Because my own blog is called Flying Stars I was intrigued by the "Flying Tomato" name, as well as the person. In fact, today the Flying Tomato *IS* a Flying Star!
What have the Olympics to do with everything? The pageantry, the songs, the slogans, the fight to win, the race to win, the pursuit of excellence....it all ties in with things I am familiar with, and it seems so, well, symbolic of all of life.
Your impressions of the Olympics?
Monday, February 13, 2006
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My impression of the olympics is that they are a waste of time, and have been ever since they started letting professional athletes compete. In the immortal words of Herb Brooks, what's the sense of having a dream team if you no longer get to dream?
ReplyDeleteAlso, they've gotten PC beyond belief. I just tuned my TV to the Olympics, only to be confronted with the horrors of...women's hockey. I'm afraid that'll be the extent of my Olympics viewing this year.
--Chestertonian, the snarling cur
OK, anyone else besides Grumpy here (above) want to comment? :-)
ReplyDeleteI saw the men's x-country ski (called the Pursuit) and one of the front skiers made the sign of the cross just before starting.
I also thought during the opening ceremonies, there were two things that really struck me. One was the human art creation of the beating heart....very emtional moment for me. To choreograph that must have taken some energy...and along similar lines, the giant human skiier...how cool was that? Again, the choreographer has amazing talent to pull that huge a thing off with that many people. I loved those "amazing power of human beings when they work together to create something beautiful for the world and therefore for God" things!
I watched some Luge the other day. I can't understand how something so fast and so dangerous could be so boring.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, I have no objection to the Olympic games. I enjoy the Hockey and Ski Jumping events.
“The Olympics are the signature of man.”
ReplyDeleteSurely this also sets us apart on the evolutionary scale. The Olympics, though somewhat tainted by the Fall and judging scandal, must be somewhat reflective of our creation in God’s image. I love the Olympics, particularly the Winter Games. Yet, I am not sure they are particularly Chestertonian. It may be that there is a more appropriate Chesterton quote for the Olympic spectacle:
“If something is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”
I gravitate towards the more obscure events which also tend to be more distributist because they are less tainted by 30 second commercial capitalist vignettes. I must mention as an aside that I have a certain amount or respect for any event that can make my VCR a distributist tool as I fast forward through commercials watching events I taped days ago. What I really enjoy watching doesn’t usually make it to prime time and I need not worry about hearing the results at work before I get a chance to come home and hit the play button.
One event I have enjoyed so far is Women’s Hockey and I think it’s safe to say that Sean and I would likely not fare well together dealing with the same remote. How marvelously they skate and pass the puck. Is such a graceful sport really the same one many NHL goons play?
If seeing such an event is the fruit of political correctness, perhaps I need to revisit that issue.
My favorite event is the biathlon. How I marvel at the combination of cross county skiing and rifle accuracy. If we could all be so talented, ours might be a nation of self sufficient hunters with 3 acres of snow and a carbine.
I am now setting the VCR for the 3 am Curling match between the USA and Canada. Perhaps I won’t be spiritually graced by watching, but my broom skills could use some improvement.
Perhaps I am given to hasty hyperbole, but I might need to retract some of what I wrote previously.
ReplyDeleteShort track speed skating team relays are now my favorite Olympic event. I admit that, at the moment, I can not make even an obtuse connection between this sport and distributism; yet, the chaos on ice skates is indeed captivating.
OK, anyone else besides Grumpy here (above) want to comment? :-)
ReplyDeleteOk, so far in the Olympics, we have a female figure skater who ended her career almost before the Olympics even began, a self-described "bad boy" skier who will have to give back all his endorsement money if he can't win any medals, and a gay figure skater who thinks the Soviet Union was a fine example of Russian culture.
Yup, riveting TV. :-P
"Yup, riveting TV. :-P"
ReplyDeleteJust as a hint, you might enjoy the Olympics more if you avoid the sports where the participants wear costumes.
I should add Snowboard Cross to my list of enjoyable viewing. Yet, I do wonder if the maroon underwear the US boarders have visible above their baggy pants is standard USOC issue.
I really liked snowboard cross (and half-pipe) too and a number of other things. But the best part, for us, is having kids big enough (mostly the 10 and 12 year olds) to enjoy the Olympics with us - to laugh over silly and stupid things together (and see that the kids "get" it) and things like that.
ReplyDeleteAside from the fun of it (and it is fun - I liked the skier thing in the opening ceremonies too - though we laughed at a lot of things too that were silly for us rather than moving) I think the children learn some things about how to react to various parts of our culture by experiencing some of it with us.
It might have also turned out to be a blessing that we don't have cable. I didn't even know they had women's hockey!!
Snowboard cross and short track speed skating, and relay shorttrack speed skating have all been really exciting.
ReplyDeleteI find it very easy to avoid all the silliness (like what Chestertonian mentioned) by simply watching the events, not any of the news coverage of it or interviews. The sport part of it is what I enjoy, and just the joy of seeing athletes try their hardest, do their best, and have a great time being together with the top athletes of other countries, which I know they do enjoy.
One thing I forgot to mention: something else I really like about the Olympics. There is no fakey politically correct stuff. If you are a man, you compete in mens. If you are a woman, you compete in womens. There's no transvestite, cross dressing or confused gender events, like the bathrooms in California would suggest.
ReplyDeleteOne, or the other. I like that kind of clarity!