Brandishing the Olympic Torch

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theophrastvs

hey i’ve met Ronald McDonald and that doesn’t look a thing like him. …he’s left handed.
http://twitter.com/blaeks blaeks

I will disseminate this shit.
Harbo

This is Gold!
I do hope it can be seen “at an Olympic venue near you”.
I will follow blacks’s lead.
This needs to be viral.
- http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline
  
  ‘ Gold’ is a registered trademark of the International Olympic Committee, please take this infringement down immediately or you will be contacted by out lawyers.
  - Mantissa128
    
    Fire the missiles!
Mitchell Glaser

Juggalos Olympics?
Boundegar

I dunno, man, that might be considered derogatory.
- apenzott
  
  I am torn between calling it derogatory and truthful.
  
  I am sure that with a well played hand, showing this as “truthful” would entail putting the litigious action of the IOC (and their London/UK counterparts) under the gaze of the fourth estate.
  
  Be sure to embellish with phrases as “elevating graft and corruption to Olympic proportions”, “playing games with peoples lives for the amusement of their television audiences”, “raising thuggery to an Olympic art form.”
  - bzishi
    
    The same fourth estate that is constantly trying to get access to report on the Olympics? The same fourth estate that would gladly hand over bucketloads of cash for exclusive deals?
    
    Nah, I don’t think the IOC has anything to worry about there.
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

Magnificent.
http://www.ub.ac.id/ Ahda

this is hillarious.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=847810626 Jesse Nikolic

Looks likeboth his left arm and leg are behind while his right arm and leg are in front. Interesting way to run!
- noah django
  
  (*・_・)ノ⌒*
  
  killjoy.
  - ocker3
    
    Indeed. Artistic license taken to ensure the torso (and it’s large surface area) are exposed to the viewer, showing the sponsorships.
- neurolux
  
  New Olympic sport, the Isolateral 5K.
Scazza

I wonder when you guys are starting your own olympics that run on magic and dreams and not money like in the real world…
- Jake0748
  
  Who do you mean by “you guys”? And why do you think that the Olympics should be run by money? Isn’t/wasn’t it SUPPOSED to be about some kind of athletic ideal back in the day? Not money or money-grubbing corporations? Am I wrong and old-fashion to still be sad that the Olympics are just another commercial bunch of crap?
  
  Oh yeah, STFU. Sorry, almost forgot.
  - Moriarty
    
    You are right, in a way. “Back in the day,” they had no need for sponsorships because it was primarily a competition for the independently wealthy. It wasn’t until the 70s that professional “money grubbing” athletes (i.e., people who needed to make a living, i.e. “the 99%”) were allowed to compete.
    - wysinwyg
      
      It wasn’t until the 70s that professional “money grubbing” athletes (i.e., people who needed to make a living, i.e. “the 99%”) were allowed to compete.
      
      You’re going to need to provide a citation for that.
      - Beanolini
        
        After Brundage retired as IOC president, the IOC re-evaluated its position on amateurism. Realizing that its rules discriminated against athletes without wealth and that, in some countries, state-supported training made athletes de facto professionals, the IOC gradually eliminated “amateur” status as a condition for Olympic eligibility. The word amateur was finally removed from the Olympic Charter during the 1970s. The international federations governing individual Olympic sports were given responsibility for determining Olympic eligibility following the 1981 IOC Congress and Session at Baden-Baden, Germany. Since that time, an increasing number of federations have modified their rules to allow professionals to compete in the Games.
        
        From The LA84 Foundation.
- noah django
  
  (*´ο`*)=3 はふぅん
  
  “we” will not be hosting ˆanyˆ events that waste resources on that scale while simultaneously creating a police state and political boondoggle in the host city and country. “we” will do without. sucks for the athletes, who are cool, but the infrastructure their “handlers” say they require is a net drain on the cities they prey upon. the IOC is evil. “we” will not be taking their place. “we” will discard the whole affair, given the chance. which will never be given. hence the frustrated street art, and its support ITT.
  - Teller
    
    The Seoul Olympics, a standout, made a $300 million profit. Others not so much – but hitting the big one is why cities bid on ‘em, no?
- Hanglyman
  
  And we need the Olympics… why, again?
  
  Okay, I get that a lot of people enjoy watching them for whatever reason, and it’s a nice lofty goal for athletes to strive for. But when it starts actively damaging the communities where it’s hosted, that seems like awfully weak justification for its continued existence.
- howaboutthisdangit
  
  You don’t need magic, just dedicated amateur athletes and people who want to watch them compete. The Olympics could be done much better and would be much more entertaining without the cesspool of corporate sponsors and parasitic management “suits” who taint everything they touch in the name of profit.
- Mantissa128
  
  I believe the original Olympics ran on dreams, pride and hard work.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    In 1896? More likely that they ran on cocaine.
    - Mantissa128
      
      No, ancient Greece. They were more into hemlock then.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        The ancient Olympics ran on the fact that the losers were executed.
- wysinwyg
  
  Yeah, this is a seriously weird thing to say. Especially since it doesn’t actually address anyone’s objections to the London Olympics.
- hymenopterid
  
  I’m not convinced that sport needs expensive equipment to be worthwhile. Kids play soccer on dirt fields without shoes. The Greeks were fine with just running from point A to point B without any clothes on.
  
