During the women's figure skating last evening, I spent a bit of time switching over to NBCsports for the women's biathlon relay. What can I say? I've grown to like the biathlon and all the cross country events. This was particularly fun last night since there was a blizzard for much of the opening of the race. Thick snows and heavy winds make for difficult skiing -- but they are hellacious conditions for trying to shoot. At one point, the woman who was leading took to the range and missed her first shot by an inch (which is a lot), and missed her second shot -- and then basically stopped, and waited. You don't wait in a race, but the wind was blowing so hard, she needed it to slow down. And so she waited for probably 20 full seconds. It was probably awful for the competitors but terrific for us viewer folks.
As I've written, I don't think 99% of people who watch figure skating (myself included) can tell you in the slightest what specific moves are or have a clue what makes them performed properly. But I think it was still difficult to not recognize that the two Russian skaters were so far ahead of the rest of the field that it was like they were competing at another level, in almost a different sport. Four years ago, I wrote about coming across Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir, with Terry Gannon, announcing figure skating on NBCsports and noted how good they were -- fun, spirited and informative, even willing to analyze during a skate. They since have become stars for NBC and have moved over to be the network's top skating commentators, not to mention popping up elsewhere. And they're still good, and preferable to what was before. But I've been only whelmed this year, staying silent far too often during a skate. Not always, fortunately, but I expect better, because they've shown it. Gannon, though, remains solid, good and consistent. Apparently, the three will be the hosts for the Closing Ceremonies, I can see that being either rambunctious and lively or a disaster. They'll bring fun to it, but the job is an odd one and requires a sense of history and perspective to make what is a pageant substantive. I always like the job that Lewis Johnson does during Olympics broadcast, though he doesn't get much air time. So, you may not have even seen him this year. But I especially like him during Winter Olympics, because he's a fish out of water. Johnson was an All American track star in college, and that's his expertise. But he's always game for anything. Lately, they seem to assign him to bobsledding, and just seeing him so heavily bundled up is a treat. He also comes across like a real gentleman, and asks thoughtful questions, even if he knows a whole lot more about track and field. The host country always adds something personal to the awards ceremonies, usually a floral arrangement or wreath. But for reasons unknown, the South Korea organizers in their infinite wisdom have decided to give a stuffed toy. I'm not even quite sure what it is, it looks perhaps like something mawkish as if it's a Hello, Kitty knock-off. I'm not sure what they were thinking. Was it their assumption that the Austrian men's Alpine skiers would treasure this? Or that the Swedish hockey players or Slovakian contingent would cherish their very own plush animal? These are adults, grown-ups, who have trained gruelingly for their entire lives to compete for a historic medal, and finally achieving that dream. Only to have them presented with, "And here's a special gift for you, a Smiley Kitty." At least a pink lunch box would have been functional. It's not that the athletes would hold on to their flowers for long, but receiving them with your medal adds texture and historical, naturalistic meaning to the moment. Something a toy doesn't.
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How serious is Trump about gun control? He wants to put more guns in schools and tells us that Wayne LaPierre -- figurehead of the gun corporation-owned NRA fringe organization who has spent the past 10-20 years trying to scare the country, block every gun control law, and get as many people to buy guns as possible -- is a great guy who loves America. That's the depth of his support of gun control. And he insists that because of that great love of America, the NRA will do the right thing.
