Saturday, February 8, 2014

Tears of Zeus for the hungry children

I find it really scandalous that $50billion is being spent on the winter Olympics.  There are so many people dying from hunger in this world - every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds.  How can rational thinking people support the political bullshit that permits the spending of $50billion for a two-week sports event?

Some statistics: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries, representing 15 percent of the population of developing counties. There are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries (FAO  2012). (http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm)

Juliet Johnson, a professor of political science at McGill University in Montreal says the Games “have very much become Vladimir Putin’s personal project, and as such he has staked his international reputation on delivering an impressive, safe Olympic games that showcase Russian athletes and Russian culture.”

What makes me wonder is how has the notion of the Olympics become so bastardized and how has the notion of competition for the sake of competition become so perverted that it has to be more spectacular every year?  More importantly, don’t the athletes (presumably bright) mostly-young women and men realize they’re buying into this political morass hook, line & sinker and by their participation are endorsing the back story here?  Or, are they so caught up in the possibility of personal riches if they win gold that they’ve already cemented their deal with the devil?

Sport has become a new deity in this world and the Olympics have become the modern day altar of Olympus.  I can only imagine that Zeus must be shedding genuine tears.

4 comments:

Wisewebwoman said...

did you see the guy responsible for the lighting fubar has been found dead:
http://dailycurrant.com/2014/02/08/man-responsible-for-olympic-ring-mishap-found-dead-in-sochi/

Also when trillions are spent on the military-industrial complex and nothing on feeding even the Usian starving children you know we're all fubarred, right?

No tv here so I'm not missing anything :)

XO
WWW

ViewPoint2010 said...

The Daily Currant is described as "The Global Satirical Newspaper of Record". I wouldn't place much stock in their "reporting". Also, there's no Guy LaFleur on the bobsled team. Sorry.

Government Funded Blogger said...

VP:No way ever would Russia the USSR or what ever they are called spend fifty billion
on aid for hungry children.
Its futile to even write about it unless you are Miguel Cervantes.

We should remember that our Western liberal values have no place in a country whose secret police apparatus survived intact the great shake up.

ViewPoint2010 said...

GFB, I realize there's no hope of Putin & Co spending that kind of money on hunger because it doesn't bring him personal glory. My concern is more than the global community celebrates this orgy of spending on sport and that's all it is - an orgy of spending. In la lengua de Cervantes, wake up and smell the future!