The Olympics

I've had a chance to watch quite a bit of the Olympics these past two weeks. For me the Olympics has become a spontaneous quadrennial foray into perhaps the last bastion remaining on network television, which is to say "the mainstream media", of decency, team work, hard work, and passion for one's goals. These are real people, by and large, competing their hearts out in the name of excellence. 99.9% of these folks will fade into obscurity.



I observed several things on which I would appreciate this esteemed group's comments. These observations are in no particular order. All of my viewing was strictly done on NBC.



1. I observed that way too much time was spent showing way too many feel good men's and women's events, e.g., track & field, gymnastics, synchronized swimming--both pair and group, synchronized diving, beach volleyball, more diving, way too much swimming, rowing, etc. No where did I see baseball, or soccer, or boxing, or greco-roman wrestling, or judo, or the pentathlon, or the decathlon...you get the picture. Also, tons of female events which were once strictly the purview of men: shot put, hammer throw, wrestling, judo, etc. The femalization of the Olympics is well underway. And please don't anyone tell me that NBC was just playing to its audience. Women watch the Olympics in large numbers like large numbers of men watch Martha Stewart reruns.



2. Except for the United States', the rest of the world's athletes seem to shamelessly cross borders and compete as mecenaries for nations that would otherwise likely deport them. My favorite was Jamaican Marlene Ottey running for Slovenia. Yes, I know the story. It doesn't change the fact that you didn't see this 20 years ago.



3. I saw very little coverage of U.S. athletes winning events but lot's of coverage of everyone else winning...and especially beating us.



The take away? A muted but very definitive effort to emasculate male imagery, the United States in general, and pride in our country in particular. Maybe NBC didn't want the Olympics to be the warm up act to the Republican convention. Don't be naive enough to think for a moment that the Republicans didn't plan it that way. I wonder if it would have been more blood & guts, and rah rah, and win one for the gipper coverage if the Olympics had preceeded the Democrat's convention? Or maybe it's our first exposure to the NWO's ordinance for broadcating international events?



Maybe I'm just paranoid. Or maybe I'm just paying attention.



B.

[weishaupt1776]

The first perspective is to realize that those who own & control the media in our own country are a group of a power elite that wants to deride anything American in favor of a world sysem. The focus on more team sports, rather than the more individual ones promotes a concept called collectivism. Collectivism is a foundation for so******m, wher individual achievement is discouraged in favor of what benefits the whole. The focus on more female oriented events could be two-fold. First, they could be trying to reach a greater demographic, by testing the market to see if theor ratings jumped. Another perspective is to make things more androgenous, which then levels the playing field for more collectivism.

My sentiments exactly.



Does anyone concur with my take on the coverage itself?

I know damn well there are shooting events in the olympics....or at least used to be....

Prof. Jim

[Ice]

Jim,

Yes, there are shooting events. And North Korea states that if their great leader (Kim Jong) had been their contestant in this event -- they would have won the gold.



buscador,

You are not paranoid.



Ice

Jim,



The only mention I saw of a shooting event was about one of our guys who was assured a gold medal if he just hit his last target with his last remaining shot. Didn't have to bullseye it or anything, just hit it. Well, the poor bastard hit the target adjacent to his. He just had a senior moment.

Gold medal gone. They played this clip repeatedley.



B.

[Smart-Aleck]

I saw the shooting clip once, I would have loved to have actually seen the competition... or the archery event would have been cool to see as well. I did see one karate match, and some of the weightlifting competition which was pretty cool. I didn't see very many American losses, I did hear the national anthem every 10 minutes for all our golds though... I usually watched from 12-4am however.

Smart-Aleck, what network did you watch?

[weishaupt1776]

[color=black][b]Seeing the superfluity of women competitors, I was thinking that I'd sure hate to be the husband of one of the female javelin throwers when she hurls the shoe at me from across the room or of one of the shotput ladies when she throws the mini T.V. in the kitchen at me.

I was...She did!

Prof. Jim