The Games

So that’s it.  If you are living in the United States, NBC has shown how the world has come together as one, once more in the spirit beauty and peace of the Olympic Games. They have shown us how we’ve been able to compete with one another and against one another and we have come out with a few scars and some heartache, but also with the ability to celebrate the memories and the heroes and the ideals of what makes life worth living. We’ve seen threats to security largely dismissed or at least controlled, but then what did you expect, 007 was there.

You know, I bet Betty Windsor, who has now become the ultimate Bond Girl, must have waited almost 50 years to say, “Good evening Mr. Bond,” on film. That’s probably a decade or 2 longer than I’ve been waiting to say, "I expect you to die Mr. Bond," in my best Goldfinger accent while looking like Yaphet Kotto wished he had  looked like when he did Live And Let Die….sorry but you can’t be humble when you’re doing or talking about being a Bond villain. But I’m starting to digress.

Apart from the usual corporate prostitution that our friend Mitt perfected in Salt Lake City, there was very little scandal this time out at the events. In fact the only thing I can think of was the guy from St Kitts or somewhere who got sent home for sleeping with his wife or the 4 badminton teams that were dismissed from the Games for deliberately not playing at their best. Actually the badminton thing was almost unforgivable. I would have been highly pissed as a spectator to have gotten tickets to one Olympic event that I could probably get into for the rest of my life and see a team play with less athletic skill and ability than my 60 year old Aunt Sally with her rheumatoid arthritis. Instead I’m just highly pissed because I remember the absolute joy of playing badminton as a child. I remember hitting the shuttlecock into the air as fast and as hard as I could and just watching how it would hover as it cleared the net giving me time to figure out who on the over side would lob it back and where I would have to be for that rapid gut wrenching volley to begin in earnest. It was like chess with a racket and a net; you always had to think at least 3 or 4 moves ahead.

The thing with the Olympic Games is that I end up watching things that I would never ever do or watch in real life.  Not the running or the swimming or anything with a stopwatch, but gymnastics. I’m not talking about the regular gymnastics where I know I could rip out my shoulder from its socket in say the rings or snap my neck from doing the vault, but like the floor exercises where you see the little girls run jump and leap…and then you see them run jump and leap… and then they run jump and…you get the picture. At least I hope you do because I don’t. But worse still is the competition with the little girls with the ribbon and the hoops. What the Hell is that and what does it mean? But I watched it. I watched it all. All being provided by our good friends at NBC for my, our, viewing entertainment even though it was 5 hours after the fact.

I won't mention the inane droning on by the NBC correspondents about things people already know about or their apparent lack of interest in non-US athletes other than those with the initials UB or even their failure to even grasp the significance of Isambard Kingdom Brunel or Tim Berners-Lee to the worlds of design engineering and information exchange; but I will say that they have an uncanny ability to turn any world event into just another version of Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve and that must be an achievement in and of itself.

But you know, if I’m still around 4 years from now….well.

Beijing or Bust

It looks like I didn't make it to the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics this year. Poor planning? No not really, no funds. And even though George took his father George to China and I would suppose everyone else in the family, me and him aren't that close. So I had to make do with celebrating it Philly style in Chinatown.





Oh, I guess I have to say that even though it was my camera, all of these pictures except for maybe one or two were done by Curtis. Having said that, I'm starting to wonder why I was in none of the ones taken by him. Also, why didn't I show up earlier for the free food, dragon and fire crackers?

What's up my Niggas?

I haven't been writing recently. I had started something on Ted Kennedy earlier this week and I was going to see if I could tie his relationship to his father, the late ambassador to the Court of St. James, with my relationship to my father the late civil engineer from New Jersey. But it wasn’t really going anywhere close to a place that I was going to be comfortable with. So I thought it would be better to let that idea season a little, ferment or even pickle before I tackled it. Also, I would need to get some old pictures digitized first so the piece would come out right.

Then I thought about saying something about China and the earthquake and its relationship to the Olympics later this year or the amount of money that might be diverted from covering American expenses to covering their losses and caring for their people. But I’m no Milton Friedman; economics for me is micro rather than macro. It’s about being able to cover the bills and figuring out how to keep a little for the fun projects.

