Does Vancouver Need Snow?
As we attempt to get back to a normal life (I've been cloistered since Tuesday - it was foolish to even try to get out), as cars and even entire houses that were totally submerged begin to peek out from the cottony mass atop them, as people pick up the pieces of destroyed roofs, balconies, trees, and other fallen objects, too weak to withstand the weight of the second major storm in a five-day period (and the third one of the season), our thoughts turn naturally to Vancouver, site of the Winter Olympics that will begin tonight. Is there snow there? If not, we could arrange to host the Games here, but we cannot guarantee room service or parking. Bring your dogs and sleds!
Here are some recent photos posted at Covenant Zone. I know they must have some snow there, but it looks more like early April in Virginia, than Canada. You can click the label at the CZ post for more background information of a political nature.
Below, the Games' logo named Ilanaaq the Inukshuk. It took me a minute or two to realize this is a highly stylized human figure. Check out this Wikipedia page for some general background information, or any one of dozens of sites reporting on the event.
Below, a gorgeous photo of a statue of the Inukshuk, from West End, with an explanation:
"Ancient symbols of Inuit culture traditionally used as landmarks and navigation aids, this grey granite statue representing a human form with outstretched arms is a well-known symbol in Canada of northern hospitality and friendship.
Constructed originally by Alvin Kanak of Rankin Inlet, this monument was commissioned by the Government of the Northwest Territories for its pavilion at Expo 86, and given to the City of Vancouver.
Permanent location of the Inukshuk on this site was sponsored as a gift to the city in 1987 by Coast Hotels through the Vancouver Legacies Programs.
Vancouver Board of parks and Recreation"
Below, the three mascots of the 2010 Games.
At top, splendid photos of our own winter Olympics from Flickr.
Labels: Canada, Olympic Games, Weather
posted by tiberge @ 10:28 AM
7 comments
links to this post
7 Comments:
Nope, no snow here in Vancouver, only up in the mountains. No "White Christmas" this year.
Lots of rain, though, but after reading your recent posts on the bad storms in the east, I won't complain about our drizzly rain very much..!
Will it bring you some consolation, or consternation, if I reveal that it was so warm earlier in the week that I went outside without a jacket, just a sweater, while many people could be spotted wearing shorts..?
Vancouver was a curious choice for host. Its weather is like Seattle or Melbourne and neither is thought of as a winter city. For people who only attend the alpine skiing events the atmosphere may be fine. But for those who venture into the city I think the ambiance will be lacking when they step outside the venues.
I saw some of the opening ceremony on t.v. and parts of it were nauseating. I know every ceremony emphasizes the host country, but the verbal diarrhea spouted by this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Koyczan
was just too much. He described a nation of risk-takers, pioneers and dreamers (like USA 100 years ago), not the insignificant nanny state teeming with self-absorbed conformists that it really is. He also boasted that Canada's cherished mosaic really works when in fact its immigration rate is the highest in the West and the country has no unifying purpose beyond socialized healthcare. It is like the states of Western Europe but in a less advanced state of decay. Somewhere in the pits of Hell old communist Pierre Trudeau must have been smiling, in fact Trudeau could have written this garbage.
Another thing. The organizers had years to plan the opening ceremonies. Could they not find any Anglos who would not butcher the French language? Is it too much to ask for even one person who can pronounce bienvenu properly?
The Olympics need to be done away with. They are a waste of money. Many host cities are left with years of debt. The people are encouraged to care about anonymous athletes in stupid, obscure sports that no one gives a damn about. And when the Olympics are over, these obscure athletes will be ignored again (as they should be). The Olympics are basically an extension of the bread-and-circuses culture of professional sport and celebrity voyeurism, with false patriotism substituted for civic pride. This is a diversion so the thieves and quislings can get on with the business of looting the West and destroying its historic civilization without being noticed.
The Olympics also push diversity, multiculturalism and the whole "brotherhood of man" propaganda. The IOC is a corrupt bureaucracy like the EU. It is surely fitting that its current head is Jacques Rogge, a native of Belgium where the EU is based. It is no less fitting that the vicar of Canada's head of state is an affirmative action leftist of Haitian background. And the grinning zombies I saw in the crowd reminded me of the staged crowds Kim Jong-Il assembles for his pep rallies.
I do not feel qualified to answer Monsieur Calguès comment. I am sure there is much truth in it, but there may be some Canadians who see things differently and would like to respond.
As for using the Games to spread multiculturalism and equality of all peoples, etc... I agree completely. The Games have been moving in that direction for a long time, but in recent years it has gotten much worse (not surprising considering the politics du jour).
I began to lose interest as the corruption and awarding of medials to favorites, etc... became notorious. And I agree that the Games are more of a boondoggle than an economic stimulus.
No arguments from me that the Olympics are an olympian waste of time and money. Now that it's in my city, I view it as a noisy, amoral nuisance and I resent its imposition. (However, making lemons out of lemonade, I am enjoying the opportunity to meet and talk with people from around the world in such large numbers, I hope to confound their view of Canadians as a monolithic block of knee-jerk left wing anti-Americans)
The organizers had years to plan the opening ceremonies. Could they not find any Anglos who would not butcher the French language?
M Calguès, for as long as I've lived in Canada this is how I hear English citizens speaking French, and how French citizens speak English; only your forementioned Prime Minister Trudeau, and Quebec separatist Jacques Parizeau, spring to mind as public figures who seemed to have mastered two languages with no trace of an accent.
