Posts Tagged ‘IOC
The Cleveland Olympics: 2020
Here’s something we’re going to be pushing for the next few years: the Cleveland Olympics in 2020.
The IOC should stop selecting major world cities to host the Olympics Games every four years. Developed cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Beijing, Sydney, London, Paris, and even Rio benefit little from the Olympics, because these cities are pretty great to begin with.
Just imagine how much good the Olympics could do if they were awarded, every four years, to cities that desperately need an infusion of life and economic stimulus…cities that are falling apart because there’s no money to repair their roads and build all the things they’d need to make a real comeback.
Cities like Cleveland, Ohio.
The Cleveland Olympics could be a truly transformative event. Instead of pushing Seattle, Dallas, Boston, or another major league American city for 2020, the US Olympics committee should turn its attention to a city that could be completely rebuilt from the ground up with the Olympics as an excuse to invest all that time and energy into a civic comeback.
Other contenders could be Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Milwaukee.
But, Cleveland’s on our minds because it was just awarded the 2014 Gay Games — a decision we don’t agree with, despite our love for Cleveland (as some of us here were born there) and the fact Cleveland desperately needs those tourist dollars.
But, Cleveland’s not a gay-friendly city. It’s a very hostile place to be different from the norm in any way. There isn’t even a gay bar in downtown Cleveland anymore (now that the long-running Grid nightclub closed). We have no idea how the city’s going to react to the Gay Games five years from now…but hope with so much time to spend, the city will mount a massive reeducation campaign for its citizens…many of whom are still very fond of shouting “FAG!” and beating the living daylights out of gay guys (and we speak from experience, and more than a few black eyes, on that one).
But, the Gay Games organizers believe there’s enough time to “turn Clevelanders around”, so we feel if any city can be turned around by massive, well-monitored Olympics spending, it should be Cleveland.
From a public policy and urban development angle, this could be an interesting project to research and write about going forward — how to take a new approach to the Olympics and turn them into a real agent of permanent, positive change…instead of keeping them as the giant party and graft and corruption fest they currently are.
If Africa doesn’t mount a successful bid for the 2020 Games (the only continent besides Antarctica to never host the Games) then the 2020 Games should be held in America, since the US would not have, at that point, held the Games for 24 years. So, the cards seem stacked in America’s favor…and we believe whichever city we pick for our bid should be the one that can actually be improved dramatically by Olympics preparation, provided a sensible and well-thought out plan is in place for how to keep Cleveland running in the black after all those athletes return to their home countries, undoubtedly awed by the wonders of the American North Coast and Midwest.
Doesn't it seem like no one trusted the current First Lady not to F-up the Olympics bid?
Proud of the Olympics and the IOC for the first time in her adult life.
On Friday, our current First Lady was supposed to plead the case for the Chicago Olympics, but instead her husband will do that for her.
Her husband, incidentally, is apparently the acting President of the Chicago Chamber of Commerce.
Oh, he’s also the current President of the United States, but we all know where his real priorities lie (while his heart, of course, reamains in Honolulu, or Indonesia, or wherever the heck he considers himself “from”).
It’s just amusing to us that someone in either the White House or the Chicago Olympics Bid Committee set Mrs. Utopia up to look so stupid — the way this was all handled was TERRIBLE. The White House announces fashion-icon Mrs. Utopia would single-handedly win the Olympics for Chicago, using all of her charms and her ultra-glam fashion sense to dazzle all 100 of the IOC voting members. It was claimed by the newly-created and potentially-illegal “White House Office for Olympics Advancement and Encouragement of Vast Amounts of Graft and Corruption”, headed up by notorious slumlord and tenement profiteer Valerie Jarrett, that Mrs. Utopia would clearly save the day. Fussy Belgians and petulant Frenchman would walk into a room backing Rio, but Mrs. Utopia would seduce them over to Chicago’s side by employing all of her Southside charm to full hilt. If that failed, presumably, she’d just push and shove them with her Dennis Rodman-esque hands and throttle them until she got her way.
