(Vancouver Courier, Wed., Feb. 24, 2010)
Five more days until the shutters go up, the Germans go home
and Vancouver's two-week global party comes to an end.
In these final days, there'll be much
backslapping--commendations to organizers and volunteers who helped make these
Olympics "the most successful Games in history."
Volunteers like Angela Allen, a bespectacled and middle-aged
wife and mother from Asheville, North Carolina. Allen bused in every day, in
her green volunteer's jacket, from Surrey where she's staying with a friend of
a friend. In eight-hour shifts, she helped direct media members to and from
their hotels.
It's Allen's second Olympics. During the 1996 Summer Games
in Atlanta, she volunteered at the University of Georgia's Sanford Stadium, a
short car ride from Centennial Olympic Park where Eric Robert Rudolph detonated
a 40-pound pipe bomb--killing one, wounding 111 and putting a serious dent in
Atlanta's Olympic spirit.
Rudolph's doing life in the Florence supermax federal prison
in Fremont County, Colorado. Convicted of several bombings and the 1998 murder
of a police officer, he spends 23 hours a day in a small concrete cell.
Allen slowly shakes her head at such violence, and
considering the raucous protests during the Games opening days, offers sage
advice in her smooth Southern drawl. "Everything has people who are for or
against it," she says. "In the States we have the right to express
our opinions--I expect y'all do here, too. But it's important to be respectful
of others and their property."
Speaking of the United States. And terrorism.
The vast media spotlight of the Olympics attracted countless
folks hoping to garner support for their respective causes, including devout
members of the self-described 9-11 Truth movement, which questions the official
government version of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
You may have seen them around. White males in black 9-11
T-shirts toting black and white Truth banners, in the background of television
broadcasts or distributing pamphlets on the street.
From the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, in his black
toque and half-beard, 37-year-old D.J. Ball, an East Side resident and 9-11
Truther, thumbs his Canon XL-1 camcorder.
In between chats about Bush and Building 7, Ball has filmed
several anti-Olympic protests with an eye on police malfeasance. So far, he
says, the police have done an admirable job maintaining order. "They've
been respectful and let the protesters do their thing."
According to Ball, the Olympics provide a perfect theatre
for a "false flag" operation, perhaps perpetrated by agents of the
United States or Israel, designed to justify retaliation against enemy
countries like Iran. "We pray it doesn't happen, but if it does happen, we
want a real investigation, not something like the 9-11 Commission farce."
The stars are aligned for a false flag, he added, noting
Stephen Harper's prorogued Parliament and the jingoistic fervour surrounding
the Olympics. "But if nothing happens it's all just a coincidence."
False flags? Mossad henchmen? Seems a tad heavy for breezy
Vancouver. However, there's lots of misinformation out there, combined with the
inevitable niggling ironies associated with a multi-billion dollar event.
The city's awash with patriotic red mittens and their
"Made in China" tags. Fat giggling children cheer uber-fit athletes
while swilling sugared water amid the red and white blur of Coca-Cola's
Orwellian advertising campaign.
Faced with these hypocrisies, we wearily turn to those
halcyon days two weeks ago, when a 22-year-old "aw-shucks" skier from
Quebec City struck gold on Cypress Mountain.
Following Alexandre Bilodeau's masterful mogul run, a conga
line of televised hairdos repeated ad nauseam that Alex's gold "brought
the country together."
Of course, it didn't. Not even close.
Canada is an unformed thought, bound by two oceans and
destined for partition. In 50 years, there won't be a Canada, just an amalgam
of economies currying favour with Imperial China.
Bilodeau's a nice kid with sweet technique. But as
flag-draped coffins routinely return home from a distant dusty war, drawing
disinterested glances from a fractured and self-absorbed citizenry, the
galvanizing magic of Bilodeau's gold dissipates in the mountain air.
So raise a glass for the Olympics, it's almost done. We got
the Canada Line, they sold a million red sweaters, and bar owners on Granville
Street reaped record harvests.
It was fun while it lasted but it's time to move on.
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