Friday Afternoon Confessional: Olympics and Chicken

I confess I don’t give a damn about the Olympics. I don’t know what has changed since the Beijing games. My wife and I weren’t glued to the TV for those either, but I remember watching a few events. I remember rooting for Michael Phelps and being mesmerized by Usain Bolt. But this year? Literally the only events I have seen are those that were on a couple TVs in a bar I frequent.

The only story I’ve read about the games involved the badminton teams that tanked matches in order to get more favorable match-ups in the later rounds. For some reason, that story reached such a critical mass on the internet and my Twitter timeline that I was finally annoyed by not knowing what the hell people were talking about. The story I read to catch up was a Reuters piece that completely neglected to discuss the players’ motivation for throwing the matches, which was the main question I had sought to answer. I confess that I seem to remember discussing basic journalism in fifth grade and being told that stories should cover the five W’s and how. Maybe newspapers are dying because they’re just not very good at keeping us informed of what’s happening.

I confess between sitting out conversations about the Olympics and Chick Fil-A, it’s been a remarkably productive week at work.

Speaking of Chick Fil-A, I must admit I’m mystified by all the fuss over them this week. Personally, until I find out otherwise (and even then I’m skeptical) I assume just about every corporation in America has viewpoints I would find objectionable. In fact, I assume those viewpoints are likely what allowed them to become big corporations. So, while I’ve always assumed a fast food place that’s closed on Sundays is run by whack jobs, I don’t have any real objections when my wife wants to grab a meal there. I confess I do have objections to their stupid waffle fries. It’s a lot of effort to make a fry shape that enhance nothing and is the most difficult to dip in ketchup.

I confess I’m getting more and more annoyed by people’s half-assed principled stands like this Chick Fil-A business. I think it happens because while people want to do things that show what kind of behavior they agree with, they don’t want to do the kinds of things that would actually change anything. I confess this is more of an observation than a criticism because I’m guilty of the same. I’m all for writing checks and signing online petitions. If you need me to help on a Saturday, though, I quickly realize I’m pretty much tapped out on concern after writing the checks and signing the online petition.

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