I don’t have much to say about the political implications of Chicago’s failed bid for the 2016 Olympics that hasn’t already been said elsewhere and better.

Indeed, the truth is that although when I was younger I loved the Olympics, over the past twenty years or so I’ve quite lost interest in them.   I think this all started back in the late 80′s.  Up to that time, the teevee coverage (from what I recall) had been almost entirely focused on the actual competitions.  But then somebody got the bright idea that this was somehow boring and that it would be far more interesting to refocus on the human interest side of things.  And so the coverage started losing the more obscure sports and earlier heats, and instead introducing long biographical bits about the athletes, all of whom seemed to have overcome incredible odds with gutsy resolution and irrepressible warmth.  They came.  They competed.  They bonded.

Feh.  Put me right off, I can tell you.