  But yeah, starting your own alternative sporty eventy thingy would be kind of cool. I would expect the IOC to sue. The same thing would happen if someone tried to create an alternative to FIFA or the UCI.
rattypilgrim

Perfect commentary and power to street art.
Vince Collins

LOLympics!
tw1515tw

I’ve got my tickets and cannot wait for it all to start.

You might need to live in a bunker for a few weeks to avoid the media coverage, but if you don’t like the Olympics then tune out and turn it off.
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/ministry/ Ministry
  
  And don’t live in London, or try to visit London, or pay taxes in the UK.
  
  Do you seriously think a “don’t like it, don’t watch it” attitude is realistic?
- Marco Antonio Morales
  
  Missing the point. I personally love the athletic prowess and struggle, the coming together of cultures and nations, and watching all the different sports and their individual rules, games, competitions and fun. You know, what the ‘Olympics’ were actually known for.
  
  I don’t like it when the less fortunate are being kicked out of their homes (or streets) to make room for newly built, overpriced Olympic accommodation. Or when the police has the power to come into your home and rip posters down that *might* be seen from the street and are not in strict accordance to Olympic sponsors. Or when you feel you’re being strapped to a chair a la Clockwork Orange and forced to eat sponsored foods, watch sponsored ads, and spend sponsored bucks.
  
  The Olympics I watched when I was a kid – I liked. The greedy, money-making excess that now surrounds it revolts me. It’s become a terrifying parody of itself…
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  The astro turfers have finally arrived.
  - penguinchris
    
    Cue Antinous saying “Finally?”
    - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
      
      Heh :)
      
      Admittedly though this is the first wave of pro-Olympics commentary I’ve seen on BoingBoing thus far – which is surprising, as there are plenty of people that haven’t noticed that it’s one giant corporate sponsoring cluster-fuck that’s loosely related to sport.
      
      Out of touch people, of course, but that probably accounts for 90% of the population.
      - penguinchris
        
        I think you’re right; while there have certainly been pro-olympics comments previously (I even made one, referring to the theoretically positive aspects of the olympics), none have been quite like the couple in this comment thread that are approaching astroturf level.
        
        However I do also know that a lot more comments get nuked than the ones that say Comment Removed, and for all I know Antinous has been battling Olympics astroturfers for months :)
      - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
        
        This is a good point. Just because I haven’t seen them doesn’t mean that they’re not in the recycle bin.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        As far as I know, the IOC doesn’t bother with astroturf. And LOCOG isn’t nearly organized enough.
  - tw1515tw
    
    I may be swimming against the tide on this site when it comes to the Olympics, but that doesn’t mean I’m some mouthpiece for a corporation. I’ll be taking my sandwiches and drink, and avoiding MacDs where possible. And I intend to have a bloody good time.
    - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
      
      Well that’s the thing though, the IOC has put people like you in a position whereby partaking in the Olympics DOES make you a mouthpiece for a corporation.
      
      I had a quick flick through a friends photo’s from the sponsor parade (Torch Relay) and there literally wasn’t one shot were an advertiser wasn’t featured prominently. There’s still litter near my home from this event, and the words ‘Coca Cola’ were still faintly visible, spray painted on to the grass to mark their stand’s location.
      
      Your continued interest in the event is what makes sponsorship so attractive.
      
      If you want to watch some track, swimming or posh ladies jumping over things on horses then there are events all year round, featuring the very same sports people; they’re just not sponsored and won’t cost you an arm and a leg to attend and don’t involve billions of pounds of tax-payer investment so people like you can expose yourself to advertising.
      Funny how there isn’t even half the interest in the Commonwealth Games as there is in the Olympics. Is that because people aren’t as interested, or that they’re not told to be interested?
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      I’ll be taking my sandwiches and drink
      
      I’d make a snarky comment about how you wouldn’t be allowed to enter the area south of Hadrian’s Wall with non-sponsored food, but it seems like 90% of G4S’s security crew isn’t going to show up, so there’ll be nobody to stop you. I doubt that the soldiers will care. Entirely possible that Theresa May will doing a couple of shifts outside the ladies’ loo at a few short-staffed venues.
      - tw1515tw
        
        In the guide they send you, it says you can take your own food, and an empty water bottle to fill up the other side of security. That’s as long as it all fits into a bag small enough to fit under your chair. I think they’ll be more worrying about T-shirts with “unapproved” logos and any political statements.
    - penguinchris
      
      I am not a sports person at all and I don’t watch or care about them, but I do really enjoy the Olympics because of what it’s supposed to represent. I must agree, though, with @NathanHornby:disqus ’s reply. Unfortunately, you simply can’t separate the competition itself from the associated corporate (and government) outrageousness anymore, even if you vow not to patronize the sponsors while you’re there.
      
