London Closing: British Music, A Missing Queen and, Sadly, Ryan Seacrest

The London Olympics wrapped up last night in much the same way as they began, with a quirky, sometimes cheeky salute to all things British, particularly British music.

The London organizers largely dispensed with the interpretive pieces that typically mark these Olympic events. An opening number themed around London traffic largely served to introduce the eight-ramped stage in the shape of the Union Jack that dominated what, less than 24 hours before, had been the track and field area on the floor of the stadium. From then, the night quickly segued into an hour and a half long salute to England's contributions to modern pop music.

 The show got off to a rolling start, literally, when the iconic 80's ska group Madness performed their signature hit “Our House” from the back of a tractor trailer that circled the stadium floor. They were followed by another iconic 80's Brit pop act, The Pet Shop Boys, who performed “West End Girls” an apropo choice given the song's references to the East End, the site of the Olympic stadium, from the back of bicycle rickshaws. Contemporary acts also played a large role in the show; the Kasier Chiefs covered The Who's “Tommy”, while singer Jesse J also performed both as a solo act and with the surviving members of Queen on “We Will Rock You”, since what sporting event is complete without this song?

The Beatles didn't appear in person, though a rendition of John Lennon's “Imagine” was likely the emotional highlight of the night, and Russell Brand's rendition of “I Am The Walrus” might have been the quirkiest, had it not been for Monty Python's Eric Idle performing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”; complete with Victoria's Secret-style angels and a Bollywood dance troupe.  The highlight of the show though was likely the long-rumored reunion of the Spice Girls who took to the top of Austin Minis for their performance – Spice Girls standing on Minis, how more British can you get?

The Spice Girls after the show (London Telegraph pic).

Of course, the closing ceremonies provided one last opportunity for NBC to screw up the coverage. After promising a performance by The Who all evening, in the prime-time show's closing moments, viewers were told that The Who would actually be featured in their late-night coverage, which started at 12:30 EDT. This delay seemed mostly so that NBC could provide a preview of one of their craptacular fall “comedies”. Great move guys.  And coverage of the musical portion of the evening was turned over to Ryan Seacrest, likely due to NBC's baffling continued belief that Seacrest actually knows something about entertainment and is entertaining himself. Seacrest's few vacant contributions though could have easily been read by the real hosts, Al Michaels and Bob Costas, off of a TelePrompTer.  The only imprint Seacrest left on the coverage was to unwantedly speak over the performances on several occasions. My suggestion to NBC: leave Seacrest out of the coverage of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, or better yet, drop him in the ocean while en route to Sochi.

One final question from the Closing Ceremonies though is where were the Royals? Queen Elizabeth II was expected to be on hand to close the Games, yet the Queen was nowhere to be found; she did not even appear in video form (as did former Queen frontman, Freddie Mercury).  The whole Royal family attended the opening ceremonies, yet at the close they were represented only by Prince Harry, introduced formally as Prince Henry of Wales. He was accompanied by Duchess Catherine of Cambridge, better known as Kate, wife of Prince William.  The lack of Royal attendance seemed to be unexpected since several of the speakers, including outgoing IOC head Jacques Rogge, addressed their comments to the “Royals”, plural, making you think that they expected a larger attendance on the part of the Royal family.

Along with why NBC continues to employ Ryan Seacrest, the Royal presence is a lingering question from last night's otherwise brilliant Closing Ceremony.  

A Fixed Result In Mascot Vote?

So the results are in. You might remember this recent post about the online poll to select the mascot or mascots for the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 (my favorite was the skiing dolphin). Well the votes are in and three have been chosen: Rad, a snowboarding snow leopard, a polar bear and a bunny rabbit; great, right?

Well, by an amazing coincidence, Rad the Snow Leopard just happens to be the favorite choice of Vladimir Putin, while his co-regent, President Dmitry Medvedev was said to have liked the polar bear since in Russian “Medvedev” is a named derived from the word for bear (“medved”). Of course since this is Russia, there has to be more to the story... The Moscow Times was quick to report that there was suspicion that the online results were rigged since a choice that had led the online polling for months, a psychedelic blue frog named “Zoich” was unceremoniously dropped by judges just before the final round, despite the groundswell of public support. Zoich's designer patterned him after the Hypnotoad, a mind-controlling amphibian featured in the cartoon Futurama, the Sochi judging committee though didn't appreciate the joke and found Zoich to be more “depressing” than amusing.

Two other aspiring mascots dropped from the race were a cartoon saw – “sawing the budget” is Russian slang for the bribes that go along with any official project, and Sochi is already said to be running over-budget, and a character named "Stakasha", a name derived from the word for “glass”, but also Russian slang for being drunk; it's really not surprising that the Sochi would withhold their blessing from either. Of course, my first thought on seeing the bear character that was selected, who is admittedly quite cute, was that it reminded me of “Fatov”, the faux-mascot Bart Simpson created from a picture of his dad Homer and that he passed off as the mascot for the Sochi Games. According to Bart, Fatov celebrated “the Russian spirit of sloth and alcoholism.” Probably not what the Sochi selection committee was aiming for...


Final word on the mascot selection goes to Russia's noted opposition politician and political gadfly Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who was happy to blast away at the mascot choices: “The bear is the dumbest animal, the leopard is bloodthirsty, and the hare a coward who always runs away.”

