Sochi: Worst/Best Olympics. Ever.

The Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are proving to be the worst Olympics ever, because of its massive corruption, glaring incompetence and sanctioned antigay bigotry, but that also makes it the best Olympics ever, because Vladimir Putin's corruption, bigotry and idiocy are being exposed to the entire world for ten inglorious days and nights.

Here's a lesson for all the crypto-fascist government set on crushing LGBT people. enact antigay laws, and the whole world will watch you make a complete ass out of yourself. Tell a gay to "just shut up," beat us, pummel us, outlaw us, and you will live to regret it.

Let's take a look, a long parade of athletic responses, and media coverage of, the inept, stupid, and financially preposterous joke that is the Sochi Olympics.

During the Opening Ceremonies, the fifth of five rings failed to light up, proving symbolically, and technically, that Sochi's  ineptitude is blatantly obvious. you wouldn't know that from watching Russian TV, where the failure was digitized into a CGI lie.

Fascist Russian censors have also blocked access to the largest search engine on the planet, after Google posted a rainbow banner of athletes on its main page.

During the Parade of Athletes, the Greek team offered a five-fingered "F. You, Putin" with rainbow-colored gloves. They openly defied fascist Putin's edict against perceived "gay propaganda." this is becoming the best Olympics ever, because homophobia is being exposed for what it is; stupid.

 Fake lesbian music duo tATu held hands during their opening ceremonies number. Were the people responsible for booking talent completely clueless? Yup. "All the Things She Said," indeed.

While President Obama's gay and lesbian athlete contingent may be shy of tennis great Billie Jean King (due to a family emergency; her mother died), his choice to add her and others (including Brian Boitano, who finally came out) made a clear political statement, which he reiterated.

"There is no doubt we wanted to make it very clear that we do not abide by discrimination in anything, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation," Obama said in the excerpts of his interview with US Olympic host broadcaster NBC.

Gay rights activists continue to be arrested, pummeled to the ground and hauled away in multiple protests in Moscow and St. Petersberg. Oh, yeah, policebureau thugs. Tackling women to the ground for waving tiny rainbow flags and banners will really make you look good on the world stage (dipsh*ts). More than 60 people have been arrested in protests across the former Communist country.
 
Athletes are taking it upon themselves to sneak in various forms of protest. Dutch snowboarder Cheryl Maas, a lesbian from the Netherlands, became the first Olympic athlete to protest at the Games in Sochi. After a failed attempt to qualify for the slope style event, she looked into the camera then held her glove up to the camera’s lens.

 Similarly, Russian snowboarder Alexey Sobolev adorned his board with a Pussy riot sticker. The female band was jailed for months for daring to sing about Putin's corruption.

Massive censorship, spying and hacking have been reported from multiple media outlets, and individual athletes.

NBC's Richard Engle reported that his phone and computer were hacked within hours of arriving in Sochi.

Canadian bobsled team member Justin Kripps knows that his website is censored in Russia, possibly because he dared to pose with his teammates in their shorts.

 And if you want to see these hunks naked, no problem if you're a corrupt Russian government official. A stupid crypto-fascist spokesman let slip that their housing facilities are fine, despite proof of poison water, because they have installed spy cameras in the showers. 

Dmitry Kozak, a Russian deputy prime minister in charge of preparations for the Olympics, mistakenly revealed during a press conference that at least some hotel guests are under video surveillance in their own bathrooms. "We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall and then leave the room for the whole day," the official told members of the press, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Kozak was attempting to argue that foreign journalists were biased against Russia and were intentionally working to paint the Sochi games as a disaster.

Because it is, you stupid jerk.

As if the ridiculous dual toilets weren't stupid enough. As if the mass extermination of stray dogs wasn't horrid enough.

And what of the corrupt corporate sponsors? Predictably, they're playing both sides of the fence. Chevrolet offered a little tidbit of inclusive treacle with a short video of gay parents and their kids.

Coca-Cola, after shunting a "write your own Coke can slogan" campaign that went wrong when they censored any pro-gay messages, offered a blip of a milli-second that showed a gay couple in their contrived feel-good Super Bowl commercial. Rightwingers stateside went into apoplexy, ignoring the fact that "America the Beautiful" is not the National Anthem, and it was composed by a lesbian.

So, in sum, nearly every effort to blockade pro-gay information has gone horribly, stupidly wrong.

And not only are construction projects still an utter failure, despite, at $50 billion, being the most expensive Olympics ever (with all the major contracts going to Putin's cronies), but even the main talking head for NBC's complicit coverage, blathermeister Bob Costas, is sick of Sochi, literally. His hotel's "dirty pillows" gave him pink eye.

Pink, indeed.

So, what can we do, from thousands of miles away? Here are five suggestions from the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Tweet #sochiproblems.

Support those who dissent Russia's fascism. 
Boycott complicit corporate sponsors: NBC, Visa, McDonald's and Coca-Cola, forever.

And what of the Paralympics, which will follow these inept Games in a month? 
If you think Russia's stance against gays is bad, their record of disability inclusion countrywide is abysmal. Yet there has been little or no critique from disability media. 

Why? Perhaps that community is so desperate for any visibility at all, they're afraid to complain.  New Mobility, the major publication for the disabled, is focusing on simply getting media coverage for the events, let alone critiquing accessibility, or even daring to compare Russia's virulent homophobia with the country's able-ist stance.

As all this chaos becomes public, I wonder what Everett Forrester, the gay paraplegic fictional character in my novel Every Time I Think of You (and its forthcoming sequel) would think right now. He'd be about my age, 50something, and even possibly be participating in parasports in some way.

One thing I do know. Right now, he'd be pretty ticked off. And he would do something about it.

"There is no doubt we wanted to make it very clear that we do not abide by discrimination in anything, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation," Obama said in the excerpts of his interview with US Olympic host broadcaster NBC.

Read more at http://www.bilerico.com/2014/02/obama_i_sent_out_lgbts_to_sochi_on_purpose.php#D3UZolefWWUD3iFj.99

"There is no doubt we wanted to make it very clear that we do not abide by discrimination in anything, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation," Obama said in the excerpts of his interview with US Olympic host broadcaster NBC.
Read more at http://www.bilerico.com/2014/02/obama_i_sent_out_lgbts_to_sochi_on_purpose.php#D3UZolefWWUD3iFj.99