Should the Olympics come to Philadelphia and Penn (and I hear there is a bid in the works), a cautionary tale. Remember to never trust the French.
For those who don’t know, the symbol of world unity, the Olympic Flame, passed on from runner to runner and lit by the Sun in ancient Olympia, was extinguished. Multiple times.
Shock horror, my friends. Millions of dollars go into developing the torch. It is the uber-torch. It withstands gale-force winds, oxygen deprivation and torrential rain. You can stick the damn thing under a power shower and it won’t go out. The designer, however, forgot to protect it from one particular factor - a mistake of staggering proportions.
The French.
It wasn’t French-proof. In England, where the torch also came under attack, the bobbies dragged those protesters who got near it and dragged their sorry arses away. The French, wishing to avoid such embarrassing consternation, had a typically gallic brainwave. Let us document the conversation that led us to what happened…
Policeman: Detective Le Frou-frou, zeees barbarians are attackeeng ze flam! How can we protect eet?
Detective Le Frou-frou: Constable Le Smellycheese, an admirable question. Let us deliberate immeeeediately!
Constable Le Smellycheese: But what about lunch?
Detective Le Frou-frou: Ver’ well. We will decide in three hours.
Four hours later….
Detective Le Frou-frou Voila! I have eet! Eef zere is no flam - it cannot be attacked! Mais oui, I am a genius, non?
That’s right. To protect the integrity of the olympic flame, the French extinguished it. Many times.
That’s kind of like the Secret service deciding the best way to protect POTUS is by loosing a few rounds into him. It’s plain stupid.
There is a way to keep the flame alive inside - that’s how they transport it on planes. It’s not real now, is it? Just like the image China is presenting to the world. Well, they do have a “back-up” or “mother” flame, taken at the ceremony, but still our situation isn’t quite the “passed from runner to runner” thing one likes to see.
I would also like to condemn those attacking the flame. You are making it and the Olympics a symbol of Chinese oppression, not the symbol of hope it should be.
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April 8th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
hey there,
the “bid in the works” you referenced ended unsuccessfully a little less than a year ago. The USOC selected Chicago as the city to represent the United States’ bid for the 2016 games, a process that will officially begin early next year. The announcement of the winning city will be on October 2, 2009, in Copenhagen.