Torture Rally

If you read my other blog, you know I think that the International Olympic Committee is pretty much akin to a criminal syndicate. But I hadn’t known (or did I forget?) that the Olympic TorchTM relay hoo-hah was invented by the Nazis for the ’36 Berlin Games. Cue Hitler’s favorite film-maker, Leni Riefenstahl, who took her lies to her grave. This morning, Frank Deford gave a succinct run down of the bullshit manufactured by the “international cartel” that is the IOC. Deford has so much on his plate he doesn’t mention Juan Antonio Samaranch, long time head of the IOC (Senior S. preferred to be called “Your Excellency”), who had been Franco’s minister of sport. The stench of the Olympic “movement” has been wafting over the world for years. A premature anti-fascist from way back, I last watched the “Games” in ’76. Although I do remember one brief glimpse of the LA version: the network hack/host referred to Mexico as the “large country to the south of us.” On the BBC, the word “torch” sounds a bit like the first syllable of “torture.” How apropos.