as greatest person to ever do anything in the universe.

Let us begin with the supposed controversy that the opening ceremonies involved trickery and deceit. Apparently, the little girl who sang the Chinese people’s anthem was only lip-synching to the lyrics of another little girl backstage. The western world has understood the concept of a pretty face presenting the work of an intellect in the shadows for at least a century. All western politicians have legions of speechwriters, image consultants, clothing experts and media liaisons to make the man (or black man) in power SEEM like the cleanest, best, friendliest and most confident leader possible. Furthermore, new media technologies now offer us the possibility of only seeing pretty people on television and in movies. They are not necessarily singing or acting as much as posing and mouthing at the camera. Fortunately, that is all we really want. We know of their marketing and manipulation tactics yet we are not outraged at MTV because they airbrushed an artist or at the shopping network trying to sell us a steak knife that cuts through cement. Why is China evil when they employ the exact same marketing tactics we’ve had for decades? And NO, it is not different because they are children. Regardless of what people say, not all kids are beautiful and you will notice that only the pretty ones have their faces displayed in the picture frames at Sears.

Also, some of the fireworks we saw on television during the ceremony were actually pre-recorded rather than live. Fireworks are unpredictable (wind, humidity, fog, misfires) and thus they backed up their multimillion-dollar display with recorded footage. Of the two billion people who watched the event, only a handful of zealous journalists noticed and exactly no one cared until the media told them to. The only difference it made was that we were much more entertained than if the thick smog hid the fireworks display.

On another note, the other day I saw Hugh Laurie stick his hand in someone’s open chest and pull out a tapeworm. I surprisingly still enjoyed the episode of house, knowing it was a plastic torso and worm. I also watched professional wrestling and could totally see that their punches weren’t landing. I was so disillusioned that I vowed to only watch sports that weren’t fixed in advance like boxing, televised poker and Baseball. My naïve self expected non-stop live presentation of realistic people in realistic situations from my television. I was sorely disappointed that Star Trek was not live feed from the International Space Station. Television is the fakest presentation of fake things happening to fake people (double all the fakes for reality television). There is nothing wrong with that, otherwise we would look out the window or go out instead of watch a fat person lose two pounds and cry for 35 minutes.

(I am kidding, nothing could ever convince me to watch baseball).

Moving on.

The Chinese Olympic Committee and the Chinese government have allegedly spent billions of dollars on these games. Just the opening ceremonies cost a cool 100 million dollars for a 4-hour show. Some people may frown upon a third-world nation that spends a percentage of its GDP on a two-week party but I say nay. The Chinese have an image to keep up and doing so requires them to spend more money, use more performers and win more gold medals than we can possibly imagine. In a measly four years, they have built massive sports infrastructure and developed competitive talent in sports they hadn’t even heard of a few years ago (see canoeing). I will not be ethnocentric and impose my values of democracy, human writes and feeding children on Hu Jintao and the Communist Party of China.

That’s right, we must not forget that China is a communist nation. As such, China spends more on international image than on rural infrastructure or long-term economic development (It worked well for the USSR). It is unfortunate but the evidence is there. Actually, they are not necessarily hypocritical about their designs by hiding them. It’s just that very little people speak Mandarin in the Western World and so we may instinctively think they are hiding something. We might have to wait a century before Chinese languages prevail over English and thus we will be one happy homogenous family (unlike the failure of the British, German, French, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Russian, Swedish, Japanese and American empires before).

Finally,

These Olympics, we have been treated to the greatest amount of Gold Medals by a single athlete in a single Games ever. Michael Phelps has continuously volunteered for drug testing on top of mandatory tests therefore we cannot accuse him of any wrongdoing (Unless American chemists have developed undetectable performance-enhancers… I am just being paranoid, it could never happen). He seemingly deserves these medals and congratulations to him. It was exhilarating to see him swim and win until I noticed an odd trend. People are huddled around televisions to see the human-dolphin hybrid swim and are overwhelmed with emotion when he shatters the world record in a particular event. The thing is, he DESTROYED the Olympic record in one event and shattered the world records in the other 7. Furthermore, the other competitors that would invariably finish on the silver and bronze medal positions would also smash their personal best, national best and world record… I thought that world records where these limits of human performance that were only rarely pushed by a small increment… Have these swimmers been holding back dramatically during practice and competitions in the last decade or is there something more nefarious at work here. My suspicion is based on metaphysics rather than facts but here goes: I insinuate that the Chinese desire for ratings and notoriety is behind this. By somehow reducing the water resistance in their pool, even by a percent or two, they could guarantee the establishment of new and unbeatable records. Hence, we would be talking about the Beijing swimming events for the next few decades. Think about it, it sounds like they would have the resources and motive to do this… they are clearly hiding something.

