You obviously get it.

I hope Mr. Kamiya's colleague will read his less-than-elite-athlete's view of great athletic striving and accomplishment and see what it is that SHE doesn't get about being a fan.

I remember two particular blocks back when I was the starting center for the Huron High River Rats. I remember two particular infield stops and one particular outfield catch in slow-pitch softball.

Music is a team sport too. I have more musical talent than sports talent. Making music with other people is indescribable magic, probably on a level with that team sports magic Gary writes about.

Every since reading Sey's piece, "The Beast" the other day, I've been imagining a response. It really irritated me, and partly because it seemed like she was trying to take away something special from me and every other "non-elite athelete" in the world - something we have a right to. I have been so busy in the past 24 hours, much too much to actually sit down and hammer out a response, but it's been bothering me, and why it's been bothering me bothered me, too. Now reading your piece, I get it. Thank you for so clearly articulating what was percolating in my head, too. We are watching human achievements and we are human, therefore we are sharing in something, something far bigger than ourselves. How arrogant of anyone to claim more right to human experience than any other person simply because of some particulars of their experiences!

This was fantastic journalism and pretty astute psychology as well. Thanks for helping me understand myself a little better!

Organized S&M doesn't impress me in the slightest. Identifying with someone who has been trained for the Olympics is nonsense. Nationalism on parade, people who will do anything to win, people who become nothing but a sports machine, freaks who will pop their elbow out of its socket for entertainment, children having their ages raised because younger and smaller means tighter spins, turns and higher leaps, all so some corporations can pretend to be all civic minded while they merchandise their products for the glory of the second worse nation in the world.

Guess who is number one!

Shop at Walmart, eat a Big Mac and have a Budweiser - IT'S THE FREAKING OLYMPICS!

So where was Mark Spitz?

All that gold didn't mean a damn thing.

However, "Cool Runnings" was a swell movie.

If you do nothing wrong with that.

But I don't and I doubt I'm the only one, so please stop with the all-inclusive WE.

I couldn't care less about the Olympics.

I'm not watching the Olympics.

The Olympics have absolutely nothing to do with my life.

I have other interests and other things that inspire me. But the Olympics have never done a thing for me.

...but I would not post on the www that video games are bad. I would grant other Americans their video game enthusiasm.

Americans who post here that the Olympic Games are stupid, and that even discussing them is offensive...??? If you ever met an Olympic athlete, and had a conversation, you would not spout this supposed-to-be-above-it-all, pale, wimpy rant. You would be proud and humbled all at once, because these people are very much like you, except healthier.

When you write that you do not identify with our athletes, it reads as if you lack something, as if you seek to bury some sort of envy or weakness. Please just accept. And then, try to beat a swimming champ in chess or something. You probably will be amazed at what a good chess player that swimmer turns out to be.

What will you do if the swimmer beats you in chess? Please change your attitude now, and avoid inevitable conflict with your own nasty, defensive preconceptions.

Video games are not shoved down our throats by the MSM and corporations. Video games do not destroy people's lives unless they are already mentally ill. Competitive sports do cause harm and death. This crap is pushed on kids in school. Children who are put in olympic training programs are easily made victims of abuse and after all that work and training you get a slim chance at a gold medal unless you have been turned into a machine by your trainers.

Intrinsically there is nothing wrong with most sports. Being the best at a sport and exceding the performance of all others to win a gold medal of your nation requires going beyond sports into turning people into a perfect and precision device. Would you tolerate that nonsense using cats dogs or elephants? They do it with race horses - how many broken legs last year in the race industry? Who cares? We treat children even worse.

Being the best at anything is an unreasonable goal for anyone, much less a child. Competition is not the holy object that it is made out to be - those with advantage and resources win and that is due to the efforts of nationalists and corporatists, PR for fascists - watch the Nazi Olympic film.

Remember when we boycotted the Moscow Olympics because they had invaded Afghanistan? Now we have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and then there is China and Tibet. So what is that about? What is noble and honorable in that?

Sport is not about winning - it is about playing. There is no play at the Olympics.

WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN.

How noble!

So the original Olympics required that everyone stop waging war to play the games. What do you think is more important - waging war or the Olympics. You can't have both. WWI and WWII resulted in the Olympics being cancelled.

The ultimate competitive sport is war. It should be covered like the Olympics, but that wouldn't be polite, would it?

Once again, a great column. Gary Kamiya is one of the reasons why I re-up my Salon subscription every year, along with King Kaufman and Table Talk.

Cliche: They are only games.

When you play the games, they are fun. When you play them extremely well, they are extreme fun. And then you live the rest of your life; and then you die.

The Olympics are not part of some grand corporate conspiracy. Every sport is independent. Every athlete is a young, developing human. The rests of their lives are no worse than the rests of our lives, except that we never competed in the Olympics.