Gentle Readers,

Dr. J. was torn between two posts as to which he was going to pick as his ‘Best of’ post. His true ‘Best-of’ article will go up later today.

The runner up was his review of the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremonies. Dr. J. didn’t find his polemic to be particularly harsh, as he is a bit of an Olympic sentimentalist, having fond memories of watching the games of his youth (1976-88) with Papa J. and attending the 1992 games as Papa J. did as best he could to ‘virtually attend’ the games via the pay-per-view Triplecast. While the Triplecast was a total flop from a business point of view, for Papa J., who was both retired and ill, it let him enjoy the pagentry of the Olympics without the overproduction that is the hallmark of NBC coverage, and watch events that Dr. J. was attending, which was the next best thing to being there with him.

Dr. J. selected it as his runner-up, not only because of his clever Lord of the Rings reference, his slam on Council Housing (which was overlooked by many conservative critics) and his appreciation for their use of music from Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark (OMD), but because it caught the eye of the Village Voice:

“The 2012 Olympics Salute The Welfare State,” shouted Dr. J at The Gormogons (“Dr. J. thought we were safe, from more socialist pap but then along came Frankie and June, a couple raising their family, along with the rest of their clan, in Council Housing.”)

While Dr. J. was more than appreciative that he received their wrath alongside Allahpundit, Real Clear Politics, Jim Geraghty, FoG John Podhoretz, the Volokh Conspiracy and Instapundit, he was even more amused at the amount of left-wing projection the author, Roy Edroso inflicted upon the critics as he wrote.

Michael Fell of Right Wing denounced…Something else that made their blood vessels burst like Christmas crackers…hollered Fox Nation…cried Freedom Outpost…sneered Bill Quick…shouted Dr. J….huh-whatted Eric Scheie…

The article reads like a 6th grade essay by a kid who discovered a thesaurus but lacks the context to use the words just right. Dr. J., as you know, is not a shouter.

Nevertheless, Dr. J. appreciates the press, so without further ado, the article:

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The 2012 Olympics Salute The Welfare State

Five Rings for Foolish Progressives in their Posh Salons…

The Opening Ceremonies are intended to be a window onto the history and culture of the sponsor nation. Indeed, the Vancouver Opening Ceremony was a celebration of the Inuit culture, the Scotch/Irish and British and French colonists, culminating in modern Canada and what it has to offer. The 2002 Salt Lake Games also was a pageant of the peoples indigenous to the American Southwest and the strength and resilience of the American Spirit in post 9/11. Atlanta featured the American and Georgian history, especially through the prism of song. The Barcelona Games featured the founding of the city by Heracles, and showcased Spanish and Catalonian culture.

That brings us to London. The story began with the transformation of the agrarian British culture by the industrial revolution, including a spectacular visual with the forging of glowing iron rings. Unfortunately, not far behind the industrial revolution, the specter of Marxism was to rear its ugly head.

Ironicallly, conservative J.K. Rowling stood and read from classic British Literature, at which point a legion of glowing hospital beds rolled in in a tribute to the National Health Service.

Now the NHS has among its ranks some of the best doctors and nurses in the world. They have probably the best physical diagnostic skills in the world, a necessity borne out of finite material resources to work with. The doctors and nurses have never been the issue with NHS and socialized medicine, but rather it is with top down control of those resources rather than rational utilization of resources at the level of the patient and provider. Denial of care and long delays are the order of the day in a monopoly top down delivery system.

Fortunately, Mary Poppins was able to save the day.

Dr. J. thought we were safe, from more socialist pap but then along came Frankie and June, a couple raising their family, along with the rest of their clan, in Council Housing. There was something about a lost cell phone and a lot of self worship of the younger generation. Even the Democratic Underground posters had some negative things to say about this chapter. While it was an interesting stroll through pop music including a nice dash of OMD, Dr. J. was shocked that the tribute to the unsustainable welfare state was on display. Thank goodness that we didn’t get the games in 2014 or 2016 and be forced to endure an Obamahamian Onanistic Tribute.

Dr. J. was not alone in his criticisms. NRO regular, and Catholic ethicist George Weigel also chimed in, and like Kim Strassel, far more articulately than Dr. J.

For that’s what these multi-hour theatrical extravaganzas have become: a kind of ersatz liturgy of the in vitro World Community, in which film directors (such as Britain’s Danny Boyle) take the role once played by the monks and canons who designed public worship centuries ago. And as such things go, London’s secularized Olympic liturgy on the night of July 27 was perhaps slightly less offensive than others in the same genre. Boyle unabashedly anchored the show/liturgy in history, meaning British history, rather than in the Gnostic and pagan fantasies that have become the Olympic norm. But it does tell you something about what Evelyn Waugh would have called “decline and fall” when the British National Health Service is proposed for global worship as a kind of sacrament, when Paul McCartney (sorry, Sir Paul McCartney) replaces Ralph Vaughan Williams as liturgical hymnwriter, and when H.M. the Queen, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, is reduced to a bit player in a knock-off of the Bond movies.

We are not amused…such things should not be left to commoners.

Dr. J.