Across the pond

Author: Adam Clayton

Across another pond to the east, baffling events unfolded last week that were huge for the Olympics, and possibly the future of this world - Steven Spielberg said his conscience over the continuing genocide in Darfur no longer allowed him to be artistic consultant to the upcoming Olympic games in Beijing. Steven's thinking, in short, is that if the Olympics lack artistic vision, angry Chinese people will topple the communist government, and then Darfur will revert back to flowery meadows and rainbow skies.

Behind this move by Spielberg lies the actress Mia Fallow, who decided last year upon seeing the suffering in Darfur, that to solve it she needed to attack the 2008 Olympics, a rare institution where people and nations can co-exist in healthy competition. For her, supporting the Olympics means encouraging genocide in Sudan, the link between the two are so clear she labeled it the "Genocide Olympics." She even threatened to overshadow Spielberg's legacy, saying he could go down as the modern day Leni Riefenstahl, the Nazi propagandist who filmed the Olympics 70 years ago and sought her directorial inspirations from Mein Kampf.

Sure, sports and politics often go hand in hand, but this seems delusional at best and intentionally ridiculous attention-seeking at worst. I don't watch the Olympics to celebrate or condone ethnic murder, much like I don't when I eat Thanksgiving dinner. Poorly performed synchronized swimming can conjure similar feelings, but by and large it's an opportunity to briefly bring nations and family together to share something special. I won't let my future children watch "Pocahontas" because it stars the voice of Mel Gibson, who hates Jews, but that's a totally different story.

On a different note, the NBA has showed us that sporting success is occasionally presumed to be less about talent and athleticism and more about presence. The Western Conference is by far and away the more competitive of the two, especially after Pau Gasol was given to the Lakers, leading to some drastic action on the part of NBA executives in Phoenix and (probably) Dallas. The Suns traded away the league's most athletic player in Shawn Marion for Shaquille O'Neal, whose accompanying superlative adjective has gone from most dominant to most humorous. So expect to see the once 'most entertaining' team morph into the most unusual, and likely win the NBA championship in the process.

Shaq is unlikely to thrive statistically in Phoenix, and given that the Suns like to shoot in less than seven seconds, even less likely to make it beyond half-court every other possession. But as any professional athlete will tell you, a player with a history of winning and a competitive attitude can contribute in many ways to a team, and in this case rubbing four fingers in the face of his ring-less teammates will probably have the desired effect. NBA players are super talented and often have giant egos, which can get in the way of actual success. So having an unmatchable ego in Shaquille O'Neal can actually dramatically improve team chemistry. Come the playoffs, having somebody who knows what it takes to see it all the way through is huge, and the move might justify itself during a seven-game series with the Spurs. Such is my confidence in this team pulling off the unexpected that I would be happy to bet on the Suns winning the entire thing. You get twenty nine, I get one.