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Monday, August 11. 2008
Olympic Proportions
As of Friday, the ancient competition has started: diddle around on my computer or watch the Olympics.The Olympics are taking up 3,000 hours of NBC programming! At 2 a.m. women’s tennis was on MSNBC, Venus Williams was kicking some poor woman’s ass. Apparently I missed the women’s beach volleyball. No matter, it’s the early rounds so Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor will be on again.
The Olympics are a fortnight long cavalcade of beauty. You can check NBC’s Olympics-dedicated web site (Here) to find out what’s being aired and when. Gosh, the Internets can have more to offer than just revealing pictures of female swimmers and volleyball players!
Michael Phelps has won his seventh gold medal. And eighth, come to think of it. He will go down as the greatest swimmer in world history. Last night, as the commentators were talking about the U.S. team’s win in the 400-meter freestyle relay, it was apparent the coverage on swimming would be dominated by Phelps. He is gunning to win eight gold medals in one Olympics, beating the record of seven, set by Mark Spitz, which as stood for 36 years. Phelps has a good shot at it. He’s got golds in the two most difficult events, but anything can happen in the next 10 days.Did you see a picture of the swimming arena? It’s called the “water cube,” and the National Aquatics Center officially. China has out-performed every country that has hosted the Olympics — ever — when it comes to architectural design. The Cube is right next to the “Bird’s Nest,” the main arena for the old, traditional track and field sporting events.
Talk about colorful. NBC has featured the Great Wall every day in the coverage. Here’s what’s bothersome about the way the American networks cover the Olympics: with all the sporting events that are taking place, the spend at least half the time on NBC itself with all the useless back stories of the athletes, useless back stories on some event, useless back stories on useless back stories when instead they could be airing coverage of the events themselves.
There is ample coverage of the “Redeem Team,” the 2008 men’s Olympic basketball team led by LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. NBA stars will get all the publicity. They bring in the young viewers and all their potential market value. There isn’t much of a blog today, just a little mention of the Olympics. Russia picked the Olympics to start a war with Georgia, one of the first nations to break away from the old Soviet Union and now has breakaway blues of its own. It was this situation, the provinces breaking away from Georgia, that Russia chose to exploit by attacking its neighbor. Well, this and the Olympics. There has been some bad, bad blood between Russia and Georgia for a long, long time. At least since Stalin starved Georgia to near death back in the ’50’s.
Too bad the U.S. doesn’t have a President or Secretary of State who can actually influence a cessation of hostilities. We’ve got George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice.
One of the most disappointing sights during the Opening Ceremonies was our president. He and his wife were holding little American flags, like we used to hold when we were kids watching parades, as the different teams marched in. Mrs. Bush, ever the good American, held her flag up. Her husband, the president, let his fall down to his side, the flag upside down, until the American team came out. After the team passed, the flag was hanging upside down again.
Geez George, can you do anything without insulting us? That’s a rhetorical question.
Which brings up the previous blog. A friend said I came off sounding like an angry old man. Geez, I was hoping it would be as an angry young man. But that really wasn’t it at all that was offensive; it was the religion bashing. Well, it’s my sincere belief that religion is the root of all evil so I’ll promote that in my blog, meaning I’ll bash religion in all of its evil ignominy.
The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights ensures one’s right to follow the religion of his or her choice. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It also leaves us free to not follow any religion, and, by decree of that same amendment, gives us the right to say what we believe about religion. In other words, I can tell you Religion is the Root of All Evil.
Our president, of course, took time during the Olympics to lecture the Chinese on religious freedom. Religion is not a right in China, it is a privilege granted by the government. On the face of it, that sounds like the way to go—take it a step further and ban all religion, but, like any other banned substance, the elicit nature of religion just makes it that much more alluring.
Not to mention the Chinese government heavily censors the Internets and it’s doubtful I could get Playboy TV and Radio in China, so I won’t be making any plans soon to migrate there.
Well, maybe to Hong Kong. The love trade there is off the hook!
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Just days after Bernie Mac died, Isaac Hayes passed as well. His album Hot Buttered Soul was a land mark album and when the film Shaft was released, Hayes became a world wide star with the title theme for that film. “They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother …
SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
I'm talkin’ ’bout Shaft.
THEN WE CAN DIG IT!”
Isaac Hayes … was a bad muthah f …
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