On What Propaganda is Condemned and Countenanced at Pyeongchang Winter Olympics

The 23rd Winter Olympiad in Pyeongchang, South Korea had a reoccurring theme of Peace, as was evident from the Opening Ceremonies.  It was well known that athletes from North and South Korea would march as a unified team into Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium.  

One of the draws for casual sports fans to watch the Olympics is the Opening Ceremonies. The pageantry of the Opening Ceremonies, as expressed through artistic expression as well as thematic choice sets the mood for the Olympic Games.  Afterwards, there is the Parade of Nations, when all of the competitors gather in a gesture of unity and good will.  During this long march of nations, television viewers often have to endure commentary from NBC announcers to add color and context to the visuals.  Often this dialogue is pap or seems scripted.

However, when the Japanese team made their debut at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, NBC Asia correspondent Joshua Cooper Ramos offered an incredible generalization.  Ramos claimed that Koreans looked with admiration to Japan as an important example of cultural, economic and technological transformation.




Several hours after uttering this insensitive and insulting insinuation, NBC Sports issued a hasty apology.

NBC paid $967 million for broadcast rights for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and it would seem that they did not want to insult their hosts.

With that in mind, one wonders why NBC keeps pushing North Korean propaganda while covering the Winter Olympics.  No doubt that a unified Korean team marching during the Parade of Nations was a big story.  It epitomizes the international aspiration of brotherhood and exemplifies the Pyeongchang Game's theme of Peace.  

[Front Center] Vice President Mike Pence [Back Center] Kim Yo Jung, sister of DPRK dictator Kim Jun Un

It is understandable that an Olympic broadcaster would want to capitalize on controversy by showing how close Vice President Mike Pence was seated to North Korean Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong during the Opening Ceremonies.




The coverage of the North Korea cheerleaders during the womens' hockey game between Korea and Switzerland does raise eyebrows.  It was a cute featurette to have a piece about the some of the 200 woman squad of  the North Korean "Army of Beauty" cheerleaders leading chants during the 0-8 rout of Korea.  Some say that the synchronized chants of the North Korea Beauty Cheerleaders stole the show. But what what telling is what they chanted and how they performed.  These NPDK cheerleaders chanted "Unity" waving "neutral" flags of a unified Korea. After each goal by their opponent, they chanted: "Cheer up!".  Perhaps that exemplifies a cultural trait.  


What has been shown but little explored are instances in which the female Beauty Squad use big heads of a Korean man.  Hmm.  Who could this be?  


It is dubious that it was an everyman Korean.  The Big Head looks rather like an idealized image of North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un. What does it say about the consequences of  "Unity".  Is that something that all Koreans also believe?

UPDATE 02/12/2018  BBC News quotes Korean media that the DPRK Army of Beauties cheerleaders were holding up big heads of Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (the first of the Hermit Kingdom's Juche post World War II dictators).  Yet the South Korean Unification Ministry insists that the cheerleaders were just holding up cut outs of "a good looking man". 

ESPN Cans Curt Schilling Over Transgender Bathroom Tweet

ESPN fired former Major League Baseball star pitcher and TV Color Commentator Curt Schilling because of sharing a meme on transgender bathrooms on Twitter.

Disney owned ESPN insisted that the company was dedicated to inclusiveness, so it terminated someone with a view which different from the current politically correct line.  It is intriguing that Disney owned ABC Good Morning America report blurred out the image of a transvestite who would have been eligible to use whatever bathroom which he/she/zei felt like using.  It seems that the ideals of diversity and inclusiveness can not be particularized in a reductio ad abusurdum.


This was not Schilling's first run in with social media PR challenges.  A couple of years ago, Schilling went on attack mode against a Twitter troll who sexually harassed his daughter  sparked by congratulations over admission to Salve Regina University.

Later in 2015, Schilling was suspended from covering the Little League World Series for sharing a controversial tweet which compared Muslim "population infiltration" with Nazis.

There seems to be an academic and corporate corporate push to be intolerant towards "ciscentrism" and those who do not acquiesce to "the new normal" regarding self designated transgendered bathroom fluidity. It is dubious if ESPN would punish an employee for sharing progressive political memes.

Bruce Springsteen, et ali, have forgone concerts in North Carolina while the Bathroom Law is in effect. The NBA has threatened to pull the All Star game unless the Tar Heel State relents on traditional notions that those with male genetalia should not evacuate their excrement around little girls. During a NBC Today Townhall meeting, Manhattan mogul Donald Trump insisted that just not worrying about transgenders using whatever bathroom they like is no problem.

From its inception, DC-Jockularity recognized the convergence of sports and public policy.  ESPN's aggressive application of standards reinforces the idea that ABC/Disney/ESPN is a progressive entity which pushes its agenda even unto sports coverage and will not brook dissent.

Joe Garagiola on Baseball

Joe Garagiola, a major league baseball player who evolved into a long broadcasting career at the age of 90.  Garagiola was a journeyman catcher who played for nine seasons in the majors for the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants.  After his retirement from baseball, Garagiola wrote the book "Baseball is a Funny Game" (1960).  That helped launch his broadcast career.

But Garagiola was better known as the backstop panelist for NBC's Today show from 1967 to 1982 and 1990 to 1992. Garagiola also did play by play and color commentary  for NBC Sports baseball telecasts from 1974 to 1988.  Garagiola then spent a season doing cable commentary for the California Angels.  Afterwards, Garagiola did part time commentary for the Arizona Diamondbacks from 1998-2012 while his son was general manager for the Diamondbacks.  

