Rio's Bubbly Creek Olympics

 Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley desperately wanted to land the 2016 Summer Olympics, which would have been interesting for any number of reasons, starting with money.  Daley was in the habit of spending cash like a drunken sailor.  No, I take that back.  Daley spent money like a drunken sailor who had found a way to sell off all of a city’s parking meters, which is exactly what he did.  Where would the money have come from to pay for the Olympics?  The mayor swore that it wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything, but drunks pledge not to drink all the time.

The one thing Daley would not have done, sober or otherwise, was include Bubbly Creek as part of the Olympic venue.  The creek is in fact a branch of the Chicago River on the South Side, and its name is derived from the [insert noxious element here] that bubbles up a century or more after being dumped in the water.  Think Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to get an idea.

Guess what?  Rio has a Bubbly Creek, too, in the form of its waterfront, the site for a number of Olympic swimming and boating competitions.  According to the Associated Press, tests show the level of disease-causing viruses in the water to be as much as 1.7 million times worse than would be considered dangerous for water lapping onto a beach in sunny southern California.

Maybe Daley should’ve based his Olympics pitch on Bubbly Creek in the first place.