Sochi Cute

Of course every modern Olympics needs a cute and cuddly mascot, though some are much better than others (anyone remember the Whatsit from the Atlanta games?), and online contests are a popular way of selecting things in the Internet age, so the organizers of the Sochi 2014 Winter Games have invited the public to select their choice for the official mascot of the Games with a site dedicated just to the selection competition. The industrious folks in Sochi are providing mascot fans with eleven choices for the cartoon face of the Sochi Games.  My personal favorite is the Dolphin, since of course when you think Winter Olympics you naturally think of dolphins; it's worth noting here that Sochi is on the Black Sea, enjoys a temperate climate and was once part of the “Soviet Riviera” during the days of the CCCP, so for Sochi the dolphin isn't out of place. My prediction for the eventual winner though are the Matryoshka dolls (the famed Russian wood-carved figurines that nest one inside the next) since there seems to be such a huge range of marketing opportunities with them.

And while the Games are in Russia, the mascot vote is open to people around the world.

So Much For The Olympic Spirit

Before the 2010 Winter Games were even brought to a close, the host city’s hometown newspaper, The Vancouver Sun, took the opportunity to rip into the next host city of the 2014 Games, Sochi, Russia. Last Saturday the Sun ran this piece describing Sochi as bleak place whose Games are almost certainly to be wracked by terrorist-fueled violence. The Sun’s article is built solely on the assessment of Alina Inayeh, an analyst for the German Marshall Fund of the United States. According to Inayeh, the Sochi Games will be the first ever held in “a war zone region”, an area that she says is “home of the Chechen wars and violent feuding that surfaced after the breakup of the Soviet Union and continues to date,” and that the Games are sure to be a target of terrorists who are based nearby and “if you want to do a terrorist attack, the Olympic Games gives you the most attention you could possibly get.”

Okay, there are just a few problems with Inayeh’s Sochi rundown…

To start with Sochi would not be the first time the Olympics were held in a “war zone”, that distinction goes to the 1988 Summer Games of Seoul, South Korea, since North and South Korea only signed an armistice in 1953 to end the combat of the Korean War - the two sides have never signed a formal peace treaty, so technically the two nations still are at war. Second, while the Northern Caucasus region of Russia has been wracked by fighting, first from two wars in Chechnya and now by an insurgency in the neighboring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia, in 15 years none of that fighting has touched Sochi, so it’s hard to argue that Sochi itself is in a “conflict zone” (Sochi was similarly untouched by the August 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia which is just down the Black Sea coast from Sochi). And finally, while Inayeh is right that the Olympic Games do provide a high-profile target for would-be terrorists, it is striking that she skips ahead to Sochi and totally ignores the 2012 Summer Games in London as a prime terror target. Let’s remember that in 2005 London suffered the “7/7 attacks” of July 7th, where four British Muslims carried out a series of coordinated suicide bombings on London’s mass transit system killing 52 and wounding 700 others. It would seem if you want to make the Olympics-as-terror-target argument, you should start with the host city that actually has suffered from a mass terror attack first.

The week before the Vancouver Sun piece ran I had dinner with a friend who was born back in the old Soviet Union, since the Games were underway the Olympics came up in our discussion. She remarked that watching the American coverage of the Games she noticed a bias by the US sportscasters against Russian athletes in the various events, it was like the Cold War had never ended she said. After reading this screed from the Sun, it’s hard to argue against that point of view.

Speaking of Russia and the Olympics, there has been a swift reaction on the part of the Russian government over the Russian team’s worst-ever showing in a Winter Games; Russia finished sixth in the medal count and failed to win gold in two events where Russia traditionally dominates: ice skating and hockey. The head of Russia’s Olympic committee resigned on Thursday after more-or-less being ordered to by President Dmitry Medvedev. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Russia should have seen a better return on its investment in athletic training programs at the Games. He did admit though that the once-formidable Soviet-era system of athletic schools and training centers had largely collapsed and wondered aloud where the $117 million Russia spent on its Olympic athletes actually went. “Maybe the money we invested wasn't put where it should have been put, but somewhere else, where those who had it wanted it to go?” Putin said.

The answer seems to be into the pockets of the heads on Russia’s various sports federations as well as into some gaudy displays of self-promotion in Vancouver. According to Russia’s Vedomosti newspaper, Russia’s official delegation at the Vancouver Games included dozens “guests” that included actors, entertainers and politicians while Russia spent lavishly on building “Russia House”, a 10,000 sq ft temporary exhibition pavilion described as the most expensive of its kind ever at an Olympics. Meanwhile, Russian luger Albert Demchenko, who won silver at the 2006 Turin Games, had to take up a collection from his friends and family to repair his beaten up sled so he could even compete in Vancouver, his request before the Games to the Russian luging federation for a new sled had not been answered.

Sour Grapes On The Russian Olympic Menu

The Russian Olympic Team was extremely upset by the results of the men’s figure skating after the United States’ Evan Lysacek edged out Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko for the gold medal. I have to admit I think that Russia has something of a point: Plushenko apparently skated a more technically difficult routine, yet received lower scores than Lysacek.

