Ready, Set, Rio! SF State Faculty Talk Olympics

SF STATE NEWS -- Miriam Smith, associate professor of Broadcast and Electronic Communication arts, Says one word can sum up the audience mood going into the 2016 Olympics — apathy. “First, it would be difficult for anything real or imagined to beat the drama of the presidential election — daily revelations, enough mud being slung to fill a stadium, lots of heat but little light,” Smith said. “Second, almost everything we have heard about Games preparations in Brazil has been not just negative, but scary — Zika virus, drug-resistant, bacteria-infested water and not-quite-ready venues." Professor Juanita Darling, director of SF State’s Latin American Studies minor, says hosting the Olympics has played a significant role in Brazil’s economic and political crisis. “The nearly $10 billion that Brazil has spent on the Olympics at a time when the economy is deteriorating has threatened those social programs while Olympic construction projects have displaced poor neighborhoods.”