Warning: Construction Zone

I'm sure that many of you watch the olympics every night and find new heros to root for. Well, so do I. Actually watching the olympics can become that highlight of my day. But after our discussion about the difference between men's and women's sports and the construction of each sport. I then began to wonder about the construction of the olympics, specifically the construction of the airtime for each sport.

There are fifteen official sports at the Vancouver Winter Games and they certainly don't get equal airtime. Of course NBC favors the american athletes and gives the big stories the most air time. We get to know each athlete and their life story, but do we really need to know all this. Yes, I do love watching the interviews and the inspirational journey to the olympics. But at what cost

I am a big hockey fan, and I watched the awesome game yesterday of the United States Mens team vs. Canada's Mens team. I was disappointed to find out that it was not on NBC, but pushed to MSNBC. There was so much hype about the game and the game itself was such a great game to watch (If you were american). What is interesting to me is that traditionally The more popular sports on American TV are team sports, yet hockey was pushed to the secondary network while Ice Dancing got Primetime. Now I really don't mean to rail on Ice Dancing, I enjoy that too, in fact I am currently watching the Ice Dancing free Skate as I write, but it is curious to me that a sport that so many americans regularly follow gets pushed back fro a sport that we watch once every four years.

Have you noticed any trends in air time for sports? How do you think NBC has constructed what they put in Primetime and what they leave for other networks?

Senate's Apology

During our discussions in class about reparations, I found myself remembering hearing about an apology from the government for slavery. I then found an article reporting just that, a formal apology from the Senate.

The interesting aspect of this apology is that the Senate specifically stated that it cannot be seen as a form of reparation. The reason this is so interesting to me is that during our class discussions we all seemed to come to the consensus that the best form of reparation does not  necessarily include a check but rather an apology. I agree with this, at this point in time I don't think that money is going to heal any wounds that were created by slavery. If it were during the time of reconstruction, I think monetary reparation would be completely appropriate. In fact the US government attempted this by giving all former slaves 40 acres and a mule, but that solution clearly failed.

This resolution was seen as an "important and significant milestone" by Senator Tim Harkin, but throughout the article we were reminded that this apology should not be seen as a form of reparation for slavery. But why can't it be? Even if no monetary compensation has been made, I believe that an apology is worth much more. Especially in a time where it would be very difficult to determine who deceives that check.

However, even though I believe that the time for monetary compensation for slavery has passed, I think that this apology was very appropriate, no matter how overdue. I would even support a separate apology and some sort of monetary compensation to those African Americans still alice who endured the Jim Crow laws.