“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of the IOC and its voting body because they have given me and my husband what we want. Anyone who does not agree with us on this is a RAAACIST”.
Mrs. Utopia, with Oprah, Lake Michigan’s own Charybdis, supposedly “had this under control”.
But, doesn’t it seem like SOMEONE possibly reviewed footage of Mrs. Utopia speaking in public, without a script and teleprompter, or remembered her antics at Trinity United, where she sat for decades listening to the hatemongering and conspiratorial craziness of Jeremiah Wright on Chicago’s Southside and realize maybe this was not the right person to sell Chicago’s Olympics bid after all.
Mrs. Utopia was very effective at collecting a large salary from the University of Chicago Hospital while lending her name to programs that diverted the poor and sick to substandard “neighborhood clinics” so UC didn’t have to foot the bill for all those indigent patients.
Not so great at being able to persuade the IOC to grant Mayor Daley his wet dream of diverting BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to his friends and relatives with Olympics construction projects.
Obama's presidential library and museum is being built into Chicago's Olympics plans, as we speak
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, IL
One of the great benefits the Blagojevich scandal has brought Chicago Mayor Daley, paradoxically, is that all the negative attention on Illinois directed at the governor has allowed the Olympics planning to proceed completely in the shadows.
It is our firm belief Chicago won the 2016 Olympics on November 4th. Everything here is proceeding as such. There is no longer any “if” when talking about the Olympics bid. The way the city has always figured it, our only real competiton was Rio, because there is strong pressure to hold the Olympics in South America, the only continent (save Antarctica) to never host the games. Rio’s crime, where large swaths of the cty are controlled by gangs and warlords, was the only thing really keeping the games out of Brazil. Yes, you can argue about transportation, infrastructure, amenities, funding, and other Olympics requirements — but the drive to have the games in South America, at last, is so strong that all of that could be worked out…but not the crime. The crime is just too bad to contend with.
However, we do believe that if Obama had lost on November 4th, that some miraculous fix for that crime problem would have been worked out, and Rio would have landed the games in October 2009, when the official announcement is made. Consider the Olympics, however, a gift from the IOC, representing “the world community”, rewarded America for picking its preferred candidate, Obama…and all the metaphoric and narrative flourishes that come with awarding the games to Obama’s home town.
You can argue with us all you want — but everything we see says the 2016 Chicago Olympics are a done deal.
What’s REALLY interesting, and smart in that sneaky Chicago way, is how fast Chicago’s already gotten the jump on Honolulu to lock-in Obama’s presidential library and museum.
After November 4th, plans for the Olympics bid have been reworked…and it doesn’t take that much imagnation to read between the lines on what’s going on. On the Southside of the city, an area is reserved for a “temporary” stadium for the Olympics, surrounded by PERMANENT parking and support facilities. Basically, imagine a large open space surrounded by secure parking, security, and possibly even banquet and other food service facilities…all serving a purpose during the games, and waiting for a new purpose when that “temporary” stadium is used and then pulled down in 2016.
All the talk we are hearing here in Chicago is that Obama’s presidential library will be built in that space. The temporary stadium is removed, and the library/museum is then built in its place, with the parking and support structures already in place just waiting for the new building to be built.
This is how Chicago will blow Honolulu out of the water when it comes time for selecting the library’s location. Not that Chicago ever REALLY had any chance of losing it. All of the main funders of that library live here in Chicago, and the expected chair of the fundraising for that project will be Penny Pritzker, no doubt, who lives in Chicago and will make it her personal mission to see that facility right here.
It’s actually very smart, too, if you think about it, because it will cut down on some waste: the city doesn’t need a new stadium sitting empty on the Southside for no reason. And if it has to build all of those parking and support structures for the Olympics, it is good to reuse them for a new purpose for the presidential library. So, it saves money, especially considering construction inflation. The area it could get tricky is whatever rules apply to using government money to build a facility for the Olympics and then reusing it for a privately-funded presidential library.
When the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum was built here in Illinos a few years ago, there were funding battles and other issues with finances, because of course this is Illinois and everyone had hands in the pot. But there’s no doubt all of this will be worked out well in advance of construction for Obama’s library.
