Everyone's a Winner!!

Read this book! Did you watch the Winter Olympics?  Yeah, me neither.  Well except for a short three and a half hour Saturday morning curling match (game? contest?)that is.  I still don't quite understand, but I just couldn't stop watching.  The fact that it was about 15 degrees below zero here in Gunnison probably increased my fascination with televised curling.  That probably also explains the Canadian obsession with the sport.

I saw from the final medal count that the U.S. dominated the X-game-ified version of the winter Olympics.  And that Russia had their lowest medal total ever.  Predictably, Russia was very upset.  I saw on the news yesterday that any Russian coach that doesn't resign will be fired.  Losing is not acceptable in Russia.  Beats the old Soviet Union response.  Coaches and athletes disappeared after disappointing performances back then.  Kind of a hyper-competitive response for a communist or socialist society, huh?  

If our current President holds true to form, he will soon be apologizing for our winter Olympians' rude behavior during the Olympics.  No, I haven't heard any stories about our hockey team trashing their hotel this time.  I mean their greedy grab of all those medals.  President Obama has tried his entire first year in office to right just this type of wrong.  Now, on a world stage, here's all these boorish Americans acting so, so, well, American.  You know, working hard and training for years, and finally performing better than anyone else in the world.  And horror of horrors, being rewarded for it!  It's just not fair, Americans collecting all those medals.  No wonder Chavez hates us.  How many medals did Venezuela get?

America's Declaration of Independence states that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."  Created equal.  Not that we live equal.  Not that we have equal talents.  Not that we work equally. Not that we finish equal.  Not that we get equal rewards.  Everyone doesn't get a gold medal.  Everyone doesn't even get a medal.  But that we are created equal.  We have the same starting line.

Hopefully President Obama will be able to avoid this type embarrassment in the summer Olympics by proposing some rule changes to redistribute the wealth, I mean medals.  The 100 meter dash will have a staggered start.  Bolt will run 140 meters, the U.S. basketball team will have a 12 ft. goal and 4 players, some shot puts will weigh 5 lbs., others 10 lbs, and others 15 lbs., and of course Michael Phelps will have to wear a lead-lined Speedo.  Gold medals for everyone!  One big stage for the medal ceremony.  How long will it take for all those national anthems to be played?  What do you think the television ratings will be like for those Olympics?  Wrong!  They will be the same as all the other network ratings.  Remember, everyone wins!

Actually if President Obama held true to form, he would just forcibly tax penalize top performers by confiscating their medals and giving them to those who didn't do as well.  Now that's the Russian new American way.