Is anyone watching this ghastly OLYMPICS Opening Ceremony display on NBC?
I thought the opening sequence was a muddied mess. Maybe it was more impressive in person; it looked like shit on a very large television. I felt sorry for that poor child flung across the stadium on wires.
I think that Equality Karma prevented that last Olympic ring snowflake from opening. I have to say my first thought was "Gooooooooooooooooood." I'm sure the Pooter was pissed!
I can't believe all these team "escorts" with the goofy Vegas headdresses (one looks like Stewie's head--football shaped!) and slit skirts and go-go boots! Who designed their costumes--Austin Powers? All they need is machine guns in their, er, chest region and they'd be fembots! AP played that for laughs....Pootie is serious.
The USSR anthem tune for the Pootie-directed 'Russian' National Anthem--weird. Like rebooting the Cold War.
Can't wait to see Putin's girlfriend running the flame into the stadium. Corruption and romance, all of a piece!!!
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Stop making excuses for American audiences. They're just as capable of taking to teh Google to figure out what's going on, to learn the significance of something or someone...
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Why America Didn’t Get To Meet Emeli Sandé In The Olympics Opening Ceremony
http://b96.cbslocal.com/2012/07/30/why-america-didnt-get-to-meet-emeli-sande-in-the-olympics-opening-ceremony/
Seriously, Ryan Seacrest yammering away was preferable?
clearly futuristic, science fiction. Because you don't see it doesn't make it not so.
Tawdry? Oooh doggy, I cannot wait for Rio!
Poor American audiences! My goodness, NBC will really have its work cut out ... I can hear Matt Lauer stammering now.
This would be fun, too, in the colors of the Olympic rings:
I'm not seeing "so many here" viewing the "gay thing" as a distraction, so again, we disagree.
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laboring alongside Snowden!
Cheers, Cold Warrior!
I like real estate. 
I live in North Carolina. You can stop preaching to me about "unwanted" gay people (state constitution amended thanks to a 61-39% vote banning "gay marriage," which was shameful). Maybe Putin will "evolve," like Obama. Although Putin has a much longer way to go on the evolutionary scale...
Pac Man-ish dancer, who ran a bit too far during the flag number. Perhaps another nonconformist like the snowflake? It was during this, and it was adorable:
S/he eventually made it back into line, thank goodness, for according to some, hard labor was on the horizon...
all that's missing is David Wildstein on a giant screen wearing a Ushanka
Telling us all how great things are in Sochi and Russia.
POOTIE decided to bring the old one back (with revised lyrics). Here's the last one:
Music by: Mikhail Glinka
In use: 1990-2000
Russia's first anthem adopted upon independence from the Soviet Union was a piece by the national hero of composing, Mikhail Glinka. Glinka's works were also no stranger to consideration as national anthems for Russia, for example during the spring of 1917 when a new national anthem was needed after the last czar abdicated, some people proposed that any work from Glinka's opera "A Life for the Czar" be considered as a new national anthem. This piece may have been intended for that work.
The notes for this piece was found in the papers of Glinka in the late 19th century. Written in the same format as the score for "A Life for the Czar" (known in Soviet times as "Ivan Susanin"
, it was suggested it could have been intended for this opera. However, the title that Glinka gave it, "Motif de Chant Nationale" suggests it could have been written as an entry for a national anthem contest, possibly for the national anthem of 1833 (which was around the time that this opera was being written). It has also been pointed out that the tune appears in a 16th century Polish hymn, and thus may not be original to Glinka. The title "The Patriotic Song" was given to it in 1944 when the melody was arranged for the "All-Union Radio Committee of the USSR".
In the spring of 1990, the government of the Russian SFSR (within the USSR) debated what should be the republic's anthem (it was the only one of the Soviet Republics to never adopt a national anthem), and Glinka's melody was unanimously adopted in November of that year, and consequently became the anthem of an independent Russia when independence was proclaimed just over one year later. There was some complaint among the citizens that there was no lyrics to the anthem, and so there was a competition in late 1999 to compose words for the anthem. The contest was won in November 1999 by Victor Radugin with his poem "Славься, Россия!" "Slav'sya, Rossiya!" (Be glorious, Russia!), but, upon President Yeltsin's resignation at the end of the following month, the words never became official, as the new president favoured the old Soviet melody, which was later adopted.
for you. Your lack of awareness as to the situation on the ground in Mother Russia is, well, laughable. No--sad. Very sad, indeed. You have some reading up to do, I think.
Have a nice day.
I'm no critic though.
Now, revolution!!!
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I just Googled this:
Chevy Olympic ads feature gay couples
http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Chevy-Olympic-ads-feature-gay-couple-5215141.php
And we're back to the Coke commercial... wingnut heads exploding!
The fireworks and the technical imagery were the best thing about this hot mess. The bigoted Pootie dictator is simply unforgivable. Nothing to "enjoy" about that asshole.
It was OTT revisionist "history"--closer to fantasy--and I think they wasted their money. They should have spent it on silly things, like finishing the athletes' rooms, running water that wasn't poisoned, and bathrooms that offer a modicum of privacy....! If they really wanted to be sports, they could have rounded up the dogs and tried to find them homes instead of killing them off wholesale.
http://consumerist.com/2014/02/07/olympics-reporter-uses-clothesline-tape-to-deal-with-lack-of-shower-curtain/
*Because Snowden.*
Enough of this toxicity (and not just the water).
