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London Olympics - News & Views
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: southendmd on July 28, 2012, 05:38:11 pm ---5
--- End quote ---
Thanks, Paul.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Cool to be a Clueless Fool Dep't:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/five_ring_circus/2012/07/28/nbc_olympics_coverage_meredith_vieira_think_it_s_cool_to_be_ignorant_.html
Meredith Vieira at the
Opening Ceremony:
It’s Cool To Be Ignorant
By Josh Levin
Posted Saturday,
July 28, 2012,
at 11:01 AM ET
Meredith Vieira joked about her own
ignorance at the opening ceremony.
The opening ceremony of the London Olympics featured loads of references that were lost on American viewers who aren’t familiar with, say, the particulars of Britain’s National Health Service. When unfamiliar facts arise during NBC’s coverage, you can typically count on in-house smartypants Bob Costas to fill you in on the details. But with Costas on the sidelines until the parade of nations, former Today compatriots Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira instead engaged in a reverse battle of wits, fighting it out to see who knew least. Vieira came out on top.
Some have complained that NBC’s talking heads chattered too much during the ceremony. I take issue more with how they chattered. At the top of the bizarre set piece celebrating the virtues of texting, Vieira explained that World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee would soon be making an appearance. "If you haven't heard of him, we hadn’t either," she said.
Later, Lauer and Vieira described the technology that was lighting up the audience. “These are little pixel screens at every seat that allows the creative team here to actually turn the crowd into a giant LED screen,” Lauer noted. Vieira’s jokey response: “One more thing I don’t understand.”
Aside from Chris Berman-esque nicknaming, this is my least favorite sportscasting tic. Vieira is surely very intelligent. She has an army of researchers by her side both before and during the opening ceremony. And yet, likely out of a desire to seem more “relatable,” she plays dumb. This reverse snobbery is insulting to viewers—if she acts dumb, how do you think she feels about the yokels watching on the boob tube?—and perpetuates the poisonous idea that it’s uncool to know stuff.
A polite request for Meredith Vieira: Instead of chuckling that you don’t understand how the stadium’s light show works, get someone to teach you so you can explain it to people at home. You would learn something, and so would we.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/us-news-blog/2012/jul/28/nbc-olympics-opening-ceremony
NBC lambasted over banal butchering
of opening ceremony – and rightly so
Tim Berners-Lee? Who's that? Madagascar?
Oh, like the kids movie! If you're going to
make us wait hours to watch the ceremony
live, NBC, the least you could have done is
keep quiet
Sir Tim Berners-Lee's 'This is for Everyone' referring to the world wide
web – everyone besides Meredith Vieira, that is.
As the Olympic torch was lit in London at the end of a three-and-a-half-hour ceremony live blogged and tweeted across the globe, NBC finally began to broadcast the show – to Americans on the east coast (west coast viewers had to wait another three hours for their turn).
Commentators Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira reunited for the cameras as if it was Beijing 2008 – or the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, or just a regular morning in 2011.
Theirs was the job of interpreting, explaining and trampling all over Danny Boyle's fast-paced, high-def presentation of Great Britain from the time of maypoles and hay bales to the current day. And they did what they were paid to do.
In the early part of the broadcast, commentary was restrained. Matt and Meredith didn't speak over every song, and they only interrupted each other every so often.
Much of the early local cultural references may have been lost on a US audience, and to their credit the cheery duo did a valiant job trying to explain the Beefeaters, the Industrial Revolution, and the National Health Service.
"Some very big surprises lie ahead," said Matt cutting to a commercial break as reports of the show from those who had watched it live began to flood the internet.
He was referring to the "entry" of Her Majesty the Queen into the Olympic Stadium. Matt was beside himself at the prospect of it. He was DYING to tell us what would happen.
Luckily for us the set up for the Queen's entrance was a video of Daniel Craig as James Bond escorting her into a helicopter.
In a rare display of self-control NBC let the pre-shot video sections of the ceremony play without interruption. As Matt Lauer would say, "We thank them for that."
Meredith disappeared two hours into the show and Matt was joined by Parade of Nations veteran Bob Costas for the marathon task of introducing the individual nations to America.
The two men lobbed their factoids of "Olympic trivia" as they called them back and forth with fluent ease.
A couple of examples from Matt, who edged out Bob for the gold medal in triviality: "From the I-did-not-know-that-file, Denmark is the most competitive non-Asian country in Badminton."
And, "Madagascar – for our younger viewers a country associated with a few animated movies."
At this point of the broadcast a Storify called Shut Up Matt Lauer began to circulate on Twitter.
The most egregious moment of commentary had come earlier when Matt and Meredith mentioned that there was to be a tribute to "someone" called Tim Berners-Lee.
"If you haven't heard of him, we haven't either," chuckled Meredith about the inventor of the world wide web sitting on stage.
"Google him," laughed Matt with no apparent sense of irony.
Three and half hours into the broadcast the United States team appeared in the Parade of Nations and promptly took out their cellphones, snapping pictures and shooting videos of each other as they walked through the stadium.
It was an odd moment that somehow synthesized the lack of spontaneity of the whole television experience.
Ten minutes later the home team of Brits finally entered to David Bowie's Heroes, a blizzard of white confetti, and an overwhelming roar of gusty cheering.
"Let's sit back and listen," said Bob. And we did – for 20 seconds before Matt started up again.
"Seven billion pieces of paper have just been released into the air over this Olympic Stadium …"
By now the two men just couldn't stop. They talked all the way through The Arctic Monkeys singing Come Together. They talked through the stadium announcers.
They briefly held back for Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Olympic Committee, and for the Queen, who declared the Games officially open.
