First time I noticed that Israel finally removed the 13 black mourning ribbons tied to their national flag in memory of those Israeli athletes murdered in Munich 32 years ago. Don't know when that was done, though.

Pretty much the same deal: live and little to no mention of politics, unless it specifically dealt with the Olympics. The English broadcast on the CBC had commericals, while the French broadcast didn't... so I just flipped from one to another...

Lets see the only politics that came up concerned the Korean team... the Iranian dropping out... mention of the Iraqi team being flown in by the Ausies... a moment of silence in memory of the Israeli athletes murdered in Munich... speculation as to the crowds reaction to the US team... thats all I can remember that was "political" in our broadcast.

I enjoyed that the countries entered the stadium in Greek Alphabetical order (Zimbabwe was in the middle of the line up!)

However: when almost half of these countries have water shortages and over 2Billion people do not have daily access to fresh, potable water- the 2.1million liter reflecting pool in the stadium shows that the American culture of wastefulness has left its mark on Greece.

Also- when will Congress and the FCC rebuke NBC for showing some of those nude Greeks in the interpretive dance stuff?

Since I now live in Seattle, we get one of the Canadian networks on cable. I Tivo'd their version of the opening ceremonies, which was live (I think?). the announcers did a great job. They were obviosly reading from a script, but they stuck to it, with few personal comments.

But when we watched the cermonies on NBC, OUCH! I cringed!!! Not only was it edited tremendously and filled w/ commercials (unlike the Canadian bcast), but the comments...GEEZ! So embarrassing!

nice interviews with silver medalists this morning in swimming on nbc today. of course, the girl , who lost it, did not participate. lester holt had a cheesy pingpong bit.

How else were they supposed to hold swimming events? Maybe using zero gravity pool?

reflecting pool in stadium is not used for anything except for the lavish opening ceremony.