[gailtate]

Akiddoc's point above is a good one, but she's an adult now. So when she says stuff like this, that's on her. I don't envy her position, but she could choose her words differently here if she wanted to.

[Tweet]
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/14909...1WaH3Z_pdQ[/tweet]

Anybody else see/hear her surgically, meticulously produced and sanitized interview last night with Mike Tirico? An infomercial if there ever was one. A Stepford celebrity athlete processed by Xi's Manchurian-Candidate goons. Creepy. Scariest thing? She is brilliant. And now economically weaponized. What a world we live in. Below, my first and final observations on the travesty that the Olympics have become...

Jules Boykoff, the author of five books on the Olympic Games, wrote in Politico yesterday:

The authoritarian challenge to democracy and human rights is arguably the defining geopolitical story of our time. Rather than oppose this trend, the IOC seems to be participating in it. IOC president Thomas Bach says his group’s primary “responsibility is to run the Games in accordance with the Olympic Charter.” But that charter speaks of “promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity” — goals that feel impossible to square with the IOC’s unwillingness to engage with critics and call out human rights violations. Faced with an opportunity to align their sentiments and actions, the overlords of the Olympics have instead accelerated the Games’ years-long shift into an economic juggernaut and ideological black hole with sport appended to its flank.

[gailtate]

Akiddoc's point above is a good one, but she's an adult now. So when she says stuff like this, that's on her. I don't envy her position, but she could choose her words differently here if she wanted to.

[Tweet]
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/14909...1WaH3Z_pdQ[/tweet]

Anybody else see/hear her surgically, meticulously produced and sanitized interview last night with Mike Tirico? An infomercial if there ever was one. A Stepford celebrity athlete processed by Xi's Manchurian-Candidate goons. Creepy. Scariest thing? She is brilliant. And now economically weaponized. What a world we live in. Below, my first and final observations on the travesty that the Olympics have become...

Jules Boykoff, the author of five books on the Olympic Games, wrote in Politico yesterday:

The authoritarian challenge to democracy and human rights is arguably the defining geopolitical story of our time. Rather than oppose this trend, the IOC seems to be participating in it. IOC president Thomas Bach says his group’s primary “responsibility is to run the Games in accordance with the Olympic Charter.” But that charter speaks of “promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity” — goals that feel impossible to square with the IOC’s unwillingness to engage with critics and call out human rights violations. Faced with an opportunity to align their sentiments and actions, the overlords of the Olympics have instead accelerated the Games’ years-long shift into an economic juggernaut and ideological black hole with sport appended to its flank.