Olympics anyone?

Every Friday evening, the television we usually watch is on our local PBS station that airs some of the best news programs recapping an entire week. Last night, for some technical reasons, the reception was so sporadic that we switched to NBC in order to catch the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. We saw them in HDTV and where amazed at the level of sophistication that now goes into an Olympic opening. It’s clearly like the latest edition wants to outdo the previous one, thus escalating production costs, the perfect recipe for exacerbating the excess commercialism the games have come to represent. Before falling to sleep, we also watch the seemingly interminable and non-alphabetic parade of nations; with nothing really new in that department except the occasional creative outfits and in fact, more of the same, year after year. This morning, all these costumes are mixed up in my mind and I will only remember the lone Iranian flag-bearer with her legal-hide-everything-outfit. To me, and I’ve said that before, the games have become too sophisticated and so complex that they’re slowly but surely choking the humanity that should remain their fundamental fabric. I feel very sympathetic with the participating athletes that will have to endure scorching heat and dirty air. I only hope that soon the technicians restore our PBS reception and that instead of watching the endless commercial for Nike, Adidas and GM, brought to me and carefully “processed” by NBC, we’ll spend the rest of August doing a lot more running, walking and mountain biking instead of staying glued before an Olympic screen…