I Hate The Olympics

I hate the Olympics.

There, I said it.

I’m not against the notion of International athletic competition. I’m against NBC pre-empting my TV-viewing summer with hours and hours and hours of sporting events that I don’t give a crap about. I’d rather watch a rerun of “The Office” than diving, the new “American Gladiator” than gymnastics, and “Chris Hansen on Dateline NBC” than… well… whatever the hell else is an olympic sport these days. Thankfully, the great thing about digital media choice is that not only can I watch what I want when I want… I can also completely and totally avoid what I don’t want. I’ve not seen a single second of Olympic coverage. Not even a frame.

While I’m bitching, I’m also tired of all the anti-Chinese sentiment. Frankly, I really love China. I’ve been a few times and think it’s an amazing place, as you can see from these photos of Shanghai.

There was a great comment on Digg that I think is an important, if somewhat snarky, thing to keep in mind:

I’m so fed up of the whole China bashing thing. What most westerners fail to realise is that just 50 years ago food was a real issue and people were starving to death in China. There’s been so much progress made in the country by the government over recent decades that the general population doesn’t really care about issues of censorship. Now you have a bunch of ‘we know best’ westerners protesting for their human rights and freedom. I’m not Chinese, but I think the protesters should stick to their own failing governments… human rights? Guantanamo, censorship? CCTV… it just seems fashionable to be anti-China right now.

True, the Chinese government may have a more deplorable human rights record than others, but it must not be that bad as the IOC decided to have their games there. And while the media still seems to get off by showcasing some of the more krass tactics employed by China to “hide the poverty of the people”…

Let’s not forget the things that other governments do to keep poverty out of the sights of the tourists. Painting slums in Brazil, Greece, and Argentina. Building resort towns with no-roads to the rest of the country in Mexico. Creating art in New York…

No one is perfect, so let’s get our act together at home.

Tags: China, Olympics, Shanghai