What was left, the cyclone in Myanmar and the government there and their refusal to accept foreign aid? Or maybe I could write about the dismissal from the force of four police officers in Philly for the beating of the 3 suspects just the other week? Juicy, but it would take talents more than mine to do it justice. Maybe I could write about the World War I munitions that are being washed up on the Jersey shore again in time for Memorial Day. Makes you wonder how frightened people were back then about Kaiser Bill landing in Atlantic City. But the couple of lines you just read would be all that I could write. So I shall take a stab at swearing.

When I was a child, a friend of mine who was about 2 years older than me, a big deal in those days, flipped the birdie at me and asked me what it meant. As easy as a whore begging for crack on a cell phone, I sang out loudly and clearly, “fuck off,” proud in my knowledge of life and the world. Except of course I couldn’t have been too knowledgeable otherwise I would have known not to say that in front of my own house. Because just as I was about to shine in my own glory, the front bedroom window shot up and my mother leaned out with nostrils flaring screamed, “If…” and I don’t remember the rest. But suffice It to say, she has never heard me swear again.

In fact I never used swear words, curse words, vulgarities except for the minor ones when I was growing up at all. My friends and other people would comment on how I would never swear and that I was just trying to behave like a snob. But I didn’t really care what they thought as long as most of them thought I could beat them up anyway. See, one well placed fight and the right reputation true or not will do wonders for you. Something I learned by experience. It hasn’t been until recently, maybe the last 10 years that I started to swear.

Now I’m not talking of the, “blast, damn, shit, fuck,” that you scream when you stub your little toe in the middle of the night. I’m talking about using these same words in ordinary conversation. I’m talking of using these words as adjectives, verbs, adverbs and even nouns when I want to get a little creative all in order to get the simplest of points across. I bring this up because, although I don't believe my language skills to be superior to anyone else’s, I believe that it is important to be in control of what I say, and how I say it. How I communicate and how I want to be understood. I feel that words are important, and the choice of words doubly so. Being born in the 60’s one word I have never used to describe anyone or call anyone is Nigger.

Nigger, the word conjures up visions of George Wallace and the early civil rights era. It brings on a feeling of being less than or not worthy of. But it can also bring on a feeling of comradery or fellowship which I don’t seem to be privy to. Nigger is not a word that I have been frightened of using or even easily offended by it being used to address me, but it is a word that I have found to be real tricky for me to use.

I came across this Youtube video from FIVEblackgUys that may express some of the thoughts that I have about it more than I ever could. What do you think?

One World, One Dream

I will admit the first time that I heard or even thought about boycotting the Beijing Olympic Games was by reading a post written by the blogger Mes Deux Cents. She had suggested that in order to protest against the actions of the Chinese in Darfur, she would think about boycotting the games and asked if athletes and others should do the same. At the time I said no, but now I’m not so sure.

Like most people, I don’t know about the specific arguments against having the games in China but I am aware of the general disagreements that the world has. I am aware of the human rights violations, the arms for oil deal China has with the Sudan, the oppression of religion and civil rights in Tibet and I start wonder where my 50’s “fight the power” itch is.

Recently, I have seen the disruption of the lighting of the torch in Athens. I have watched the BBC show video of protestors in London express their anger against the games in China. I have observed on CNN the police in Paris dressed as if they were auditioning for American Gladiator protecting the torch on its way through the city streets. And today some people were arrested in San Francisco for unfurling the banner, One World, One Dream over the Golden Gate Bridge in anticipation of the torch arriving there on Wednesday. Angela Merkel of Germany and Nikolas Sarcosi of France both say that they will not be attending the opening ceremonies and Senator Clinton has or asked President Bush to avoid the ceremonies as well and still I question what good will all this do.

After all, a good Olympic event makes for good PR for China. It gives bragging rights for the country to say how good and progressive it is. It helps legitimize the Chinese government public policy and justify the direction that they are taking. And if it doesn’t then the Chinese may just say “oh well” and start counting the cash that they took in.

Perhaps the only way to effectively to protest against the Games in Beijing is to stop financing it. Perhaps if the public stopped supporting American and multi-national companies like McDonalds and Coca-Cola that are sponsoring the Games then maybe whatever political statements that people wanted to say would at least be heard.

Of course by not supporting these industries, one must wonder who would be hurt most, the Chinese government or the ordinary worker trying to make living. If the country and possibly the world is heading for recession, then who really will be hurt most? I suspect it will be those who are trying to feed themselves and their families.

I guess people who are inclined to do so will protest any which way they can. I for one will protest in my own way. I shall stay up late and watch NBC and the track events but refuse to watch the commercials.