Going For The Gold Part II (because I'm too tired to think of another idea.)

     Well it's been a week since this blog saw a post, and with good reason.  We concluded our trip to lovely and scenic Montpelier, Idaho, and returned home.  Since then, it's been nothing but moving heavy objects and unpacking boxes as we move into our new house.  More importantly Zach and I have been diligently assembling a new base of operations codenamed "The Batcave-Penthouse" or more simply "The New Batcave."  Last but not least I continue my very important job of standing at a kiosk in the mall and telling people how to get to the Apple Store (Rosetta Stone).  But throughout this period of non-stop go, one thing as remained a constant; the London Olympics!  I do have another one of my patented top-five lists in the oven, but for now lets kill time with more of my nonsensical ramblings on the games.

Prince Harry was stoked when he heard I'd be doing another Olympic article...

Thought Number One:  Why Do We Have To Be So Mean?
     This first one is a tribute to the good old ideal that when an athlete fails, we should be ashamed and try our hardest to attack their character and turn them into unlikable losers.  Makes sense right?  Of course it doesn't!  Yet this seems to be a trend all around the world.  The other day I was listening to the some sort of fancy British radio station in the car, and an interview came on with a Chinese journalist.  Now I generally enjoy cheering against our lovable Chinese brethren, but I really liked what this guy had to say.  He talked about how for the last few decades, China has had a win-at-all-costs mentality.  This has led to some often times questionable moral behavior.  He then went on to talk about how social media is changing that, because the Chinese people can now communicate better and see different perspectives on news than what the government says.  So now when Chinese officials get very cross and say that losing athletes are dishonorable, there's about 1.3 billion people willing to defend them.  A female weightlifter failed to medal in London, and a Chinese official called her a disgrace.  Afterwards, many of the people flocked to their Twitter equivalent to defend her.  I think that's great.
     But this sort of thing doesn't just happen in China, but also here on our turf.  Olympians are our heroes, and we love to put them on high pedestals.  Unfortunately, there are some people out there who just want to knock those pedestals over.  For what reason, I don't know.  This happened with good old Lolo Jones.  Lolo has experienced quite a lot of adversity over the years.  She had gold in her sights in in Beijing, only to clip the second to last hurdle and finish a distant seventh.  Then she surgery on her spine, and started a long road to a London comeback.  Sounds like a pretty classic Olympic story right?  We were probably all rooting for her right? Right? RIGHT?  Wrong.  Like I said, whether out of jealousy, pride, or just plain nastiness, some people want to spoil the party.  Three days before Jones' race, some hack from the New York Times writes a smear piece about her, basically saying that she's not talented, and that the only reason anyone cares about her is because of her looks and media campaigns.
     One may now ask themselves "Why is this man so bitter, and why did he drink so much picklejuice for breakfast?"  Lolo went on to finish fourth in her race, just missing a medal.  Afterwards she appeared on the Today Show, and even started crying while talking about the unfair criticism from the *honorable* journalists at the Times.  My first thought was a throwback to an old internet gag from many years ago that probably isn't relevant anymore.  But since I'm never one to shy away from making a badly timed irrelevant joke, I had the boys in the high tech Walker R&D department whip up an image for me.

For real.

     It's bad enough that she fell a little short, she really didn't deserve to have her reputation unfairly tarnished by the media.  

*WARNING:  I'M GETTING TO THE POINT*

     I'm proud of all honest, hard-working Olympic athletes, and think that we should all be a little more forgiving.  It's great to see lots of medals being won for our favorite athletes and countries, but I believe that the true spirit of the games is coming together, competing, and enjoying the few weeks.  We should celebrate these athletes, win or lose.  Now cheaters, that's another story, but the average Olympian is always a winner in my book.  These guys work hard enough to earn a little slack from us.  

"I'm Ryan Lochte, and I approve this message."

     Well that turned out longer than I thought it would, so we'll stop there and save the rest for another time.  Feel free to leave a comment and post what you think.