At every holiday party we’ve been to here in Chicago this season, the library and the Olympics has been talked about, but we haven’t seen this picked up anywhere yet. We’re waiting to get our hands on the new plans for that Southside “temporary” stadium so we can show you how things have been reworked in the last month to accomodate Obama. Part of the reason this is all being done in the shadows is that parkland is involved and it appears the city’s trying to fool those gullible enough to believe the “temporary” stadium will be torn down and the land returned to park status. That’s why “temporary” is always in “quotes” here. Yes, the stadium might be “temporary”, but when it is gone, the park won’t be back…instead, a presidential library will be built there. So, the “temporary” lingo just appeases environmentalists or park advocates or whoever the opposition groups are, temporarily, until they realize, too late, that a giant library, larger than Lincoln’s no doubt, will land like a flying saucer right onto the empty spot the disassembled stadium once sat in.
Personally, we’d like to see Obama’s library in Honolulu, and not just because it would be nice to have that so far, far away. He was born in Hawaii, and it could be a beautiful facility right on the water somewhere. It would also keep Lincoln’s library special in Illinois — one of our favorite day trips from Chicago (just $30 on Amtrak, 3 hours on the rails down to Springfield, to one of the coolest museums we have ever been to). Why put another presidential library in the state? Let Hawaii have it. That’s where we’re hoping the Obamas retire after his term is up in 2013, so let Hawaii have all of it.
Chicago, and its Olympics bid, have other things in mind, though.
Well, at least we're not Germany in 1936 or Communist China. Score one for Chicago!
The Three Little Stinkers, supporting Chicago's 2016 Olympics bid
A lot of people have been wondering how Governor Blagojevich’s troubles will impact Chicago’s chances for the 2016 Olympics (host city chosen October 2nd, 2009).
Frankly, Chicago won the 2016 Olympics on November 4th (no matter when the actual decision is announced). Unless Obama is a complete disaster right out of the gate, there’s no way we can see the IOC passing up Chicago, Obama’s adopted “hometown”, for 2016. It will be a celebration of America’s first black president, and also a gigantic F-U to the Bush Administration. Obama’s win was cheered in the halls of Europe, including the ones at the IOC.
Obama will use every resource available to land the Olympics for Chicago — because all of Obama’s friends and allies will make large sums of money off of those games. It will, of course, be a colossal boondoggle, where millions will be wasted on graft and corruption in public displays of excess that will make all of us on the ground here cringe. But, don’t be surprised if somewhere in those Olympic plans there’s an area of land set aside that forms the perfect location for the future Obama Presidential Library, somewhere near the University of Chicago, most likely.
So, any talk of Blagojevich tarnishing those Olympics dreams is considered ridiculous around here, though Mayor Daley today found an interesting way to put Blagojevich and Illinois corruption in unusual perspective:
Daley agreed with that, noting the apparent incongruity of the IOC’s having awarded the 1936 Olympics to Berlin and the 2008 Games to Beijing, both of which had governments guilty of far worse crimes than corruption.
“Just think, ‘How could Germany ever have it?’.” Daley said. “And you go to a lot of countries in the world and say, `How can those countries have it?’ Beijing just had their Olympics, and so.”
And so…you have to bring up Hitler’s Germany and Communist China to make Illinois seem not so bad, all things considered. What a glowing endorsement for the Land of Lincoln! “Hey, we’re not as bad as Nazi Germany was! At least we’re not China! Athletes of the world, welcome to Illinois! Keep a close eye on your wallets!”.
When you live in Chicago, you get so used to hearing about all of this, that you almost get immune to it. But, when you have a drinking problem, and you tell people, “At least I’m not Liza Minnelli!”, it doesn’t mean you should be walking around with that scotch in your hand. Yes, there are a handful of people in the world, here and there over the rainbow, who might have a larger problem than you do, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a raging alcoholic yourself. Or that you should be wearing heavy eye liner and sequines (no matter how pretty that makes you feel).
