Wednesday August 18, 2004

Olympic Magic

Well, I'm here doing what I used to do every four years (when the Summer and Winter Olympics fell during the same year), and now, every two (as they alternate): staying up way too late each night, unable to tear myself away from the unfolding dramas. I have to force myself to sit down each night to watch. Not because I don't enjoy it, but because it's so easy to try to catch up on my email, pay the bills, putter around the house (work on the blog... :) -- and it's so important to watch what's going on on this global stage. Even if it's keeping me up, night after night, way past my bedtime.

With a few occasional exceptions -- like Tanya Harding's crew going after Nancy Kerrigan's knee with a hammer a few years back -- it's all about the sport, all about these beautiful kids, representing their countries and their generation, ultimately representing all of us, and the best in us. Yeah okay, I'm sure there's a lot of messing around when it comes to picking the host cities. But those are the grown ups. The kids, they're just in it to see how far they can push the envelope, how far they can push themselves.

Though they obviously still have their issues -- and big ones -- the North and South Korean teams marched into the Olympic Stadium together last Friday during the opening ceremonies. Wouldn't it be cool if the Israeli's and the Palestinians could do the same thing? The US and... anybody but Great Britain?!

I have this feeling that if all those guys out there chanting "Death to America" could put together an Olympic team, and just play with the rest of us, things would be better. If we all could just set aside our differences for two weeks, and sit back and enjoy watching the world's best doing what they do best, I suspect anything would be possible.

Hey, Paul Hamm just took gymnastics gold and proved it. (And just as cool -- you can read all about it in The People's Daily!)

(2004-08-18 20:55:53.0) Permalink