In Bad Taste

Regretsy is fantastic for questionable content but I was stopped in my tracks by this particular Valentine card. Wait! Before you click that link you should know it features the Twin Towers, mid-strike, with the text "I'm falling for you."

It's by an artist living in Wisconsin. I wonder if she knows/knew anyone affected by the collapse?

And then there is the issue of the death of Georgian luge athlete, Nodar Kumaritashvili just prior to the opening of the big event on the mainland. The IOC was lighnting fast in getting footage pulled from YouTube but my guess is that it had much more to do with marketing and trademarks than common human decency because the footage* continued to air on CTV and NBC, the big official media partners. Today, even after cries of, "Enough, already!" erupted, the NY Times featured an "interactive" look at the accident: freezing 8 frames of the footage and matching them to the track.

You'll notice I'm not linking to these things.

I'm not that old, but I remember a time when the news didn't show people dying -- outside of war zones, and then the footage was preceded by warnings that it might be graphic or disturbing.

A quick search of Google News finds opinion pieces with titles like "Gravity of News Seems to Escape NBC" and "Is a Georgian Life Worth Less than an American Life?" and "Are we Just Crash Test Dummies?" -- good questions. VANOC seems certain of one thing, though, it was not their fault but they will make changes anyway. Unfortunately, Kumaritashvili's death was not the only incident on the track -- there were complaints that it was far too fast. Will VANOC pay any price for this? Only in salaries and bonuses to their spin doctors.


*Some comments have started referring to the footage as a snuff film but I think, technically, it escapes simply by virtue of being captured in a documentary action, not story-boarded.

Not for a fistful of hundred dollar bills

I think I've already made this clear, but I am not a supporter of the big boondoggle set to kick off in a few days. After reading the list of items banned from venues (which will have airport-style security), I commented that you wouldn't be able to get me in a venue with a free ticket and a fistful of unmarked non-sequential $100 bills.

Included on the list

• Water balloon launchers (really? this happens often enough to need a separate listing?)
  
• Leaflets, pamphlets, non-approved publications and promotional material (this just plain angers my inner librarian -- what exactly is a non-approved publication?)
  
• Banners containing religious, political, provocative or obscene content and or visible branding and trademarks of sponsor and non-sponsor companies (guess what part of this annoys me? yup, that pesky branding and trademark stuff! What amuses me most is they don't even want logos of the participating sponsors visible -- my guess is they are paying for every reference)
  
• Flags of non-participating countries (non-participating in the games or non-participating at that event?)
  
• Strollers (because transportation is going to be a challenge but if you want to take your toddler to a once in a lifetime event, the kid is going to have to walk or be carried)
  
• Umbrellas (because it never rains in Vancouver)
  

Falling back and such

Since we still haven't solved that whole Daylight Savings nonsense, tonight we'll be changing a bunch of clocks (and the rest tomorrow). Right now, I am making the most of what is left of Halloween by watching Practical Magic. I stayed home to hand out candy while Hubby took Kiddo around the neighbourhood and then off to Oak Bay to see the bonfire.

She loved her costume this year -- Ahsoka, from Star Wars: the Clone Wars -- but was frustrated by how often she had to explain it. She had more fun earlier when she tried on Hubby's V for Vendetta mask:

(BTW, I saw several people wearing that mask yesterday among the many protesters in Centennial Square (some of whom later caused enough of a ruckus that the route for the Olympic Torch Relay had to be adjusted to avoid them).)

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Bonus: linkdump!

• Supernatural Collective Nouns by Wondermark -- I immediately bookmarked this for future reference and amusement.
• Star Wars zombie art -- yeah, I think I am over zombies now... but this is still an amusing set.
• Cell size and scale -- if you haven't already seen this, go look, play with the slider, and break your brain a little. Then show your kids. It's edutastic!
  

Oh, and if any of you are on Google Wave, let me know. I can't invite others (yet?) and I'd like to see if more people would make it suck less. (Right now, it seems kinda sucky and pointless.)

Starting tomorrow, it's PeGeStuDoMo!

Our province is so screwed.

If our esteemed leader had put the Winter Olympic bid to a province-wide vote, I am fairly certain it would have failed. Why? Because I know of no one who is deluded enough to think that any modern Olympics, now a bloated athletic circle-jerk run by crooks and cronies, can come in on-budget. And guess what? We are now hugely on the hook for cost-overruns for the Olympic Village (the overrun alone will cost nearly eight hundred thousand dollars per unit* by the time it's done -- are you effing kidding me?? You could buy 1100 otherwise empty condos on the Vancouver market right now for better value.)

When I say "we" I mean the province because the City of Vancouver has taken a page from the current corporate culture and stretched out its hand to government for a bailout. Harper is being all tough-love about it but Campbell will cave and we will all have to pay.

And if you think this is all Vancouver's problem, think again. The rocket scientists/flim-flam men running the Millennium Development Corporation that is behind the Olympic Village haven't been able to even begin construction on the other project bid they won -- a hotel complex adjacent to the new Nanaimo conference centre. The city council there has been trying to fine the corporation but in the meantime they are still screwed.

Meanwhile CBC is pointing out that two of the big sponsors for the Olympics are Nortel (which just filed for bankruptcy today) and General Motors (and I think we are all aware of how they're doing).

It's not just me crying foul:

• After the Olympics comes debt (Vancouver Sun, 13 Jan 09)
• Straight talk on Games costs (Victoria Times-Colonist, 14 Jan 09)
• Olympic Village may cost Vancouver taxpayers $875M (CBC online 9 Jan 09)
• and over at the Coffee Crew blog, Colin regularly raises his digital fist. He recently posted Olympic Rant #24.
  

Of course, part of this mess can be blamed on the current global economic situation but at the root of that is the very same thing that is at the root of the consistent cost overruns and scandals faced by both city and international Olympic committees: greed. There's a good reason it's one of the seven deadly sins.

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*simple math: $875million overrun for 1,100 units.

If you want to show your disdain for the Olympic mess, how about a Vancouver 2011 bumper sticker? See the pile of rubble? Yeah.