Thinking about the Olympics

Angry rant warning!

After discussions with some other bloggers who consider the Olympics the height of sports contest:

The Olympics is a joke, a sad parody of another "noble" endeavor perverted by a system where profit and politics matter over human life. Moreover, no one in their right mind would conclude that Americans are "genetically" superior to anything. The fact that the US wins medals is meaningless and, most likely, much of the rest of the world does not give a "tinker's damn" about the outcome of the Olympics (nor should any sensible person). Its hard to see the significance of Olympic medals when you are starving in New York City, being shot in Iraq, Iran, Somalia (and many other places), hacked to death in some remote African village, or being "sweated" in an Oriental factory, enslaved in some Mexican bordello, homeless and destitute in LA, etc. etc.

I don't think Jane or Joe Sixpack, who is watching the Olympics cares too much about "why" we dominate the Olympics so much as she or he views it as a source of national pride. This is probably why they don't comment on the roots of the phenomenon.

Flame off.