2016 Olympic Games

My earliest memories of the Olympic games were sometime in the early to mid 70's.  I remember wanting to be Dorothy Hamill.  I even had the haircut.  I would go out to the local neighborhood outdoor ice rink (complete with a staffed warming house that sold snacks - didn't everybody grow up like that??) with my skates and take the shovel to remove the snow and scrape level the ever pesty frozen dog piss bumps to practice my spins and glides.  I had to compete for ice with the boys playing hockey and more than once got hit in the head with a flying puck (maybe that's what's wrong with me).

My other memory is that of Nadia Comanici.  I thought that if I would go out in the backyard during commercial breaks of Saturday morning cartoons (remember those???) and tumble around in the grass and hang upside down from the clothes line poles I had a shot.

Ahhhhhhhhh the optimism of youth and the spirit of the Olympic games.  And I'm here to squash the fantasy for you.  I'm such a buzz kill...but you keep reading in spite of it.

Bryant Gumbel did a fantastic piece of the 'real' Olympic games and what a ******g joke it's become.  Not even a joke as that suggests happy laughter, but a source for greed and bribery on the part of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).  My love for the Olympics began to sour with Sochi when I intuitively suspected that something was gravely amiss, but Rio is even worse.  The athletes are nothing more than disposable pawns in the IOC's quest for obnoxious luxury on the backs of third-world countries with dictators for leaders.

.....and those athletes are overshadowed by ones who dope, cheat, and are really from countries other than the ones they are supposedly representing.  Pretty sad for this is supposed to be a showing of how the world can come together.

Watch Bryant Gumbel's piece on the Rio games.  Norway told the IOC to shove it.  Yea Norway!!!  The games will now be held in third-world shit holes for ever after.  Why do I care?  I have a kid who is Olympic material for the 2020 games.  If my kid decides to participate, I want it to be for the right reasons and to not fulfill some greedy asshole's agenda.  I can't make this stuff up.