The XXX Olympiad

My last two weeks have been consumed by two things - a new job (YAY!!) and the Olympics.  I'll be blogging on the former later, as I'm trying to still wrap my head around it all and come up with something more coherent than "Holy crap holy crapholycrap!".  I would like to, for now, ruminate on a few things that have struck a chord with me during the XXX Olympiad.

First thought: "The XXX Olympiad"

Anytime I see "XXX", I can't help making the association with the movie XXX, and sports more often associated with youthful craziness and the X-Games. I find this association quite appropriate as sports like BMX biking are starting to be recognized by "the establishment" and gain so much ground at an international level.  I LOVE these sports. I love watching them, I love the dedication of the athletes, and I love the sheer doggedness of participating in something that you KNOW is going to make people think you are unworthy of recognition even as you give blood and sweat to it. The great thing about the XXX Olympics was that you very seldom heard the announcers discussing this aspect of these sports.  You instead heard them giving intelligent commentaries on the sport, the courses, and the athleticism of those competing. It was great.

Second thought: "Players vs. Politicians"

I don't know about the rest of you, but the local commercials where I am were taken over in an extremely high percentage by political smear ads.  We saw some national level ones too, but not as many (mainly due to the political leanings of this area).  It was one of those things I just kept tuning out, until around the time when all of the swimming finals started happening.

    At the end of each race almost every athlete, regardless of nationality or finishing-placement, would spend a moment of their celebration or defeat congratulating those around them on a well-swum race.  This happened over and over and over again.  And then, with the telecasting as it was, you would immediately cut to a commercial, often involving some politician or other tearing their opponents into shreds.  

    I'm a strange person.  I really like the time period surrounding elections.  I like hearing people's ideas on how to maybe help, I like seeing the possibilities of the future.  I like the process of it, of knowing that we can go through the process of it.  I know there are issues with it, and that it has so many problems, and that is what it is.  But.  I totally, completely, and indubitable HATE when politicians do this to each other. And this year? Only seems worse because of the in-your-face juxtaposition created by by the Olympics vs. politics.

There are many things that make me proud to live where I do - many things that make me, cliche as it may be, proud to be an American.  The Olympics and our participation therein are one of them.  Our political system is another.  The methods of the politicians? Not so much.

So, here's hoping that those politicians take some sort of lesson from the athletes of the XXX Olympiad.

Here's know that they probably won't.