I'm not much of a sports fan, but I admit I do sort of enjoy watching the Olympics. Partly because it's a form of vicarious travel, and partly because the athletes are, for the most part, ordinary people instead of obscenely overpaid assholes who strut about like gods on earth. Granted, if I see one more TV commercial featuring swimmer Michael Phelps, I'll lose my mind.

That said, I've noticed that NBC's mostly non-live coverage focuses not only on events in which the US is competing (this is to be expected, I suppose), but almost exclusively on events in which the US team wins. Last night I watched the men's volleyball team rout the Dutch, and the women's volleyball team beat the Swiss. Events in which the US lost, of which there were many that day, were confined to quick video blips in the daily roundup a few minutes before midnight. Note to NBC: part of the fun of watching sporting events is the element of suspense.

It's bad enough that our news has to pass through a right-wing media filter that eliminates unpleasantries about US policy, but must we be shielded from US athletes' defeat in sporting events? Granted, this is based on my impressions from my own random viewing schedule. But I think there's something to it. On a broader level, I'm not sure this sort of coverage is helping many Americans overcome their tendency to think of this country as the center of the universe, and themselves as a superior people. The Olympics inject a rare moment of internationalism into our lives -- and yet, as usual, we focus mostly on ourselves.

A footnote: maybe cable coverage is better, but I don't have it.