We watch the Olympics all day so you don’t have to.
 
How heavy was it snowing in Cortina?  They cancelled the third round of the team ski jumping, and gave the medals based only on the first two rounds.  Apparently, it’s believed that when you are flying 300 feet through the air without a parachute, being able to see where you’re going and supposed to land is A Good Thing.  By the way, the official name of the event is “Men’s Super Team Large Hill,” which sounds like a bad translation by a guy who does them for tech manuals.
 
There was an interesting race for the Bronze Medal in the men’s Team Pursuit speedskating.  Halfway through the two-team race, favored Netherlands (which has been crushing speedskating) were two minutes behind China…but kept cutting the margin in the final three laps.  And in the end, China held on to win, but only by .09 seconds.  In the Gold Medal race, the U.S. has been the dominating in the sport (having revolutionized it in their tactics several years back), but Italy has been very strong all year, and ended up winning by a huge five seconds, as the U.S. team took the Silver.
 
The Women's Short Program in figure skating began.  There were some very good programs in the early groups, notably Adeliya Petrosian of “AIN” (International Neutral Athletes, a designation to athletes from Russia and Belarus that are banned from the Olympics for invading Ukraine).  U.S. women haven’t gotten a singles figure skating medal in 20 years.  The three Americans are among those who would skate in the later group among the medal contenders, including Amber Glenn and Alysa Liu, who I’ve written about a bit, and Isabeau Levito, whose mother is from Milan, and whose grandmother not only lives in the city, but only 13 minutes from the rink.  They came into the event among the other top challengers, including Kaori Sakamoto of Japan, who got the Bronze Medal in the 2022 Olympics. 
 
In this top group that skated later, there was a superb program by another Japanese skater Ami Sakai, who somewhat unexpectedly jumped into Gold Medal contender position.  The top four skaters (including Alysa Liu in third) are bunched up so close to all be in position to win.  Isabeau Levito skated very well and is in distant (though challenging) contention for a medal, in eighth place.  But three-time and defending U.S. National Champion Amber Glenn, who skated an otherwise excellent program, had one major mistake, an under-rotated jump with two spins, not three, and that dropped her down to 12th, creating a huge hurdle for herself to even medal.  It’s so unfortunate – unlike Ilia Malinin who is 21, she is 26, and this might well be her only Olympics.  Happily, she was part of the Team Event and her skate helped the U.S. win the Gold Medal there.  The U.S. came into the event with an outside chance of sweeping the three medals.  But now, Japan is in a far-better position to do that.  And the U.S. could even be shut out, though Alysa Liu has as good a chance as any to win the Gold.  That’s how close the top skaters are.  It’s all up to the longer, Free Skate program.
 
In the Men’s 4x7.5km Biathlon Relay, France got off to a poor start, but was able to recover and come back to win its first-ever Gold Medal in the event.  The U.S. team did not medal, but finished fifth, their best-ever finish.  So, lots of “best evers” – but the best thing was the medal ceremony and seeing (and hearing) the French team blasting out a full-throated rendition of “La Marseilles.”  Given that the event entailed rifles and racing through the wilderness, you almost expected to see Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the background.
 
 
More to come…

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has been off for several months, and as he noted, they have missed a lot.  If you didn't see the show on Sunday, the Main Story was on what he said was the biggest story they weren't able to get to -- ICE in Minnesota, and so they deal with that, but mostly DHS in detail.  The report is excellent -- blunt, detailed, interesting and they were still able to get a lot of humor in.  So, I thought I'd turn over the page today to the show.
​  

​We watch the Olympics all day so you don’t have to.
 
