If you watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, you may have come away with the impression that Russia's culture is a little more...mmm...high-brow than Canada's. (Please don't think I'm necessarily complaining about this, though.) They have the Bolshoi Ballet, we have giant floating beavers; they have Valeri Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra (who, incidentally, will be at the National Arts Centre on March 15), we have William Shatner and a sadly under-used Catherine O'Hara telling very poor jokes. (We do, on the other hand, have Neil Young, who is probably worth a couple of those wordy 19th-century Russian novelists all on his own.)

The Russians have always taken their culture seriously - sometimes too much so. The poet Osip Mandelstam famously said, "Only in Russia is poetry respected - it gets people killed." (He himself would eventually become one of the victimes.) Joseph Stalin had been a well-known, even admired, romantic poet in his youth in Georgia, and showed a lively (and deadly) interest in Soviet writers and composers after he became dictator.

But still - they were also able to produce something like this:

Days 8-11: The Problems with the Podium

Medals:

Canada's medal haul has slowed down in the past three days, and as of Monday evening, we have only earned two more (bringing our total to 9) (another medal is expected in the Ice Dance competition). In an exciting Men's skeleton race, Jon Montgomery edged out Latvian slider Martins Dukurs. His gregarious personality left few Canadians wondering how he felt about his win: the man was ecstatic. It is nice to see someone celebrating their medal, when so much of the news lately has been about disappointments and apologies (more on that in a minute). The other medal for Canada came from speed-skater Kristina Groves, who added a silver to go with her bronze (from the 3000 meters). Her silver medal came in the 1500 meters, an event won by Ireen Wust of the Netherlands.

Medals:

Building off the momentum from the first few days of competition, Canadian athletes have earned another 4 medals in competition in the past four days. The second Canadian athlete to win Gold at these games (and the first woman to do so on home soil) is Maelle Ricker, and she did it in a convincing fashion- getting out early and holding a substantial lead for all of her snowboarding cross race. Snowboarding cross is where 4 or 5 athletes line up at a start gate and then race to the finish line at the same time (the proximity of the athletes to each other makes for dramatic falls and unpredictable outcomes). 

We are sitting here listening to Darren Dreger ask if Canadians should be worried that both Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo were both pulled in their most recent NHL games. Meanwhile, professional misanthrope Christopher Hitchens has an interesting take on this whole Olympics thing. Initial reaction: get a grip, Hitch! Sure, sports are not a cure-all for the ills of the world, and athletes can be unpleasant jerks, if not downright slimy (including, sometimes, Canadians). But you could make similar claims about, say, free speech: it often leads to conflict and suffering, and  people who exercise their right of free speech to the fullest often reveal themselves to be cruel, ignorant or both. (There are lots of people we'd like to see contract lockjaw.) But that's a poor argument for scorning the practice as a whole.

I can understand part of Hitchens's point, though. All the headlines about skiing, skating and sledding obscure other important stories. There is, for example, a new development in the war in Afghanistan -- involving Canadians, of course.

And finally, something totally unrelated: this, friends, is what an imaginative, top-notch piece of short fiction looks like.

It was an exciting weekend for Canadian sports fans, with the start of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and the very first gold medal for Canada won here at home. In case you weren't glued to CTV all weekend, here is what you missed:

Day 1, Opening Ceremonies:

The unfortunate death of a young luger from Georgia put a bit of a shadow on the games before they officially began. Nodar Kumaritashvili flew off his sled and crashed into a steel pole on the course in a training run on Friday morning. He was honored in the opening ceremonies with a moment of silence and through the somber entrance of his Georgian teammates who wore black armbands and scarves in his honor.