Head Tale

Not sure if you heard but apparently the Wet & Rainy Olympics are in Canada this year and the opening ceremonies are tonight. 

The Olympics are once again a lightning rod of controversy and having them on our own doorstep has perhaps brought this home in a way that doesn't happen when they're in Italy or Japan or even next door in the US.  

Even Vancouver's libraries aren't immune, a controversy having stirred around a directive from VPL's marketing department about which sponsors to use during the period when the Winter Games are happening and which to avoid as well as asking staff to put pieces of tape over non-sponsor logos on things like electronic equipment.  (I wonder if they were asked to do the same as what happened at the last Olympics when black tape was apparently placed over the logo of the urinal maker in the bathrooms at Olympic venues since Moens or Delta or whoever weren't the official plumbing sponsor of the Olympics!) [Edit: or worse]

I'm mixed in my feelings towards the Olympics.  I like the idea of what they're supposed to represent – the pinnacle of athletic achievement taking place on a global stage for international competition within international cooperation.  But I'm not naive enough to dismiss the rampant commercialism and corporatization of the Games  which has long replaced the ideals of the games as the most important thing.  That's not even mentioning the massive expenses associated with hosting the Games and long-term debts that are always incurred (I think Calgary 1988 was the only modern Olympic Games – summer or winter – that ended up being debt-free at the end of it.) 

I've got lots more thoughts but I won't get into them there.  I will say that I also have mixed thoughts about nationalism and patriotism.  But one of the places where I don't is in regards to the Olympic hockey tournament.  So Go Canada Go and here's a little clip to get your blood stirring, not least because whoever picked the song chose a great under-the-radar Canadian songwriter named Mike Plume…(ffwd to 2:57)