The Olympics and the end of the great Canadian comedians.

It's Olympics time again. Yawn. I remember the day when we looked forward to the summer and winter Olympic Games, held every four years. Then the television rights became too expensive, so they split them into two-year intervals. Then they added a lot of new "sports," and amateurs became professionals, and the same people you saw competing two weeks ago in their normal circuit were once again competing, with slightly different jerseys. The East-West matchups we waited years to see are now replaced by teammates who simply wear different national jerseys and compete against each other for a couple of weeks.

American Olympians generally do not represent all strata in the United States. Sure, there have been moving stories of poorer Americans who made it to the big time. But most of the American athletes dedicate their entire lives to their sports, and as such, require coaches, facilities, and frequent travel that do not come cheap. While they may not represent every walk of life or economic strata, Olympians of the past had one thing in common: patriotic pride. They were outwardly proud to have USA on their uniforms and were not embarrassed by their country. Sure, there were the Black Power fists in Mexico City and other individual protests of American policy, but remember that the private Olympic program accepted Jimmy Carter's request not to go to Moscow as a protest over the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

In Milan, we have been treated to several pampered American athletes denigrating their country and its policy of removing illegal aliens. They are not ashamed to speak badly of the country they supposedly represent, and one bonehead skier said that his presence in the Olympics has nothing to do with representing the country conveniently named on his clothes. One Chinese star chose to........

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