I think that the Olympic Games have officially become more commercialized than Christmas or guilt. Since the Australian games of 2000, as the Guardian reports, the International Olympic Committee has been making exponentially greater demands of its host cities for enforcing the market capitalization of official sponsors.
For the upcoming event, authorities have been given an onerous charge of making sure no opportunist, ambusher (I suspect that such draconian measures created ambush-marketing in the first place) or bystander have the potential for profit by association with a date, place or Zeitgeist of what is supposed to be a celebration of culture, sportsmanship and human achievement. Not only are pubs not permitted to invite customers to watch the broadcasts on their premises or even dare suggest that they are in fact physically located near a venue (or cohabitate in the same dimension), players and spectators are not allowed to share footage or photographs over social networks under threat of criminal punishment. Given also the marked increase in surveillance, security theatre and hassle (a rise for a place already one nation under CC-TV) and the mysterious prohibition against athletes shaking-hands, a prophylactic for some unnamed social disease, being picked as the setting for this and other large-scale, officially sanctioned happenings does not seem such a great trade-off.
Sunday 15 April 2012
tribute or bread and circuses
catagories: ⚕️, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐ฅธ, lifestyle, networking and blogging, sport and games
inรบtil
Saturday 14 April 2012
widget
redux or a man, a plan, kofi annan
While I have respect for the former United Nations’ Secretary General and hope that his mission does help stop violence and blood-shed, there is something decidedly unsavoury and inscrutable about the ways in which Western concerns are being manifest presently—along a continuum of interference and strategy—for the future of Syria and the whole region. If reports and accounts by the opposition are accurate, the present regime’s clinging to power is probably serving no one, but a peace negotiated by the US and the UN could be a very suspect treaty indeed, who may well be basing their assessments off of another disgruntled Curveball character (DE/EN). Since Western involvement with Libya, there has been a marked departure from the uprisings and revolutions of the Arab Spring, which took much of the world unawares, and like bankers and speculators trying to profit from the controlled-collapse of distressed and overburdened markets, petroleum-politicians are wanting events to unfold or crumple on their terms.
catagories: ⚛️, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐, foreign policy, revolution, Wikipedia
Thursday 12 April 2012
jump-start
catagories: ๐️, lifestyle, transportation, travel
Wednesday 11 April 2012
penal colony
catagories: ๐ช๐บ, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐บ๐ธ, foreign policy
aberglaube or friggatriskaidekaphobia
catagories: ๐ง , holidays and observances, language