Olympic Fever

Here I sit, watching the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games. We used to really watch a lot of the Olympics when they were on every four years, and coverage was just in the evenings. However, like everything else these days, the Olympics have grown bigger and more extravagant every year, as well as being on every two years, alternating winter and summer games. Terry always likes to watch the pageantry of the opening ceremonies, but at the moment he is watching them through his eyelids, and I am only watching them with one jaded eye. While it's visually fantastic, it's in a language I can't understand, and the sheer amount of people involved boggles the mind. The cost of such pageantry must be staggering, and yet so many of the Chinese people are poor and politically repressed. While I don't usually spend a lot of time worrying about such things, the juxtaposition of this humongous and decadent performance with the pictures you see of poor people toiling away in the fields is incongruous, at best. It makes you wonder if the money for these ever more extravagant opening ceremonies could not be better spent on pollution control (in this case) and better lifestyles for more of the people who live in the country hosting the event. I think the opening ceremonies would be more interesting and impressive if they just did the parade of the teams and the presentation of the Olympic torch. Instead, each time there is an Olympics, the host country tries to outspend and outperform the countries who preceded it. Very wasteful...

Now for the next sixteen days, we will have endless coverage of events large and small on the several networks owned by NBC. And not only will we see the sport performances, we will be "treated" to heartwarming and heartrending backstories of the athletes and more about China than you may ever want to know. I root for the American athletes, but I must admit that all the hoopla becomes tiresome in short order. There are lots of other things to watch on television. For example, I am missing new episodes of two of my favorite shows, "Monk" and "psych," tonight. However, the old guy in this house likes the Olympics (even through his eyelids!), so I am glad we have DVR on our cable. I can watch my favorite programs at our convenience. Life is good...

Oh, and the picture above has nothing to do with the title, as you can tell, but I painted it this week, and it's rapidly becoming one of my favorite paintings.