The good news is that Trump didn't say that the NRA is made up of many Very Fine People. And right on the heels of Trump trying to convince people that the NRA will "do the right thing," there's their spokesperson Dana Loesch trying to convince people in a bizarre speech at CPAC that the loving NRA, despite decades of fighting gun laws & pushing gun ownership, has no responsibility in gun deaths, while on the other had the REALLY BAD MEDIA loves massacres. (The "legacy media," as she put it -- whatever that is. Perhaps everything that existed pre-Twitter. Like, say, Fox and Breitbart. And most everything.) So, apparently, this isn't a gun problem, it's all those pesky journalists reporting on the gun deaths. In a side note, hopefully someone will tell NRA spokesperson Loesch that sashaying around the stage, leaning into a mic and pointing fingers doesn't make one's divisive comments correct, but only serves to highlight how sick they are. And that Great American, Wayne LaPierre, how was he at that same CPAC convention? Well...he did stand up for America, but alas only his warped version of it. For starters, he slammed "opportunists," those awful people who “wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain.” Which one can only assume includes the teenage students who were on the receiving end of being shot at by an semi-automatic weapon that killed 17 of their friends and teachers. Daring to exploit all that for political gain, like perhaps keeping the right to vote when they become eligible. And students probably are, in fact, among those LaPierre meants, because he specifically warned that student protests for stricter gun laws would lead to a European-style “socialist wave” that would strip guns from citizens, perhaps like "The Terror" in 18th century France (the home of LaPierre's ancestors, so he's probably an expert), when students were among those who rose up against the crown. But more than just those darn exploitive students taking advantage of being victims of a massacres lucky to survive, but politicians who in Monsieur LaPierre's Great American World of the 1950s "hide behind labels like Democrat, left-wing, and progressive to make their socialist agenda more palatable, and that is terrifying.” Yes, these are the leaders of the NRA who love America and Trump knows will Do The Right Thing, because he is Trump and believe him, folks, many people say so. It's difficult to see how Trump thinks he will convince the public that the NRA will "do the right thing" when it not only rants maniacally like this days after the massacre, attacking the victims and anyone who disagrees with the NRA, and also hasn't done the right thing for most of its existence, but when the very reason for the NRA's existence -- to promote gun use on behalf of its corporate gun-manufacturers, who run the organization -- is antithetical to doing the right thing. But then, it's also difficult to see how Trump thinks teachers won't be horrified by the concept that arming them as the way to deal with gun massacres at school. Sorry, just 20% of the teachers -- Trump wanted to be clear that he didn't mean all teachers would be packing, just the finest, the best-trained, the most militaristic, because that's what teaching is all about and why they went into teaching in the first place, for little pay. (The theory that if someone had a gun, they could have stopped the shooter is one that always sounds SO great if you grew up watching Westerns and don't continue thinking after hearing the theory. Forgetting all the other reasons, just imagine a school filled with crossfire as 20% of all the teachers begin firing from their classrooms at what they think or at least might be the "savage sicko" (Trump's words) as bullets go flying down the hallways. It should be noted that there's no clarification yet if a "savage sicko" might different from a "bad hombre", or if they're one and them same. Of course, none of this extrapolates Trump's lunatic "arm 20% of the very best teachers" with the rest of society as a gun policy on being to control mass gun violence. After all, there have been several multiple-shootings in movie theaters in recent years. Should 20% of movie theater employees be armed? (Or at least the very finest of them...) But not to worry, this will all be resolved because Wayne LaPierre and Dana Loesch are really fine people who love America and the NRA will do the right thing. Because that's who they are. As they showed once again yesterday. Who they are. We watch the Olympics so you don't have to...
