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Feb 21, 10
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This whole country is on stolen native land duh.
Did the anti-Olympic movement miss the mark by focusing on stolen aboriginal land?
By Charlie Smith Today, there are seven-hour waits at the Ziptrek Ecotours free zip line across Robson Square at a 170-metre altitude. Downtown is so full of Olympic celebrants that the Vancouver police shut down local liquor, beer, and wine retail outlets last night at 7 p.m. The 2010 Winter Games have been marred by some problems, including a luger`s death, the cancellation of 20,000 standing-room tickets at Cypress, and a collapsed barricade at the LiveCity Yaletown location, which injured 19 concertgoers. In addition, Canadian athletes haven`t won as many medals as expected. But clearly these Games are a hit with a huge segment of the public, and the lineups for the zip line and the size of the crowds downtown are proof of this. Clearly, the anti-Olympic movement has failed to generate the level of outrage that some opponents were hoping for. There are many reasons for this. I was talking with one person yesterday who suggested that the anti-Olympic activists were misguided by focusing so much attention on these Games being held on stolen Native land. The message didn`t resonate with the public when the chiefs of the four host First Nations were so vocally in favour of hosting the Olympics. Perhaps a more effective approach would have been to focus more attention on linking the cost of the Games to an issue that resonated with larger numbers of people, such as housing, education, child poverty or health care. Here are some other factors to consider: * The Vancouver anti-Olympic movement has been fairly humourless, in contrast to the antics of antiglobalization protesters in other parts of the world. Local protesters failed to recognize that the Olympics would be seen as a party by many local people. Perhaps a more effective way to get a dissident message across would have been through humour rather than by smashing windows along Georgia Street. At the Quebec City Summit of the Americas, activists lobbed teddy bears over the police lines to poke fun at the level of repression. * The Vancouver anti-Olympic movement didn`t personalize its opposition to a single person whom the public dislikes. Antiwar protesters always had an easy target: George W. Bush. But for some reason, the anti-Olympic people didn`t link the Games to any one individual. The obvious choice would have been Premier Gordon Campbell. * The Vancouver anti-Olympic movement didn`t make a very strong case on the financial side. The $6-billion figure was regularly trotted out as the cost of the Games, but Olympic supporters would claim that this was unreasonable because infrastructure projects such as the Canada Line and the new convention space would remain in place for decades. The billion-dollar security budget was the best target. That could have been compared to other things that you get for a billion tax dollars on posters all over town. But it wasn`t done because the activists were more concerned about spreading a message about the Games taking place on stolen aboriginal land. I`m interested in hearing from readers of this post about their thoughts on the effectiveness of the anti-Olympic movement`s approach to the Games. Just fill in the comment form below. Did the anti-Olympic movement miss the mark by focusing on stolen aboriginal land? | Vancouver, Canada | Straight.com 
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Feb 21, 10
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The only positive I've seen from all of this is how extremely fucking happy everybody is downtown. Regardless of all the public drinking, it really is nothing but positive vibes and I think we should all try to suck that all in as much as we can.
Being downtown is just too much fun and epic to miss and I try not to think of how we're going to be paying for this thing for years to come.
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Feb 22, 10
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highway upgrades? convention center? having a 2+ week commercial on how awesome vancouver is? mukmuk? it's fully reasonable to wonder if these things are worth 6 billion, but many posts in this thread are calling the olympics nothing but a 2 week party which is a massive oversimplification. Last edited by rawb; Feb 22, 10 at 03:24 PM.
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Feb 23, 10
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Almost seems ashame that the marmot will be remembered as Mukmuk, a $40 plush toy made in China. lol... K not funny. 
