Related: Let the Games Begin!
"Timing may be right for Boston’s Olympic bid" by John Powers, Globe Staff January 11, 2015
NBC is eager to have the Summer Games return to the States.
The "most divisive issue was the prolonged squabbling over how to share revenues from US broadcast rights and global sponsorships."
**************
Not that Boston won’t face stiff competition from a field that is likely to include three former hosts with undeniable global cachet.
Paris, which lost to London by four votes in the 2012 race, would be celebrating the centennial of its 1924 Games.
They won't get it after what happened this weekend.
Berlin, which staged the infamous 1936 “Nazi Olympics,” would be showcasing a reunified Germany.
You can see why they won't be getting it.
And Rome, the 1960 host, was runner-up to Athens for 2004.
Yet there’s reason to believe that a Boston bid, coming after sprawling Olympics in Sydney, Athens, Beijing, and London, will be attractive to IOC members who want a cheaper and more compact event.
One USOC board member observed that Boston, with its “walkable” concept for spectators, could be a “summer Lillehammer,” referring to the Norwegian town that staged the intimate and enchanting 1994 Winter Games.
Just don't run a road race in the city.
What also could help Boston’s chances is the feeling that Chicago, which was eliminated in the first round of the four-city 2016 race with only 18 of 94 votes, was a victim of anti-American sentiment and a sense that South America deserved to finally stage the Games.
“The cavalier treatment of Chicago was not good,” said Dick Pound, a longtime IOC member from Canada. “Everybody suddenly fell in love with the idea that it was time for Brazil.”
His name is Dick Pound is his name? Really?
The choice of Rio de Janeiro, which won in a landslide over Madrid, was a nightmare for the IOC, which has had to intervene to help the organizers build venues in time for the Games that will begin a year from August. So an American candidate for 2024 will have a special appeal.
“It’s not good for the Olympic family to have the US withdraw,” said Pound.
Especially with NBC and sponsors such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Visa underwriting much of the Olympic movement.
Boston has already won!
With the three Games after Rio taking place in South Korea, Japan, and either China or Kazakhstan, IOC members have made it clear that an American candidacy is both welcome and overdue.
While Boston’s nomination was startling and puzzling to many — “Are you kidding me?! Boston???” Los Angeles City Council member Joe Buscaino tweeted — it wasn’t considered shocking by IOC members. “It’s not actually that much of a surprise,” said Pound.
Washington carries considerable geopolitical baggage. To many members, voting for the nation’s capital would have been seen as an endorsement of US foreign policy.
What? People don't like our foreign policy? Your kidding? The people of the world don't like freedom? WTF? What a bunch of ungratefuls!
San Francisco, which lost out to New York in the 2012 domestic competition and cut short its 2016 campaign, was hampered by rising public opposition, renewed uncertainty about a stadium, and a venue plan spread among half a dozen cities around the Bay Area.
And while Los Angeles, with almost all its facilities in place, would have been an easy choice, its candidacy had a “been there” feel because it hosted the games in 1932 and 1984.
Boston, which presented the freshest face in the field, would be the Little Big Man of the 2024 contenders as perhaps the planet’s foremost center of education, medicine, and technology.
While some USOC board members acknowledged that they were taking a gamble with a city that needs to build some major venues and solve considerable people-moving challenges, that’s not unusual for an Olympic host.
“America being America, it will probably find a first-class solution,” predicted Pound.
Really? Have you seen the corruption and crap products over here lately? He's pounding something of yours, all right.
The city with the world’s foremost marathon has experience handling a long-haul sports enterprise. Winning the USOC’s endorsement was the first checkpoint in what will be a nine-year race.
I don't think I'm going to make it.
The next marker comes in September....
--more--"
About that transportation:
"Activists protest racism at Dedham train station; Station is site of effort to denounce racism" by Evan Allen, Globe Staff January 10, 2015
Activists decrying racism and the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., briefly protested at a commuter rail train in Dedham Saturday.
Protesters said they halted the train for a short time, but MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the train was not delayed.
“The train was making its regular station stop when demonstrators staged their photo,” he said in an e-mail.
And that's what this was, a staged demonstration for agenda-pushing purposes.
Transit Police Lieutenant Detective Richard Sullivan said about 15 to 20 peaceful protesters were at the station, and about five stepped in front of the train.
And the Globe decided to cover it, huh?
The train was headed to the Patriots game, according to a statement from activists, which was posted to the Black Lives Matter Facebook page.
Good thing it wasn't delayed.
Sullivan said the presence of the protesters at Dedham Corporate station was not a major issue, and police made no arrests.
“They were cooperative,” Sullivan said. They were only in front of the train for a brief time, he said, during which the train would have been stopped anyway.
The protesters said in their statement that they stood in front of the train for four-and-a-half minutes — a span of time that symbolizes the four-and-a-half hours that the body of 18-year-old Michael Brown was in the street in Ferguson after being shot. Protests have swept the country since a grand jury in Ferguson and another grand jury in New York — convened to determine whether to charge white police officers who killed unarmed black men — declined to indict either man.
“We are taking direct action to challenge white supremacy and amplify the demands for an end to the war on black communities across the country,” one of the protest organizers, Mallory Hanora of Boston, said in the statement.
Now they have turned tyrannical authority into white supremacy. God help us all.
--more--"
Speaking of God:
"Patriots flash back to glory days with comeback win over Ravens" by Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Staff January 11, 2015
FOXBOROUGH — It was better than Christmas morning, better than New Year’s Eve, even better than the Olympics in Boston.
In a game reminiscent of their glory days from more than a decade ago, the Patriots came back from two 14-point deficits and defeated the Baltimore Ravens, 35-31, on the frozen tundra of Gillette Stadium Saturday night. New England advances to the AFC Championship game next Sunday against either Denver or Indianapolis at Gillette. The Patriots and their fans are planning on a trip to the Super Bowl in Arizona Feb. 1.
No matter where this season goes, it’s unlikely that anything will top what we saw in Bob Kraft’s frozen mansion Saturday.
The Lord of Bo$ton.
This struggle for survival had everything, even a trickeration touchdown pass by wide receiver Julian Edelman. Trailing, 14-0, in the first quarter and 28-14 in the third, the Patriots would not be killed. They did not lead until Tom Brady feathered a 23-yard, game-winning TD pass into the arms of Brandon LaFell with 5:13 left.
After nearly four full quarters of uneven play, New England’s defense finally stopped Baltimore’s Joe Flacco when Duron Harmon picked off a Flacco pass in the end zone with 1:39 remaining. Even then, it wasn’t over. The stubborn Ravens got the ball back for one final play and Flacco’s Hail Mary heave was batted down by a pack of Patriots (including Rob Gronkowski) in the end zone.
Brady, who has played in eight conference championship games and five Super Bowls, completed 33 of 50 passes in 12-degree temperatures. The victory gave Bill Belichick 20 playoff wins, tying Dallas’s Tom Landry for most in NFL history....
--more--"
I need to break off and go watch Packers-Cowboys now. I'll return later.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
Packers hold off Cowboys to advance to NFC Championship
I'm sick of replay reviews.
Olympic bid spurs talk of balancing priorities
Also see: Qatar shouldn’t host 2022 World Cup
The Globe really has some nerve!
Related(?): Israel says Qatar expels Hamas leader
I think so, after what we saw in Paris!
