The Southwest American View
So, here we sit, My Dear Wife and me, in sunny Tucson in the Arizona desert. And there some of you readers sit, in Canada, a country known for having its balmy summer season on July 1, followed by 364 days of winter. NBC has been regaling us for 3 hours a night with these here Winter Olympic Games y'all been hosting for your American neighbours. Seems that along with the half a million American competitors that y'all invited a few foreigners as well, which was mighty neighbourly of y'all.
The Fox Pass (faux pas) began with Meredith Vieira speaking about who might carry in the torch for the lighting ceremony in the Opening. She was all for Betty Fox, the mother of Terry Fox, who somehow got morphed into Michael J. Fox, who actually has his own mother, and didn't need to adopt a fox of another colour. So, I guess Michael ran across Canada on one leg, while his TV show was in hiatus, and along the way he met a guy named Parkinson, who gave him the flu, or something.
Since then, nothing much has changed. For example, there was the short track event the other night. Three Koreans were taking it away, when two of them tried a roller derby style ending, leaving two less leaders standing. For some reason, NBC figured that they only presented a silver medal and a bronze, and Yoko Ono became the oldest female athlete to win a men's silver medal, and JR Ewing, became the oldest fictional male athlete to win a bronze medal. (That was my little Yoke-O. I know it was really Anton Ohno, and JR Celski).
Yesterday, I was playing Pickle Ball (tennis for seniors) here at the RV Park, with about 6 Americans, who winter here, and although we spoke about many things, the Olympics were not mentioned once. Hmmm!!
Seems that down here in the Southwest, the Winter Olympics are something that the folks from the north do to keep warm in the winter. We're warm already, so it's not important here.
But, in the greatest affront to North American relations, NBC has decided not to show the Canada USA Olympic qualifying hockey game live. Seems there is some figure skating going on at the time. NBC by the way holds the NHL TV rights here in the US of A, and obviously values that product greatly, such that they will not be showing what amounts to an All Star Game.
Although I would not kill to be at the Olympics or die from being there, I do miss the unbiased Canadian Olympic coverage, pretty much 24 hours a day of coverage, including warm ups, stretching exercises, preliminary events and medal rounds, and in the winter games, hockey, hockey, hockey. At least, when you see the Canadian coverage of the Games, you know that there are lots of athletes from other nations in the world. They aren't as good as our Canadian athletes mind you, and it's a fluke or bad judging when they beat out our guys, but it is otherwise unbiased.
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