Insight - For National Pride or cable wealth - By Michelle Libby

It’s the Olympics! I love the Olympics. When I had my daughter, I watched the games all hours of the day and night, mostly because she was up. It might have been ping pong or the steeple chase, I didn’t care, I watched it. 

On my 30^th birthday, my husband bought me a TV for under my kitchen counter, it had a 6 inch screen and we watched the opening ceremony on that at my surprise party. 

Last Friday, I was so excited to return from the day’s adventures to realize it was that time again. Olympic glory for the USA. I watched the athletes walking in to the stadium on Channel 6. It was great, clear pictures and exciting. The next day, the picture wasn’t coming in well, so I attempted to stream it on my laptop. I did that for about an hour, then it asked me to sign into a participating company to keep streaming. My company didn’t subscribe, so I got nothing.

I want to show my USA Olympic pride, but for some reason my NBC channel and my cable company won’t let me without purchasing a cable package, which we haven’t had in years. I’ve had five days of sadness, catching snatches of the Olympics at a birthday party, in recaps on another channel or at the ER at MMC (while there with a friend). I’ve also been thinking about our country. We are going through some rough times. We have forgotten about National pride while mired in political quicksand and hashtags. 

If our government wants to know a way to heal our country, have every American sit in front of a television set to watch Michael Phelps or Katie Ledecky swim. Better yet, pay for every home in America to have access to NBC for the two weeks of the summer games and again during the winter games. 

Thanks to a friend, I now know about a way to access BBC sports. Watching the Olympics from another country’s news source is fascinating. From calling us the United States of America or America, but rarely USA to the interviews with the medalists from team GB (Great Britain), it is fascinating to see how others view us, and how they report on their own teams. I love their accents and expressions like “brilliant” and “wonky”. 

Would I rather be watching British TV or American coverage? American, every day and twice when the USA gymnastics team is competing. But until NBC comes back to life or that cable company I have my Internet through realizes how important to National security and pride the Olympics are, I guess it’s off to jolly ol’ England.