Most Politically Correct Olympics Evah!!

We were watching the Olympics' opening ceremonies last night and my wife asks, "Are indigenious people a majority of the population up there?"

Probably not something I would have said in polite company, but what can you do? My wife's not a member of the academy. And she has a point: Do folks discussing the event have to go into overdrive on all the race-sex-and-gender orientations of the performers? Commenting on the wonderful k.d. lang, one blogger goes aggro to highlight the Canadian singer's identity difference (emphasis added):

K.D. Lang was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and the 48-year-old singer is an open lesbian who is a vegetarian and avid animal rights activist. She has received numerous Grammy Awards for her music and in 2008 it was announced that K.D. Lang would receive a star on "Canada's Walk of Fame."

God! Who cares?

But wait! No, no! I need to be assertive! I blogged about k.d. lang a while back, and sheesh, while I admit to not mentioning she's lesbian, at least I had enough respect to keep her name spelled in lower case! That is case-insensitivity! What outrage! And, hey, you'd think p.c. policeman Scott Eric Kaufman would be on it! Talk about dropping the ball!

And if the parade of nations of indigenous people wasn't enough, the whole opening ceremony was -- wait for it! -- boring! This tweet speaks for the multitudes yearning to breathe free ... er, yearning for a reprise of Beijing 2008:

And there's more on that here, "Swollen With Pride By The Olympics’ Opening Ceremony? Not So Much":

The emphasis on the First Nations, while adding plenty of sparkle and feathers and drums, was as politically correct as it could possibly get. It also neatly sidestepped the larger, ongoing Canadian issue — what the hell is a Canadian? It’s a nation of immigrants, like the U.S., but 100 years younger, a nation that only got its very own flag in 1965 and one in which the “cultural mosaic” (keep your own traditions and language) trumps the American ideal of the “melting pot.” If not the First Nations, who, then, would represent Canada and all it stands for? Free health care? Great beer?

I did tear up, briefly, as the snowboarder shot down a mountain through a red maple leaf composed of flare-holding by-standers. The aurora borealis projected on the enormous fabric centerpiece was magical. But having hundreds of dancers was lost in the enormous scale of the stadium. Sarah Mclachlan was hidden (why?) behind a glossy white piano and even Nikki Yanofsky, whose singing I’ve blogged about here, didn’t do much with her rendition of “Oh, Canada.”

Anyway, more here:

After the stunning Opening Ceremony display two years ago in China, Vancouver organizers have smartly downplayed expectations for their show Friday night. With a wildly disproportionate budget, thousands of fewer volunteers and an inability to come close to matching the man-hours put in by Beijing performers, Vancouver couldn't possibly have expected to match the pageantry put on in the Bird's Nest in 2008. But that doesn't mean Friday night won't be special. Officials have said to expect "more emotion than spectacle."

I don't think boredom is an emotion, but I wasn't going to say anything, fearing that I might alienate some previously disadvantaged constituency.

RELATED: Ruby Slippers has a roundup, "FMJRA Roundup: Olympic Gold Edition."