Olympians To Indigenous: Where’s Your Country?
Watching the Vancouver Olympics opening ceremonies last night, I had to marvel at the pomposity of the display. The winter Olympics is a spin off of the Summer Olympics – I don’t remember reading anything about the ski-jumping Spartans – so having indians and aborigines dancing around in native costumes to welcome Anglos and Asians flying in from all over the world is absurd. But there they were, spinning and stomping, worshiping under four towering idols. The idols looked like zombies, with their arms outstretched in front of them, lifeless but for the shriveled, commercialized hint of a life that once was. Why would native peoples want to welcome the descendants of imperialistic conquerors? Beats me, but there they were, smiles on their faces and hands in the air.
We should all send a prayer to the heavens for Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Georgian luge competitor that died yesterday. The video is jarring, but he died instantly it looks.
On a lighter note, Steven Colbert has an Olympic poster out:
This is the kind of stuff that drives third world presidents crazy – with the Olympics coming to Brazil in 2016, their president Lula couldn’t help whining that he didn’t go to all the trouble of bringing the games there “so gringos can come here to win our medals.” We ought to send Steven Colbert there!
If only we could embrace our excellence with such bravado! Alas, it’s an irony created by a comedian, and so is humorous for its absurdity. How politically incorrect it would be to raise our index finger for America.
See you in Brazil, Lula.
BTW – Johnny Weir (American figure skater) says he’s been receiving threats of violence from anti-fur activists after not performing penance for wearing a strip of fur on one of his costumes. In fact, he was flippant about it. “I have no argument other than I like fur, I like fur products, I like things that come from dead animals. We all wear leather skates made from cow. I’m an easy person to pick on because I’m very open, I like fur.” He forgets that the anti-fur nutjobs would put a bullet in him faster than they’d put a collar on a dog. He’s better call John Mayor and learn fast how to grovel.
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One Response to “Olympians To Indigenous: Where’s Your Country?”
February 15th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
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