The International Olympic Committee has a chance to do the right thing....

...but it's going to take some gigantic, some might say Olympic-Sized, balls to do it...

Bottom line, per the Olympic Charter, the Winter Games currently scheduled to take place in Sochi, Russia next February need to be moved or cancelled entirely due to the recently enacted "anti-gay" law in Russia. This hateful new law is no different in intention or practice from any of the Anti-Semitic laws passed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi government in the run up to WWII. The goal is the same, the legally codified demonization of a select, specific, easily identified group of people, with the tacit acknowledgement that 'extra-judicial justice', i.e. gay-bashing, will not be prosecuted.

This is unacceptable. For any country. But it is especially malodorous considering the fact that the  country we're talking about is unashamedly using the upcoming games as a PR campaign to prove how much more developed and modernized they are since the last Olympic games in Moscow in 1980.

It is inconceivable that the sort of twisted logic emanating from the IOC President Jacque Rogge as he tries to find some way out of this mess, would even be attempted if the Russian legislation was anti-women's rights, or anti-Muslim, or anti-'insert-ethic group here'. But for some reason, because it's just 'The gays', the IOC is trying to find some miniscule escape hatch that will allow them to justify their acceptance of Russian bigotry under the Olympic flag.

In Principle Number One of the Olympic Charter it states that Olympism is all about 'social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.'  But wait, it gets better, in Principle Number six it says "Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement." Even the IOC's own Mission Statement says that their role is "to act against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement." Not a hell of a lot of wiggle room there it seems...

And yet, rather than insisting that Russia repeal this law or face the consequences of losing the games, the IOC is desperately trying to find a way to keep the games there. It is looking for "assurances" that gay athletes won't be "impacted" by this law, neatly side-stepping the fact that "regular gays" in Russia are "impacted" by this law at the hands, and fists and boots, of skinhead thugs on a near daily basis.

 It is staggering to me that this is even an issue. The IOC should inform the Russians that due to the passage of that piece of legislation the Sochi games have been withdrawn. Period.

But they won't.

There's far too much money at stake for the Russians, and the IOC, for this to happen, and so, some sort of vague assurances will be given by the Russians that they promise not to beat up any foreign gays for a two-week period in early 2014, and the IOC will turn a blind eye to their own hypocrisy, cash the sponsor's checks, and move on.

So much for the Olympic Spirit.









 

Disney didn't kill Bambi...the state of Wisconsin did...

Posted without comment is this story from Scott Walkerstan...

http://www.wisn.com/news/armed-agents-raid-animal-shelter-for-baby-deer/-/9373668/21272108/-/item/0/-/13d8x2mz/-/index.html

Thank God they're keeping us all safe from rogue baby deer....

(My head hurts)

More later....