Your Olympics thoughts here

As I type this, it's about 12 hours until the International Olympic Committee decides on the site for the 2016 games.

Leading up to the decision -- and after the decision if it's a go -- we'd like your take on Chicago playing host to the games.

I'll start: I'm generally in favor of the Olympics coming here, even though I'm not one of those people who's glued to the TV for these things. I'm fascinated, however, by the potential opportunity to observe the whole spectrum of human behavior -- the pompous, the generous, the self-important, the selfless, the spectacular, the spoof-worthy -- on a grand scale, up-close, in our town.

As for the construction/hassle/bad traffic argument:
I suppose I'd feel differently if everything was scheduled to be built closer to me, so I'm not going to argue with anyone who doesn't want to be inconvenienced by this shindig.

As for the corruption argument:
We all understand the Olympics are not going to be a corruption-free zone. We all sense people are going to get paid simply because of who they are or who they know. I have two takes on this:

1) The wrong people likely are going to be in our pockets whether the Olympics are here or not. Are we going to "save" that much money if we don't get the games? They'll just find other avenues to riches.

2) Let's say there's $25 million (a completely random number hopefully on the high end) that's going to go into the wrong people's pockets. If we get the games, then there'll be a bunch of federal funds sunk into this thing. That means, hopefully, the corrupt folks will be fed from a national trough instead of a local/statewide trough. So maybe we locals save money by getting the Olympics?

I know that's a cynical take. Or perhaps that's not cynical enough? Maybe some people see this as the chance to make an all-time score and we're all going to get cheated on a Hall of Fame level.

(Edit: And here was Stephen Colbert's take on Thursday night regarding Illinois and the prospect of corruption. With a mug shot of Rod Blagojevich on the screen, he uttered this line: "No Chicago politician is going to give those medals away...cuz those things are f----- gold!")

Anyway, this is about your thoughts, not mine. Fire away.

LW