2010 Olympics on cbcr3

Earlier today on Lana Gay’s CBC Radio 3 show, Lanarama, she asked listeners to send in their picks of indie rock songs to play at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia.

I was disappointed to hear Radio 3 using the Olympics in such an uncritical way. So I wrote Lana a little post along with a song suggestion apropos to my post. Of the fifty or so posts on the blog, not one discussed the Olympics as such, so I didn’t expect much discussion to follow.

I was delighted, however, to hear Lana read my letter on air! Yes, I did threaten to stop listening, and in the future I think I will change the channel if Radio 3 covers the Olympics in a similar manner. But today, I was a bit curious to see if she would respond. So, thanks Lana! I appreciate you giving me a voice on the air, and I respect your mixed feelings over the Olympics.

I only realised when Shad’s ‘Compromise’ started to play that I had actually meant to request ‘Exile’. On the album, the two tracks run together so perfectly that it’s hard to separate the two. The former song’s chorus goes a little something like: “In this life, we just can’t compromise; In this fight, we can’t just compromise … there’s too many ways to compromise, so stand strong, we just can’t compromise.”

But I actually like Exile better: “Though I empathize with ’em, and sympathize with ’em, I don’t enterprise with ’em, or synchronize with ’em, … we don’t want no ties with ’em … we won’t let ’em ostracize, we won’t compromise with ’em, we won’t victimize with ’em, commit genocide with ’em, spit their lies with ’em or objectify women…” and so on.

Hey Lana,

I love your show and cbcr3, so this is nothing against you guys. But it really upsets me to hear you guys basically just promoting the 2010 Olympics. I know that people are excited about sports and you know, I play hockey, I think winter is great for outdoors fun. But the Olympics is something completely different.

It’s really just an excuse to develop new highways, new mega-projects, new condos. It’s an excuse to sweep disadvantaged people out of prime locations, and an excuse to crack down on civil iiberties. I lived in Beijing in 2007, and it happened exactly as I’m describing. From what I hear it’s happening in Vancouver too.

With so many problems in Canada’s relationship with First Nations unresolved, I think it is fundamentally wrong to go ahead with the expropriation and mega-development of Whistler. It’s First Nations land and they need to be involved in the decision of how that land is used and respected.

So it makes me sad, but I think I’ll have to stop listening to the show for today. And I won’t be able to listen to any future Olympics shindigs on Radio 3.

But I will suggest a song, one of my favourites from an inspirational and thoughtful rabble rouser: Shad’s “Compromise”

A la prochaine,

Trevor