We’re going to start today with an utterly joyous video which most people will not likely ever see.  It’s from the pairs figure skating Free Skate – which will get covered at length on NBC’s Primetime broadcast, but this is in Part 1, where the teams not really competing for a medal skate, so it may not get on the air.  Except they might show just this small section because…well, it’s just too unadulterated jubilant.  It’s one of the most joyous reactions I’ve seen at the end of a figure skating program.  This is Ioulia Chtchetinina, who is a Russian-Swiss pairs skater who currently competes for Poland with Michał Woźniak.  In fact, this is probably the most joyous I’ve seen a skater during the end of her sake while skating!  It's best to make this Full Screen to see her oh-so-happy face.  (Note to Ioulia Chtchetinina:  Do not play poker because you have no skills for hiding your reactions.) Their program was lively and very well-done.  And Ms. Chtchetinina’s utter joy at the end can’t help but make one happy, as well.  The team has only been competing together for 2-1/2 years and are the three-time Polish National Champions.  And note that although she may look around 12 years old, she’s 29.  It’s her pure, all-encompassing happiness, though, that no doubt adds to her youth.  Since this moment is unlikely to make it onto Primetime, I recorded it off the air on my mobile phone.  The sound is tinny, and I didn’t frame it well but it’s the visual at the heart of it all that counts.  Here are the last 40-seconds of their program, and then the joy.

​And to give Ioulia Chtchetinina an encore, I figured I should post the pairs reaction waiting for their score.  They won’t be medaling, but she especially is clearly pleased with the results.

​And just one more from Part 1 of the Pairs Free Skate, because I’m not sure this will be included on the Primetime broadcast.  It’s the last 30-seconds of the German team’s program, and they have two moves that are, at heart, typical, but they way they do them are…spectacular, as the guy just grabs her by the hand and double-twists his fearless partner over the ice and then flings her around.  You’ll recognize the moments because – well, they’re seriously impressive, but also because the crowd roars.

​I’m not exactly sure what it was about these Part 1 programs (others were wonderful, as well) -- these are usually the “also-rans” that pale in comparison to the top finalists who skate in Part 2.  And the skill of those in Party 2 are technically and artistically better.  But I’m wondering if, because these early skaters know they don’t have a chance of a medal, they’re just out there to do their best and have a great time.  Whereas the top finalists know they have everything at stake.  They’re superb  – but don’t tend to skate with this kind of “Oh, who cares?!” abandon.  In fact, the Japanese pair of Miura and Kihara were favorites, but stumbled in the short program and dropped down to fifth place -- but here, in Part 1, they gave an enthralling skate.  So much so that  the guy, Ryuichi Kihara, was openly weeping in tears afterwards.  They were so great that their score easily put them back into medal contention, and remarkably, even a Gold is now in sight.  I am sure this skate will make it onto the Primetime broadcast.

One other figure skating news.  Every Winter Olympics, after the full competition is over, they have an Exhibition where all the medalists get to do whatever freewheeling performance they want.  And occasionally, they’ll invite a skater who didn’t medal.  They did that this year, and to his great credit, Ilia Malinin announced that he would perform in the Exhibition.
 
The Johannes Klaebo Adventure continues.  The Norwegian cross-country skier won his fourth Gold Medal of these Games in the team 4x7.5m relay -- and his ninth Gold Medal overall, giving him the most Gold Medals by any athlete in Winter Olympics history.  He’s also tied for second place with the most Gold Medal in any Olympics, whether Summer or Winter.  (First place is likely out-of-reach, with U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps having 23.)  Klaebo has two more races this Olympics, so he’s expected to break that tie.  Worth noting is that Klaebo is only 29, so it doesn’t seem unlikely that he’ll compete in the next Winter Olympics, and perhaps even two more.  (Jessie Diggins, the most-honored U.S. cross country skier will be retiring after these Games at the age of 34.)
 
The two-person bobsled event began today.  Along with the four-person bobsled, these are among my favorite competitions, for reasons I’ll explain when we get to four-person sledding, since I like that a touch more.  For now, I just have a wonderful time watching it.  And all the better now that NBC is using cameras on drones which give such a great perspective to the speed and turns of the race.
 
And continuing with other “bob” news, in the monobob, a one-person sled event for women, American Elana Meyers Taylor won the Gold Medal.  The U.S. also took the Bronze Medal in the event.  This was Meyers Taylor’s sixth Olympic medal, and first Gold.  Her six medals ties her with speedskater Bonnie Blair for the most medals by an American woman in the Winter Olympics.  (Blair won five Gold Medals.)

Finally -- o joy!  NBC actually ran one of Mary Carillo's reports on the USA Network!  It was the one I linked to yesterday (that originally ran on the syndicated "Olympic Zone" program) about why there are so many great skiers from Norway.  Huzzah!  if you missed the link and broadcast, you can see it here.
 