Aaaah, better...
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How about "because" this:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/photos-from-russia-everyone-needs-to-see
There's a whole storyboard there--and not one picture of Eddie. You might want to check it out, if you dare.
I think it's amazing that so many people can ignore Equality "because Snowden."
And they can ignore the elimination of the opposition press "because Snowden."
But hey--whatever helps you to sleep at night.
Were you this outraged during the Shanghai Olympics? Displaced poor, censorship and human rights violations, pollution, bile bears, slaughtered rhino boner pills. And isn’t this where the “pretty girl” lip-synched to the actual singing of the “not as pretty girl”? Not cool, China!
What will you latch onto during the upcoming Rio Olympics? Crime, abject poverty, fraud?
How about abuses right here in the good ol’ U S of A?
http://uwire.com/uwire/wp-content/themes/gazette/thumb.php?src=
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And this:
in response to this:
Perhaps “so many” really aren’t ignoring all of this at all, they’re just taking a more thoughtful approach.
Glass houses, you know.
that's your first mistake.
And there it is: the swipe at a "supposedly progressive board." Like clockwork.
We will just add pink eye to the list of what awaits people in Sochi.
Let's all have a shit and a visit, shall we?
What? Don't have to poop? Well, come along and brush your teeth, and join the fun!!!!
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Oh, and some branches don't call 'em barracks anymore--they're DORMS in the USAF--like you're off to college!
It's an All Volunteer Force--in these times, people don't put with the same stuff that draftees put up with, back in the day.
Airman 1st Class Katie Davis of the 45th Medical Support Squadron stands in her dorm room on Patrick Air Force Base. The room won the prize of Best Dorm ...
It's, of course, all recorded, even here, but it should be coming up for you soon!!!
They just showed Pootie's girlfriend--she looks young enough to be his granddaughter....I'm sure she looked into his eyes and saw his soul, too ...
I just watched the late night replay. It was very ethereal.
Now for a quick nap before the skating starts.
beautiful!
I think I heard them say before it started that each host country was charged with sending out its own "dove of peace", and that's what those dancers were supposed to represent.
Seen from above, they did appear to be doves flapping their wings at times.
And then when they isolated the dancers and virtually manipulated the background to simulate actual flight...I thought it was very moving.
I guess the few things that "impressed" me were no big whoop, then! I liked the lights, I liked the singing (even though much of it was, as someone else said, a bit "joyless" and I thought the fireworks were kind of cool. That whole fantasy thing at the start was painful, but I did LOVE LOVE LOVE the NONCONFORMIST FIFTH RING!
That was the highlight of the whole thing!
And they are a theater band.
Unless of course you are one of these folks:
GO USA!!!!
Do you routinely insult people in such a grievous manner when you disagree with them?
That's a pretty nasty comment, ya know!
I'm not making personal digs at you because I have a difference of opinion....
But hey, you've got nothing left, so now you're making shit up.
The women leading the athletes did look like Fembots, Pootie (that's Putin, since you're affecting a clueless attitude) DID dump the first Russian Federation anthem for the USSR one (something you would know about if you'd bothered to read the thread carefully--I covered that), and Putin's girlfriend DID run into the stadium with a torch.
Now, your "complaint" is that "this type of shit" should "be in the lounge or the entertainment group."
In short--let me sum up: You don't like what I've had to say, so NOW you're complaining about a thread that is a valid General Discussion topic not being in the "right" place to suit you--solely because you don't like my opinions!
I think, if you go back down the years here at DU, you'll see DOZENS of "Olympics" threads in GD. And since you're plainly confused about what belongs in GD, let me HELP you recall what's appropriate for this forum:
The Winter Olympics is a "current event" that happens once every four years--it's BIG news. INTERNATIONAL news, covered in every country in the world. Pootie (that's Putin, again) has politicized it in an extreme fashion. For you to want to shove this topic off into the entertainment group--particularly with the overlay of the gay bigotry issue-- is, well, laughable.
Keep digging the hole--I've gotta say, you're a veritable excavator!
that's slit up to where ever, and finished off with Go Go boots.
They didn't look a thing like what Catherine the Great wore. They DID look like something Sally Rand or the naked showgirls in Vegas might wear. Some of them were shaped like Stewie Griffin's head.
They're apparently in reference to a "Snow Maiden" of myth---that accounts for the odd shape(s).
I rather doubt they are meant to be worn with cheesy seventies-style "stewardess" outfits, though.
Russian traditional clothing (which has some nexus with Persian tribal clothing) is quite remarkable--why not riff on that, instead of Hooters Airlines? They could have done a modern take on that, instead of Fembot chic...
Not sure what "America the Beautiful" has to do with this...but then, there are people who don't know what the tune to the Russian (former USSR) anthem is, these days, either...granted, they have an excuse--it's been changed three times in the last quarter century.
Pootie approved it all, though--so it IS his taste.
Are we getting to the root of the problem, MA? Naked showgirls, fembots, Hooters waitresses, sexy stewardesses... those outfits seem to have *really* gotten to you.
The mighty Putin approved everything down to the headgear? Impressive! And just because you can't see "kokoshnik" around the go-go boots doesn't make it not so:
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Something along these lines would have been cuter, and better showcased against the white stadium backdrop:
But it seems like quite a silly thing to get bent out of shape over.
