Bissinger: Turn off The Olympic Lights

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13bissinger.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

I agree - Stick a fork in them.

 

Remove the politics and hold them in Athens every 4 years, like the ancient Greeks did.

 

With the athletes naked and covered in olive oil.

 

Oil me up, baby ...

 

I'm more and more inclined to agree with Bissinger.

 

Yeah, me too.

 

In my 10th grade English class in 1984 I argued that they should abolish the Olympics - since they were too political - and was met by raised eyebrows and harsh criticism from my classmates. Never knew I was such a forward thinker.

 

I disagree. As the world's biggest (in terms of just putting it on, not TV ratings, so please don't bother to respond, soccerites) sports event, the Olympics are going to be messily morally compromised because this is a messily morally compromised world. It might make Buzz Bissinger feel better if he doesn't have to confront that fact through the Olympics, but that's an exercise in kidding himself.
The Olympics can be a disgusting example of corruption ( I oughta know, I covered Nancy and Tonya). So can all sports. The Olympics can also be thrilling and somewhat inspirational, just all sports.
The world's relationship with China and the nasty piece of work that is its government is complicated and fraught with moral perils. That would be true if the Olympics had never been reinvented.

 

Fine. Then let's save ourselves from a quadrennial public demonstration of all of that.
I don't see how Bissinger is "kidding himself." These Olympics are a public commercial for the worst regime on earth. People in China who have said this already have been disappeared, In this, they are of a piece with far too many Olympics of the past. One less gigantic public public fraud is all to the good.

 

The problem is that the Olympics were awarded to China with the hope that all of the problems with the nation's rule would be toned down/abolished the minute the announcement was made.

China didn't care, was overjoyed, spent tons of money into public works and coverup and now is being exposed.

 

The Olympics are one big public commercial in general regardless of location.

The end is near.

 

The one problem I had with the column is that he compares athletes using performance-enhancing drugs to incidents in which people were killed (1968 massacre, Munich in 1972) and puts them in the same context on why the Olympics should be ended. There's no comparison to someone putting a needle in his butt to someone getting killed.