Mustering some enthusiam

I find myself suddenly out of the Olympic loop. Every few years, I manage to rally some kind of enthusiasm for figure skating, the luge, track and field or cold-war style national pride. I even have affectionate memories of watching the last few minutes of the marathon. I have a secret morbid fascination with the sight of a clinically exhausted foreigner stumbling around the victory lap after 36 miles of misery, then collapsing into the arms of waiting paramedics.\nBut a number of things are distracting me from the 2000 summer games. The foremost among them is that it is September. For me, the Olympics have always been the perfect respite from August heat. There's nothing like watching super-human athletes push their bodies to the limits as I loll listlessly on the couch. I feel as if I'm doing my part to balance the Universe's karma. If there's someone out there working so hard at the 400 meter breast stroke, then there ought to be someone on the other side of the world doing absolutely nothing. \nThat used to be me.\nBut this time around, I'm busy with school, and seeing our American swimmers breaking speed boating records just makes me nervous.\nThe other challenge to this year's Olympics is the TV time. I know the spirit of the games demands we share with out-of-the-way Australia, but it's not terribly convenient. Now, if the Aussies would just agree to hold all of the events between three and six in the morning by their watch, the Olympics might just fit nicely into American prime time. \nBut alas, this Olympics seems to be passing me by. With each passing day, records are broken, gold and silver medals are passed around, and I don't have anything to do with it. \nI could almost be talking about politics. \nIn the same way I feel distanced from our American athletes and their struggle for patriotic and personal glory, I often worry the rest of the country feels distanced from the titanic struggles between Bush and Gore, Clinton and Lazio, Left and Right. \nI don't think this is the public's fault. Not exclusively, anyway.\nThe mushroom cloud of expanding media outlets has lead to the "Sheesh" effect. When confronted with 17 different TV opportunities to learn about George W. Bush's "Father Complex," the only appropriate response is "Sheesh."\nOr if you prefer the Internet, Time.com will allow you to access no less than six billion stories about the Lincoln Bedroom, Hillary's hair and Tommy Lee Jones' late night conversation with his college roommate, Al Gore. \nSheesh.\nIt's hard to be passionate this time around -- about the Olympics, or about the road to the White House. \nUnknown athletes are competing at three in the morning, halfway around the globe, against countries with whom we're not mired in cold war. I don't even think the Iraqis are allowed to send competitors. Too bad. We just can't seem to muster rivalry with the communists anymore.\nCandidates who are much too well-known (Hillary's favorite card game as a child was pinochle) are competing on TV and the Internet, reaching the point at which no one knows what anyone stands for now that the Cold War is over. \nI don't think people with real ideas and passions are allowed to compete anymore. Too bad. We just can't seem to muster enthusiasm for people whose only qualification is that they can raise enough money to buy time during Olympic commercial breaks. The Long Jump, brought to you by Citizens for Al Gore.