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Hooray for Idolatry!
2004-04-09 2:00 pm
It has been 108 years since the last true Olymiad. While there have been events under the same name that have taken place within that timespan, to even associate the great religious festival with these "Games", is to poison and ultimately destroy the spirit and cultural significance of the Olympiad. Sadly, only the name really remains. Until now, that is. The return of the Olympiad to Greece has provided an impetus for an awakening of the ideals of Hellenism for greeks and philhellenes world-wide. For the past three years, people have been organizing and attending brilliant events (art exhibitions, theater, poetry readings, etc)that culminate in the ultimate expression of Hellenic ideals, under the auspices of and in honour of the Olympian Pantheon. To see the beautiful and powerful rituals of Olympia and the Kallimarmaro, the ancient rites of the evocation of Apollon, is to regain hope, even briefly, that all is not lost. To see simple villagers spill out onto the streets, crying for joy at the sight of the Sacred Flame and its bearers, kissing their cheeks and crowning them in olive wreaths, to see such uninhibited emotion for something condemned as vacant idolatry as if some organic memory of our ways sealed in our genes, has stirred and awakened, to see such things can only shake the Church's assertion of anathema and obsolescence.And yet all this is lost on most outsiders. The media, the tourists, te IOOC see only games. Who is going to win the 100m? Are Kobe and jason Kidd going to be healthy? Will there bea cover over the swimming pool? are the arches going to be placed over the Olympic Stadium? Do they have lattes in athens? You mean i have to travel 20 minutes (GASP!) from my hotel to the event site! how backward! i wishthey held this damned thing in the US again! I hate taped events!
World records, medal tallies, commercial and endorsement contracts, infrastrucutre contracts, tv rights, amenities. thats all they see, and so they complain and bemoan that these games are organized by lazy, backwater, boarderline thirdworld, incompetent, socialist, antiamerican, goat-fucking, scuzzy looking, windex prescribing Greeks.
to them i say, fuck off to your own games. yes, yes, the olympiad represents universal humanistic ideals that transcend boarders and ethnicity. fine. i exclude noone who understands the prpose of the Olympiad. Those who want their corporate media circus every four years, may have it. just call it something else, please. and please, leave us alone.
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