No Mea Culpas here
Congratulations to the Olympic competitors, they have performed well. Some more than others and some below expectations. In one post it was pointed out that a silver medal was not good enough for one of the downhillers, I still stand by that and the reasoning has been proven by other spectacular failures since. But on the other hand we have had many personal bests and outstanding efforts from others. The benchmark I would see as as success is simple - set a personal best and you are a winner. As for the funding question - keep it up. It is an employment programme and we should all be in favour of those. This one beats chopping down trees as an occupation because it encourages personal and physical development and makes us all feel good when it works.
9 comments:
Yesterday, wading through the Olympic hype in the G&M, I again saw the depth to which these games have affected Canadian society -and I don't like what I see. Because the Globe is owned by one of the crassest media conglomerates in the world, CTV, and because CTV owns the broadcast rights to the Olympics, virtually every story in the Globe has in it somewhere mention of the Olympics no matter how remote or disconnected from the Olympics the story may be.What I'm seeing is the prostitution of the press on a scale I never thought I'd see. I'm seeing a sales job so all encompassing -for Coke, for GM, For RBC for you name it- that the Olympics themselves have become a cheap sideshow like cock fighting or a public hanging. Any perspective as to how the Olympics fit in to everything else going on in the world was lost even before the opening ceremonies. The massive push by coalition forces into Helmand was planned to coincide with the Olympics so that few, if any, in the media would utter a word about it. The Olympics was used as a tactical smokescreen in a major military attack. And what are we consumed with? Punkbabe hockey louts smoking cigars on the ice after the game. Yeah, I'm just bursting wih Olympic pride I am. Just bursting with it....
Take a piss, Merky; you'll feel better.
Stay tuned for the big hockey game and closing ceremonies. According to CBC the Vancouver cops and RCMP and whoever else provides security are all scared about the potential size of the crowds and the prospect of "public drinking".
Omigod, if people drink alcohol outside it will surely lead to the collapse of Canadian society as we know it. What's next, women's hockey players drinking on the ice after they've won a game?
This lewd and lascivious behaviour has to stop, now!
Jack Layton wants to make sure that you see him celebrating that last Canadian goal. Watch how he yanks down the arm of his fellow Canadian celebrant.
Feel good now waqlly you having trashed a popular target this morning. But John Oakley of 640am has beaten you to it and with much more venom
Thanks for the spectacle and propagandada. Capitalism and government collaborate.
I'd like to see capitalism take the entire Olympic event over. There are many taxpayers who dislike the Olympics, and it is unfair to have any of their taxes pay to support the venture.
Leave it to those who want an Olypics to pay for the whole thing themselves. It's a win win solution.
The snobs who look down on the overdose of schmaltz being celebrated on the streets, well, PRZT! to them.
Bread and circus? It sure was. Break-out-the-beer is a form of temporary bread and circus, or a communally enjoyed joint is a form of bread and circus.
It must be wonderful to be a compassionate human being 24/7/365, always thinking about the common good every moment of the day, sitting up straight, cleaning your nails, and dreaming of utopia where everyone wants to grow up to be Mother Teresa, and then nag, scold, hector everyone like dysfunctional parents to be secularly righteous like US, not ME, but US.
The Righteous Gangs, coming at me from the left, coming at me from the right. Dimtwits all.
As for me, I'll sign the petition asking Parliament to amend the flag legislation making the maple leaf golden instead of red.
Boo hoo Benny Baby. Murky Jerky can trash a popular target (Olympics) and he garners no snide remark from you. Others could exploit suicide to their hearts's content, but one was forbidden.
I don't mind the lop-sidedness of your moderation of this blog Bennie baby, as long as I am free to point it out. It would be good if you followed your own advice to the Olympians -- silver is not good enough. If you are going to moderate a blog Ben, you shoud be doing better than wallow in tin pot mediocrity.
As I wrote many years ago, "The purpose of politicians is target practice."