At the start of the Olympics Games, I wrote about how women's hockey was one of my favorite events -- and boy, howdy, they didn't let me down. The Gold Medal game was one of the great competitions I've seen during the Olympics over the years. However, I suspect that most people missed yesterday's finals between the U.S. and Canada -- not only were most people likely watching the Super Combined on NBC when Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin were skiing, but the hockey game didn't even begin until after 11 PM in the East and ended at 2:15 in the morning. (Fortunately this was all three hours earlier in Los Angeles.) How dramatic was it? The U.S women's team had won 7 of 8 world championships, but Canada has won the last four Olympic Gold Medals. And they had won 24 consecutive Olympic games. AND they beat the U.S. last week in the opening round. Canada was leading in last night's game 2-1, but Monique Lamoureux tied the contest with only six minutes left. The game ended tied in regulation. And it was still tied after the 20-minute overtime. And it stayed tied after the 5-shot shootout! So, it then went to a Sudden Death shootout, and on the sixth round, the U.S. winning goal was finally scored by...Jocelyne Lamourex! Monique's twin sister. And it was on the anniversary of the U.S. men's "Miracle on Ice" 38 years ago to the day. That, folks, is sports drama. I've mentioned that my pal Clare Duffy Swift is a producer for NBC News, and made and starred in a tremendous documentary eight years ago about women's hockey, training with the U.S. women's team in a George Plimpton sort of way as the centerpiece of the production. She loves-loves hockey and worked out her schedule so she could be at the game. We were trading emails throughout -- she said she had lost her voice by the end of the first period. By the end of the game, she was a ball of mush, totally wiped out. (Speaking of Clare, yesterday I wrote about a piece she produced on three Ivy Leaguers playing on the U.S. men's hockey them -- but I forget to include the link. You can find the video here.) One big quibble. A shootout is no way to decide an Olympic Gold Medal. It's faux-hockey. The players should be allowed to keep playing until there's a decision. As for that aforementioned Super Combined, Mikaela Shiffrin got the Silver. Lindsey Vonn was leading after the Downhill, skied last with a chance to win, but couldn't hang on and went off course. It all came to a head as the hockey game was coming to a head. Thank goodness for being able to watch the Olympics on my laptop. The United States beat a Canadian team in another event today -- curling. They won by a score of 4-3, holding on with a "hit and stay" on the last play. And no, I don't what that precisely accomplished, But I do know that this means is that the U.S. will actually be in the curling finals. It starts at 3 AM in the East, so plan your sleep according. Speaking of curling, the Olympic Committee officially stripped an athlete from the Olympic Athletes of Russia team of his Bronze medal in the Mixed Team Curling event for testing positive with drugs. And the immediate question that comes to mind is -- what on earth is someone using drugs in curling for?????!! One person pushes a rock to slide it across the ice, and the other sweeps the ice. Drugs?? Which ones? Caffeine to stay awake?? But that would be legal... There was a funny moment on the "Olympic Ice" segment today on NBCsports. When discussing last night's short program in women's figure skating, Scott Hamilton said there was one thing it is critical for all skaters to always, always, ALWAYS do, and he was going to be very, very serious about this, because you always have to do it. Always. And after giving his admonition, the other analyst Tanith White paused a moment and then said, "Sorry, Scott, but you can't pull off being grave. It's like when a Muppet tries to be grave. It still comes across as adorable." I wish that I could find a video from an NBCsports interview this afternoon with Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall, who together won the first-ever U.S. women's medal in cross-country skiing, and the first Gold Medal for a U.S. cross-country skier, period. Why it was so special is that they showed the two of them the video and call (with the ever-crazed Chad Salmela screaming his head off the whole way) of the final leg of the race, which they had never seen before. Their reactions were priceless. As Diggins made her move up, Randall was bouncing in her seat, pounding her hands together excitedly, as if urging her teammate on. And as Diggins made her rush towards first place, and maniacal announcer Chad Salmela began screaming, "HERE COMES DIGGINS!!!! HERE COMES DIGGINS!!!!", she buried her face in her hands almost like a little kid. And when the race was over, and they won, the first words out of either of their mouths was Diggins saying, with a huge smile on her face, "I love Chad Salmela SO much." Two other related things to this: First, you may have seen the ad Comcast is running for its service which shows a supposedly-Minnesota town gathering together to watch their hometown hero Jessie Diggins compete at the Olympics. Obviously this was shot before the Games, so they used footage of her other competitions. But yesterday, they edited a new version -- it's the same ad, but it now has footage of Diggins racing for the finish line and winning the Gold Medal. And there was a funny column in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, written by Michael Rand. He noticed a few bizarre similarities between two recent Minnesota heroes. One, Jessie Diggins from Ashton, Minnesota, and the other an amazing game-winning catch by a Minnesota Viking receiver on the very last play that put the team into the NFL Championship. He name was...Stefon Diggs. As Rand wrote, "Just two weeks into 2018, Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs delivered what seemed like it would stand as the signature moment in Minnesota sports for the entire calendar year — if not more — when his leaping catch and run walkoff TD against the Saints rescued the Vikings from a playoff collapse. "Barely a month later, Diggs has been equaled — and perhaps topped — by another Minnesota athlete, Jessie Diggins, and her exhilarating cross country skiing gold medal." But the similarities weren't just their names, or both in Minnesota -- but they were wearing the same numbers. You can see his full article here, along with a few other connections. Last night's Gold Medal women's hockey game was a spectacular gem -- as the U.S. team broke Canada's streak of 24 consecutive wins and four Gold Medals. The game was not only tied at regulation...and tied at the end of the 20-minute overtime period -- it was ALSO tied at the end of the five-player shootout, so they had to go to Sudden Death, which the U.S. finally won.
