Looks like Chicago is out of the running for the 2016 Olympics. I am bummed but not surprised. I had decided that I was going to go and watch if it wsa in Chicago. Has anyone attended a swim session at the Olympics (if you swam in one, that more than counts, but I am wondering about spectating!)?
I will be paying for the Rio Olympics, I mean that literally. Somehow big Brazilian government ends up subsidizing all this stuff. New, let's start learning a few basics. We speak Portuguese in Brazil, so it is not "cerro" but "monte", Pão de Açucar (sugar loaf). From the tourist point of view, Rio is probably the most beautiful city in the world. I hope they clean up the lake in town for the rowing and other stuff, and the bay for the sailing. The swimming facilities built for the Pan-American games were state of the art, until Beijing came up. billy fanstone (safely 1000 miles away from Rio)
You have my sympathies. Perhaps buying a few shares in Rosetta Stone could help offset the guaranteed out-of-pocket payments for the Olympics?
Chicago didn't really know how it was going to pay for the Olympics. The city schools are a mess, and the most effective education chief in years was drafted by the president to go to Washington. That was a blow. The economically fragile - poor and already displaced - were to be displaced once more by digging up dedicated parkland to build stadia. And there seemed to be an assumption that Mayor for Life would be mayor in 2016; businesses have shown reluctance to buy city bonds when a certain family's tenure in that seat was temporarily disrupted. Chicago historically puts on a good show, witness the various world fairs, but needs to get its act together on crime, education, funding the chronically underfunded state pension system, care of the mentally ill, replacing aging and structurally deficient infrastructure, and a few other things. Prior to the Olympic Committee's visit, we got told to show some Olympic spirit. It would have been thrilling to watch tall cranes on the horizon for 7 years and the harbors taken out of use and reconfigured and who knows what-all else, but few thinking people are truly disappointed, altho' some businesses (chiefly construction-related) had been hoping mightily for an uptick. Make no small plans.... I suppose the exercise was good, particularly as it kept on the front page deficiencies that can't be well hidden behind flower plantings on median strips. And Chicago will try again, sans doute.
:)
I will be paying for the Rio Olympics, I mean that literally. Somehow big Brazilian government ends up subsidizing all this stuff. New, let's start learning a few basics. We speak Portuguese in Brazil, so it is not "cerro" but "monte", Pão de Açucar (sugar loaf). From the tourist point of view, Rio is probably the most beautiful city in the world. I hope they clean up the lake in town for the rowing and other stuff, and the bay for the sailing. The swimming facilities built for the Pan-American games were state of the art, until Beijing came up. billy fanstone (safely 1000 miles away from Rio)
You have my sympathies. Perhaps buying a few shares in Rosetta Stone could help offset the guaranteed out-of-pocket payments for the Olympics?
Chicago didn't really know how it was going to pay for the Olympics. The city schools are a mess, and the most effective education chief in years was drafted by the president to go to Washington. That was a blow. The economically fragile - poor and already displaced - were to be displaced once more by digging up dedicated parkland to build stadia. And there seemed to be an assumption that Mayor for Life would be mayor in 2016; businesses have shown reluctance to buy city bonds when a certain family's tenure in that seat was temporarily disrupted. Chicago historically puts on a good show, witness the various world fairs, but needs to get its act together on crime, education, funding the chronically underfunded state pension system, care of the mentally ill, replacing aging and structurally deficient infrastructure, and a few other things. Prior to the Olympic Committee's visit, we got told to show some Olympic spirit. It would have been thrilling to watch tall cranes on the horizon for 7 years and the harbors taken out of use and reconfigured and who knows what-all else, but few thinking people are truly disappointed, altho' some businesses (chiefly construction-related) had been hoping mightily for an uptick. Make no small plans.... I suppose the exercise was good, particularly as it kept on the front page deficiencies that can't be well hidden behind flower plantings on median strips. And Chicago will try again, sans doute.
:)
