Skip to main content

The Olympic Flame

Olympic flame makes its way to Beijing

Click to enlarge. Feel free to pass it around.

You may think that the Olympic torch relay is part of an ancient tradition, dating back to 770BC. But it isn't. The ritual of running the torch from Athens to the venue of the modern games was invented by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympics. The idea was to draw a link between the ancient Greek ideals and the cockamamie ideas of racial purity and a master race whose origin was Germany. It was part of a Fascist spectacle - as is the current fiasco.

World leaders should follow the lead of Gordon Brown and Sarkozy of France and refuse to attend the opening ceremony (at the very least).

My guess is the whole thing is going to blow up in the face of the Chinese. They are not going to be able to cope with the western media or an influx of athletes who will feel a strong moral obligation to make a protest.

As for sponsors of the Beijing Olympics - I think they should get the cold shoulder.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Go figure

Took my daughter shopping tonight. We had dinner out. Got back home late. She laid her new clothes out in neat rows so she could choose what to wear for tomorrow. She's 5. I see her just every second weekend. How can such incredible errors of judgement (marrying my daughter's mother) result in such a wonderful little human being? Go figure

Mac Air Music

I love the idea of the Mac Air but, call me old fashioned, …no disk drive? How will I watch Ratatouille, Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Cars and A Bug's Life on DVD? The music on the MacAir launch commercial is terrific. I tracked the artiste Yael Naim's video for you. What is the name for this genre (Regina Spectre et al)? Apparently Steve Jobs chose the track personally for the TVC. Order from Amazon: Splash out:

Sexist Advertising and stereotypes

Advertising lives in the short-form world. Because mass media is so expensive the 30 second commercial is conventional and because there is so much clutter simplified signals are essential to 'cut through'. One form of communication short-hand used as a default is the stereotype - "A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image, based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the "other group" have in common. Stereotypes are sometimes formed by a previous illusory correlation, a false association between two variables that are loosely correlated if correlated at all. Though generally viewed as negative perceptions, stereotypes may be either positive or negative in tone." In the 1950's and 60's when men dominated advertising stereotypical impressions of women as inferior or subservient were not only commonplace but usual. It was normal to show women as housekeepers, largely because most wer...