Games

I have been watching a little bit of the XXX Games of the Olympiad http://www.olympic.org/. And, I just finished reading The Hunger Games.

Eerie parallels.  I think the eeriest for me was when an Olympic athlete was interviewed about his being chosen the flagbearer for the closing ceremonies.  The Hunger Games  included a lot of official publicity duties for the contestants.

Another parrallel: The 1936 Olympics http://www.olympic.org/berlin-1936-summer-olympics when Hitler wanted to use the Olympics as a showcase for his Aryan superiority philosphy.  What I have read about Germany during that time was that Hitler hid all the German policies while the games were in progress. How fragile the meaning of the games can be, if put in the wrong hands.

As with the Olympic games, the Hunger Games had Games Makers that design the look and feel of the games, and help to prepare the athletes. 

Doing some reading about The Hunger Games, it was as I thought.  The name of the country Panem was taken from the Latein "panem et circenses" http://thehungergames.wikia.com/wiki/Panem, literally "bread and circuses." This was the Roman policy of feeding and entertaining the masses to keep them from worrying about the real problems of the day. While that was not the purpose of The Hunger Games, they did serve to distract people from their everyday woes. And they did serve to keep the districts at odds with each other, so they could not unite and revolt against the central government.

I think it is so important to keep things in perspective, and to be knowledgeable about what is happening poitically around the world.