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This.org will be a 100% Olympics-free zone for the next two weeks

Graham F. Scott

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games open tonight with much fanfare, pomp, jollity, glee, grandeur, ceremony, flourish, and setting things on fire. We’ve spent, oh, about the last six weeks moaning about the whole thing, from the overblown budget to the bogus environmental claims, the sponsor bloat to the unsettled aboriginal land claims, the out-of-control […] More »
January-February 2010

The Olympics reveals our priorities as a nation. The news isn’t good.

Graham F. Scott

When Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, checks into his Vancouver hotel suite a few weeks from now, he will find (as he flops, exhausted, no doubt, from the strain of private jet travel) a “video wall,” paid for by the citizens of British Columbia. The bank of televisions are a requirement of […] More »

Interview with No 2010 Olympics activist Harsha Walia

Graham F. Scott

This edition of Verbatim is a transcript of Andrew Wallace in conversation with Harsha Walia of the No 2010 campaign. The original podcast of that interview is available here. Andrew is also joining us as a blog columnist, writing about the intersection of sport and society with Game Theory. The first column appeared yesterday. Be […] More »

Game Theory #1: Learning from 2010's Olympic protest movement

andrew wallace

[Editor’s Note: Today we introduce a new blog column by Andrew Wallace, called “Game Theory,” about the intersection of sports and society. The column will appear every other Monday. Andrew wrote about Toronto’s Africentric school for the January 2009 issue of This, and also contributed last week’s podcast.] On January 11, a coalition of advocates […] More »

Wednesday WTF: VANOC tells you to sit up straight, stop fidgeting

Graham F. Scott

The Olympic madness just keeps on rolling in Vancouver. It was just two weeks ago that the Vancouver Public Library was sending out helpful reminders to confiscate guest-speakers’ Telus jackets and cover Sony logos with electrical tape. But now the micromanagement has exploded to a whole new level. Vancouver city officials this week issued a […] More »
January-February 2010

Olympic Countdown: Quick guide to Vancouver 2010 protest do’s and don’ts

Kim Hart MacneillWebsite

Why yes, officer, I can hand out this leaflet. Maybe. It’s no doubt that clashes between protesters and police will end up being the big story of the 2010 Olympics. There are new bylaws on the books, the usual International Olympic Committee rules, our own Canadian Charter rights, and official statements from the Vancouver Police […] More »
January-February 2010

Olympic Countdown: Pride House debuts, but will athletes come out?

Kim Hart MacneillWebsite

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered athletes will find the first-ever Olympic pavilion welcoming them in 2010, a place at the Games to hang out, chill out, or come out. “The whole purpose behind Pride House” — actually a conference room at Whistler, B.C.’s Pan Pacific Hotel—“was really to create a dialogue about homophobia within sport,” […] More »
January-February 2010

Olympic Countdown: 5 facts about the Vancouver 2010 medals

Kim Hart MacneillWebsite

There’s more to these shiny trophies than meets the eye 1. The 2010 Games boast “the greenest medals yet,” the papers clamored following their October unveiling. That’s technically true, since the medals include recycled metal reclaimed from electronic waste. But out of 2,855 kilograms of metal used to manufacture this year’s medals, recycled content is […] More »
January-February 2010

Olympic Countdown: Your at-a-glance guide to Vancouver 2010’s sponsors

Kim Hart MacneillWebsite

Want to be the official chewing gum of Vancouver 2010? At the Olympics, there’s nothing money can’t buy Our guide to some of the sponsors who want their name associated with the biggest, sportiest, Spandex-iest show on earth. Click to enlarge! More »
January-February 2010

Olympic Countdown: Aboriginal groups clash with the Games — and with each other

Jasmine Rezaee

B.C. Aboriginal groups are divided on the Olympic issue British Columbia’s First Nations are divided in their support for the Olympics. On one side, the chiefs and band councils of four indigenous communities—the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh—have endorsed the Games and set up the Four Host First Nations Society, an offi cial Olympic partner […] More »
January-February 2010

Olympic Countdown: Adding up the real costs of Vancouver 2010

Jasmine Rezaee

Quebec spent 30 years paying off the debt it racked up for the 1976 Montreal Summer Games. There’s no reason so far to expect that Vancouver will be any different. British Columbian and Canadian taxpayers have already incurred hundreds of millions of dollars in rampant budget overruns—the Athlete’s Village and security budget are only two […] More »