What can I say?

Perhaps, like me, you’ve been watching the Olympics. You don’t have to be a sports fan to watch these athletes perform. In fact every Olympics I find myself watching sports I know little or nothing about.

This year — even before the opening ceremony — I watched rugby sevens.

Personally I really enjoyed this version. In it there are only seven players per team, and they play seven minute halves. Both of those make for a fast game with a lot of action. (Rugby has 15 players per side, and they play 40 minute halves.)

By the way, Fiji had won gold in Rugby sevens in the two previous Olympics. This year France took the gold, giving the home country its first gold of the competition.

And you didn’t have to understand it to watch the game and cheer!

On the other hand…

While you could enjoy rugby sevens without insider knowledge, part of the opening ceremony required interpretation. And not just into English.

Before I dive into that, allow me a bit of Olympic history.

I have never attended any Olympic games, but I have held in my hands a gold medal from a Winter Olympics and a silver medal from a Summer Olympics. Each of those were handed over for my inspection by the recipient. To see the joy and satisfaction in their faces as they shared their victory was inspiring.

Additionally, I have a fond memory (thanks, John!) of hearing a gold medalist speak. Rafer Johnson had won the gold in the 1960 Summer Olympics decathlon, held in Rome. He was 25 years old, and it was his final competition in a stellar career. In that race he defeated his good friend and training partner C. K. Yang — barely.

The final score was 8,683 to 8,625, less than a .7% difference over two grueling days. The decathlon gold medalist is said to be “the world’s greatest athlete.” I guess that made C. K. Yang the world’s second greatest athlete. Or perhaps they were 1 and 1A.

When we heard him speak more than thirty years later, Johnson was articulate, humble, and still genuinely cared about his good friend C. K. All of that deepened my respect for and love of the Olympics.

He competed with speed, endurance, confidence, strength, and a healthy perspective. Sadly, this year’s Opening Ceremony in France did not meet those standards.

Fun, joyful, and very wrong

Because of the time difference from Paris to Phoenix, I only watched some of the opening ceremony live. Late that night my wife and I sat down to watch a recorded version of the whole thing, and mostly did.

I loved the joy of the athletes, I loved the boats on the Seine, and I loved Paris. But what was all this “entertainment” about? Generally, like the 100 meter dash, I would speed through it.

And that is how, thankfully, I missed the entirety of The Last Supper (the iconic painting by Leonardo Da Vinci) being used as a framework for what has been described as a “bacchanalian revel.” Following that was an actor painted blue, though basically nude, apparently representing Dionysus.

All of that has also been described (more plainly) as disgusting, a disgrace, and as mocking Christianity. One of the actors in the show says she has received “a torrent of threats and other abuse” for her role.

Thomas Jolly, the artistic director, responded to the criticism. “Our subject was not to be subversive. We never wanted to be subversive. We wanted to talk about diversity.” Ah! That explains it. He wanted to make a point, so he took one of the world’s most venerated works of art and turned it into trash.

Like turning men into women, that is not about diversity. It is about a display of false power and false truth.

If you painted a mustache on the original Mona Lisa, the real painting would still be there. So is The Last Supper. While many were offended by the appropriation of beauty to depict ugliness, beauty was not destroyed.

“Inappropriate”

Before I even heard about the debacle of the opening ceremony, I saw a news blurb about a fired announcer.

In this particular case, the announcer was Bob Ballard. He was working the Olympics for Eurosport, alongside former Olympic swimmer Lizzie Simmonds from Great Britain. The Australia women’s 400 free relay team had just won gold, and were slow getting to the podium.

Filling the time, Ballard made this off-the-cuff comment on live TV: “Well, the women are just finishing up. You know what women are like…hanging around, doing their makeup.”

Simmonds did not find that funny. She said, “Outrageous, Bob. Some of the men are doing that as well?”

The next morning the broadcaster released a statement: “During a segment of Eurosport’s coverage last night, commentator Bob Ballard made an inappropriate comment. To that end, he has been removed from our commentary roster with immediate effect.”

Ballard apologized, and, to his credit, also asked fans not to “pile on” Lizzie Simmonds. He wrote, “She has nothing to do with this.”

What can I say?

What can I say? Those two “Olympic moments” seem starkly different to me. Both of them have been pronounced “offensive,” and in one case a person lost his job. I suspect that was mostly the broadcaster playing defense.

In what seems to be the more egregious case — at least it got by far the most push back — no one lost their job. Instead, those doing the offending have taken some actions against those who said they were offended.

Something, as we once said, does not compute.

What can you say? Pretty much anything you want, but people will feel free to censure you. Those who are offended should speak up, and they should do so in a way that is appropriate.

Too many go over the top, and the cancel culture has silenced some voices. That is changing, finally, because we need sanity as much as we need civility. And we need to engage in real conversations.

Additionally, we should always speak the truth in love. That is not original — I read it somewhere — but it is great advice.

Be kind. Speak truth. Do good. It’s in you.