No. Stop it. This, that you do, with the self-identified portents and the grave, ponderous words unspooling like the world's largest ball of twine dropped down the unfathomable chasm of your own rear end. Do not do it.

RIO DE JANEIRO — The gods knew. A heavy winter thunderstorm in Rio de Janeiro is an unusual and portentous thing, and when the skies turned dark an hour before Tuesday's kickoff, the people in the streets of the Rocinha favela looked up and waited. Some ignored it, or told themselves lies, but the sign was there for anyone who believed in that sort of thing. Cars and motorcycles snaked up the single street winding through Rocinha, a sprawling south zone slum, and pedestrians rushed up and down the narrow staircase alleys. Somewhere in the favela, a blockrocker with two blown subwoofers blared "We are the World," and then the downpour came, hard and cold, roaring down the hill, waterlogging the streamers and flags strung over the road and the endless twisting alleys.