I'll write more about it later, but just know that if you missed it, the game will be repeated in full at 1 PM Los Angeles time (4 PM in the East) on the NBCsn sports channel. Even if you don't want to watch the full game, try to pick up some of the end. (I assume they'll cut out the time in between periods, but not knowing that for sure it's had to say when "some of the end" will occur, In real time, it all took just over three hours. So, tuning in after two hours might be safe to see where things stand.) Or just what the whole, edge-of-your-seat, exciting thing... It says a great deal when something as sick as the school shooting in Parkland where 17 people died can be followed by something so sick on its own level -- and that's the concerted effort by so many on the Far Right to actually demean the teenagers who survived the massacre and are speaking out on it. It's shameful, pathetic and other Republicans should admonish them...but few have, more to their disgrace. It's one thing to disagree with the opinions of the teenagers, that's fine. But to trash them as people, to disparage school children who saw 17 of the friends murdered and for the grace of heaven they survived is another step into hell by a the base of a party who claim to be the soul of "family values" and "evangelism" yet have supported an accused child molester and a leader accused by 19 women of sexual abuse.
How bad was it? I saw a comment by Republican messaging consultant Frank Luntz, who has made a career trying to obscure reality, trying to convince people, for instance, that a GOP measure to cut back on EPA requirements should be called the "Clean Air Act," and even he was sickened by it, asking if this was the low we've not come to, attacking the child victims of a massacre. The thing is though, as notable as it was to see such a comment by someone like Frank Luntz, it was also empty and disingenuous. Because this isn't what we've now come to. This has been the standard of his own Republican Party which has been demeaning the family victims of school massacres ever since Sandy Hook. In fact, it's still going on with those families. Worse, the conservative Far Right attacks on the families of Sandy Hook are at levels almost unbelievable in an adult, mature, sane society. This article was sent to me three months ago from someone in Florida (of all places...) who lives nearby the events described in the piece. I was trying to figure out the best time to link to it. This is that time. It tells of a Jewish family who had a child killed at Sandy Hook and was getting so much hate and physical threats directed at them by the Far Right that they finally had to move and ended up in Boca Raton, in hopes of being anonymous -- yet even there, what they've had to put up was so horrific that they've now had to move yet again. It's a gripping, galvanizing story. You can read it here. "Is this what we've come to?" Spare me the shock and dismay. The Far Right went there almost six years ago and have been squatting there ever since. I get chided for not only getting up early to watch the Olympics, but also watching offbeat events which often are considered boring. Including cross-country skiing, a field which the American women have never won a medal of any kind, ever. Well, nyah, nyah, nyah to those people -- because early this morning, I watched the women's Team Sprint, and when the great and joyous Jessie Diggins made the switched off on the final leg from teammate Kikkan Randall...they were actually in third place, in contention for that first-ever medal. But more than that, on this furious final leg, Diggins (having at one point made it to first place but by then fallen back again to third as they entered the stadium) broke away on the final turn...and didn't just get a medal, but fricking won the race, and the U.S. women's team got a Gold!!! And by a whopping .19 seconds. This is not just the first medal of any kind by the women cross-country skiers, nor only the second cross-country medal by any American (the first was Bill Koch 42 years ago), but the first Gold Medal by any American in the discipline Announcer Steve Schlanger gave an enthusiastic call, but it was of course his maniacal analyst Chad Salmela who I thought would have his head explode. I've written often how he goes bonkers screaming at anything exciting for any country, but this pushed him off the Richter Scale. (His cry of "HERE COMES DIGGINS!!!!! HERE COMES DIGGINS!!!!!" reminded me of the famous call in the 