More to come…

Last week there was a major news story – but it got almost no attention.  I kept waiting for extensive coverage…but no.  In fact, in some markets that I thought could cover it at length I didn’t see even reference it at all.  Which, given how significant I think the story is, sort of boggled me.
 
We know from earlier reporting that Trump’s jobs reports have been awful.  So awful that he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which was the political equivalent of “Kill the Messenger.” 
 
In fact, it wasn’t just the last few months that were so terrible, but the new jobs created under Trump for the entire year.  In 2025, BLS reported that only 584,000 new jobs were created.  As low as that sounds, it transcends even pathetic when put in context.  And in context, during President Biden’s four years in office, 16.6 million new jobs were created.  That averages 4.15 million new jobs a year.  Averages.  Once again, that was 4.15 million new jobs every year under President Biden -- for four years in a row.  Compared to Trump’s 584,000 jobs last year.
 
But that's not the story. 

Because this brings us the major news last week – news that largely got little coverage, most especially for what the news was. Almost no coverage in some venues.  It should have been the headline story.

Fair Warning:  I'm going to repeat a lot of numbers.  But that's because (as you'll see) these are numbers that can't be repeated enough.
 
You see, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, without its former director who Trump fired, put out adjusted numbers for 2025.  And they not only adjusted last year’s numbers down – they ripped out the floor and did an entire new construction!!
 
Last week, BLS adjusted its new jobs number for 2025 down by…69%!!!  That’s 69% fewer new jobs created last year than the hideously dismal 584,000 that had been previously reported.  The actually-official number is now 181,000 new jobs – for the entire year!!!!!
 
So much for Trump's "great" (sic -- or sick) economy.

And now for the even more detailed perspective for full context about how monumentally disastrous this is.
 
Just 181,000 new jobs would have been horrific for President Biden if that number had been announced for any single month. Just imagine the MAGOP reaction to this.  Only 181,000 new jobs created in a month. The MAGOP would have grabbed the number – just 181,000 for a month -- and crushed it deep into the ground.  But this was 181,000 new jobs for a full year.
 
And doing basic math, that’s an average of only 15,000 new jobs a month!

And this is after Trump fired the BLS head because he didn't like the numbers.

Again, just imagine if this had been for President Biden.  But it wasn't.  It was for Trump.

More perspective:  Remember (as if you’ll forget at this point), under Trump, only 181,000 new jobs were created for the whole year. That yearly total is half the monthly average of new jobs created under President Biden!!! Every month for 48 months.

Literally.

We’ll do the easy math.  Joe Biden added 16.6 million jobs in 4 years. That’s 4.15 million new jobs a year.

And that is 346,000 a month. Each month. For 4 years.
 
Trump created 181,000 new jobs for the entire year.
 
Which, by the way, doing elementary school long division, is only 15,000 new jobs created under Trump per month.
 
For those without an abacus handy, 15,000 is fewer new jobs that 346,000.  Especially when those two numbers are repeated every month for a full year.  Or, in President Biden’s case, every month for four years.
​
Trump created 181,000 new jobs in 2025.  President Biden created 4.15 million new jobs every year for four years.
 
And Trump and MAGOPs are still trying to slam how supposedly terrible the Biden Economy was (despite The Economist magazine calling the Biden Economy the “Best in the World”) and crowing how supposedly tremendous the Trump “economy” is.
 
I think this was a huge story.  And yes, it did get reported here and there.  But “here and there” doesn’t even start to begin to do this story justice about the Trump economy.  I suspect most Americans don’t have a clue about this.  About how cringe-worthy horrific new jobs are under Trump.
 
Most prices remain high.  Consumer spending might be slightly up, but an unbalanced amount of that is largely being spent by the public on health care -- and augmented by spending by the wealthy, not by the middle class and lower.  Inflation might be stable, or even down by a whopping .1%.
 
But only 181,000 new jobs were created in the past year.  Just 15,000 a month.  (Compared to 346,000 a month.)  Whatever the prices, spending and inflation are, however much Trump and his desperate staff try to say what it is…if you’re only creating 15,000 new jobs a month – compared to 346,000 -- it is a ghastly picture of what the economy truly is.
 
