Letters to the Editor
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Origin of the Torch
This may be off-topic, but so is almost everything I say: I've read somewhere that the origin of the doing the running of the torch to the Olympics was in 1936, for the Berlin Olympics. The Nazis apparently liked the theatrical appearance of lighting a torch on Mount Olympus and bringing it to Berlin, making themselves seem like the new Spartans. Has anybody else read this?
Perhaps the Chinese could have avoided some of this by simply saying "Nah, no Olympic torch this year -- the Nazis thought of that, anyway."
By the way, I'm no fan of the Chinese policies for human rights or in Tibet, but I thought the harassment of the Olympic torch runners was embarassing. I hope that the next time we have an Olympics in the United States the Chinese don't respond in kind with protests over our annexation of Hawaii, the opening of Oklahoma's Indian Territory to the land rush settlers, or some of our more recent questionable activities.