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Feb 23, 10
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I really don't think so. It seems the majority of the crowds are out and about just for the sake of being part of a crowd. I've caught some of the games in a couple of pubs and friends' places, and the entire time, the streets were littered w/ people. People who randomly holler @ each other, without any prompting from any public screens showing any events. Plus, this last weekend, the amount of people d/t were noticeably higher in numbers. Most of them wearing Canadian insignia. Yesterday (monday) the numbers were significantly less (presuming most of the crowd from the weekend had jobs to attend to). It draws a logical conclusion that most people d/t were regular bridge and tunnel suburbanites whose main goal was nothing more than to wander aimlessly and party, games be damned! Internationals seem to be more focused on the games and are generally in front of screens watching events. Unfortunately, I've seen some Maple Leaf caped people lipping off to internationals just for sighting foreign colours. This is not analysis, simply observation. Frosty (has another well-deserved drink)
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Feb 23, 10
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Frosty, do you really think that the Sea-to-sky or the canada line would have been done as quickly and efficiently if the underlying urgency of the olympics wasn't there? If so, I think you give Vancouver city planners wayyyy too much credit.
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Feb 23, 10
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^No. I fully appreciate that both projects were accomplished to facilitate the Olympshits.
That is not a contested argument. The argument that is brought into question by your post is: why wasn't the ski-to-die- corridor not have it's public transit (read: rail system) expanded? They had the money and the technology. Why didn't the gov't/Vanoc make it more easy for the visitors to get back and forth? Why did the shitstem force people onto busses, rather than rail-friendly service so common w/ Europeans? Why didn't the gov't/Vanoc put money into expanded rail service that would continue to benefit Whistler/Blackcomb and Squamish for decades? The idea was to get people OFF fossil-fuel transport, remember?... ~shakes head~ I've asked the questions over the years wondering why the answers given don't seem logical. Frosty (gives ebbo a hug!)
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Feb 24, 10
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It's extremely easy to get back and forth from Whistler right now.
I don't think you have any clue of how the buses running up to Whistler are working during the games. It's an efficient and simple to use service, it's also extremely reasonably priced ($25 RT). No line up to get on the bus heading up there, in Whistler in approximately 1hr 45mins, no line getting on a bus coming back. I think you need to actually venture out and experience it before you can make any sort of comment on how the Olympic shuttle service is working. The infrastructure of Whistler and Squamish doesn't justify a large scale rail system, it's a SEASONAL destination spot.
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Feb 24, 10
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Go Canada Go !!
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Feb 25, 10
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Feb 25, 10
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Mar 01, 10
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Ok one more (via @ebbomega)
The Vancouver Games: A Gold in Drinking  Two minutes. That's all it took for an intoxicated Canadian to start badgering me. On Friday evening, I was on my way to Vancouver's Waterfront Station to catch a train to Robson Square, the downtown area filled with bars, restaurants and nightclubs that was sure to get a little wild if Canada beat Slovakia in the men's hockey semifinals. A young man wearing a red hockey jersey and red paint on both cheeks staggered over to me as I walked toward the station. "Hey, how do you f______ get downtown?" he asked slowly, putting his hand on my shoulder. I wriggled free and pointed toward the proper train. "F___ yeah, I'm coming with you," he said. Terrific. As I walked, and he stumbled, into the station, he yelled "Woooooo!" at disturbed passersby. We got on the train, and he turned his glazed eyes toward me and said he was meeting friends. "Want to come with me?" he asked. Um, no thanks. The city of Vancouver and the ski village of Whistler are terrific hosts for these Olympic Games. The air is clean, the public transit is scarily efficient, and the harbors, with snowcapped mountains for a backdrop, are picturesque. Whistler, two hours to the north and home to the skiing, sliding and Nordic events, is a winter wonderland. But let's face it: if public intoxication were an Olympic sport, Vancouver and Whistler would own the podium. I'm not saying this because of the photographs of a few Canadian female hockey players sipping champagne (and chugging Molson) on the ice after winning the gold medal. Those images, however, seem to encapsulate the spirit of the host country. Throughout the Olympics, drunken revelers have overrun the streets of Vancouver. Local hospitals are reporting spikes in emergency-room visits for alcohol-related sicknesses and injuries; most of the intoxicated patients are males between the ages of 