That’s what “affordability” is about.
 
That’s what the news story is about.
 
I wish it got reported more.  But then, when the vast majority of Americans tell polls how badly they think the economy is and how bad Trump is doing about it, they don’t need it reported.  They know.  It’s really hard to hide.
 
But still, it would have been nice for it to be the major headline.  Yes, I know there are a ton of major news stories almost every day lately with Trump.  But…well, this was a pretty significant one.

We watch the Olympics all day so you don’t have to.
 
I mentioned the other day that I liked the short track speedskating races, which are like demolition derby, and that the team relays were even more fun, like a prison riot crossed with a Marx Bros, with bodies overlapping in and out of the action.  (Among other things, on the team relay, skaters give a push to their teammate about to go next.)  Well, in the U.S. women’s team qualifying race, a skater gave a push to her teammate taking off, and she ended up pushing her to the ground.  Impressively, the fallen skater was able to touch her teammate back while sliding along the ground, who then took off.  Unfortunately, you can’t afford to lose even a second, and they ended up finishing third and only the top two teams qualify. 
 
And if you still think I’m exaggerating in my description of short track, in the finals with nine teams racing, three of the teams crashed, and a fourth was bumped far enough to be taken out of medal place.  The announcer described it as…“like a demotion derby.”
 
As much as one may watch of the Olympics over time, you still learn new things.  In this case, it’s that in short track racing, the left blade on skates is not centered like on the right (and on all regular ice skates) but shifted a bit to the left.  That’s because skaters are racing around a small oval and always leaning left, so having the left blade in the center would make the athlete imbalanced.
 
There was a fascinating oddity in the first run of the Women’s Giant Slalom.  The first skier did the run in 1:03:97.  The second skier’s time was -- 1:03:97.  And those two held a long time until the tenth skier, who made her run in -- 1:03:97!!  It was a three-way tie for a long while.  And oddly, after the second and final run (times are combined), there were two skiers tied for first place until the very last skier – Federick Brignone of Italy, who had won the Super-G with a great comeback time after suffering a devastating injury earlier in the season.  And she ended up winning the Giant Slalom, as well, for her second Gold.  In a lovely moment, the two skiers previously tied for first (and now ended up tied for the Silver Medal) ran up to Brignone and – with smiles on their faces – dropped to the knees and began to bow in high admiration with their arms outstretched.
 
In large hill ski jumping, Domen Prevc won the Gold Medal.  But what’s of note is that four Prevc siblings are ski jumpers, and together across several Olympics they’ve won nine Olympic medals.  I can only imagine what dinners are like at the Prevc house at holidays, when they all get together and debate bragging rights.
 
I’m glad to see the bobsledding competition start.  It was with the “monobob,” a single person race (for women only) that was introduced in 2022.  This was to give women the same number of bobsled events as men.  Both have the two-person bob, but men also have the four-person (which is probably my favorite, for a few reasons, one of which is – since in the bobsled, everyone is largely hidden inside the sled – I find it more fun at the beginning of the race seeing so many people jumping into the sled compared to the other disciplines).
 
The pairs figure skating began today with the short program.  I enjoy pairs for several reasons, unique to the discipline than the individual event -- the side-by-side spins (to see how they match up), the throws (to find out if the woman actually lands after being tossed 15 feet through the air...), and it's hard not to appreciate (and chuckle at) in such an aesthetic sport an element that's called the "death spiral."  Nineteen teams competed, but only the top 16 get advanced to the free skate.  I thought the U.S. team with Emily Chan and Spencer Howe, who were the Bronze Medalists in the U.S. National Championship, skated well -- from my ignorant, amateur eye, though confirmed by the announcers and point totals.  But early scores are always a bit muted to leave wiggle room for judging the skaters coming later, most of whom are higher ranked.  And the top U.S. team, Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea, who got the Silver Medal at the U.S. Nationals were easy to see why they're top contenders for a medal, just smooth as butter -- though I don't believe that's official judging terminology.  Though all the top pairs were excellent, though what was odd is how many of them had slight mistakes, even the reigning world champions from Japan struggled and dropped to fifth place.