1960 Rome Olympics when little-known American Billy Mills came from nowhere to sprint past the world's best -- "HERE COMES MILLS!!!!!" -- and win the 10,000 meter race.) If you see they are going to replay the end of the race, do yourself a favor and watch. For the race and the call. But this photo below says it all. I've been pretty clear that I don't care for the "freestyle" (hot dog) skiing events -- there are few that are briefly watchable, but one that I do enjoy is the Ski Cross (which as a snowboarding cousin). What is good about it is that unlike all other downhill skiing events, this has athletes actually competing against one another at the same time in a race, rather than one at a time against the clock. And though there are oddly-designed hills that skiers have to fly over, that's all they do -- no acrobatics or "tricks," just basic obstacles, so it's not particularly different in theory than the steeplechase. It's simply a pure race for speed. The finals were exciting -- except like short-track skating, half the racers wiped out so there were only two athletes competing for the podium. Something which unfortunately is inherent in the sport, as well. My favorite skater during the women's short program last night was Kailani Claire of Australia. Not because she was best -- she wasn't close, but was very good and had a fun performance -- but because of her choice of music. How could I not love a skater who opens her performance with Ella Fitzgerald?! I don't have the video of it, but here's the audio. It was shame to see the U.S. men's hockey team get knocked out in the quarterfinals. But it's not surprising because those they took the game into overtime, they lost in the shoot out because the Americans looked lackluster in the third period. Tonight is another and big hockey game as the women go for the Gold Medal against their rivals, Canada. It will be broadcast on NBCsports.
Speaking of hockey, my pal Claire Duffy Swift who works for NBC News produced a very nice piece on three former Yale hockey players who, 10 years after their college days are now on the U.S. team. I can't post the video, but you can find it here. After over a week now of Olympics Watching, enough TV commercials have repeated endlessly-enough that I feel qualified for a few observations: With two commercials featuring figure skater Ashley Wagner, it seems clear to me that sponsors thought the 2014 Olympian would be repeating and make the U.S. team again. But she didn't. I have no idea how good the Mamma Mia sequel will be or how many of the songs will be repeated -- it looks to have a thin idea for a plot (10 years after marrying, the couple is pregnant, but don't tell anyone), and I have no idea how many songs get repeated or how they justify bringing the three men all back now that we know two of them are not Amanda Seyfried's father, but it seems lively -- however, at least from the ads, it appears that Cher has made the acting choice to sleep-walk through the movie. So, nine out of 10 U.S. Olympians grew up drinking milk. For the record, there are 244 U.S. Olympians -- I want to know which 24 didn't grow up drinking milk. Hey, I want to know just five who didn't. Because I switch so often between NBC, NBCsports and CNBC when commercials come on or there's an event I don't want to watch, I miss the opening of many ads. And because of that, there's one ad that has made zero sense to me -- the one with the little girl holding a teddy bear and skating around with it. Until yesterday! It took over a week, but I finally saw the opening and now at last understand it. It's very cute -- though I can't tell you what it's for, which means it's not particularly an effective ad. It appears as if NBC has decided to remake the series, Glee, and call it Rise. My guess is they pitched it as "Think Glee but crossed with two shows that have worked so well for you, Friday Night Lights and This is Us. So, it's totally different from Glee because it's serious and about real teen angst. But with singing and dancing and musicals." Finally, my grocery story has a free special every Friday for card members. Last week's turns out to have been the Hershey Gold that has been advertised heavily during the games with Apollo Ohno. It was free, so I got one -- and it was very good. It's chocolate mixed with peanuts and pretzel, so it tastes sort of like a Reese's Peanut Butter Up. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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