All together, Garagiola broadcast for 35 years over seven decades.  No wonder why Garagiola was honored with the Ford Frick Award and inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown New York in 1991.

Keeping to his lighthearted take on life, Garagiola quipped that the only way that he could get into Cooperstown was as a broadcaster.

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Striking a Pose at the Sochi Winter Olympics?

Johnny Weir's flamboyant style in Sochi as an NBC Olympics commentator seemingly strikes a pose against Russian Federation's Gay Propaganda Law, prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality among minors. 

There have been some mixed signals at the Sochi Olympics on homosexual rights. NBC has somewhat acknowledged the Gay Rights protests amidst its fawning Russo-philic coverage of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games. Yet during the Opening Ceremony, when new IOC President Thomas Bach addressed the controversy by speaking against "discrimination of any kind", NBC cut that portion of the speech, supposedly for time considerations.

Were these time considerations to squeeze in more commercials in the tape delayed coverage for American prime time? Or is it to make time with their Russian hosts?

 Then there is the visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin stopped by the Heineken House to cavort with Dutch athletes celebrating their multiple speed skating wins in Sochi.

[L. in red jumpsuit] Vladimir Putin toasts Dutch athletes at Heinekin House, Sochi, Russia

 Putin congratulated Ireen Wust, the gold medal winner of the 3000 meter race, who is openly bisexual. As the Russian President was leaving the Netherland's athlete compound, Wust gave Putin a quick hug.




Is the rainbow protest a cause celebre which is full of sound and fury signifying nothing? Or are the hosts manipulating the world's perception of a less tolerant regime by tailored coverage and empty gestures?

Drama with the US Womens' Olympic Skating Team– Go Figure!

[From L to R] Polina Edmunds, Gracie Gold, Mirai Nagasu and Ashley Wagner (photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Figure Skating fanatics who watched the U.S. Championship in Boston this weekend may be scratching their heads at the selection for the U.S. Womens’ Figure Skating squad.  At the competition, Gracie Gold glided into a first place finish, with 15 year old Polina Edmunds coming in second and Vancouver Olympic veteran Mirai Nagasu took third.

Two time national champion Ashley Wagner fell twice her long performance in the U.S. Championships and came in fourth. The 22 year old Wagner, a graduate of West Potomac (MD) High, was so chagrined at her routine that she mouthed “I’m sorry.”  as she left the ice. Wagner labeled her performance in Boston as being a “tearful little wimp out on the ice.”   Yet when the U.S. Figure Skating Association announced its selections to represent the United States in the XXII Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia Federation, Wagner made the team and Nagasu did not.




Before the selection committee’s decision, the 20 year old Mirai Nagasu emoted:

 Hopefully, they pick me to the team. I haven’t always been the most consistent skater, but I know I’m always good under pressure – most of the time. The only thing I can brag about now is I’m the only person with Olympic experience. I’ll have to respect any choice that they make.

Nagasu had a few factors which worked against her.  She finished fourth in the Vancouver Games, and she came into the U.S. Championship without a full time coach.  After learning her fate of not making the Olympic team, Nagasu free skate was filled with tears.

Mirai Nagasu Free Skate routine at 2014 U.S. Championships

USFSA President Patricia St. Peter explained that the selection decision making included the most recent nationals but was not ruled by that competition.  The USFSA considers performance over the last year.  St. Peter said: “If you look at Ashley Wagner’s record and performance, she’s got the top credentials of any of our female athletes.”  Wagner finished fifth in the 2013 world championships and won a Bronze medal at the Grand Prix final.

Ashley Wagner

In reaction to being named as part of the Sochi Olympic squad, Wagner said: “"I'm happy that my federation was able to see beyond one bad skate.”  This was after a sleepless night with Face Time, a big glass of wine and watching the film “The Seven Year Itch”.  It was a marked contrast to Wagner’s  pre-nationals statement that:

 "I don’t want to feel like I am taking away an Olympic spot from someone.  I want to earn it.  That’s my goal here. For me, I need to get in the top three to really feel good with myself being on the Olympic Team."

Figure Skating is renowned for being an art as much as a sport, and there certainly are elements of drama associated with it.  Some disappointed Nagasu supporters have proffered that racism drove the decision to exclude Nagasu from the Olympic squad. I am highly skeptical of this charge, but I do think that marketing may have in part drove the decision.

At the XXI Winter Olympiad, the US Womens’ Figure Skating Team was kept off the dais for the first time since the Innsbrook, Austria Games of 1964.  So the USFSA wanted to hedge their bets with a stronger overall prospect rather than a “fluke”.  And Nagasu not having a full time coach might have hurt her in backroom negotiations.


 However Ms. Wagner, with her string of recent wins (aside from the 2014 US Nationals) may be easier to market rather than Ms. Nagasu, who Tara Lipinski noted had a hard year and was not expected to do well.   With US Woman Skier Lindsey Vonn not participating in Sochi due to injuries, having another marketable woman's star would be useful for NBC to hype it's $775 million investment for broadcasting 1,500 hours of the Sochi Olympics.

The wisdom of the USFSA inclusion of Ashley Wagner will soon be evident when the Olympic Games kick off in Sochi on February 6th.