I did note with pleasure that the first team from Italy skated their performance to an energetic version of "Volare", which is precisely how the song is supposed to go, unlike Mariah Carey's dirge rendition at the Opening Ceremony.
 
We’re going to take a little detour here and talk a bit about the announcing.
 
I think the play-by-play announcers have been very good, with the expert analysts generally doing a fairly respectable job, not excessively jingoistic and pretty objective, even when their enthusiasm for their particular sport goes into overdrive.  Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir in figure skating have seemed to have found a good balance for their solid analysis and shtick, which at one point a few Olympics back was getting too much about them, but now blends together pretty well.  I like, too, that they actually analyze during a program, rather than just sit back and say, “Let’s just watch and listen.”  I wish they’d even do more, since this is a sports event, after all, (and one that most people don’t know the specifics), not a theatrical performance.  But they do a lot more than has often been the case with others in the past.  And as always they work wonderfully with Terry Gannon.  If there’s one analyst who isn’t terribly effective, it might be Todd Richards doing the Halfpipe.  He calls out the names of the “tricks” the competitors are flying through the air – but the names are meaningless, just inside lingo, without describing what they entail, which he tends not to do much too often.  After the run, he does an acceptable job analyzing what was done, just not during it.
 
For their broadcasts, NBC once again has Snoop Dogg as a roving whatever he does.  It's such a waste.  He never seems to have put much if any time to find out anything about the subject or person he's covering, asks little of note and does next to nothing to enlighten or entertain the audience.  When I watch the Olympics, I enjoy learning about the culture and competitors.  But that requires an actual reporter or someone who at least show they care, rather than pop in and think that them being there is what makes the moment important.  It doesn't.

They're also using Stanley Tucci to do little reports on food (mostly) and culture.  "Little" is the operative term.  While he does care about the subjects he's covering -- and it shows -- he's given almost no time to say almost anything meaningful.  He did a story today on a place that makes a special pizza -- it seemed to last about 45 seconds, almost none of which showed the process.  But just him saying how unique and delicious it was.

I've long mentioned how great Mary Carillo is on these kind of reports -- smart, insightful and funny.  For those who remember the "On the Road" pieces the great Charles Kuralt did for CBS News, that's the level of what she did for Olympics Games.  (And to give her stories even a greater richness, she was an accomplished athlete herself.  In fact, a few years back, Mary Carrillo was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.)  And she's there at the Milan Games, she helped with the Opening Ceremony.  But for the past few Olympics, NBC has woefully underused her.  Pretty much only for a little bit of commentary and no around-town reports on culture, for which she excels.  The Games are still early, so I live in hope that NBC will take advantage of what they have and use Mary Carrillo more fully.  But given that they have Snoop Dogg and Stanley Tucci there, I'm not expecting it much.  And so far, up until Friday, a week later, I hadn’t seen it. 

Happily, though – it turns out that NBC is using Mary Carillo (somewhat), just not on the main broadcasts.  She’s a correspondent on the syndicated “Olympic Zone” broadcasts that appeared on many/most NBC stations right before the Primetime show.  Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to Man, there is no “Olympic Zone” website (as far as I can tell) and so no archive of the pieces Carillo has done.  But I found a piece she did for the "Olympic Zone, although I can’t embed it either.  It’s a funny one on the fine art of drinking coffee the right way in Italy.  I can't embed it, but recorded it off my computer monitor. The sound quality is tinny, but fine.  It might take a few moments to load -- or not.

The guest on this week’s Al Franken podcast is Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Editor at Slate and host of the Amicus podcast.  As the show writes, “We're joined by our good friend, Dahlia Lithwick, to cover a wide range of topics, including the courts and their role during this difficult time in American history.
 
“We start with Minnesota and the disturbing actions of ICE that have rattled the nation. From the ICE abduction of 5-year-old Liam Ramos to the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Dahlia connects the dots between eroding civil liberties and a Supreme Court that has systematically dismantled accountability.
 
“We also discuss Trump's recent FBI seizure of ballots in Georgia and what that could mean for our democracy. Dahlia issues a strong warning about where all of this could be heading and how we need to be prepared for it. Plus,

“Dahlia walks us through some of the cases currently before the Supreme Court: the further gutting of the Voting Rights Act, controversial redistricting, Trump's retribution, and tariffs.”