But Russia’s Pravda.ru took Olympic criticism to a new level with this top-to-bottom ripping of the Winter Games: “Vancouver: Mutton Dressed as Lamb”. In it, the folks at Pravda not only light into VANOC (the Vancouver organizing committee) for the men’s figure skating judging, but also for the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and the drug testing of a Russian skier while her event was still underway (somehow the failure of the Olympic torch to properly rise during the opening ceremonies avoided their critique). Pravda goes on to (somewhat bizarrely) suggest that Canada’s inability to stage a “successful” Olympic Games stems from their inferiority complex over being the United States “skinny and weakling bro”, and also from still being part of the British Commonwealth. They also infer that the figure skating judging was somehow influenced by Canada competing with Russia for dominance in the Arctic Sea.

All in all, it is a stunning mix of sour grapes and conspiracy theories. At the heart though is likely frustration over the generally poor performance of the Russian Olympic team, which is currently on track for their worst-ever Olympics. That is the last thing the Russians want heading into the next Winter Games, which will be held at Sochi, Russia. Countries always want to have a strong showing at the Games they host – even mild-mannered Canada launched an aggressive training program called “Own the Podium” ahead of the Vancouver Games. Russia’s only other experience as an Olympic host were during the massively-boycotted Moscow Summer Games in 1980, so the upcoming Sochi Games are a source of immense national pride. Of course Russia, traditionally a winter sports powerhouse, wants to have a strong showing for the home crowd – but the 2010 Games have so far been a pretty poor prelude of things to come, and perhaps the frustration is showing in some pretty odd ways.

Protesting Too Is An Olympic Event

Along with the thousands of athletes, legions of journalists and hoards of spectators that have all descended upon Vancouver for the Olympic games, another group has come to town: Olympic protesters. On Monday there was a minor diplomatic incident when a young American was arrested by the Vancouver police on charges that included assaulting a police officer and inciting violence after an anti-Olympics rally turned into a vandalism spree in downtown Vancouver.

The protesters have a stew of Olympic-related complaints: Monday’s incident started out as a demonstration against the “carbon footprint” of the Games, and their ultimate effect on global climate change; another popular topic for protesters has been the diversion of public funds to build temporary housing for Olympic athletes (the Olympic Village) rather than providing permanent shelter for the city’s homeless population. To illustrate their point, homeless activists went as far as to set up their own “Olympic village” of tents for the indigent in downtown Vancouver.

That thought reminded of the song “Gassy Jack” by the Vancouver-based band, The Evaporators (for a brief musical interlude, see the video below), which includes the line: “social housing for the needy / not lofts for the greedy.” The 21st Winter Olympics will wrap up next weekend.

Why Isn’t There Women’s Ski Jumping At The Winter Olympics?

The Winter Olympics are underway, and so to are the articles by sports columnists picking apart the Winter Games, like this one from Jeff Neuman of RealClearSports that asks: “Who Killed the Winter Olympics?” Neuman argues that the Winter Games have become a bloated, and ultimately not terribly interesting mess of events.

I can’t say that I totally agree with Neuman, but his column made me think about this report I saw this past weekend on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” about women’s ski jumping, or rather the lack of women’s ski jumping at the Olympics. Even though men’s ski jumping has been included in all 21 Winter Games, the women’s side of the sport is excluded. In fact, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has actively fought to keep the sport out of the Games, a group of women jumpers even tried, and failed, to sue the Vancouver Games organizing committee to force them to include their sport in this year’s Games.

According to IOC chief Jacques Rogge, the reason that women’s ski jumping isn’t included within the Olympic canon is because the relatively small number of women competing at the elite level of the sport – around 170 – would “dilute” the significance of the Olympic gold medal if it was awarded in this discipline. But ESPN notes that an even smaller number of women (about 125) are currently competing at the elite level in the relatively new sport of ski cross, yet their sport was included in the 2010 Games. Ski cross is the ski version of another fairly new sport, board cross – a seeming combination of downhill racing and roller derby, whose only Olympic moment of note so far has been the United States’ Lindsey Jacobellis hot-dogging her way out of a gold medal in the 2006 Games.

And that gets back to Neuman’s point. Traditionally the Winter Olympics were a collection of Alpine and ice sports largely dominated by a collection of northern European countries. In recent years though the Games have expanded to take in a whole collection of new winter sports (like ski/board cross), mostly created in the United States and not surprisingly dominated by American athletes. This may be good business for the IOC since massive US television contracts provide a large chunk of the their revenues, but it hasn’t necessarily improved the quality of the Games.

Of course adding in women’s ski jumping would be a simple matter of scheduling additional elements at facilities that would otherwise sit unused, it doesn’t require building entire new venues like has been the case for the snowboarding events. But it would also likely not bring any additional medals for the United States, and that’s why you probably won’t see women ski jumping at the Games anytime soon.

Another Nation Jumps on the Abkhazia Bandwagon

The would-be nations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia received a Christmas present of sorts - more international recognition of their independence. Since the August 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia over the two Georgian regions, official recognition has been hard to come by for the two fledgling states; so far only Venezuela and Nicaragua have agreed with Russia that the two regions are actually independent nations.

But now another country has joined the list, the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru. Never heard of it? You're not alone, I'd be willing to guess few people in either Abkhazia or South Ossetia knew of its existence either before the Nauruans opened diplomatic relations with them. Nauru is the smallest island state in the world, in fact with a population of just 12,000, it's so small that it's the only nation in the world without a capital city. So why would a tiny speck of a nation in the Pacific bother to get involved with post-Soviet politics half a world away? Likely for money.