But the minute the Olympic flag appeared at the end of her words they started up again. And from then on they didn't stop talking till the fireworks at the end. If only NBC had cut some of their banality.
But the network chose to let them run on in their entirety.
Other portions of the ceremony weren't so lucky. The Sex Pistol's Pretty Vacant was largely missing from NBC's coverage, other than the briefest of snippets either side of yet another commercial break.
Meanwhile the arrival of Saudi Arabia's first female athletes never made it onto American television nor did a memorial package displayed in the stadium on big screens.
Instead, as a taste of what we can expect in the days and weeks to come, NBC interrupted exciting and emotional television for a static Ryan Seacrest studio interview with Michael Phelps.
By the end of the night three and a half hours of live action had become four and a half hours of tedium and #nbcfail was trending on Twitter. It was an award rightly earned.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://deadspin.com/5929778/heres-the-opening-ceremony-tribute-to-terrorism-victims-nbc-doesnt-want-you-to-see
Here’s The Opening Ceremony
Tribute To Terrorism Victims
NBC [Didn't] Want You To See
By Timothy Burke
Jul 27, 2012 10:55 PM
Click and scroll to see the full video
The major transitional element of today's London Olympics opening ceremony was a downtempo performance of adoptive sporting anthem "Abide With Me" by Scottish singer Emeli Sandé. The song and accompanying dance were a tribute to the victims of the 7/7 terror attacks in London that claimed 52 victims days after the 2012 Summer Olympic hosts were named. (It's also been suggested the performance was a memorial to the war dead.)
Regardless, it was a rather significant and emotional moment in the opening ceremony, coming just before the parade of nations—and it wasn't aired in the United States. Instead, viewers were treated to a lengthy and meaningless Ryan Seacrest interview of Michael Phelps. NBC regularly excises small portions of the opening ceremony to make room for commercials, but we've never heard of them censoring out an entire performance—especially to air an inane interview. We've asked NBC why they didn't air the tribute, and if they get back to us we'll let you know what they say. In the meantime, enjoy the performance everyone else in the world saw. [BBC]
Update (12:25 a.m.): Some readers have commented the official media guide to the opening ceremony makes no reference to 7/7. The sheer number of news stories that cite the performance as a tribute to its victims (as well as the performance itself) gives us pretty good confidence that the memorial was its theme. Here's the prepared BBC remarks as aired:
Ladies and gentlemen, please pause silent for our memorial wall for friends and family who can't be here tonight. The excitement of that moment in Singapore seven years ago when England won the games was tempered the next day with sorrow from the events of July 7th that year. A wall of remembrance for those no longer here to share in this event.
Metro reporter Cassandra Garrison told me the segment's choreographer Akram Khan did not mention 7/7 in his press conference on the performance, explaining it instead to be about "mortality."
SEE ALSO: Opening Ceremony Choreographer "Disheartened And Disappointed" NBC Cut His Entire Performance Out Of Their Broadcast
Sophia:
Bhopal victims organize protest Special Olympics Games
Disabled children suffering the effects of the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India are to take part in a "Special Olympics" on Thursday to protest against London 2012 sponsor Dow Chemical.
The event is aimed at raising awareness about the legacy of birth defects and pollution from the accident at a factory owned by US chemical company Union Carbide, which was bought by Dow in 1999, organizers said Tuesday.
The plant leaked poisonous gas into neighboring slums in Bhopal, killing thousands instantly and tens of thousands more over the following years in the world's worst industrial accident.
The "Bhopal Special Olympics" will see at least 100 physically and mentally disabled children compete on a sports field in the shadow of the defunct factory, which still contains toxic waste left untreated by local authorities.
The contests in Bhopal -- the day before the London Games officially open -- will include football, an "assisted walk" and a "crab walk", in which participants unable to stand on two feet race on their hands.
"We are doing this mostly due to Dow's attempt to greenwash its crimes," Rachna Dhingra, a spokeswoman for the five survivors' groups behind the initiative, told AFP.
"We all find it ironic that a corporation that has disabled people in Bhopal is sponsoring the Olympic Games."
Organizers are also targeting Britain and its colonial crimes, particularly in India. The Bhopal Olympics "will open with songs and dances focusing on matters that British people could be ashamed of," Dhingra said.
The decision by London 2012 organizers to stick by Dow Chemical has caused anger in Bhopal and led to complaints from the Indian government, which asked for the company to be dropped as a sponsor.
"Our biggest qualm with (British Prime Minister) David Cameron and (chief Olympics organizer) Lord Sebastian Coe is the simple reason that they never gave the survivors of Bhopal the chance to express themselves," Dhingra said.
Dow bought Union Carbide more than a decade and half after the disaster and insists all liabilities were settled in a 1989 compensation deal that saw Union Carbide pay the Indian government $470 million.
The local and federal governments have also faced criticism in India for failing to clear the site and prevent further contamination of groundwater more than 25 years after the disaster.
Dhingra said the children in the Bhopal event were all willing participants.
"I would say 60 percent (of the children) have had training. This is part of their rehabilitation," she said.
"This is what Dow has done. There is no better way to show their crimes."
The organizers of the London Olympics and the International Olympic Committee have faced consistent questions over their choice of sponsors, including fast-food giant McDonalds and soft drink maker Coca-Cola.
After an outcry in India and speculation about a boycott by Indian athletes, London organizing officials said Dow's branding would not appear on a giant fabric wrap around the main stadium in the east of the British capital.
Read more: http://india.nydailynews.com/newsarticle/500ee6dcc3d4cae251000003/bhopal-victims-organize-protest-special-olympics-games#ixzz221fNd63z
Sophia:
Victims of Bhopal gas leak hold protest Olympics to shame London Games sponsor Dow
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