I watched the Parade of Nations during the Olympic opening ceremonies late last night, and just had a few thoughts. First off, that footstep flag thing was brilliant! Coolest thing ever! Secondly, where did all of these countries come from….and why have I never heard of them? I mean, I pride myself on nailing all of Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” questions, but instead of the country coming next showing up at the bottom of the screen…a map would have been nice. The commentators did do a good job at adding in the country’s location in the world, but still, a map would have been cool! I knew Europe and Russia had changed since I was in school, but HOLY COW!!! Africa seems to have exploded with 15 new countries and islands I’ve never heard of!
Next, I found it so interesting that there is always an undercurrent of politicism, whether it’s on the part of the individual (me) or the commentator or even the crowd, yet the athlete’s themselves seemed immune to it. The team from Israel walked in a few countries before the Palestinian one, and my thoughts went to their struggles, but both teams walked in smiling and waving and snapping pictures. The color commentary as the teams marched was interesting too. The Russian teams were completely unaware of the serious military action going on in their country, the French President was waiting to hear how warm a welcome his team would get and nice to see that Iraq got a really warm reception due to their IOC problems. And the strangest…the President of Venezuela (Chavez) has moved his countries time zone so that it sits 30 minutes ahead of NYC! HUH???? Did you notice how hard it was to tell from the faces in the parade just what country they were from? They call America a melting pot, but that pot has boiled over. All through Europe you had Africans, Asians and Blonds all representing one country. Africa too had a rainbow of faces. When I lived in Japan, we were the only light haired people we ever saw, and Japan had a strictly Asian team…but Polynesia has “melted”, even some of the Caribbean Islands seem to have melted. It was cool to see!
Most cool…the reception of the United States team. Aside from the home team of China, the United States had the warmest reception. All you hear in the media today is how hated we are, how we are the bane of the world’s existence. But not last night…we were beloved! I watched the faces of the athletes walking in. They looked so sweet…and then the thugs hit! Did you see it? You went from cute, happy faces to the Thugs from the NBA! Rapist Kobe was up first, Carmelo “Multiple Arrests” Anthony was up next, and Jason “Wife Beater” Kidd brought up the rear. They are calling themselves the “Redeem Team”…one can only hope!