This so-so video gets better as it goes along, but the music is wonderful. Rhythm, dancing and salsa come to the Olympics. Totally, totally refreshing!
My cousin, who grew up 5 houses down from me - we used to walk to school together - lives at the west end of the stretch of famous beaches, on the same end of the beaches as Sugarloaf. Each day he is in town, he is driven past the beaches to his office. It's a nice set up, except he has to go through a ridiculous number of stoplights each day. He's an engineer, in charge of oil drilling which is a 30 minute helicopter ride offshore.
Rio is a wonderful, hot, exotic place which is filled with friendly people. It's also a big place, with big city problems. You have to know where you can and cannot go. Just a guess, but: holding the Olympics there might be a bigger challenge than anyone realizes.
Greg, I'm sure you're right. AND, there's still plenty of time for Rio to work on its infrastructure so that it will be a more functional city by 2016.
I would have never thought Beijing would have ever been able to host any international event after visiting there in the mid-80s....and yet it happened!
Ellen, I stand corrected. Poor me, and others like me, have been concentrating on lesser objectives for America like securing our borders, bringing down taxes and spending, keeping Iran from going nuclear, ACORN's sickening stronghold on the American people and other little stuff like that.
In all that, I've neglected the really big, important stuff like Chicago getting the summer Olympics in 2016.
I think, Ellen, the Olympics bid - from conservative point of view - was meh.
If Chicago got the Olympics, meh. Maaaaybe it would be beneficial for Chicago and the U.S. Maybe. The IOC is itself a corrupt organization, as shown by the Salt Lake City payoff scandals associated with 2002. Plenty of municipalities have been left with huge bills and empty decaying venues - Beijing venues are already empty and decaying - and Chicago residents would end up paying the bills (if not U.S. residents, as I'm still puzzling over Barack's IOC speech statement that he would have the U.S. State Dept. ensure that the Games succeeded).
John Fund reports that only 47% of Chicagoland residents wanted the Olympics. ChiTrib columnist John Kass says that is b/c of the corruption factor. Kass imagines a t-shirt saying: Chicago 2016; Terre Haute 2020. Terre Haute is home to the Illinois State Penitentiary. Kass: "A Chicago 2016 Olympics would have produced seven years of corruption stories, seven years of the mayor babbling that he didn't know the guys who got the contracts, even if they're related. So the loss is devastating for columnists and investigative reporters." Chicago residents were not rooting against Chicago 2016: they were rooting against Terre Haute 2020.
So, we conservatives were ambivalent: Chicago 2016 was maaaaybe a good thing, maybe(how much good will would the U.S. truly gain? How much did we gain from LA 1984? Atlanta 1996? Salt Lake City 2002? The world already knows we are competent. We don't need to prove that). OTOH, watching the IOC corruption and the Chicago corruption was going to make us ill. And, was some of the bill going to come to us in the rest of the nation? And, watching Barack preen and preen and preen was going to make us ill.
We weren't exactly happy about Chicago losing: we were meh. We are, however, tickled to be spared the Barack preening, and tickled to see Barack further expose himself as an incompetent.
Why incompetent? B/c Webutante is correct: the Olympics are piffle. Cake frosting. OTOH: the prestige and gravitas of the POTUS are very real; are valuable for the United States. Barack damaged that prestige and gravitas. What kind of an imbecile risks the prestige of the office of President of the United States on something so trivial as an Olympics? I am upset about the further damage done to the office. So, my personal scoreboard:
Losing the Olympics: meh Barack beclowning himself: win Barack diminishing the office: loss
My cousin, who grew up 5 houses down from me - we used to walk to school together - lives at the west end of the stretch of famous beaches, on the same end of the beaches as Sugarloaf. Each day he is in town, he is driven past the beaches to his office. It's a nice set up, except he has to go through a ridiculous number of stoplights each day. He's an engineer, in charge of oil drilling which is a 30 minute helicopter ride offshore.
ReplyDeleteRio is a wonderful, hot, exotic place which is filled with friendly people. It's also a big place, with big city problems. You have to know where you can and cannot go. Just a guess, but: holding the Olympics there might be a bigger challenge than anyone realizes.
There is no better example of how right-wingers represent America.
ReplyDeleteGlen Beck called the news "sweet".
An poll showed 84% of Americans wanted the Chicago Olympics.
Yet, conservatives CELEBRATE the failure of the US bid. They are absolutely giddy about this. All the jobs and revenue lost.
This conclusively proves conservatives do not represent the interests of America. Thank you once again for clarifying this for us.
Greg, I'm sure you're right. AND, there's still plenty of time for Rio to work on its infrastructure so that it will be a more functional city by 2016.
ReplyDeleteI would have never thought Beijing would have ever been able to host any international event after visiting there in the mid-80s....and yet it happened!
Ellen, I stand corrected. Poor me, and others like me, have been concentrating on lesser objectives for America like securing our borders, bringing down taxes and spending, keeping Iran from going nuclear, ACORN's sickening stronghold on the American people and other little stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteIn all that, I've neglected the really big, important stuff like Chicago getting the summer Olympics in 2016.
My bad.
I think, Ellen, the Olympics bid - from conservative point of view - was meh.
ReplyDeleteIf Chicago got the Olympics, meh. Maaaaybe it would be beneficial for Chicago and the U.S. Maybe. The IOC is itself a corrupt organization, as shown by the Salt Lake City payoff scandals associated with 2002. Plenty of municipalities have been left with huge bills and empty decaying venues - Beijing venues are already empty and decaying - and Chicago residents would end up paying the bills (if not U.S. residents, as I'm still puzzling over Barack's IOC speech statement that he would have the U.S. State Dept. ensure that the Games succeeded).
John Fund reports that only 47% of Chicagoland residents wanted the Olympics. ChiTrib columnist John Kass says that is b/c of the corruption factor. Kass imagines a t-shirt saying: Chicago 2016; Terre Haute 2020. Terre Haute is home to the Illinois State Penitentiary. Kass: "A Chicago 2016 Olympics would have produced seven years of corruption stories, seven years of the mayor babbling that he didn't know the guys who got the contracts, even if they're related. So the loss is devastating for columnists and investigative reporters." Chicago residents were not rooting against Chicago 2016: they were rooting against Terre Haute 2020.
So, we conservatives were ambivalent: Chicago 2016 was maaaaybe a good thing, maybe(how much good will would the U.S. truly gain? How much did we gain from LA 1984? Atlanta 1996? Salt Lake City 2002? The world already knows we are competent. We don't need to prove that). OTOH, watching the IOC corruption and the Chicago corruption was going to make us ill. And, was some of the bill going to come to us in the rest of the nation? And, watching Barack preen and preen and preen was going to make us ill.
We weren't exactly happy about Chicago losing: we were meh. We are, however, tickled to be spared the Barack preening, and tickled to see Barack further expose himself as an incompetent.
Why incompetent? B/c Webutante is correct: the Olympics are piffle. Cake frosting. OTOH: the prestige and gravitas of the POTUS are very real; are valuable for the United States. Barack damaged that prestige and gravitas. What kind of an imbecile risks the prestige of the office of President of the United States on something so trivial as an Olympics? I am upset about the further damage done to the office. So, my personal scoreboard:
Losing the Olympics: meh
Barack beclowning himself: win
Barack diminishing the office: loss
Greg, this is a thorough and very cogent. Thank you.
ReplyDelete