| weather | : | sunny | |
| outside | : | 17°C | |
| mood | : |  | pensive |
Professional behaviour aside, the thing that she said that stuck out to me, and countless others have said it too: "We can't even organize Canada Day fireworks, what makes them think we can host the Olympics?"
I apologize ahead of time because I know I have friends who agree with the Ranting Clerk™.
But that strikes me as quite narrow minded and small town mentality. Just because I don't want to pour myself a glass of water doesn't mean I'm too stupid to distill my own Samogon.
And I know there are were other arguments against having the Olympics here, I'm just talking about this one in particular though. Sane discussion is encouraged =)
Comments
affordable housing, better healthcare, tuition bursaries, job banks, career centres, transportation, road maintenance, the list goes on.
Then again, I've never really cared much for the olympics, so it may simply be that I hate olympics, and I feel like the money spent should be used elsewhere. And where is all this money coming from anyways, I'd like to know.
... the list goes on.
But I don't think we'd ever get funding for anything if we didn't have anything going on. Politicians are idiots that way, I guess. But I don't know, politics has never been my thing, most of the time, I'm just trying to keep up with the information.
But lo and behold, our roads are being fixed as we speak. They'll have to get their ass in gear with the transportation issues for this. How many jobs can I speculate a big event like the Olympics will generate? I really can't say, but there definitely will be.
This might be a really naïve analogy, but I remember my parents having fights when I was young. Then we'd have company over and it was amazing how things worked out after the company left. They were talking again, smiling, laughing, continuing conversations they had with the guests, etc.
I've been disenchanted with the actual sporting events since Sarajevo when the American judges and athletes displayed blatant favoritism, cheating and got away scott-free, in my ten year old mind. But I can't argue that even participating in a world class level competition is an extremely good thing for our athletes. And I simply cannot argue that the Olympics is a huge crowd-drawing event and is generally "a good thing".
Sure the money partially comes from me. But some of it comes from private/corporate sources too.
I guess I see your point. Let's hope that it benefits the city more than it is detrimental. :)
And yet - they play music. They seek it, and people gather on crumbled walls to listen to someone creak out a tune on a newly recreated native instrument. There are those who mgith ask "why?" when there are so many things to do, so many seemingly important things to do, and when there's such chaos.
Because it's good for the soul. Sometimes we have to do the impractical thing to keep plodding along doing the practical things. In my opinion, hosting the Olympics would be good for the soul of ANY large city. Opening up the city to the world, being internationally freindly, taking a look inwards at the city's character and working together to be a good and freindly host for a fun event, however impractical, can invigorate the city spirit and push forward the practical things.
As an outsider, I think Vancouver will make an *excellent* host for the 2010 Olympics. Canadians have proved themselves to be honest, freindly and full of integrity in decades of world events. Y'all may doubt yourselves, but I think the rest of the world thinks y'all will do just fine.
Congratulations!
We've done it before with Expo '86 and we'll do it again in 2010.