Nauru's recognition comes as Russia grants the island state a loan of $50 million, money Nauru desperately needs. Nauru's economy had been largely built around an enormous phosphate mine at the center of the island - the result of centuries of accumulated droppings from migrating birds. But the guano mine played out in the 1980's, plunging the nation into a financial crisis. Nauru enjoyed a brief reprise as a money-laundering center, but international regulations put a stop to that as well; the country cannot even rely on tourism since according to Wikipedia: "there is little to see or do here, the climate is very unpleasant, and there are few facilities for tourists." The CIA estimates the economy is in such dire straits that Nauru lacks the funds to even have a functioning government.

Russia's loan is likely enough to keep Nauru solvent for the better part of the next two years. Of course the bigger question is why does Russia care about establishing Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent nations anyway?

The conventional wisdom is that supporting the independence claims of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is a way for Russia to rebuild its sphere of influence in the world. While it's hard to disagree with this notion, even the great minds in the Kremlin have to realize that no one will ever confuse Russia and a collection of statelets like Abkhazia, South Ossetia and perhaps Transdniestria for the Soviet Union. The deep personal dislike between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Georgia's Mikhail Saakashvili also likely has something to do with Russia's strategy - nothing would make Saakashvili look worse than to officially lose to sizable chunks of his country's territory; Putin, meanwhile, would revel in the embarrassment of his Caucasus adversary.

But one factor - a major factor that is being overlooked - in Russia's drive to get international recognition for the two regions are the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Like Sochi, with whom it shares a Black Sea coastline, Abkhazia was once part of the "Soviet Rivera" - the favored vacation retreat for the Soviet elite. The Sochi region shares a border with Abkhazia (the places are so close, Georgia even tried unsuccessfully to get the Olympic committee to move the 2014 Winter Games in the wake of the 2008 conflict citing "security concerns"). Russia is hoping the Winter Games will spark a resurgence of the Sochi region as a world-class resort destination, and Abkhazia factors into their plans, both as a source of cheap labor and material in the run-up to the 2014 Games and in their post-Olympics development plans as well. Of course this makes a lot more sense from the Russian point of view if Abkhazia is a compliant satellite state rather than a region of their regional competitor, Georgia.

With the Winter Olympics being seen as a coming out party for the "new" post-Soviet Russia and Abkhazia factoring into their Sochi plans, don't be surprised if the Russian government doesn't dole out more foreign aid to some pretty unusual corners of the globe.

Russia Votes, Opposition Cries Foul

Voting is underway across much of Russia for seats on city and regional councils, but already opposition groups are declaring the elections fraudulent.

A collection of opposition groups rallied in the streets of Moscow, led by politician Boris Nemtsov, on Sunday to protest the city-wide elections. Earlier this year Nemtsov lost badly to the Kremlin-backed candidate in the mayor's election in his hometown of Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Nemtsov alleged that his supporters were harassed and that he was denied access to the media, part of a Kremlin plan to get their man elected mayor so they could control the preparations for the Games.

Moscow officials denied any wrongdoing in today's vote, saying that vote-rigging was a crime. Critics countered by saying there was no need to actually rig votes, city officials made sure that any opposition candidates - except for Kremlin-approved opposition parties like the Communists or Liberal Democrats, parties with limited popular support and thus no real threat to United Russia, the party of Medvedev and Putin - were disqualified from the election and never appeared on the ballot in the first place.

Results should come in tomorrow. One race we'll keep an eye on is in the Volgograd region where African immigrant Joachim "Vasily" Crima is trying to become Russia's first black elected politician.

Rio Wins the Olympics, is India Next?

So you've probably heard by now that Rio de Janeiro won the rights to host the 2016 Summer Olympics yesterday, despite a last-minute appearance by Barack Obama on behalf of America’s entry, Chicago. And you've probably also heard that the President's critics are slamming him for not bringing the games to Chicago, saying it's a sign of his ebbing political fortunes both at home and abroad.


Politics did play a huge role in the selection of Rio as the host city, but the critics are wrong - Obama had nothing to do with Chicago getting, or not getting, the Games, instead the selection of Rio is best seen as the product of the International Olympic Committee's own bizarre internal politics.

Going into the vote, the folks from Chicago were actually worried that, despite having a strong bid, they'd lose in the first round. Why? Because of geography. IOC members tend to support host cities in their neighborhoods, so the Europeans were expected to back Madrid; the Asians, Tokyo; and the South Americans (and likely Africans), Rio. That left Chicago without a real base of geographic support, and their fears of a first-round exit came to pass.

Meanwhile, Juan Antonio Samaranch - the powerful former head of the IOC and the man largely responsible during his two decades of leadership for transforming the Olympics from a quaint quadrennial sporting event into a marketing and merchandising juggernaut - made a personal plea on behalf of his hometown, Madrid, a factor that is probably responsible for Madrid making it to the final round of voting.

And there were other factors at play. The Huffington Post ran a piece suggesting that some IOC members voted against Chicago because of the United States' tough visa regime post 9/11. An IOC member from Pakistan was quoted as saying coming into the US these days for a foreigner can be "a harrowing experience" because of strict visa requirements. Finally, there is a long-running dispute between the IOC and USOC over issues of private funding for the Games as well as sharing television revenues that likely soured some voters on Chicago’s bid.

But the biggest factor working against Chicago was simply that there was a huge desire within the IOC to continue their commitment towards bringing the Games to new parts of the world, and South America (and with the exception of Australia, the entire Southern Hemisphere for that matter) has never before hosted an Olympics Games. This was a fact played up by the Rio delegation, who passed out maps before the vote showing the locations of previous Games - North America and Western Europe were well-covered, the were a few cities highlighted in Asia, but starkly none in South America. While Olympic votes are usually close-fought things, in the final round Rio won by a 2-to-1 margin.

