The Olympics. Meh.

Don't except much of the usual acerbic or insightful commentary on the Olympics from me this time like you're accustomed to.  I'm going to keep the commentary I make low-key, and I probably won't comment about the Games all that much.  The biggest reason is obvious: COVID, COVID, COVID, as the guy living in the White House this time last year liked to say. And the specter of the virus is casting a long shadow over these Tokyo Games.

Of course, there are a whole lot of other reasons not to care about the Olympics so much this time, and Bret Stephens of the New York Times summed them up very nicely yesterday in his weekly column with Gail Collins: "Too many doping scandals and questionable medals, too much corruption at the International Olympic Committee, too many top athletes pulling away, too much unconscionable abuse of young athletes, too much self-serving nationalism. Maybe someone could restore the original high-minded spirit of the games, but I really struggle to see the point of them today, especially in an era where there’s no shortage of venues for high-level international sports."

Much of that is the fuel for my zingers, of course, but zingers seem mostly inappropriate right now.   Oh, there may be some zingers from me in the next two weeks - there's enough tomfoolery at the Games that even a pandemic doesn't excuse - but any withering witticisms this time (and likely during the Beijing Winter Olympics in February) are likely to be more in sorrow than in any other mood.

Besides, I'm going through an extraordinarily tough time right now and I'm not in the spirit to crack jokes about the Olympics.  A year an a half ago, before COVID hit, I had high expectations for teh immediate future, but no I have absolutely no expectations for anything.  I've been struggling with problems too personal to mention here, and every day seems as bad as the day before.  A lot of the satire I point at the Olympics is in good fun, but these Olympics are bond to be neither good nor fun.  In fact, I still think it: These Games will be the worst Games in a hundred years.  If, at the closing ceremony, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach calls the Tokyo Olympics the greatest Games ever, that could be the moment my old satirical sprit comes back.     

Because I don't see how he or anyone else will be able to say such a thing with a straight face.