i enjoy the olympics in a very unironic way. yeah, i'm pretty sure everyone is drugged up and the chinese have infants on their women's gymnastics team or whatever, but still.anyway, i do feel conflicted every 4 years. where do my loyalties lie? (un?)fortunately, the canadian olympic team seems unable to win a medal in a single event, so i guess i'm going to go with korea. i am sure we will sit comfortably in third until all the track and field events begin. what happened to canada? we used to win a medal or two in the summer olympics. [update: korea is now behind germany in the medal count. boo...]
i find it somewhat amusing that all of my not very patriotic friends get seriously peeved when i don't cheer for the USA. there also was this ridiculous new york times article expressing incredulity over the fact that the chinese are (gasp!) uninterested in michael phelps. yeah, guess what? not everyone cares about america. deal with it.
btw, did anyone happen to read this david brooks op-ed? is he accusing americans of "whining" over katrina? why did he wait until the final sentence to state his thesis?
3 comments:
Yeah, I'm with you. The Olympics, despite the principals for which they purportedly stand, bring out some serious ugly in our dumb compatriots.
I couldn't give a shit about how America does, how many medals it wins. Not one shit. We need more excuses to trumpet our false sense of national superiority? People are kidding themselves if they they see no connection between our lurid obsession with the medal count (bolstered by events no one cares about) and our zealous support for a cowboy foreign policy. When I watch the Olympics, as I am right now, I do so without a shred of blind jingoism, but I watch with that most American of values in heart. I root for the underdogs, no matter where they're from.
except for usain bolt. that dude is amazing. speaking of jamaica, someone at lunch the other day gave away the ending of "cool runnings," which i still haven't seen. dammit! there goes my john candy memorial film festival.
i dunno, dude. it's been a long time since america has cared for the downtrodden.
btw, i was faced with my inner racist the other day when i turned on a replay of the USA vs. korea women's table tennis match. i thought i was watching the wrong match bc both women were asian. turns out that the US player is chinese. what an arse i am.
also, a lot has happened since i started drafting that post. yes, i know, i actually spend time drafting this stuff.
canada has won TWO gold medals! and korea is now 8th in the medal standings. behind FRANCE! the horror!
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