Olympics in a third world hell hole of crime and pollution. Swim competition in a river that is not safe to swim in, streets & locker rooms where the Olympic teams get robbed, organization issues with transportation and the usual running out of condoms at the biggest collection of horny athletic youth.
At least Paris doesn't have Soviet buildings with faulty plumbing and electrical systems. But it makes up for it with security and infrastructure issues that can be reported without getting murdered or the reporter's family threatened. ( in Moscow, the athletes posted the pictures of built by highest briber construction in the Olympic Village, not journalists )
But, sure, I'm not a team sport guy, and used to watch the Superbowl for the commercials. Horses and dogs selling beer! Sexy ladies selling hamburgers! ( ah, the bad old days! )
And I get not caring about the equestrian or track and field competition, taste is taste.
It's the signs of civilization collapse that's interesting. Next European Olympics may have "marathon with body armor and riot baton" & "500 meter butterfly with Hazmat suits" with Nike investing millions in research on streamlining pollution filters to be made by slave labor in China.
It's the breakdown of civilization that's the story here.
Sure, the Superbowl is a single event and the big, tough, male players aren't in danger of gang rape leaving the hotel before the game. Shot & robbed, maybe. ( the NFL & Coaches are concerned about that & put security and curfews on heavy )
The Olympics have every countries young athletes in a sprawling complex series of multi day events.
And tourists from all over. Some already have nightmare stories to tell if they get home alive.
Terrorist wreck the transportation infrastructure. The left/communist/greens are planning riots to promote their utopian hell vision, and the Muslim invader factions, ditto. I don't know about Russians, a chef?
It's the shape of things to come.
You don't need to care about the 100 meter crawl swimmers all getting hospitalized for toxins and parasites, to care if innocents are killed.
Ironically, a recent Larry Niven sci-fi novel has the Olympic committee remember the original intent of The Games.
Showing off the prowess of your skills and training to prevent wars. ( javelin throwing was a front line military skill right up until guns got cheap. Running is STILL a measure of success in war. )
So the Olympic committee dumped the team sports like basketball, and put in the 1000 meter crawl with 100 pound ruck, under barbed wire and paintball guns. Skydiving to a target. ( I've competed in that! ) Cross country bicycle. ( where it's hard to walk, another past enthusiasm ) & realistic target shooting. ( with blindfold disassembly and reassembly of an automatic weapon as part of the time ) Night navigation through the woods with no trails?
Gojira put on a heck of a show, gotta look up the lyrics, beheaded Queen and all.
I'd tell you to avoid watching the Olympic opening, but the Olympic Committee is pulling it down as fast as they can off the internet, which really explains how incompetent they are. But, sure, they say they didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings and it was a Pagan Gods Feast, NOT a slam on Christianity. Ok, fine.
Really it's boring and dumb. China did a great job with mass choreography, Other previous Olympic openings have been dramatic and awe inspiring, and it's nigh impossible to beat starting the big torch with an arrow.
In good news, the cardboard beds are pretty sturdy, the singing in the Village is inspiring, the Triathlon will not be Tri, and they won't lose a lot of athletes to the polluted river.
Politically, it's as bad a Sh%^ Show as I expected from a 21st century French Olympics. I'm just hoping the terrorism is not as bad as I fear. Just robbery, power and transportation failures, and maybe uncooked meat?
I'm more interested in some of the individual sports than Baseball or most team sports, but I'm not watching them. I'm watching the terrorist magnet and Olympic Committee insanity.
And I wish the French well. They just had an election and the President just reorganized the Government to exclude the winners, which means all the rural and suburban voters.
It's roughly equivalent to D.C. & NYC saying they won't listen to anyone from Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, etc. that isn't a Democrat from the single large city. Except the French don't have the bipolar system we have, it's multiple flavors of commie scum that have to renegotiate the back stab order.
I watch Europe because it's ahead of us in the collapse of Civilization, and not by much.
Not much, at all. Ireland and London are making it a crime to complain. Cops won't stop bombers or rape/prostitution kidnapping for fear of being called racist. And towns are going Sharia Law as immigrants hit the magic numbers where voting as a monolithic Block wins them the government control.
The greatest aspect of Our Constitution isn't the 18th century Republic system, as enlightened and modern idealistic as it was, and still is. It's the restrictions on Government Power to avoid the screw ups of Europe. Barack Obama correctly complained The Constitution was a document of negative rights. It keep the government from doing whatever it wants.
That's why Barry the Weasel appointed so many ideological judges willing to subvert & ignore the law to give him and his successor Lefties More Power and Screw Us.
Meanwhile, the Miseducation System was conquered by the hard Left and is now an Indoctrination System. Producing the next generation of Concentration Camp builders, Censorship Czars, and mobs that will hate on order. The Grubhub of rioters.
Europe's descent into Hades is just a few years ahead.
Look how the Democrat Party Elite has just had a soft coup. Their candidate, whoever it is, will have received zero votes from Citizens and be sold as the Savior of Democracy against the Worse than Nazis.
In France it's different, the Government got very few votes outside the Urban centers, and is sold as the Savior of Democracy against the Worse than Nazis.
The headless Antoinette was part of the Metal band Gojira part of the Opening ceremonies, arguably the best. ( music taste considered )
Jill is concerned we won't be able to top this in LA? Too Easy!!
Olympic Torch in the belly of Baal statue, and throwing in burning babies ( dolls, certainly, this time) to open the Games, and the Marathon in full Hoplite armor to survive running through the "homeless camps", Stop Oil, and Iranian Sponsored "protests" riots.
At least they won't try to run swimming competition in the LA river.
I'm not really interested in the blasphemy, & it's obviously rational cowardice not to parade around a half naked drunk Mohammed whatever color, since that's suicidal.
I'll let others argue over the subject. I'm interested in the infrastructure vulnerabilities and crime.
I don't have to comment on the Dictator of Turkey and his expensive new mansion, Islamist terrorism attitudes, etc.
Historically what is now "modern Turkey" was Anatolia & Thrace, on opposite sides of the "straight" which is the river draining the Black Sea into the Mediterranean.
It's named after one of the greatest heroes in history.
Several American and European gun manufacturers have built factories in Turkey that produce from middling cheap to high quality firearms, building on a long tradition of skilled craftsmen and business friendly policies. ( going back to the days of Rome )
Also tough, fierce fighters, from multiple regions. ( fighting each other mostly the last 6000 years, ask the Hittites)
Ataturk was one of those once in a thousand years history makers. George Washington was such a hero. You can count the number of great leaders who refused to be Kings on one hand and still carry a rifle.
The so-called Post-Modern Coup d Etat of 2024 has suddenly forced the long-incapacitated President Biden to withdraw from the presidential election scheduled for November.
My Father was a Navy Corpsman assigned to the Marines in the Korean War. He never had bad things to say about Marines. No interservice rivalry. When I visit Dad's grave in the Veteran's cemetery, I see similar birth dates on other markers and wonder if they met on that long walk Dad wouldn't talk about.