Olympic rant (contains the word penis, you have been warned.)



I've seen none of the Olympics.  None.  Nada.  Zero.  Why? Well, because for some reason we can have internet or we can have TV, due to the new cable modem not liking splitters of any kind.  Better than the old modem where you got neither TV nor internet, right?

Even though I've not seen any of the Olympics, I still hear about them through headlines on my Facebook feed.  You would think I would hear about medal counts and how well our country is doing (or not.)  You would think news headlines would focus on the athletic performances of people who have trained their entire lives for this shining moment.

You would be wrong.

What headlines have I seen about the Olympics? Let me tell you.

I've heard about a rower's penis, a girl's hair and a giant baby head.

Really people?

A guy has won the bronze medal and all you talk about it his penis? Sure, maybe it's more, um, prominently displayed in his swim trunks than the others, but why focus on that? Why not, say, use Photoshop for some good for a change or maybe use a different picture altogether? Seriously, ALL the guys at the Olympics have penises, only a few get medals.  Why not focus on the medal? Are we really all prepubescent kids giggling over the fact you can kind of see someone's genitals?

And we need to annoy some young gold medal winning athlete about how she wears her hair? Did she trip over her hair and make an amazing recovery? No? Then STFU about it! You should be talking about her amazing routine or some move that's never been done that well before.  Her hair has nothing to do with it.  Again, is this the teenage high school locker room? Is there some jealous queen bee that was beat out by this girl so we need to try and slam her down?

The giant baby head, well, the Olympics spends way too much time and money on the showiness of it's opening and closing ceremonies.  Seriously, it costs how much for all that? $125 MILLION$15 billion for the whole shebang (versus $2.5 billion for the Mars rover.)  Of course, either is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount we've spent at war since my kids were born.

Our priorities are so fucked up.  We focus on petty things and spend money rashly.  Our country, or maybe the whole first world, is just a bunch of pre-adolescents that haven't figured our what really matters in life.

Oh, and I did see a very early medal count.  It was from the Colbert Report.  So yes, fake news is beating out "real" news in covering what's important.  Why am I not surprised.


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ETA: I should note that these are just the headlines I noticed going viral.  I didn't read the articles until I Googled them today and skimmed them.

And also:
This is your friendly reminder to vote. All you do is click, which takes you to the website where you then do nothing. Or you can do something, but you don't have to do something. It's easy. Thanks :)

1 comments:

  • Anonymous | August 8, 2012 at 9:21 PM

    Why do we, then, wonder why our teens are so self-conscious that they fall prey to the lies of advertisers saying they need to have (or do or be) this or that in order to be "okay"?

    How can we not realize that every time we mock someone on TV (or in a mall or on Facebook, etc.), our children compare themselves to that unfortunate person and desperately wish to find the "perfect self" that will be good enough to escape or avoid such mocking???

    I love the idea of the Olympics. But we do, indeed, seem to have missed the point.

    Cyndy

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