Colorless American Olympians

I'm an Olympics nerd.

But my whole family is too. When we were kids, our parents, especially my mom would make us watch both Olympics from opening to closing ceremony with every event, competition, game, routine and match-up in between. She insisted that we needed to appreciate the athletes and out country.

One winter Olympics I remember was 22 years ago: Calgary 1988. The star of those games was an ice skater and her name was Debbie Thomas. She was the first American woman to be a gold medal contender in years bringing athleticism and power to a sport that had been heretofore dancy, flippy, dramatic and almost silly. To make it more exciting, she had an archrival in Katarine Witt, the product of the evil communist East German sports machine.

Debbie Thomas is black. I didn't realize that at the time. Not that I didn't know. I just didn't care. It just didn't matter. She was American. She was ours.

OK- don't get me wrong I don't hold myself up as a model of racial harmony. My sentiment is not a reflection of me but rather the times. No one made a big deal out of Debbie Thomas being black or minority or African American. No one profiled her from that angle. Dick Button didn't ask about the additional pressure of being black and a skater... it just didn't matter.

This Olympics, 22 years later, every time NBC shows Shani Davis the speed skater, Bob Costas and crew comment on his color. For them, it is not enough that he is a top American athlete representing our nation. No, for NBC, Shani is an African American athlete. And for some reason that's different. At least in their eyes.

I think in 22 years we've gone backwards and we are worse off than before. When Chris Matthews remarked after President Obama's State of the Union "I forgot he was black tonight", he revealed a much deeper, divisive and rather sinister undercurrent of thought. Does that mean that on a regular day he always sees President Obama as black? Odd... because I think most people just see him as President. Sure I see him as a bad, bad President but... not because he's black. Neither was Carter.

I will be routing for Shani tonight in his 1500 meter event and hope he gets another gold. But not because he's black. Because he's an American Olympian. I think that's reason enough.

NBC: Proud as a Peacock and Arrogant, too

"There's a huge responsibility to be the person who holds people accountable but who also helps people understand what's really happening. It's who I am."
-David Gregory

"We've been given a grave responsbility. We have to explain these very complex issues and we have to make sense of it all."
-Brian Williams

I'll be watching a lot of NBC for the next couple of days because I am an Olympics junkie. Sports that I know nothing about, sports that are really inferior and kind of stupid like the broom shuffleboard and ski/shoot/do a shot of yeager biathalon suddenly captivate me.

The downfall to Olympic fever is late nights, newfound dislike of China and Russia and NBC commentary. What I wouldn't give to have Scott Van Pelt rather than Bob Costas and crew. At least they have Chris Berman.

In between events, NBC bombards us with promos and one such ad caught my attention: NBCs self love of their news. I kept hitting rewind on my TIVO to capture the quotes correctly and transcribe them accurately. Who wrote those lines and how damn arrogant are they? What do they think about the average viewer?

We don't need Brian Williams and especially David Gregory to EXPLAIN things to us. Nor is that their job. Aren't they supposed to BROADCAST the news and let us make up our own minds? HA! Not in their worldview. Leave it to THEM to explain and that way we all think the same way... their way.

(Sarcastic voice over) And these issues are SOOOOOOO complex. I mean really, really complex you can't expect to understand them alone! But fear not- they see the gravity of their responsibility- a huge responsibility. To explain it all to you. You dumbasses at home.

In the election of 1988, SNL did a skit about HW Bush and Michael Dukakis in which Jon Lovitz playing the Massachusetts governor talked about his parents as "little people. Little swarthy people". It's the same sentiment- funny, the same network too except SNL is satire and Williams and Gregory are supposed to be serious.

Who can take this network seriously? So thanks, Brian Williams and David Gregory for looking out for us people, us little people. Little dumb people who need your explanation. Now shut up. You too Matt Lauer and Tom Brokaw.

Thank you Lord for the mute button...

Million Man (Snow) March

DC was some interesting last week. Covered in snow, food shortages, a city utterly incapable of maintaining services from snow removal to public transit. Government ineptitude was on display as like Hurricane Katrina but without the same level of drama and a Republican President to blame.

But what strikes me the most is not Mayor Fenty's inefficiency or total lack of planning. No, it was the 4 days of federal government closure.

Two million people did not work for four days. That's 64 million manhours of unrealized work, of non-productivity. And no one noticed. Satellites orbited the earth. Planes stayed in the sky. China did not invade, Russia did not have it's Red Dawn moment.

So the question: what do these people do all day? If the entire federal government bureaucracy was M.I.A. for four consecutive days and nothing changed at all- well I think it goes without saying that a level of superfluousness exists.

We are $1.7 trillion over budget this year. I know a place to make some cuts. Recently an audit of the Transportation Department stated that over 1600 people make over $170,000. Wow. Just think of that- 1600+ people who do not produce, manufacture, sell, create or market anything. They regulate your life. And that's Transportation.

Wouldn't you love to see audits of Labor and Energy and Commerce and State and Interior and Agriculture and Treasury and EPA and FTC and SEC and FEC and Defense and CIA and FBI and Education... want me to go on?

And all these people, these 6-figure regulators stayed home for 4 days because of the snow. You didn't notice, did you? Yeah, me neither.

But I did notice when I got my paycheck.

Hope you enjoyed the vacation, federal workers. Your welcome.

Thanks Al Gore

As I weather through the second major snowstorm, not counting 3 minor snow falls that didn't cripple but only annoyed the nation's capital, my thoughts go to Al Gore and his Global Warming...er... climate change profiteers.

I guess the earth is so hot (how hot is it?!?) that we have had record snowfalls in our city. Maybe such accumulation is atypical for Washington DC. Maybe the climate really is in constant flux- something that we used to call WEATHER.

So as Al and his buddies at East Anglia U continue to hide the decline- as Tom Friedman pushes his book about the earth being hot and overcrowded, I'm hoping one of them will shovel my walk. I mean they are in this field because of societal commitment, right? They aren't in it for the money. As Dennis Miller once joked "beware of the prophet making a profit".

So Al- get your shovel and remove my 20+ inches of snow. And don't forget the salt.