My prediction is now that Rio has won the rights to the 2016 Games, look for India to make a serious push to bring the 2020 Games to Delhi (the 2020 Games will be awarded in the summer of 2011). India is now the only one of the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China - the countries seen as having the largest, most-dynamic emerging economies in the world) not to be selected to host an Olympics. Last year China used the Beijing Games as a national coming out party, a chance to show the world China had arrived as a major industrial and cultural power. Russia will use the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi as a similar showcase for their rise from the collapse of the Soviet Union, of course Rio 2016 will be Brazil's chance to show that they too have arrived among the 'First World' of nations. It only follows then that India will be eager to show that they too belong in the club, and in the 21st century, there’s no bigger way of showing that then to host the Olympics.

And How Many National Anthems Did You Write?

This week Russia marked the passing of Sergei Mikhalkov, the man who had the unique distinction of writing the lyrics to the Russian national anthem not once, but three times during his life.

Mikhalkov first penned the lyrics of the anthem of the then-Soviet Union back in 1943 under the orders of Josef Stalin. But by the 1970's the anthem's references to the great leader Stalin seemed a bit out of place, so Mikhalkov was called upon again to re-write them.

After the end of the Soviet Union, the anthem, also full of references to Communism, was pitched all together as being not representative of the times (again). The problem was that Russia was never able to find a suitable replacement, so for awhile the stirring music of the Soviet anthem was brought back, sans lyrics. But the story goes that during the 2000 Olympics, President Vladimir Putin didn't like the fact that Russian gold medal winners had nothing to sing during the medal ceremony, so he ordered that new lyrics again be written, and again Mikhalkov picked up his pen.

Sergei Mikhalkov was 96 at the time of his death, in addition to writing and re-writing the Russian national anthem, he also was a respected writer of children's literature in the Soviet Union.

Another election, another controversy in Russia

The Russian city of Sochi held a mayoral election on Sunday, and like all election these days in Russia, this one is surrounded in controversy.

Acting Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov won the election handily, but Pakhomov is a member of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party, and that’s where the controversy begins. Former Deputy Prime Minister, and Sochi mayoral candidate Boris Nemtsov cried foul - saying not only had the Kremlin directed a smear campaign against him in the run-up to the election, but that the government was guilty of widespread vote-rigging. Billionaire Alexander Lebedev, the only other “serious” candidate, was disqualified weeks before the election, another indication, critics say, that the vote was fixed.

Not only does the spectre of Vladimir Putin hang over the Sochi race, so to does the 2014 Winter Olympics – Putin’s pet project - that are to be held in the city. The Olympics, while touted as an engine of economic development for the whole Sochi region, has its fair share of critics, who say that the region can’t handle an event the size of the Olympics. Nemtsov himself suggested spreading the Games around to a number of Russian cities.

Nemtsov claims that the Olympics were part of the reason Putin felt the Sochi race had to be rigged - to ensure that one of ‘his own’ was in charge of the city in time for the Games. Opposition candidates say that they were regularly harassed, that government officials blocked rallies and denied them access to radio and television stations; meanwhile Sochi’s main TV station aired a 20-minute program that among other things accused Nemtsov of being a South Korean spy (a wide-spread rumor was that if elected mayor Nemtsov would endorse the idea of moving the Winter Games to South Korea, the runner-up in the IOC vote that awarded the Games to Sochi).

Golos, an independent Russian election-monitoring group claimed that 25% of all votes cast were early ballots (votes cast before election day). This, critics say, is a tactic the government uses to ensure that people - like government workers and students vote the “right” way, since the ballots can be checked by a third party (like a worker’s supervisor) before being cast. Other sources put the early vote totals at 11%.

Pakhomov though won more than 76% of the vote, with Nemtsov finishing a very distant second with just 13.6%. For the sake of argument, let’s assume the worst about Putin, the Russian government and vote-rigging. Let’s even subtract all of the early voting using Golos’ 25% figure; Pakhomov still would have easily won the election.

That’s what makes the Kremlin’s apparent interference in Russian elections so stupid. Vote rigging makes sense if you are worried you're going to lose, but if you're going to win? And I don't think its a stretch to think that the odds were in favor of Pakhomov, the incumbent mayor and member of the (still) popular United Russia Party over Nemtsov, who is a co-founder of the Union of Right Forces (SPS in Russian), one of the liberal parties that many Russians still blame for the economic chaos of the 1990s. Even in last year’s presidential election (again, filled with allegations of vote-rigging), was it realistic to think that Dmitry Medvedev would have lost to the candidates put up by the Communists (whose support languishes around 10%, mostly among older voters), or the nationalistic (and perhaps ironically-named) Liberal Democrats (who also hang around the 10% mark) or the SPS or Yabloko, the two liberal factions relegated to near-irrelevance nationally because of their linkages to the bad old days of the 90s and internal divisions?

