Olympic Winners

For a woman living in a retirement community who does not cook, wash dishes, clean house, or even change the sheets on my bed, I don’t have much “leisure” time. For the past two weeks I’ve spent as many hours as I can watching the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

I am disappointed by NBC’s coverage of the games. All I heard was about U.S. athletes and all their medals.

What about giving recognition to athletes from other countries? One time I heard mention that 15 countries won only one medal each.

I cheered when Norwegians won all those gold medals in skiing. Then I cheered even more when a skier from Belarus bested them and claimed a gold.

How about those Czech girls who skated to inch over the finish line in front of the U.S. team to win a bronze medal? Instead of giving them an on-camera interview, the reporter put his microphone and camera on the disappointed U.S. skaters.

People in other countries, especially in the Middle East, hate us. That is not a surprise when we keep telling them that we are better than they are. That’s called jingoism, and it is a dirty word.