Oh, Canada

photo: Harry How/Getty Images.
caption: Canadian hockey fans use the bathroom before the Women’s preliminary game between Switzerland and Canada to start on day 4 of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at the UBC Thunderbird Arena on February 15, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada.

Being on the road this week, I’ve been having a hard lending my usual deep focus to the visual politics. (Thanks to BNN’s Deputy Publisher, Karen Hull, by the way, for helping pick up the slack. I liked the spray in the face she delivered to “The Donald.”)

The one visual story I can speak to, however, is the Olympic coverage … which, after long days of meetings (and driving through blinding snowstorms), has served as a great late night tranquilizer. Doing my usual run through of newswires and photo galleries after tonight’s telecast of downhill snowboarding and figure skating, this photo jumped out at me as a crafty bit of truth telling.

This photo speaks to how interminably mundane and, frankly, piss poor much of the Winter Olympic coverage is, but, paradoxically, how it can still deliver some relief. And yeah, in its setting and dual maple leafs, it also highlights how much Americans make a joke out of Canada.