Maybe it’s just a lingering Soviet mentality then among Putin and his inner circle - that elections are fine so long as you know the outcome in advance. But perhaps there are signs of change. Last week Anton Chumachenko, a United Russia member, newly-elected to a legislative council seat in St. Petersburg, renounced his own victory because of what he said were votes falsified in his favor. On the surface the 23-year old Chumachenko looks like one of what are sometimes called the ‘Putin Youth’, he was a member of the pro-Kremlin Youth Guard turned political activist. But in an open letter to his constituents, Chumachenko wrote: “I don't need this kind of victory! I don't want to begin my political career with a cynical mockery of rights, laws and morality.”

Maybe it’s a small sign of a maturing democracy in Russia.

Russia cuts 2014 Olympics budget

Count the Sochi Winter Olympics as another casualty of the global economic slowdown.

The Sochi games are still five years away (we have the Vancouver games of 2010 to get through first), but Russia has announced that the budget for Sochi has been slashed by more than $8 billion because of the faltering economy.

There are those who are worried that Sochi might not happen at all. The selection of Sochi was a bit of a surprise - the city in southern Russia is somewhat off the beaten path. In pitching for the games though, Russia promised to go on a building binge, creating world-class facilities where few (of any class) currently exist.

But so far its been a difficult process - some land owners have asked exorbitant prices for their land, local officials have been accused of corruption and incompetence, construction is lagging behind schedule, and Sochi - which didn’t share in the economic boom that seemed to reshape Moscow and St. Petersburg overnight - needs far more work done on its basic infrastructure than first realized.

Concerns have gotten to the point that Salzburg, Austria - which lost out in the bidding for the 2014 games - sent a note to the International Olympic Committee that they could still step in and host the 2014, you know, just in case.

Still, I think it is a little early to declare the Sochi Games in that much trouble. Remember this piece from last month about the government in British Columbia desperately looking for money to finish the facilities for the Vancouver Games that are just one year away. Russia also has a ton of national prestige wrapped up in the Sochi Games. The Russians are still sore that their one and only time hosting an Olympics, the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, was marred by an international boycott that kept many countries that weren’t part of the Soviet bloc home.

Russia also is looking for Sochi to be an engine of economic development for that region of the country. Assuming the Games go off as planned, they will be unlike any Winter Olympics ever held. Sochi is sandwiched between the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea, a setting that creates a unique microclimate, giving Sochi, even in the winter, the type of weather you would expect in a sub-tropical city. The whole region was once the Soviet's answer to the Rivera - a coastal playground for the Soviet elite.

Still, the region, like much of Russia, suffered through years of neglect during the end of the Soviet Union and the chaotic transition of the 1990s. It all means there's a lot of work to do to prepare for the Olympics, a lot of work and now a lot less money to do it with.

Canadian report - oil sands and olympic villages

One item on the agenda when Barack Obama makes his first visit abroad as president has been revealed - Canada's Oil Sands.

Obama has made securing sources of clean energy one of the top priorities of his administration, but the oil sands though are far from clean. Instead of great pools of oil buried underground (say like you find in Saudi Arabia), in the Oil Sands, as the name implies, the oil is locked into deposits of clay and sand. So to get the oil out you have to mine the sand, like you would coal, then refine it into a sludge that you then refine again into useable oil. If it sounds like a messy process, it is. Native groups in Alberta (the heart of the Oil Sands region) have for years complained about the strip mining of their lands for sand and the pollution produced by the refining process.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed the Oil Sands would be on the agenda when he meets with Obama and says that he is committed to working with Obama on environmental issues.

Meanwhile, a little further to the west, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver could be running into trouble.

The city of Vancouver is desperately seeking funds to complete the Athlete's Village (where athletes stay during the games); they now need more than $400 million (in Canadian dollars) in additional funds to complete the project. The city is planning to ask the provincial government of British Columbia for a one-time exception to the city's charter to let them just borrow the money to finish the Village rather than having to put the issue to a public referendum, as the city charter states.

Honestly, if I were a Vancouverite I wouldn't be happy with the city government trying to skirt the law like this, but the city is warning that if they don't get a loan, they would be responsible for the entire cost of the project (around $850 million) because of an agreement signed by the city council back in 2007. Originally a private development firm was suppose to finance the construction of the Village, then take it over after the Games and turn it into apartments that they would then rent. But the firm, US-based Fortress Investment Group, cut their funding in September, because they thought they wouldn't cover their costs due to Vancouver's declining housing market.

No word on whether or not Vancouver will just buy lots of tents as a fallback measure.

Update from Zimbabwe, power and gold

Two stories out of Zimbabwe today.

First the ongoing power struggle between President Robert Mugabe and his would-be replacement Morgan Tsvangirai is still ongoing.

The two have been negotiating for weeks on how to share power in the government. Mugabe rejected the latest proposal from Tsvangirai that the two jointly chair the country's ruling cabinet on the grounds that there can only be one president. Mugabe has been trying to form a unity government with Tsvangirai's MDC party, but only in a way where he keeps all the power and sidelines Tsvangirai. So far Tsvangirai has (wisely) been unwilling to accept any deal that leaves him powerless.

In a worrying sign the MDC is accusing Mugabe's attorney general of trying to prosecute five members of their party, presumably to get them tossed out of the parliament and shift the majority in parliament back to Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

On the upside Zimbabwe was able to put aside the political wrangling for a few hours and honor their Olympic team just home from Beijing. The Olympians were given cash prizes totaling $148,000 (hopefully they weren’t paid in Zimbabwean dollars). $100,000 of that went to swimmer Kirsty Coventry who won one gold and three silver medals at the Beijing Games.