      I will probably still torrent video of some events that interest me (I did this for a lot of stuff for the previous winter olympics) ;)
- http://twitter.com/samthepea Sam Pourasghar
  
  “A storm’s comin’ ‘Arry, jus’ loike larst toime. ‘Cept this is a shit storm.” – Hagrid
  
  Err yeah. I live and work in Greenwich area, so no amount of ignoring sports is gonna make my commution less balls than these damn games already have made it. Every day that passes in the lead up to the games I find that more and more roads and land are withdrawn from public access.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    I was lucky enough to get out a year ago. But the bastards have been following me around the south coast all week, and it looked like they had torches.
Stephen Lead

Love it. Here’s a map showing the Olympic Torch route compared to Maccas locations: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7970251@N05/7510668182
- http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline
  
  coincidently, looks a lot like areas of high population density / tourist intrest
  
  im all for destroying Lord Voldisport but ‘Correlation does not imply causation’
  - Colin Curry
    
    What’s really needed is a null model that would address how many MacD’s would lie within 2 miles of the torch route, if a torch route of same distance but laid out to maximize spectator access were used.
- Robert
  
  I think this points out more the ubiquity of McDonald’s than any sinister plot. The route looks to me like an ordinary space-filling curve. Hey, I’m no Olympic competitor in the Apologist Event, but let’s be intellectually honest here.
  
  Now, on the other hand, if you could show that the actual route passes right outside the windows of a good majority of McDonalds, then that could be the basis of a hypothesis.
- nixiebunny
  
  The torch route was a block away from our house on its way to Utah in 2002. The Coca-cola stickers placed on the light poles marking the torch route lingered for at least five years.
  - Just_Ok
    
    spray some coca-cola on them. Eats right thru the stickers…and the posts.
http://voidstar.com/ jbond

Anyone got any idea where this graffito is?
- snagglepuss
  
  Can’t be near the Olympics’ site. It would have been painted over and the artist arreested and dragged away before he even finished it.
Daneel

Nice! Saw this one on a similar theme doing the rounds on twitter yesterday, too…

http://twitpic.com/a8pd61
Harbo

An event run for pharmacologically enhanced obsessive-compulsives, financed by multinationals Is NOT what I want as an expression of human achievement.
That is the tour de France… They do it well
RedShirt77

These Global corporations make me miss the Spanish Nazis that have run the Olympics for so long.

So much for solidarity of all mankind through the hunger games… I mean Olympics.
BookGuy

Since the Olympics send legal threats to knitting groups, I can only assume that whoever painted this was targeted by a drone strike.
Dave Nelson

IMHO, the Olympics has become a total cluster+++k, and grossly overcommercialized disaster, like Christmas in the USA. I have NO intention of wasting my time or resources on such a farce. If I need to know something about it (not bloody likely!), there’s always the internet or (horrors) the news agencies.

As for the graphic art, I love it. Nice work. Hope the IOC sees it, soon.
- RedShirt77
  
  … or like royal weddings, or the Queen boating in the rain.
Navin_Johnson

Ronald should have been texting with his free hand ala “Will.I.Am” just to complete the stupidity circus.

The Olympics kind of remind me a lot of the sleazy exploitative practices of U.S. college football, but only once every 4 years and on a global level. It’s insane that you have athletes actually having to solicit local donations in order to have the funds to go when you consider all the money that business is making off these spectacles.
- Dave Nelson
  
  He He, agreed. As for athlete funding, I hope you’re not serious. Since the businesses are making so much money and exclusivity demands, they should be responsible for funding the entire show, athlete expenses included. Is this pure profit for them? Greed strikes again.
  - Navin_Johnson
    
    I was thinking of a posting here on Boing Boing actually, I think there was another one about a Canadian markswoman needing to raise funds..? Maybe I imagined it….
    
    http://boingboing.net/2012/06/28/sarah-robles-the-strongest-wo.html
- hymenopterid
  
  It’s not just college football. There are high schools that start recruiting those kids out of Pop Warner. Of course the kid doesn’t see the situation for the farce that it is. He’s just happy to be getting praise from an adult authority figure.
  
  I think football is great. I just have no respect for grown men that want to plan out careers in football for these kids before they’re old enough to make an informed decision. It costs a recruiter nothing to promise a kid he’s going to be a star. If the kid’s career takes off then he’s a feather in the recruiter’s cap for when he tries to lure in more talent. If the kid’s career doesn’t pan out then the recruiter loses nothing. He really only has to hit the jackpot once. It’s a pretty good scam, hell of a lot better than headbutting 300lb linemen for a living.
- RedShirt77
  
  Its not the money that is destroying sports. Its the stupid obsession with Winning that makes these sports such a waste. College football has moved away of their old brilliant system that involved nobody really winning. Now all anybody cares about is winning and glory. Who cares if little boys get raped and all the atheletes end up bankrupt and hobbled. We Win!….. Gold Gold Gold!