Should the 2016 Olympics be ditched in its entirety?

And that should legitimately be criticized. Some idiots were whipping others. But when the US hosted the Olympics once an idiot bombed and killed people. You didn't call those Olympics a disaster and some idiots whipping people certainly doesn't make a games a disaster either.

It's just a prejudiced way of thinking that when developed nations have real disasters, like having a bunch of athletes kidnapped and murdered during the Olympics, few of you say that they should be precluded from hosting again.

Concentration matters. I don't think this issue is being inflated. If anything, I think it isn't being covered enough. The rowing events are being held in raw sewage, as are the sailing events.

The beaches that tourists swim in, and where some athletes will swim at, may not be at the level of raw sewage, but the concentration is still unacceptably high.

The Atlanta bomber was a lone crackpot. The horsewhipping of peaceful democracy protesters was done by the security forces of the state that was putting on the Olympics.

It is true that I don't call the Atlanta games a disaster, but the corrupt international Olympic body that favors third-world nations over the United States derided them pretty severely, and they sneered when they did it. (I sneered right back at them.)

oralloy wrote:

The Atlanta bomber was a lone crackpot. The horsewhipping of peaceful democracy protesters was done by the security forces of the state that was putting on the Olympics.

No, the Cossacks are an non-state militia,

and the Russian police showed up to disrupt their attack on Pussy Riot

and Russian authorities vowed to prosecute them.

In any case, no serious injury was caused

and my point is that their games were more successful from a security standpoint that our Atlanta games.

But when bad things happen in America we see it as situational, jee whiz something bad happened ("just some lone wolf"). When it happens in developing countries Americans often see it as dispositional (their culture and standards are just not up to snuff, they aren't good enough to host). This is a fundamental attribution error.

oralloy wrote:

It is true that I don't call the Atlanta games a disaster, but the corrupt international Olympic body that favors third-world nations over the United States derided them pretty severely, and they sneered when they did it. (I sneered right back at them.)

No, they did not.

And the notion that they favor third world nations is completely disconnected from reality. Developing nations have hardly ever hosted the games, and I think this is the first time that the continent it is on has ever hosted it, while it has been hosted in America many times.

Here is the list of hosts, you can see from a quick scan of the list that your claim is not just a bit inaccurate but that it is entirely so, the games are overwhelmingly hosted in developed nations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_Games_host_cities#Olympic_host_cities

oralloy wrote:

Concentration matters. I don't think this issue is being inflated. If anything, I think it isn't being covered enough. The rowing events are being held in raw sewage, as are the sailing events.

Saying that they are held in "raw sewage" and that there is "FECAL MATTER!" is to ignore that concentration matters.

We too have waters with "FECAL MATTER!" and it is the concentration that is important.

Rio does have water whose level of pollution deserves criticism, but the notion that it is apocalyptically polluted and that we should cancel the games is incredibly hyperbolic.

Millions of tourists visit Rio and swim and the problem is being greatly exaggerated.

Acting like it is a natural disaster and that the games can't be held just fine doesn't.

And I would suggest draining and sterilizing the diving pool. Those poor women competitors last night had to dive into slime.

The Cossacks work for the Russian government. They do have a sort of unofficial role. But that doesn't mean they aren't government agents. Rather it means that they are used to do things that would be considered illegal for normal government officials to do.

Russia is a dictatorship. There are agents who will carry out Putin's will no matter how illegal it is.

I would suggest moving the events to somewhere where the water is not polluted. An alternate spot was suggested for the sailing event, but they chose to keep the sailing event going in raw sewage because they wanted Rio as an immediate backdrop to the sailboats.

And I would suggest draining and sterilizing the diving pool. Those poor women competitors last night had to dive into slime.

Robert Gentel wrote:

Millions of tourists visit Rio and swim and the problem is being greatly exaggerated.

I wouldn't even walk barefoot on the beach sand, were I visiting.

The United States Olympic Committee has apologised for what it called the unacceptable behaviour of four US swimmers who falsely said they had been robbed at gunpoint in Rio.

Four views of Ryan Lochte

Slate:

"Maybe he's just a lunk, or a doofus, or a Faulknerian idiot man-child, or the real-world analogue of Moose from Archie. There are all sorts of unflattering descriptors that might apply to Ryan Lochte."

Washington Post:

"There is a special category of obnoxious American 'bro' that Lochte represents, in his T-shirt and jeans and expensive suede footwear, which he showed off on Instagram that night at the party along with the price tag. 'We're 6k deep here,' he captioned it. Is there anything worse, in any country, than a bunch of entitled young drunks who break the furniture and pee on a wall?"

San Francisco Chronicle:

"It doesn't matter what else Lochte has done in his Olympic career. This cemented his legacy: most embarrassing Olympic athlete."

New York Post:

"He cried wolf and was called on it, and that will be his burden to bear for a good long while - but not his alone. The Ugly American is alive and well in 2016 thanks to this dope."

US swimmer Jimmy Feigen to pay $11,000 to charity as part of deal to settle Brazil robbery dispute - US media