I considered posting this in the other olympics thread.. but it's not quite on topic for there.. so here I am..
anyway, my rant:
I almost called this the "I hate the Olympics" thread but then I realised, I dont. Well, not completely anyway...
Rather I dislike the way people use the olympics for their own purposes. (that is commercialisation and profit), to make things all 'happy families' etc. Much like they do with christmas and High School graduations.
and in particular I intensely dislike the way people use them for political statements, when they're supposed to be apolitical.
To clarify my points I'll give a couple of examples:
I had intended to not watch any of the broadcast (for reasons of my own - but mainly because channel 7 in Australia is showing almost 24/7 sport which then directly affects when Stargate is aired, as c.7 is the only free-to-air channel that has the rights to the show.)
but due to unforseen circumstances, I have indeed seen a small-ish amount. Which also means I've been subjected to an uncomfortable amount of suedo-Patriotic advertisements for Telstra (the formerly gov. owned telecommunications company) and also for QANTAS.
It really shouldn't surprise me that these companies would jump on the bandwagon and snaffle some rather catchy kind of patriotic tunes for their ads. and it doesn't really, It just irks me.
Now, here in Aust. for the most part, people don't care about patriotism. Sure, they get excited when movie stars get Oscar nominations etc. but for the most part people are just incredibly apathetic when it comes to the crunch.
Until of course, you get to sport - then for some reason they go completely off the rails. I don't watch sport, but I don't have anything against it either. In fact, I have an inordinate amount of respect for the athletes themselves - for the simple reasons that they have so very very much will power and determination to succeed. Go Them!
But, I completely disagree with the hoopla that evidently necessarily follows that. Just because a person who has lived in your country long enough to become a citizen has won a lump of metal, I see no real reason to get as excited as people do. I see that as a personal achievement of the individual involved. Not the entire country.
But it's not just that - it's also the commercialisation of it all. The money involved in hosting the games. Hundred's of thousands of millions of dollars are spent - for what? 16 measley days of people running around, getting dehydrated (those poor people by the way - Grecian summers don't sound fun!)
Talking to my brother about the same issue, he came up with the comment that people needed hope from somewhere.
And I guess thats true. But I don't think that a bunch of sporting events is a lasting kind of hope. Particularly in the form it takes these days. It's more of a manufactured kind of hope, that will burst almost immediately after the games are finished.
Because of the political issues that are necessarily dragged into the competitions (for example the US not being allowed to wave flags) it's a very sad world indeed if one needs to draw hope from events such as these.
Couldn't that kind of money be spent better elsewhere? Either in the host country's own government (ie, health care and education) or given to one of the numerous needful countries of the world?
This all being said - I have actually seen a couple of events - the Ping Pong being one of them - and I've always found it interesting to watch such underrated sports. I like to wonder what possessed those particular athletes to go into that sport?
So, while I disagree with many of the concepts that surround the olympics, I don't really think we should get rid of them altogether. People do enjoy watching sport. That's cool, I can handle that. But when it interferes with my Stargatey Goodness???? well....thats an entirely different story!!
anyway, my rant:
I almost called this the "I hate the Olympics" thread but then I realised, I dont. Well, not completely anyway...
Rather I dislike the way people use the olympics for their own purposes. (that is commercialisation and profit), to make things all 'happy families' etc. Much like they do with christmas and High School graduations.
and in particular I intensely dislike the way people use them for political statements, when they're supposed to be apolitical.
To clarify my points I'll give a couple of examples:
I had intended to not watch any of the broadcast (for reasons of my own - but mainly because channel 7 in Australia is showing almost 24/7 sport which then directly affects when Stargate is aired, as c.7 is the only free-to-air channel that has the rights to the show.)
but due to unforseen circumstances, I have indeed seen a small-ish amount. Which also means I've been subjected to an uncomfortable amount of suedo-Patriotic advertisements for Telstra (the formerly gov. owned telecommunications company) and also for QANTAS.
It really shouldn't surprise me that these companies would jump on the bandwagon and snaffle some rather catchy kind of patriotic tunes for their ads. and it doesn't really, It just irks me.
Now, here in Aust. for the most part, people don't care about patriotism. Sure, they get excited when movie stars get Oscar nominations etc. but for the most part people are just incredibly apathetic when it comes to the crunch.
Until of course, you get to sport - then for some reason they go completely off the rails. I don't watch sport, but I don't have anything against it either. In fact, I have an inordinate amount of respect for the athletes themselves - for the simple reasons that they have so very very much will power and determination to succeed. Go Them!
But, I completely disagree with the hoopla that evidently necessarily follows that. Just because a person who has lived in your country long enough to become a citizen has won a lump of metal, I see no real reason to get as excited as people do. I see that as a personal achievement of the individual involved. Not the entire country.
But it's not just that - it's also the commercialisation of it all. The money involved in hosting the games. Hundred's of thousands of millions of dollars are spent - for what? 16 measley days of people running around, getting dehydrated (those poor people by the way - Grecian summers don't sound fun!)
Talking to my brother about the same issue, he came up with the comment that people needed hope from somewhere.
And I guess thats true. But I don't think that a bunch of sporting events is a lasting kind of hope. Particularly in the form it takes these days. It's more of a manufactured kind of hope, that will burst almost immediately after the games are finished.
Because of the political issues that are necessarily dragged into the competitions (for example the US not being allowed to wave flags) it's a very sad world indeed if one needs to draw hope from events such as these.
Couldn't that kind of money be spent better elsewhere? Either in the host country's own government (ie, health care and education) or given to one of the numerous needful countries of the world?
This all being said - I have actually seen a couple of events - the Ping Pong being one of them - and I've always found it interesting to watch such underrated sports. I like to wonder what possessed those particular athletes to go into that sport?
So, while I disagree with many of the concepts that surround the olympics, I don't really think we should get rid of them altogether. People do enjoy watching sport. That's cool, I can handle that. But when it interferes with my Stargatey Goodness???? well....thats an entirely different story!!
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