Olympic Fever and so much more

I am not a sports fan.  There I have admitted it.  I will not pretend that I dislike being an armchair athlete while I go out there and sweat myself silly doing sports.  No, I am simply not sports minded period.  Having declared my ignorance of all things sports I will then go on to say that I do follow the Olympic medal count.  I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I discovered the headline that Canada already had a medal, albeit bronze.  Hurrah for Canada.

So here’s what I don’t understand.  How is it possible that a country ostensibly as poor as Russia can go into 51 BILLION DOLLARS in debt for the Olympics?  This is an unfathomable amount of money, an amount that could run a not-so-small country!  I have never understood why sports people such as hockey players get the amounts of money that they get (and at the same time, ditto actors).  Why is it that sports and entertainment seem to be able to support millions of dollars in payments to these people and yet we balk at paying a brain surgeon $100,000 for a life saving operation? 

It’s true that a surgery does not generate income while the entertainment or sports industry does bring in money but to the extent that these people should make so much money out of all proportion to other incomes?  It seems to me that having such disparity in income is part of the problem with why these rich people live in a world of such unreality and nonsense that it is no surprise at all that someone like Phillip Seymour Hoffman would shoot himself to death with heroin.  Do I feel sorry for him?  No.  Do I understand how someone gets into drugs?  No.  These people are surrounded by this sort of thing every day once they enter that world and after all these decades of “awareness” they still “fall into the trap”.  Give me a break.  Give your head a shake and for crying out loud, don’t do a commercial begging for money for this cause or that one because I do not take you seriously.

Neil Young, Robert Redford, Robert Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey.  I do not care who you are and I do not want to hear what you have to say on any topic that is not your specialty.  Whether it’s oil sands, global warming, leprosy, what have you, I do not believe you have your facts straight or your feet on the ground.  The people I want to tell me what’s what are the people whose profession it is to know and understand these things. 

So yes, we will get some medals at Sochi but I am not going to buy Nike runners because some Olympian tells me how great they are.