Remember when you were a kid and wanted to do something and an adult would ask you why and you'd wail, "Because!" and be told, "Because is not a reason?" That's what comes to mind after seeing Scott Russell demand you respect his authoritah bestowed by his CBC Sports blazer (and expense account) and just shut up-shut up-shut up about the downside of taxpayers underwriting the cost of the 2010 CTV Olympics.
"It’s time for the dissent to stop and for us to be gracious hosts.Please. Aattitudes will soften as as the days draw down toward the opening ceremony. The snow will pile up outside. You'll start seeing "multi-ethnic" (Russell's term) photogenic tweens wearing Olympic apparel and it will be too cold to go out, so your defences against being colonized by the Olympic Spirit will wear down, especially since the government doesn't have vaccine against it like there is for H1N1.
"Incredibly, there are a significant number of people in this enlightened nation who don’t get it. They complain about everything from the corporate greed embodied by the Games to the fact that the torch relay was first conducted in 1936 in Berlin, the so-called 'Nazi Olympics.' "
All that will come in time. It is just mind-boggling this aging Zack Morris would actually write, "It's time for the dissent to stop" and "Isn’t this an opportunity to move on from the business of investigating the Olympics to celebrating what they can possibly offer?" There's no irony in that coming from someone at a network which presented a very sanitized portrayal of life in Beijing during the 2008 Olympics, no, not at all.
People are smarter than credited to be by Russell and some of the CBC mealymouths. You can strike a balance the fun of watching Canadians go for medals and knowing the Olympics really is one part corporate billboard and one part a big swinging dick contest between nation-states. Of course, that is why Canada goes for the gold in the easier-to-win events which are dominated for affluent nations which can afford to build winter sports facilities (as opposed to those in the Summer Games which come down more to being able to run really fast or for an extended period). Honestly, after reading that you'd wonder if Russell is trying to get a job at CTV.
Related:
It's time to embrace the flame (Scott Russell, CBCSports.ca)
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6 comments:
Russell walked away from HNIC likely for a variety of reason. However, one of those reasons must have been his passion for amateur sport and what it can do for society. Idealism, like that displayed by the contributers to this blog for the betterment of Canadian university athletics, inspires people to act against racial, religious, cultural, and organizational barriers. With this in mind I consider Russell's belief and argument for the Olympic Spirit as being completely honest and genuine. There is no foul here, play on.
He was being honest and genuine, and a little naive at the same time. Why not just say, "I understand where the dissent comes from, but it's also true a cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
Saying the dissent should stop and using words like "doubters," that's Sarah Crosbie, excuse me, Sarah Palin behaviour.
One can be idealistic without pandering to the C students.
Russell was simply stating that the time for using the Games as a moving target for adversarial or investigational news work should start to peter out. Now, I still think that the ability to critique has no true best-before date but Russell does have a point. There are always groups and organizations that use large events, like the Games, to spout their rhetoric and ideology. Thusly, there are always those in the media who relish the opportunity to bring attention to themselves by pricking the elephant. I think Russell was levelling criticism at those self-interested parties that bring little of substance to the gathering of ideas.
I do like the Zack Morris slam though.
Hey, I went to an Ontario university in the 1990s, so I know from tiresome, tedious literal single-interest splinter group politics.
Most serious sports fans pay the Olympics little mind because it's so spoon-fed. I guess that and "the time for the dissent stop" phrasing were the pisser-offers in this instance.
Russell's good people. Most people in the biz are, it's more of a gentle tweaking being proffered by his social inferior who couldn't even get an interview at the See Bee See if my mother's life depended on it.
Didn't see it, can't comment on what Russell said. But I did hear today that "Anti-Olympic Groups were mobilizing to protest as the torch relay arrives", or some such thing. And I thought really? Weren't the games awarded 6+ years ago? Wasn't that the time to stop protesting them? It's like the Anti-Bush protests in Saskatchewan last week.....what did THOSE placards say? "Hey, we didn't like you." or "We wish you hadn't done some of the things you did." What's the point? You can't saw sawdust. Oh well, those not involved in the betterment of their own lives or others have to blame others for their "plight", worry about the past and wish it weren't so I guess. These groups generally want all the money to be spent on what they're protesting to be magically funnelled into their own cause without working for it, making the handout-seeking class JUST AS GREEDY as any capitalist has ever been.
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