Michael Phelps has the most gold medals and this criterion seems to be enough to designate him as the best Olympian of all time. Here are some other factors to be taken into account:

- Today’s wet suits have substantially decreased record times.
- In the first few Olympic games, swimming events took place in open sea.
- For an athlete competing in the triathlon, he would have to compete for 32 years to get 8 gold medals. There is one triathlon per Olympics and 497 swimming events.
- Half of the planet’s countries have little access to water (Africa), much less an Olympic swimming delegation. However, every country can run the 100 meters.
- The Chinese did something with the water.
- Former Olympians Pieter Van Den Hogenband and Ian Thorpe were not competing, leaving Phelps with relatively no competition.

I am not saying that Phelps’ accomplishment is not among the greatest athletic achievements of all time. I am just trying to nuance the absolutist terminology used by worldwide media this week (best, legend, God, Greatest, fish-boy).

My Gold medal for BEST Olympian still goes to Jesse Owens, a black man who won 4 gold medals (athletics) under Hitler’s nose in the 1936 Berlin games. He was constantly berated and jeered by the spectators celebrating their official German racism yet ran and jumped well ahead of his Aryan competitors. Once he came back to the United States as an Olympic hero, he was generously rewarded with a lucrative and dignified career racing against horses on a track. Life and History are generally unfair but it definitely sucks more for some.

Happy Olympic season, it is the greatest…

(Pictured: Jesse Owens, One-upping the Nazis - Freedom officers looking on at the pre-recorded fireworks display - Michael Phelps, NOT experiencing the side-effects of performance-enhancers)

End.

SSR Forever

Friday August 8th 2008 – Although I would profoundly enjoy writing about the Beijing Olympics, and its politisation, Vladimir Putin has decided to deny me this happiness by invading the former soviet socialist republic of Georgia. I am well aware that Dimitri Medvedev is the current president of Russia yet somehow Putin is the one speaking to the media and attending the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympiads (on the very same hour that 150 soviet, sorry I mean, Russian tanks crossed the Russian border into Georgia). Since the invasion, thousands are dead in what few have correctly dubbed ‘’all-out war’’. Pointing fingers has begun therefore I though I would help you point your own instead of letting fox news do it for you.

One could say this began with the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the creation of Georgia in the early 1990s. Being a small republic in the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia has limited resources to affirm its independence and autonomy from its massive Russian neighbour/former overlord. Furthermore, just as Russia has to contend with the separatist peoples of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia (among many others), Georgia has two secessionist provinces: Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both these regions are populated by a majority of ethnic Russians yet are internationally recognized as belonging to the Georgian central gouvernment within the established borders of its country. South Ossetia went on the offensive following the end of the cold war and declared itself an independent state in 1992, thus deepening the internal rift severely. To this day, none of the 195 countries of the planet (ironically including Russia) have recognized the legitimacy of this separation although Russia has granted them citizenship in 2007.

Now that the table has been set, we are ready for a point-counterpoint of the soviet…I mean Russian invasion in South Ossetia this Friday.

At first, Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili was sending armed forces to the separatist-held region for a week before the incident. The details and objectives of this operation remain vague yet there were no reports of violence or casualties by international observers. Saakashvili relates that he was simply trying to keep peace in the region and thus maintain the internal stability of his country (who is trying to join NATO). Suddenly, President Medvedev of Russia decided to send over 150 Soviet tanks into Georgia to help the peacekeeping effort (presumably after being told to do so by Putin). Two things strike me as strange with this occurrence: a) my father was a United Nations Peacekeeper for decades yet has never promoted peace by entering a region with 150 tanks b) What right does Russia have to enter another country and help when no one asked them? Medvedev evokes the right to protect all Russian citizens yet I fail to believe 150 tanks would be sent to Little Russia in New York if they were being turbulent.

The situation rapidly degenerated as Russia accused Georgia of ethnically cleansing the Russians of South Ossetia (1 day AFTER they invaded) to justify their actions and Georgia accused the Russian tanks and fighter jets of attacking civilian targets. They both deny any wrongdoing and listening to their official statements, you would think they are calmly having tea and biscuits in South Ossetia right now. Fortunately, international media are reporting the thousands of dead civilians and soldiers and heavily armed clashes in progress. We are told and vividly shown that the capital of the region, Tskhinval has been obliterated. Furthermore, Russia has invaded the other breakaway region of Abkhazia and is air bombing the Georgian capital, Tbilissi. Something must be done and everyone has an opinion about how and why.

The politicians of the world have a clear enounced goal: the immediate cessation of hostilities in Georgia. Most of them then suggest that Russia remove its tanks, apologize, promise they won’t do it again and go to bed without dessert. John McCain (Republican candidate for the United States presidency) even accused Moscow of attacking Georgia to undermine the Georgian adoption of western values such as freedom and democracy. Apparently everything east of Germany is a military dictatorship or communist wasteland; clearly McCain suffers from PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) from his Vietnam days (vote Obama). Unfortunately, it is not so clear, as I have elaborated. Georgia is possibly oppressing and even murdering the Ossetians who are ethnically and linguistically Russian. Furthermore, Georgia was a province of the Soviet Empire for half a century and therefore still has close economic, political and emotional ties to the motherland. Isn’t Russia correct in wanting to defend its people, even if it means shattering its own international relations, invading another country and possibly going to war? With the lack of transparency that has characterized the Russian government since the early XXth century and the suspiciously talkative President Saakashvili on the opposing side, we are heavily saturated with either our own wild guesses or abundant misinformation. I am absolutely sure it is in everyone’s best interest to stop the armed conflict and discuss a compromise (so that Russia doesn’t lose face and Georgia isn’t bombed off the world map). If we absolutely must assign blame, I leave you with an eerily similar parallel in history from 70 years ago.

