The Olympics.
60 years ago a gathering of amateur athletes from various nations to compete in sporting events.
Today. Professional athletes, athletes sponsored by medical labs, athletes taken from families by governments and trained for years gathering to promote various idealologies and lifestyles and to waste BILLIONS of dollars while doing so...
My gripe about the Olympics opening begins before the opening ceremony. NBC showed a summary piece that contained shots of England and probably every single olympic sport. Each shot was maybe one second long. Fast motion, slow motion, the sport shots were chopped before their climax. For instance, a dive was shown up to the point of leaving the platform, then it was chopped.
The opening ceremony also had a lot of cutaways to recorded footage taken around England. This is cheap and artless. The Queen lowered herself to be in the skit with James Bond.
I agree that the opening ceremony as a whole was strange indeed. All the way up to singing Hey Jude.
How did Bob feel about all the opening fakery of the Bejing games?
I wish they did what Athens did with their history segment.
That was mesmerizing and dignified.
Hey, I’m an old fuddy duddy, but I agree, the opening ceremonies were horrific. The writer of this article makes the mistake of referring to Great Britain as “England”...a pet peeve of mine. Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales comprise Great Britain and it should be referred to as such, not as England. This half baked, nonsensical ceremony was held in England, the country is Great Britain. When the author further remarks Scotland, England and Ireland make the country great, he totally omits Wales, which must peeve the Welsh. How did the Queen get talked into the buffoonery of “parachuting in”, bloomers and all, even in jest, I felt was an indignity. I admire the Queen, she should neither laugh at herself, or permit others to,if she intends the monarchy to survive. In earlier times, such a spoof would have resulted in “off with their heads”. OK...yield the soapbox for now.
The opening ceremony celebrated degradation. The white pony instead of the American Flag on the uniforms of the American athletes fit right in with the degradation theme.
Thank goodness! I thought I was the only one who thought the ceremony was horrible!
Vancouver, now THAT was bad. The flame ceremony was totally botched. Remember that lame poet they had?
While I wasn't fond of the dancing NHS segment, there was at least a tenuous tie-in with Peter Pan, as Barrie donated the rights to the work to the children's hospital featured.
On the whole, I think it was mediocre. It had good moments and bad moments. I did like the lighting of the torch sequence, though. (Nothing in my mind can top Barcelona or Lillehammer lightings, but they're in a class of their own.)
‘For example, the opening ceremony focused on England’s children’s writers and its socialized medicine system.’
Peter Pan was written by a Scotsman. And Mary Poppins by an Aussie.
‘And it was England which stood alone so long against Nazi Germany.’
And this man is lecturing others on bad history?.
I thought I was watching New Year’s Eve in Philadelphia.
They should be flogged and banished.
It was amazing. My wife looked at me and said "Hunh. No pressure."
Otherwise, the rest was crap. We turned it off after 5-10 minutes.
It was the kind of Opening Ceremony a city with no t*sticles would enjoy. A celebration neutered excellence.
I agree with Mr. Lonsberry - I didn’t watch much of it because it was so painful to see what the British have fallen to - hard to believe they once pretty much ran the world.
Actually I think its actually better that England did show off its socialized healthcare now, because in a way they have planted the seeds of failure of what America will become.
Let us skip forward to the near future when America again hosts the games, since then either Obama has been re-elected or became a sworn dictator for life, and Obamacare has raved America.
And our version of an Olympic opening instead is basically an updated version of Soylent Green (the movie).
All the right reasons why we must not only remove Obama but erase all his mistakes, erase his past.
If he can be internet manufactured he can also be deconstructed.
No it had no relationship. The British empire didn't actually "fall" -- except it's first empire in the USA and even then they got away with Canada
the British rule in India only started in 1757 with the battle of plassey when the British East India company (note: this was not the British government defeating the Nawab of Bengal and capturing Bengal (present day West BEngal and Bangladesh). they had small factories around the coast but the interior was still ruled by the Marathas, the Sikhs, the Afghans, the Nizam of Hyderabad, etc. etc. Company ruled creeped along, mostly by means of telling the princes "we'll take care of everything and pay you a stipend" with a few bumps like the anglo-maratha wars and the anglo-sikh wars.
it was only the latter, Anglo-sikh wars concluded in 1810 which really started anything resembling an empire, small "e". After 1857 when the company was shut down, then it really became an Empire, the British Empire
The British Empire lasted until the early 1900s when the Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders got dominion status and india clamoured for the same.
The British empire went out quietly because they knew when to leave -- rather than have a blood-bath (note the indian naval strike in 1946 scared them).
British degeneration happened long after the Empire ended - in the 60s with the flower-power baby boomers....
Yeah, just like the computer-like precision one sees in the Nuremberg rallies.....
Not really. There were republics in the Greek states and in India prior to the Mauryas (the Licchavi republic for instance)
And in Europe the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth had significant liberty for its citizens in the 15th, 16th , 17th and 18th centuries -- while England was crushing the Welsh, Scots, Irish and having the tyrannies of Bloody Mary, Oliver Cromwell etc.
England had political liberties, but it was not the only one and wasn't the one that "opened the door". Even in Italy the city states had more freedoms and in the free-cities of the Holy Roman Empire
err... yes and no. The Battle of Britain was from 10 July to 31 October 1940. yes, they were brave, but it was for 4 months and they were on an island. An island is far easier to defend (as is a continental nation like the USA) rather than France with it's land-borders
The British were also not alone -- they had lots of servicemen from Poland, France, etc. who volunteered -- the largest % of planes by any squadron was by the Polish Kosciuszki squadron. There were also tons of New Zealanders, Canadians, Australians, Indians etc who VOLUNTEERED to fight for the Brits (which says a lot about the way the Brits conducted themselves in their empire).
so, they were brave, but not "standing alone". The truth is impressive but not as impossible as the myth around it.