There's probably a connection to be made, between expectations of integration, and how thick-as-a-brick the accents tend to be when speaking one another's language up here.
In general, though, don't you find that the later in life someone learns a second (or additional) language, the harder it is to speak it without an accent? I began to learn French as a second language before I was old enough to even go to school (played with my French neighbors when I was 3-6 yrs old), and today speak without an accent.
My English friends who "officially" learned French in school alongside me, however, never lost their English accent. To say nothing of those who had to wait until college (or even later still) to start learning their next language.
Arrgh, sorry I meant to say "making lemonade from lemons"... and not the other way around, like it came out.
The people are encouraged to care about anonymous athletes in stupid, obscure sports that no one gives a damn about.
That may be true about some sports, but not for figure skating or hockey, I assure you. There is much interest in these sports among the general public in Canada because many of the spectators pursue these activities themselves, and watching the high-level performances at these games is a wish-fulfilment delight for them that I can appreciate, even though I don't share in it myself.
And the grinning zombies I saw in the crowd reminded me of the staged crowds Kim Jong-Il assembles for his pep rallies.
Isn't that a bit of a churlish comment? In what way was their behavior any different (or any worse) than the "home team pride" displayed at any sporting event, the world over, for as long as these events have been televised? I've seen some old footage at Yankee stadium of people going crazy over World Series baseball triumphs, and it was not much different than the euphoria on display at similar large scale events in our own time. (minus the rioting, anyway)
It's a truism that monolingual people are beyond reach once they pass a certain threshold around adulthood. Still, I don't think it's asking too much for people to learn how to roll their r's, purse their lips and pronounce lax vowels at the ends of words.
Bilingualism is an expensive charade that doesn't work for most countries. The Swiss manage with more than two languages, but they don't have such strangling centralized government. Québec might as well throw in the towel and integrate with the rest of Canada and the United States. There is no longer any point calling yourself French once the majority of your society is African or Asian. Without that ancestral connection to France through the FDS (or pur laine if you prefer), Québec will be no more French than Mauritius. Speaking a dialect of the language just isn't enough. Genes matter, and they are quickly dying out.
In the same manner, it's not enough to prove you aren't a knee-jerk anti-American. Many people thought it was sufficient to kiss Bush's posterior when the neocons ran the USA. I think the problem has more to do with a well-deserved reputation for sophomoric behavior and dull personality than political differences. A Swede can show himself to be a friendly, outgoing person but it won't shed his reputation for emasculated cowardice. And Arabs will still be thought of as backstabbing lechers no matter how hospitable or generous they appear to visitors. Canada's problem is that it has no distinct culture, it is derivative of America. This tends to be reflected in its bland, faceless population. It blends staidness with '60s-style narcissism, a terrible combination.
What you call "home team pride" has been around for a long time. It's probably an outgrowth of the natural human instinct for tribal attachment. However, the devotion given to sports and especially professional sports today is way out of proportion. Sports used to be a useful diversion from life's struggles. Today they seem more a diversion from reality. People have never been more materially prosperous, yet they've also never been more degenerate or lazy, not in recent memory. The masses would rather indulge toys and games than save their decaying societies.
The professional athletes today mirror the fans. They are plain at best; unlettered, obnoxious and vulgar at their worst. They prove the maxim that money can't buy class. In another age, a significant number of American basketball players, for example, would be in prison or on the welfare rolls. It's bad enough that they are paid so well, much worse that people revere them and care about their ill-informed opinions (the first is partly a result of the second).
At least in professional sport, the supporters will follow their local team over an entire season through to the championship. In the Olympics, people for two weeks support athletes they have never heard of and feign ecstasy when one of their countrymen wins a medal in the IOC's latest moneygrab. But why should someone puff his chest if his nation wins a medal in the men's 4x2500m one-legged snowboard steeplechase relay? Does anyone in the rest of the world really care?
The TV networks are complicit in all of this. They manipulate viewers by dramatizing everything, much as the entertainment media make people care about a celebrity's death. This athlete is heroic because he overcame a knee injury to compete for a medal. Or that athlete was the favorite last time but slipped and fell. This will be his last chance to redeem himself. As if not winning a medal would be the same as stepping on a land mine or having no food to eat. In reality, most of the athletes come from middle class backgrounds, some even from wealthy families. And while most are nominally amateur, several have large sponsorship deals.
Of course, I think there is a world of difference between national pride at winning a simple, traditional sport like the men's 100m sprint, and some new concoction that only a small segment follows. Everyone understands the meaning of being "the fastest man alive". It's unclear to me, though, why people should care about a niche event created by advertising executives.
I would never begrudge football fans for celebrating a World Cup triumph. Only seven nations have ever done it, and it really does mean a lot to nearly half the globe's sports fans. The field is huge (close to 200 nations beginning in the group stages) and several dozen countries are capable of playing at a very high level. When your nation wins, you feel a connection because the players are typically born and reared on your soil. If most of the national team is composed of foreigners, as France was in 1998, it won't have the same meaning if you live in an ethnic state. In any case, with nothing at stake, you can have neither the "thrill of victory" nor the "agony of defeat".
To summarize: many Olympic triumphs are hollow victories because they don't matter to large numbers of people or nations. Professional sporting victories are hollow because the fans have no natural connection to the competing athletes, the latter being essentially highly-paid mercenaries. But some sporting events, like the WC, are watched by hundreds of millions (or billions) and the spectators have a natural identification with their own side, i.e. blood and soil, religious kinship, etc.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home