I think Mr.Shales column stinks. What about the singing cop from New York City. Here is a good one, the World Trade Center flag. How about the native american aspect of the telecast. Is Mr. Shales a writer or a director. He sounds like a grumpy old man who can only focus on the negative aspects of the telecast.

I am infuriated by some of the foreign press response to the openning ceremonies.especially an article written by a sports writer in kuwait, a Mr. Hafez Dahi at Al-Siyaasah. Didn’t we save their asses a few years ago

John, you’re missing a pretty damn huge point here — Shales’s column isn’t about the quality of the opening ceremonies themselves, it’s about NBC’s coverage of the ceremonies. (In fact, the only times he judges the ceremonies themselves, he says that they were amazing, like when he wrote, “the evening was dominated by glorious spectacle and that special sense of international harmony that only the Olympics can evoke.”) Focus a little on his point, and maybe you’ll notice that it doesn’t preclude your own.

Oh, and why on Earth would you think that our military action in Kuwait would mean that sportswriters in that country shouldn’t be allowed to write what they want? (Nevermind that the rest of us have no idea what he wrote that got your tailfeathers all ruffled.) It’s a special breed of people who feel that others are somehow less entitled to various freedoms because of some action we as a nation took on their nation’s behalf.