15 and 24. In Whistler, the partyers have turned what should be a cozy village into rows of frat houses in need of soundproofing. Yes, the mood is festive. And for the most part, law and order is being maintained. In Whistler, police have said arrests are lower than what they would typically be during New Year's Eve or, for that matter, your average rambunctious summer weekend. Still, while walking through downtown Vancouver after a long day's work, you can't help but think, These must be the drunkest Olympics ever. Believe me, I'm no prude. But all the yelling and screaming and woo-wooing becomes grating. These are the fourth Olympics I've covered, and Vancouver drinks Athens, Torino and Beijing under the table. I asked a few journalists who have covered more Games than I have to rate Vancouver on the intoxication scale. Vahe Gregorian of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who has covered eight Olympics, dating back to Atlanta in 1996, agreed with my chart-topping assessment. In reference to downtown Vancouver's main strip of nightclubs, he said, "Granville Street itself is unlike anything I've seen at an Olympics." And he noted that all the drinking has led to a lot of public urinating. "I've personally witnessed about 8 to 10 guys whizzing at once along a fence half a block off the main street," he said. "It's like the infield at the Kentucky Derby." Bonnie D. Ford, who is covering the Games for ESPN.com, has been to every Winter Olympics since 1998 in Nagano, Japan. "There's no second place," she said when asked where Vancouver ranks on the booze barometer. (In fairness, you can pretty much strike from the debate Salt Lake City, the abstemious host of the 2002 Olympics.) Ford's hotel is near Granville Street, close enough for her to hear the "Can-a-da, Can-a-da" shouts at 3 a.m. "It's been a two-week tailgate," she said. "I've covered a lot of college football, and this is like the Dante's Inferno version of tailgating." The ultimate confirmation of my suspicions came from John Powers, the Boston Globe's esteemed Olympics writer who has covered 17 Games, starting with Montreal in 1976. Since then, he has missed only one Olympics, Moscow in 1980, which the U.S. boycotted. I asked him if Vancouver is setting Olympic records for revelry. "It is, by far," he said. "There's just a couple of thousand people every night with nothing to do, no tickets, concentrated downtown. It's their chance to live the dream." Vancouver is lucky it hasn't turned into a nightmare. After Canada beat Slovakia on Friday, thousands of people spilled out of the bars and onto Granville to celebrate. "F___ the U.S.A.," a Canadian fan yelled, anticipating Sunday's gold-medal game against the Americans. As I dodged one oblivious celebrant who almost poked my eye out with a Canadian flag, I bumped into another who was stumbling down the street. I asked a police officer, who was carrying a flask he had just confiscated, if his fellow officers were finding a lot of booze in the streets. "One [officer] just told me he took two beer cans," he said. When I asked a reveler if there was too much public intoxication in Vancouver, he responded, "There should be more." A roofer by day, he told me he had just consumed 8 to 10 beers — and he looked like it. "The police are too strict," he said. "One of them poured out my beer — and I wasn't even drunk yet." At 2 a.m., Granville Street was still packed, and there were plenty of drunks wandering about. Vancouver appeared to have more morons per square foot than the Jersey Shore house. The city has taken smart precautions. For example, liquor stores, which normally stay open until 11 p.m., are required to close at 7 p.m. on the nights the Canadian hockey team plays. Still, if the fans were so boozed for a semifinals win over Slovakia, imagine how they'll behave if Canada clinches a gold medal against the U.S. on Sunday night. Or even worse, imagine if Canada loses. Things could easily get out of hand. Canadian fans in Vancouver need to root hard for their hockey team. Their sanity, and safety, may depend it. Read more: Olympic Drinking: Drunks Party in Vancouver Streets - TIME
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Mar 01, 10
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Mar 01, 10
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Fuck yaaa canada !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Mar 01, 10
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The Saturday night decentralized dance party was nothing short of awesome!
Not a lot of colours. Most people were dressed in street wear, but everyone was out to party. I don't think the police knew this one was coming, because they tried to steer the people down Smythe as they came back up Granville. They just did a left into the alley between the Commodore and Orpheum, and proceeded down Robson. And, yet, w/ all the drunken louts staggering about, w/ police EVERYWHERE, I didn't see any problems/issues. Mind you, I just kept to my 'hood. Wicked concept! Frosty (was celebrating buddy's b-day)
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Mar 01, 10
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I can't get enough of the reaction videos right now. These are the best two I've found.. I love the ones where you get the 10 seconds prior to the goal and then the explosion as Crosby buries it:
If anyone spots any more good ones over the next couple of days, put'em up!
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Mar 02, 10
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