Irving Layton (Canada's greatest poet ever) wrote; "In Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Canada has, at lest, produced a politician worthy of assassination." Layton and Trudeau became friends.
I couldn't care less if I pissed on the shoes of any politician (NDP, LIB. PC, Green) and whether someone else, in your generally worthless snidemess, beat me to the punch with greater venom. All I need to know is that I can outvenom YOU any day of the week or time of day.
How do I know this? Your writing Ben -- colourless, odourless, flacid and weak.
HE SLIDES IN ON LEFT SNIDE
HE SHITS
HE SCORES!
Score NONE for Ben Burd Brain. Now that Bob look-at-me-I'm-a-goof Spooner is off the scene, we'll have to find other public names to abuse. I think "Ben Burd Brain" looks pretty rockin'. It’s got the triple alliteration going for it, and each word composed of a single syllable, which lends itself to bumper sticker jingoism. Will this lead to the Ben Burd Brain Drain, and a determination of who is running on empty? Don't ya just love free speech Ben? What you can do to Spoonertoons, I can do to you in the same domain, my gold for your also ran.
Living in the world's most multicultural city has a lot going for it for a blue-eyed white-skinned Anglo-Saxon poet straight male.
I could care less about soccer, but I do enjoy the parties that burst forth on Toronto streets whenever a given nation won a game. I watched this cultural phenomenon grow over the years.
When Turkey won a quarter final, I could walk over to Yonge Street to find 20,000 young Turks waving their flag hootin' & hoolerin' their cultural pride, momentary as it was.
Sheesh, where did all these Turks come from? They don't have a neighbourhood of their own, like the Polski 'ownership' of Roncesvale, or Greece, portions of the Danforth, or Portugese on St Clair Ave West and so it goes.
I only watched the soccer game in order to ascertain which neighbourhood to bike to for the street party. I remember the night Italy won and someone rode a donkey down Eglinton Ave. Italians on the rooftops waving their colours, and hosting the French winners one year. Pure unadulturated FUN.
Then one winter Olympics, the Canadian hockey team was victorious over the American team on American soil, in Salt Lake City. I lived within walking distance of Yonge Street downtown, and it was a sight to behold, tens of thousands of celebrants on the street waving the maple leaf. Not WASPs but the children of the millions of immigrants that arrived in Canada the past half century.
These fresh-faced Canadians carried on the ambition to succeed that they inherited from their immigrant parents who came here so their children could have opportunities not available in their home turf.
For years I worked with the immigrant community in Toronto and many immigrants asked why I was gung-ho for immigrants. I would lean forward towards them and say, "Because we get your kids." What a deal for Canada.
Fuck the sour attitude of louts with no greater ambition than to land a soft-assed union job -- teat-suckers all.
Look at the names and faces of Canada's medal winners. Look how many are children of immigrants. Look at the multicultural faces of all the celebrants waving their maple leaf flags in an ephemeral orgy of excess.
Lets have a party and fuck the white-whiners wrapping themselves in 24/7 compassion; progressive snobs. Fuck 'em. Dance. Have FUN.
It's a circus for a few days. Pass the beer or pass the joint, You Go Rebegliati. You go. Let those who call the women's hockey team "louts" enjoy their shallow snobbery, while drinking their salon-fine wine with pinkies raised.
Fuck your self-righteousmess, and get out of the way while we party JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT.
I love the smell of gold in the morning. It smells like victory.
I see some Olympic malcontent from Port Hope had his precious little rant published in this morning's Globe. What's wrong with these people that they always want to spoil things for everyone else? Why can't they just be happy? And how come they all seem to live in Port Hope?
Anyway, here it is:
Jeffrey Simpson (What Price Do We Put On Pride? – March 2) asks: “Who can say that, at no time in the past two weeks, they never once shed a tear or wore their heart on a sleeve?” Me.
Daniel J. Christie, Port Hope, Ont.
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