Opening Ceremonies, 2016 Summer Olympics

Okay, Rio and Brazil are in the midst of a horrible recession, so they couldn’t spend a fortune. In some ways that made this event more fun. The focus was on the athletes, not a big extravaganza. That’s fine by me. I enjoy watching them walk in, some in Western clothes, some in traditional clothing. It’s interesting.

I also enjoyed the bicycles with seeds in their carts to be planted in the Athletes’ Village leading each country’s delegation in, and it was a nice touch to have little kids carrying seedlings as they marched in next to the flag bearers.

Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer and Hoda Kotb were insipid when they weren’t obnoxious (Djibouti? Is it really funny to say the country’s name, Meredith? Really? Are you four years old?). I know they wanted to come to Rio and NBC had to find something for them to do, but this was not it. They did their homework for some of the human-interest stories, no question about that, but the incessant “the US is coming soon, the US is coming soon” got really tiresome. I found it jingoistic and annoying.

Oh well, sports start tomorrow.