Check out this quote:

“It’s funny looking at some movies we’ve made in the last 10 years under the lenses of new eras, new social consciousness. There’s for sure some stuff in our earlier movies—and even in our more recent movies—where even like a year later, you’re like ‘Eh, maybe that wasn’t the greatest idea.’”

This is a comedian who has become a very rich man by making some very funny movies that were purposely offensive.  And yet he’s acknowledging that what was funny one year ago is now just beyond the pale because somehow the culture has advanced and become so much more enlightened.  We’ve evolved so much as a society since The Interview was released.

See it wasn’t his fault that he did something in the very recent past that he now is willing to concede was a terrible politically incorrect mistake.  He just didn’t know any better way back in the dark ages of 2014.  I assume he’ll donate the millions he’s made from all his intolerably offensive films to refugees or Black Lives Matter or the Hillary Clinton campaign.

But I guess he hasn’t learned from his mistakes.  He’s being accused of racism due to the content of his latest movie.  The Left continues to eat its own.

The US media’s anti-Russia propaganda seems to be affecting the Olympics.  Maybe the “liberal” interventionist and the neo-con drive to reignite the Cold War was just to generate more interest in the very uninteresting Rio Games.  The “fans” who have been attending the swimming meets have been booing this poor girl named Yulia Efimova who represents Russia.

Many Russian athletes have been caught cheating by using banned substances, and their track team was not permitted to compete.  Yulia, who actually lives in California, has been getting the bulk of the abuse because she’s won two silver medals in swimming, and she was suspended a few years ago when she tested positive for a banned supplement.  If the Washington Post is to be believed (not normally a trustworthy source, but who knows), it may have just been an innocent mistake.

This isn’t Alex Rodriguez okay?  This isn’t someone being paid $20 million dollars a year. This is a young woman who’s spent her whole life training to swim in the Olympics.  I’m the first person to tell you that swimming is boring, and it’s kind of dumb for people to care about it for just one week every four years.  But if you are going to care this week, you should not show up and jeer this poor girl while you cheer everyone else.

Where’s the “Olympic spirit” we constantly hear about on NBC?

To be honest, the Olympics were always kind of stupid, but back in say, 1988 when I first became aware they existed, we didn’t know any better.  Most Americans only had 3 or 4 channels to choose from and the non-Olympics channels made no effort to compete with ABC or NBC or whoever was televising them back then.  So if you were going to watch TV for those two weeks, you were likely watching people running in circles or some unknown college kids trying to beat some communists at basketball.  And there was no internet or netflix or much of anything else to offer any alternative for a bored kid who didn’t want to go play outside in the hot summer heat.

The Olympics were also more political back then.  Not that it was really a good thing, but it did tend to generate more interest.  As a young boy I first became aware of the fact that there was an East Germany by watching some suspiciously muscular women bobsledding in Calgary (it was also when I became aware that bobsledding was a competitive sport and that there was a city in Canada named Calgary). So my introduction to the existence of something called the Cold War was directly related to the fact that I spent four out of the fifty-two weeks in 1988 watching the Olympics on television.  There seemed to be some kind of extra significance to Team USA having more metals than Team USSR (who by the way didn’t even seem to know how to spell their own country’s initials.  CCCP?  What the hell was that?)

Of course a year later my third grade teacher was trying to convince me that a wall in Germany separating East from West being torn down was the most important thing to ever happen.  So by the time 1992 came around, the USA was really just beating the hell out of everyone in Barcelona and the “Unified Team” as the old USSR was calling itself, just seemed kind of pathetic. The Olympics, despite being more heavily promoted than ever, were starting to lose their luster.

As the 2016 Summer Olympics open in Brazil, I’ve come to loathe the games.  I’m going to use an old blog cliche and make a list of my problems with them:

1. Corruption.  Governments basically have to bribe a bunch of European assholes who control where the games are.  Then they have to steal money and property from their citizens to build a bunch of venues that will be completely useless after the two weeks are up.  Most citizens in the Western world are starting to catch onto this racket and don’t want the Olympics to be held anywhere near them.  I predict more and more we will see these games “awarded” to third world countries where the governments are less responsive to the wills of their peoples.
2. The sports are stupid.  The only sports that could survive on their own as spectator sports are basketball, soccer, and golf.  But the Olympics are not the premier venue for these sports so who even really cares about whether some second tier NBA stars making up Team USA wins the gold?  And beyond these few exceptions, why are we supposed to care about running, ping pong, swimming, ribbon twirling, etc. for these two weeks every four years when we don’t care about them at any other time?  The answer is we really shouldn’t.  It’s stupid.
3. The Opening Ceremonies.  As I write this NBC has spent the last few hours showing groups of people walking into a stadium in silly costumes holding the flags of their countries.  There’s a little map in the corner of the screen showing where each of these places is located on the globe.  This is the most inefficient geography lesson ever.  As for entertainment value, I give it 0 stars.
4. Human Interest Stories.  I’m supposed to care that Johnny can run really fast because his dad who taught him to love running died recently.  Or some girl fled some horrible Asian or African country to move to America and learn how to dive into a pool. Whatever.  Call me a cynical asshole but this stuff is just not interesting to me.  I guess this is supposed to appeal to women so they’ll watch the Olympics.  NBC takes for granted that men will just watch it because men like sports.  Well sure, men like baseball, football, basketball, and hockey being played by the best the world has to offer.  That’s why we have the MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL.  Most men played these sports as children and like seeing them played at the highest level.  Do men really like watching sports they barely knew existed until the Olympics tries to shove them down our throats? Badminton?  Canoe Slalom?  Trampoline?  Water Polo?  Give me a freaking break.
5. Rooting for your country.  Why the hell do I care whether some little girl from California does gymnastics better than some little girl from Russia or China or Romania.  I’m supposed to get some sense of pride from that?  That’s just pathetic. I admit it’s silly if I’m a Mets fan and I get some satisfaction when they beat the Yankees or Phillies.  But following a baseball team day in and day out for years is a real emotional investment.  When they finally win the World Series you’ve kind of earned the right to celebrate.  Tuning into the Olympics and watching a sport you haven’t watched in four years like gymnastics or swimming, where you know Team USA is favored to win, and then getting all excited when they “bring home the gold?”  That’s as dumb as it gets.
6. Swimmers are the “greatest Olympians of all time.”  Michael Phelps wins 20 gold medals every Olympics because there are 20 separate swimming races.  This makes him the best ever at the Olympics because he has the most gold medals.  Such fucking nonsense.  Michael Phelps is the greatest swimmer of all time.  To compare him in any way to someone who shoots guns or plays golf or throws a shot put makes no sense.  One sport has nothing to do with the other.  If they figured out 20 different ways to throw a discus, it wouldn’t surprise me if the same guy won all 20 discus events.  Maybe you could make the circle he stands in bigger or smaller.  Make him hold the discus a little differently.  Use a slightly bigger or smaller discus.  Would this guy then be the “greatest Olympian”?  I guess so.  Why not?  Who the fuck cares?

So I could probably find more things that make the Olympics suck, but I’ll end it here because it’s late and I need to get some sleep.  At least there are some hot pole vaulters.