Mugabe called Coventry the country's "golden girl". After winning medals at the Athens Olympics in 2004, Coventry, who is white, was honored as a national hero.

Beijing Olympics wrap-up

This report came via AFP today: China used planes, rockets to prevent wet end of Games. It seems that meteorologists from Beijing's Weather Modification Office used eight planes and more than 200 rockets to keep the rain from falling on Sunday's closing ceremonies. The office is reported to have used more than 1,000 rockets to keep August 8th's opening ceremony dry as well.

I've read reports about Russia using similar techniques to provide good weather for big national events. My question is why don't we do that here? Seriously, I think the folks in Florida who were swamped this weekend by Hurricane Fay wouldn't have minded a little weather modification.

But speaking of the games, a few random thoughts. It's hard to see them as anything but a rousing success for China. The Olympics were China's coming out party to the world, a sign that they had arrived as a world power and a chance to show off Beijing as a modern metropolis the equal of New York, London or any other world capital. And the Games went off, basically, without a hitch, a remarkable accomplishment given both the size of the event, and considering how recently China was essentially a Third World nation.

The opening ceremonies were magical, and at a couple of moments, perhaps just a little frightening. The opening scene, where 2008 drummers performed in unison, had a militaristic quality about it - despite the smiles. In fact one of the stunning things about the opening ceremony was the huge throng of people power employed in them. One sequence featured blocks meant to symbolize China's invention of movable type printing. For several minutes the blocks move perfectly in intricate patterns forming Chinese characters, waves, ripples and other shapes. You assumed it was the result of a computer activating hundreds of hydraulic pumps, that is until the end of the routine when a person emerged from under each of the 2008 blocks. It showed China’s ability to marshal enormous groups of people to work in unison for a common purpose – perhaps a subtle message to the West?

The opening ceremonies were so mind-blowing it's not a surprise that the closing ceremonies couldn't quite match up. But the closer has more of a casual theme anyway, and were still well done with the exception of London's contribution, which was just weird right down to having Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page perform "Whole Lotta Love". It was a pretty odd choice of song for an Olympics closing ceremony. Thinking about the Zeppelin back catalog, I came up with "The Rover" as a better selection, please feel free to submit your own.

There was a lot of talk about whether any Olympics will ever mean as much to another country as the Beijing Olympics did. Frankly, it would be hard for that to happen. The Beijing Games were the culmination of a nation's dreams - a nation of 1.3 billion people. There were said to have been one million volunteers for the Games and China spent more than $40 billion getting ready for them. Chinese Basketball star Yao Ming said that China hosting the Games were a dream of his since he was a child, and he played despite a bad injury that really should have kept him on the bench. He couldn't miss participating in China's grand moment.

Russia, though, could try to use the Winter Games in Sochi in 2014 for a public "re-launch" of their international image. Sochi will mark the first time that Russia hosts the Games (Moscow was the site of the 1980 Summer Olympics, but it was the Soviet Union at the time and the boycott by dozens of Western nations over the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan meant that the Moscow Games basically became the forgotten Olympics). Having the world's attention would give Russia a chance to show the richness of Russian culture and history, and provide a chance to rehab their image abroad (particularly in the West). Not only has Russia's image been damaged by the recent conflict in Georgia and the ongoing disputes with NATO, but think about how Russians are usually depicted in pop culture in the West. A Russian in a book, movie, or TV show is invariably shown as a criminal, prostitute, mail-order bride, or crazed ex-KGB colonel. The Winter Games in Sochi could give Russia a chance to show the world a different image.

Still, it's going to be hard for Sochi, Vancouver, London, or anywhere else to top the spectacle that was Beijing.

Business as usual for MSNBC

The Olympics finally drew to a close last night. By harnessing the power of their empire of cable networks, NBC was able to provide unprecedented, nearly round-the-clock coverage of the Games. The biggest contributor to the effort was MSNBC, which gave over almost their entire broadcast day (save for a few hours of regular programming in the evening) to the Olympics, so now with the Games now at an end they’re going back to news.

My advice? Don’t.

Let’s be honest, MSNBC is a sub par news operation. It’s a perennial third-place finisher to Fox News and CNN; its main purpose seems to be to serve as a farm team for the big leagues (aka NBC’s “Nightly News”, “Today” show, etc.). While CNN tries to position itself as the news station of record and the place for international news, and Fox goes by the empowering tagline “We Report, You Decide”, MSNBC is well…it’s hard to say just what they are. Their latest slogan is “the home for politics”, but that’s the flavor of the month.

It was different when MSNBC started back in 1996. It was originally a collaboration between Microsoft and NBC (hence MS+NBC), and intended to blend TV and the internet. Its first signature show was “The Site”, an hour-long tech news show and Soledad O’Brien’s first national anchoring gig.

But this was before broadband, blog and MP3 were household words, the blending of the ‘net and TV mediums never came together (in reality MSNBC was ahead of its time). The tech side slowly faded and MSNBC became a more traditional news channel, but still one that lacked an identity. That’s why in its history it’s had hosts ranging from the very liberal Phil Donohue to the rabidly conservative Michael Savage. Neither lasted long.

Today MSNBC is best known as the home to Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann. Matthews’ “Hardball” is a passable, if slightly overblown, political chat show. Olbermann’s “Countdown” though has gone from being a fresh, innovative news hour, to a dull hour-long ego trip for Olbermann – a place for him to vent his political views (he loves Obama and hates Bush), and continue his creepy obsession with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly. MSNBC’s announcement that they will be adding Olbermann’s vapid yes-woman Rachel Maddow to their line-up isn’t a good sign that the network will improve anytime soon.

