This show is about pride, not protest
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Updated: October 21, 2009 3:01 PM
By Mark Rushton
Black Press
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s much ado about nothing, but really folks, how necessary is all this hue and cry about how bad the Olympics will be?
Seems that some elementary school teachers in Vancouver have decided that their negative philosophy needs to be ingrained in children who, for the most part, should be learning to read and write and spell things properly.
Instead, teachers have determined that they need to be indoctrinated to the evils of excellence, that spending money to attract more is bad, and that success for British Columbia should only be reflected in the wage increases they want each and every year.
Fortunately, it appears that these teachers are being distanced by most of their peers, and perhaps only a few children will be corrupted by the negative outlook that has no place in our schools.
Education is about teaching people how to think, not what to think.
Then there are the individuals and groups who foresee civil rights disaster on every corner, infringement on our freedoms and an impending police state.
For all I merely offer “chill, take a pill” and it’ll be over in two weeks … sort of like the swine flu.
Personally, the Olympics next February will mean no more than the usual disruption – more TV, but in prime time rather than watching repeats of events in which you’ve already learned the outcome.
Downtown Vancouver doesn’t hold much attraction for me at the best of times, thus any traffic snarls during the two weeks of street shutdowns is irrelevant. If I have to venture down there, due to the unlikely chance that some generous soul has offered me free tickets to one of the events, then I’ll just have to risk my car being broken into at a Surrey SkyTrain station. Otherwise, I’m hard pressed to understand how anyone other than a resident of Yaletown, or someone who works in a tower in the heart of the city is really going to be inconvenienced. After all, they have been given months of preparation time to plan a route, or take a vacation.
All I want to see and hear are the athletes, and the excitement of watching the best of them on the planet do what they have spent their whole lives training for.
Because, the contrived negativity aside, the Olympics are about athletic excellence, about being the best you can be. Yes, in a way it is elitist, but so what, our society is elitist. That’s why we strive to have nice cars, nice homes, nice families and, hopefully, some money in the bank. If we didn’t want those things, if we didn’t want to be the best we can be, our world would be in a hell of a mess.
So rather than objecting to the Games, we should be celebrating what is actually an image of what we would all like to be.
Achieving success is not always easy. There will always be disappointments and challenges, but if you really want to succeed, you have to work at it.
That’s what the athletes have been doing all their lives. Granted, the best are special people, but they should be looked at as role models, not as some would have you believe, the evil incarnate.
And while the Games might be seen as an enormous extravagance, the benefits they bring to a community, to a province and to a country are manifold, not the least of which is pride.
Thus, I will be glued to TV next February, in hopes that my country, thanks to the efforts of one or more of the children of this land, will bask in a golden glow, and that our flag is raised highest as Canada’s anthem plays.
That, not protests, is what spirit is all about.
markrushton@abbynews.com
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