The Sudetenland is a German name given to the western portion of the Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia). In 1938 a man named Konrad Henlein led a separatist party in the Czech capital of Prague. He and 3 million of his fellow Sudeten-Germans had a historic attachment to the Fatherland and thus wanted to rejoin Deutschland. The 1930s had seen skirmish after skirmish erupt within the Czech region between the two ethnic groups without a proper diplomatic outcome foreseeable. Finally, seeing the plight of a German-speaking, German-cultured peoples of the Sudetenland, Germany sent tanks to invade and annex the region into their Kingdom. International outrage followed as Germany easily silenced the Czech guns, yet nothing concrete was done to punish the outrageous violation of the Czech nation. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain even went to Munich to meet with the Germans and signed a treaty (The Munich Accords) that formally agreed with the German imperative to protect their people in the Sudetenland as long as they no longer threatened any existing border in Europe. The Germans happily agreed; “Peace in our time” yelled Chamberlain as he exited the plane in London. They would not have to go to war with the Germans because their leader, chancellor Adolf Hitler had noble motives for taking a chunk of Czechoslovakia. The epilogue of this historical excerpt includes the annexation of Czechoslovakia as a whole, as well as most of Europe and over 50 million dead but that story is for another day.

(Pictured: British PM Chamberlain, French President Daladier, German Chancellor Hitler and Italian leader Mussolini signing the Munich accords - The Russian tanks of aid, justice and peace enter Georgia - Georgian shooter Nino Salukvadze and Russian shooter Natalia Paderina embrace as they receive olympic bronze and gold medals respectively this weekend)

End.

Heroes Shmeroes

August 3rd 2008 – 11 alpinists have died climbing to the Himalayan summit of K2, the second tallest peak on the planet. At 8,611 vertical meters high, it is a mere 237 meters shorter than Everest yet just as treacherous and deadly. In fact, it is widely regarded as the most difficult ascent on earth and is prone to flash avalanches. Today, such a catastrophe is widely responsible for instantly suffocating a few, smashing others and stranding the remainder until they died of exposure to the –45 degree (Celsius) temperatures.

Only a handful of climbers have made it to the top of K2 and despite several serious attempts no one has ever successfully reached the peak in winter. This begs the question: why in holy heck are they doing this. There are two generally accepted answers to this: the first and most obvious one is that there are massive amounts of gold hidden within caves near the peak. The second possibility is more doubtful and is described by the climbers as “for the thrill of it”. Gandhi marched for salt, Anne Frank wrote a diary, Rosa Parks sat at the front of the bus and Imre Nagy kicked the Soviets out of Budapest (Wiki him, a very interesting historical character); ‘for the thrill of it”. Funny enough, these types of sacrifices in the face of injustice, prejudice or plain fascism today are barely as noticed as the great thrill seekers of Everest and K2.

This story is currently given the utmost importance on major news sites internationally. Meanwhile, a potential cure for stomach cancer was discovered in England yesterday and earlier today, over 140 people died in a massive accident in India. Unfortunately for the Indians, they are colored and nowhere near as interesting as the rich Scandinavian people that had enough free time to go kill themselves on K2, a few hundred kilometers north of India.

Don’t get me wrong, if these self-proclaimed heroes want to attempt this feat that makes no effort to hide its high probability of amputation and mortality, who I am to say they are as dumb as people who eat glass for other people’s entertainment. I just seriously don’t get why Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing, whom were the first to climb Everest in 1953, are on many lists of “Heroes” or “Pioneers” next to Martin Luther King Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt, Florence Nightingale or Che Guevara. Hillary, at best, won the ultimate bragging rights when he made it back to his castle in New Zealand (Sherpa Tenzing went back to his straw hut and had a modest life as a tourist guide). He did not win the darn Nobel peace prize and to wrap up my point, it wasn’t any easier for Ernst Smied and Jürg Marmet to climb Mount Everest 3 years later; they were second to do so and thus apparently not worthy of the smallest amount of worship.

Ironically, the more clever ones out there may decry my hypocrisy since I have been talking in length about this event rather than the Indian hecatomb or medical breakthroughs. To you I would say that I am definitely doing it “for the thrill” and am definitely not ashamed to say I want the gold at the top of writers’ mountain. The burden remains on the reader, no one is twisting your arm, go to Wikipedia and read about Women’s rights in Iran or how to build a hybrid car out of discarded phone books. Long story short, the people want to worship Edmund Hillary and Neil Armstrong because we are so very lazy and when there finally is a first man that did something, we, by extension, did as well.

(Pictured: Sherpa Tenzing Norgay atop Mount Everest in 1953 - The Colossal K2 seen from Base Camp 1)

End.