MSNBC should take a lesson from their Olympic coverage and ditch news entirely in favor of sports. Right now sports coverage on cable is dominated by ESPN, a family of networks so dominant they started their own sports awards show, so a little competition would be a welcome thing. Do it with an international flair – show some of the European leagues: football (what we call soccer), basketball, heck even water polo proved strangely compelling during the Olympics, and they play it professionally in Europe. Throw the wild and wooly Australian Football League as well, and round it out with some college sports.

Why not try something different? I don’t think a lot of people missed MSNBC during the Olympics, I know I didn’t.

Attack in China kills 16 just days before Olympics

With the Olympics set to start on Friday, this is the kind of news China does not want the world to hear - this morning two militants connected to a separatist group in the far northwestern province of Xinjiang China launched an attack that killed 16 police officers and wounded 16 others.

Chinese officials were quick to blame the attack on Muslim separatists from the ethnic Uighur population native to Xinjiang. The Chinese have accused the Uighurs of plotting a number of terrorist attacks in the months leading up to the Olympics, arresting dozens of suspected militants in the process.

Since 2001 China has been claiming that there are ties between Uighur militants in Xinjiang and al-Qaeda. The problem is that there is very little independent evidence that the Muslim Uighurs have any ties to al-Qaeda, nor that there is an active separatist movement that will use violence to achieve its goals. There have been only a handful of small-scale terrorist-style acts that can be traced to Uighur separatists in the past 20 years.

The Uighurs, meanwhile, claim that China is attempting to do in Xinjiang what they are accused of doing in Tibet (Xinjiang's neighbor to the south) - engaging in a systematic campaign to wipe out the culture of the indigenous ethnic population and replace it with an ethnic Han Chinese one loyal to the government in Beijing. China has supported a massive immigration of Han Chinese into Xinjiang, displacing the Uighurs as the main ethnic group in the region. The government has also closed down mosques in the province and arrested imams, preventing the Uighurs from practicing their religion.

For a brief time in the 1940's Xinjiang was an independent nation called East Turkestan, but was overrun by Mao's Red Army and incorporated into China. Since then the Uighurs have claimed the Chinese government has launched a campaign of discrimination aimed at erasing their culture, which has existed in the region for over a thousand years.

The Uighurs maintain that their struggle for ethnic and religious rights is a peaceful one, despite China's efforts to tie them to al-Qaeda and the Global War on Terror.

China arrests 'Olympic plotters'

China announced the arrests of more than 80 people they say were plotting to disrupt next month's Beijing Olympics. All of the arrests came among members of the Muslim Uighur population in Xinjiang province in the far northwest of China.

Since 9/11 China has accused the Uighur's of having ties to al-Qaeda and of planning numerous terrorist attacks in the past few years. The problem is that there is almost no basis to these claims or to any claims of Islamic militancy among the Uighurs. There is, however, a lot of very clear evidence of China oppressing the Uighur's religious faith and attempting to undermine their culture - much like China is accused of doing in Tibet, just to the south of Xinjiang. Many mosques have been closed, and many imams arrested as China regulates religion for what they claim are reasons of state security.

There are an estimated 19 million Uighurs in Xinjiang province. They adopted their Muslim faith from traders traveling from the Arabian Peninsula along the famed 'Silk Road' during the middle ages. The Uighurs tried to form an independent homeland in the late 1940's, but failed and since have been advocating for local autonomy within China - a move the Chinese government sees as subversive.

In addition to the arrests, five 'militants' were also reported killed in Xinjiang's capital city Urumqi.

Olympics roundup

A few stories about the Olympics crossed the news wires in the past few days. First, China has been giving its citizens lessons on the correct way to cheer at the games (since disorganized yelling apparently just won't do). The government approved cheer is apparently "China - add oil!". Yeah you read that correctly...And just to be in the Olympic spirit of inclusiveness, the Chinese have been told that they can insert other countries or athletes' names in the place of China (i.e. "Lewis - add oil!", or "France - add oil!").

What the heck the meaning of "add oil" is though is something of a mystery, perhaps with oil at about $140 a barrel, its a way of saying your performance is valuable, or maybe its just one of those things that doesn't translate well.

Moving on to future Olympics, I'm sure the folks in London want the 2012 games to be a blast, but not quite like this...Work at one of the Olympic sites in London came to an abrupt stop when a 2,000 bomb dropped during World War II was unearthed. Unexploded bombs dropped by the Germans during the war are still occasionally found in London, though this 2,000-pounder was the largest uncovered in three decades. If it had exploded it could have thrown shrapnel up to a half mile away. The bomb disposal officer who defused the bomb was said to have worked under a "high level of stress". Gee, ya think?

Finally the London Olympic Committee is planning to take recycling to new heights. Their goal is to recycle most of the stadium that will be used for the opening and closing ceremonies. They are using an innovative plan to build a 55,000 temporary stadium around a smaller 25,000 seat permanent base. The belief is that London does not need another huge stadium, but could use a smaller field. So smaller, permanent field will be temporarily expanded to Olympic proportions.

The hope is that after the games, the temporary portion could then be sold, shipped to another city and reassembled. The London Committee has already had initial talks with the organizers of Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid about that city reusing London's stadium.