I am not so sure if this column will be the result of my own passing innocence, or the collective national/international changing of things and times and ideas and such, but, I have been thinking a lot lately about the Olympic Games and the politics and actions around that coming event.

I don't know if this analogy fits, but somehow I kind of associate the Olympics with the Worlds Fairs of my own childhood.

I remember hearing so much about the San Francisco Worlds Fair of 1939 that took place locally on Treasure Island, a landfill spit of land created to support the event.

That was also the year Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game (my favorite movie) was released, to poor reviews. The film was subsequently banned by the Nazis, after overtaking France during WWII, as they did not like the humanistic propoganda Renoir was espousing. In fact they destroyed the master prints and in a way the film was pretty much forgotten until 1959 when a cache of original materials around the film allow for a better cut and pasted version to be released.

If memory serves, that rebuild was part of a push to display the ten greatest films of all time at one of the subsequent Worlds Fair extravaganzas. Renoir's film, despite the early pans, actually made the list despite the fact that no one had seen it in years.

But, as usual, I digress. I remember, though in 1962 the Seattle Worlds Fair, which begot the Space Needle. In fact Cathy and I had lunch there a bunch of years back, and then went to the Experience Music Project right next door.

In 1964 there was the New York Worlds Fair, in Flushing, near the US Open grounds and across the street from Shea Stadium. The giant earth sculpture that begs for an Atlas to come pick it up is still there even, but, somehow after that the world grew up, and save a comical Simpsons where Bart and his buds try to attend the Nashville Worlds Fair, those fetes are pretty much dead.

Well, just as I remember the hoopla surrounding the Worlds Fairs of my youth, so do I remember all the fuss around the Olympics. My mother actually worked as an interpreter in the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, and I even attended for a day.

I was just a kid, but I remember a lot of pride surrounding the Olympics, and as I grew older, remember the arguments against allowing the Soviet teams, which we considered "professional" because the participants pretty much performed as a year round job. So unlike our jocks.

But, things did toddle along till the 1984 Summer Games in LA which Peter Ubberoth oversaw, and which changed everything. That is because Ubberoth, noting money was tight, allowed sponsership of teams and events and suddenly there was big money being thrown at the games.

Soon thereafter, rules around amateurs and professionals seemed to dissipate, and well, now, to me, the whole affair is just another power/ego/marketing scam. I mean, do we care if Coke is the official soft drink of the games, or Charmin the official toilet paper?

I do realize, despite this, that there are a number of atheletes to whom the games are important, and there are a number of viewers who love the competitions, but for me there is only greed and ego where participation and doing one's best (sigh, where is Eddy the Eagle when we need him?) used to be the key.

There are political battles within the IOC, and athletes get stripped of their medals for a number of reasons, although usually as a result of doping. Which makes the whole thing kind of ironic to me, as the committe attempts to dictate morality while being pretty much as corrupt as any other type of political agency.

I realize that China getting the upcoming summer games is a big deal for them, but again, only as a political statement that their country is now mainstream. But, that is totally separate from the actual competition.

And, as a bay area guy, I had to laugh with all the pros and cons surrounding the Olympic torch, and its path, and people who were mad because they did not see it as SF Mayor Gavin Newsom decided it was a security risk. Of course, and equal number applauded Newsom's proactive concern.

But, to me, the games have gone the way of the Worlds Fair. Outdated. Noisy. Too full of themselves, and well, just not that interesting considering the fuss.

For, if I watch a professional baseball or football game, I know those are cut-throat industries, and everyone is in it for the money. But, somehow, the Olympics give lip service to competition, when the reality seems to be a bunch of people jockeying either for an Andy Warhol moment, or for a huge sales spike due to supporting some aspect of the games.

In other words, whatever the original ideal for the games, be they in ancient Greece thousands of years ago, or a little over 100 when they were resurrected in modern terms, seems to be lost.

Maybe that is because so many people think so many things are riding on a 100 meter run, or a steeple chase, or biatholon.

For me, I am just happy to be able to walk 100 meters on a sunny day with my dog and maybe sit in the sun sipping an iced tea. So much simpler. So much more rewarding.