The Olympics & Other Annoyances
I can’t pretend to understand a lot of things that other people do. For instance, I don’t get why people carry on as if a turkey dinner is the cat’s pajamas at Thanksgiving, but then rarely order it the rest of the year. Then there’s the Olympics. At every possible level, I find its popularity confounding. For years, especially under the stewardship of Avery Brundidge, it engaged in anti-Semitic shenanigans. It was he, after all, who showed his true colors by deciding that Nazi Germany would be allowed to host the 1936 Games, providing Hitler with the recognition he craved for the Third Reich. Fortunately, Jesse Owens showed up to give the lie to der Fuhrer’s claims to Aryan superiority.
I can’t pretend to understand a lot of things that other people do. For instance, I don’t get why people carry on as if a turkey dinner is the cat’s pajamas at Thanksgiving, but then rarely order it the rest of the year.
Then there’s the Olympics. At every possible level, I find its popularity confounding. For years, especially under the stewardship of Avery Brundidge, it engaged in anti-Semitic shenanigans. It was he, after all, who showed his true colors by deciding that Nazi Germany would be allowed to host the 1936 Games, providing Hitler with the recognition he craved for the Third Reich. Fortunately, Jesse Owens showed up to give the lie to der Fuhrer’s claims to Aryan superiority.
To this day, the committee that decides which city will get to host the Games is one of the most corrupt groups of individuals to be found anywhere. In fact, if corruption was an Olympic event, the committee would give a good accounting of itself even if it meant competing with the Mafia, Iran, the NCAA and the Democratic Party.
It’s not even a secret that the real competition to host is determined by the size of the bribes offered to the members of the Olympic committee.
The mystery, though, is why anyone would want to host the Games. After all, one city after another has taken a financial shellacking after building all the necessary venues that become obsolete the second the Games end.
So far as I’m concerned, once John Carlos and a couple of other nincompoops embarrassed themselves and the United States by donning black leather gloves and showing their allegiance to the Black Panthers in Mexico City, and the Muslims turned the Munich Games into a bloodbath for the Israelis, the Games should have been cancelled for the foreseeable future.
I first became aware of the Olympics when I was kid. Even then, it reeked of hypocrisy. The Games were sold to us as an event that brought all nations together in a spirit of good fellowship, but I recall that the newspapers kept daily track of how many medals the U.S. won, especially when it was in comparison to the Soviet Union.
And although I was just 12 in 1952, I recall that everyone knew that the Soviets and their favorite satellite, East Germany, were doping their athletes, especially the women competing in the discus throw and the shotput, all of whom seemed to sport five o'clock shadows. Apparently, nothing much has changed under Putin. Many of the Russian athletes were banned from the Rio Games, although not enough of them, if one can believe the rumors of widespread doping.
Another area of hypocrisy is that the games were supposed to be limited to amateurs (and even the great Jim Thorpe had to return the gold medals he won in the 1912 Stockholm Games when it was discovered that he had been paid to play baseball in 1910), the basketball team representing the U.S. is filled with NBA millionaires. Where Thorpe went wrong was that, unlike other amateurs of the day who played professional sports while competing as amateurs, he neglected to be paid under an assumed name. But, then again, it was his name that attracted the fans and increased his value to the owner of the baseball team.
So while the reasoning behind why Brazil, which is already awash in political and financial problems, would want to be the center of the world’s attention for two weeks is beyond me, a bigger mystery is why 500,000 tourists would wish to spend a fortune in order to attend the Games.
Inasmuch as most of the news coming out of Rio involves the sewage that includes human waste and even human body parts floating in the ocean, the terrible accommodations, the rampant thievery and the Zika virus, you might have assumed that Rio had wound up hosting the Olympics by picking the shortest straw, not by paying the biggest bribes.
Some of my readers think I should stop saying negative things about Trump because they think I’m hurting his chances. I disagree. I believe I am doing a better job of getting the vote out for him by not pretending he is my ideal. If I state that I find him to be a boorish, thin-skinned, oaf, but still insist that for the sake of America, he must defeat Hillary Clinton, isn’t that more persuasive than if I pretend to view him as the reincarnation of George Washington or James Madison?
It reminds me that the idiots at the NY Post believe they are sinking Donald Trump’s chances by running nude photos of his wife. I, on the other hand, think they just might be helping Trump make his pitch to young male voters. Also middle-aged and elderly male voters. There’s even a good chance it could sway Bill Clinton’s vote.
I’m afraid there’s little that Donald or Melania can do to cut into Hillary’s support among ignorant females. Hillary, after all, presents herself as the champion of women, going so far as to state that any woman who makes a charge of sexual assault must be taken seriously, unless, of course, they happen to be named Gennifer Flowers, Ellen Wellstone, Carolyn Moffet, Paul Jones, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick.
I confess I do not understand why so many of the same women who think gender should not make the slightest bit of difference when it comes to public bathrooms, showers and locker rooms, suddenly think it’s the most important reason of all to vote for someone who just happens to possess a uterus.
Perhaps it’s because I’m simply a man caught in the body of a man, but, considering her track record, I would think the only women who would give their full-fledged support to Mrs. Clinton would be the likes of Eva Braun, Lizzie Borden, Ilse Koch, Queen Mary I and Evita Peron. I can even imagine Mrs. Peron insisting that Hillary isn’t evil, but simply misunderstood, requiring only that Andrew Lloyd Webber do his part by composing a musical fantasy titled “Hillary!”
Some of my readers are pessimistic about Trump’s chances in November because of a biased media and crooked voting machines. Although I understand their concerns, I think it is worth noting that the Democrats have been cheating since 1960 and the media has served as its propaganda arm nearly as long, but at least we on the Right, thanks to talk radio, the internet and parts of Fox News, have provided some balance to the print media and the major networks.
It is also worth noting that once we got past 20 years of FDR and Truman in the White House, the GOP has more than held its own with the Democrats. Since 1952, when Eisenhower buried Adlai Stevenson, the Republicans have held the Oval Office for 36 of the 64 years.
With all the attention that we are now forced to pay to Islamic terrorism, there is one person who often goes unnoticed. But without him, it’s possible that we could have avoided 37 years of relentless blood-letting. I refer to Jimmy Carter, who, by withdrawing America’s support of the Shah of Iran, created a vacuum that the Ayatollah and the mullahs were only too happy to fill.
Lest anyone think that it was merely an unintended consequence of a foreign policy blunder, we should never forget that Carter put his name on a book that condemned Israel as an apartheid nation, and that it was the worst villains in the Middle East who put up most of the money to build Carter’s Presidential Library.
Speaking of which, there is a photo of Peter Falk in his famous head-scratching pose as Colombo that has gone viral lately. The caption reads: “Can you explain why the Kahn family is not angry at the Islamic terrorists who killed their son, but, instead, are angry at Donald Trump for wanting to keep Islamic terrorists out of the U.S.?”
When I realize that millions of young Americans who lined up behind the bubbleheaded Bernie Sanders are now proposing to support Mrs. Clinton, I am conflicted. As an old geezer myself, I find it reassuring that the kids can see their way clear to voting for old people. On the other hand, I wish that their broadmindedness wasn’t coupled to their infuriating stupidity.
Although I don’t usually care for poetry, I think Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) summed up my dilemma pretty well when she wrote the following lines: “When I can look Life in the eyes/ Grown calm and very coldly wise/ Life will have given me the Truth/ And taken in exchange — my youth.”
