The Agonist - Sports

Careful watching this video--

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:11:05 -0700

I think this qualifies as *OUCH*....

Olympics: Child singer revealed as fake

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:58:19 -0700

Tania Branigan | Beijing | August 12

The Guardian - When nine-year-old Lin Miaoke launched into Ode to the Motherland at the Olympic opening ceremony, she became an instant star.

"Tiny singer wins heart of nation," China Daily sighed; "Little girl sings, impresses the world," gushed another headline, perhaps in reference to Lin's appearance on the front of the New York Times. Countless articles lauded the girl in the red dress who "lent her voice" to the occasion.

But now it emerges that Lin lent someone else's voice, following high-level discussions - which included a member of the Politburo - on the relative photogenicity of small children.

Yawn

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:53:16 -0700

The Olympics start in a few hours. I won't be watching, in case you were wondering. I'm going to watch "Shawshank Redemption" on my iPod and also finish watching the final season of Deadwood. It's Friday and I'm still not quite up to going out and carrying on, so I'll just hang out in my flat tonight. I'm sure someone will SMS me if something important is happening. Yawn.

U.S.-China Olympic rivalry goes beyond counting medals

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:38:40 -0700

Jack Chang | August 7

McClatchy - While China has billed the 2008 Summer Games starting Friday as the coming-out party of a new world power, the United States enters the 18-day competition struggling to stay on top both in athletics and on the world stage. Many observers are predicting a second-place U.S. finish in the total medals count, a result that would be seen by many as symbolic of a shift in the global balance of power.

Packers trade Favre to Jets

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:41:00 -0700

August 7

Reuters -
Green Bay have agreed to trade veteran quarterback Brett Favre to the New York Jets, the Packers confirmed on their website on Wednesday. The announcement of the deal brings an end to a drawn out tussle between Favre and the team he served for 16 seasons over his playing status after the 38-year-old made a bid to return to action after announcing his retirement in March.

It’s Time to Pump Up Your Olympism

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:43:14 -0700

That quadrennial nationalistic orgy known as the Olympics is once again upon us. Exactly what the Olympics are about has always been a touch unclear. This year’s extravaganza – if that is a good enough word for something that costs $17 billion – has the snappy motto “One World One Dream.” Maybe this means something in Chinese. In English it might as easily translate to “One World – One Can Only Dream.”

Of course, the Olympics are supposed to be about amateur athletes competing on the world stage. Ha ha ha. The host country has been snatching promising children away from their parents for at least a decade, locking them up in training facilities where they work out seven days a week, and letting them know that only gold medals are acceptable performance. That well known amateur basketball player Yao Ming will be leading the Chinese team, and the U.S. will again be recruiting their basketball players from the NBA.

Buzz and Digg this story

Masks?

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:03:49 -0700

This is just dumb. First, it's a slap in the face of the Chinese and the pride they as a nation are justifiably taking in hosting the games.

Two, as the Times notes:

The Chinese and the International Olympic Committee, including Arne Ljungqvist, chair of the I.O.C. medical commission, have repeatedly said that athletes were not at risk because of the air quality here.

During a previously scheduled news conference Tuesday night, Ljungqvist dismissed the athletes’ actions as unnecessary.

“I don’t see the need for it, honestly,” Ljungqvist said of the masks, although he noted that some athletes with respiratory conditions may need to wear them.

So, unless all the American cyclists have respiratory conditions then there just isn't any need. Don't American athletes have any sense of political propriety, or rather just good manners?

More Uighur Violence

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:07:23 -0700

This is really saddening. It really breaks my heart to hear of this, and to know this is happening in a city I have very strong feelings for. From the article:

On Monday morning, Xinhua, the state news agency, reported what appeared to be the deadliest assault against Chinese security forces in recent memory: 16 policemen were killed and 16 others injured when attackers threw two grenades into a police station in the desert oasis town of Kashgar, in the far west, after driving a truck into the station at 8 a.m. Two men were arrested.

I can't say, however, that I am surprised. This would be the best chance the Uighur's would ever have to draw any serious news coverage to their plight--and a valid plight it is, what with the Chinese boot firmly lodged at their throats for so long and so hard. But what pains me the most is that this attention getting is being done the worst possible way at the worst possible time. They won't elicit any sympathy from anyone, no matter how deserved. The killing of innocents never does. Even if they are policemen, and in some sense legitimate targets. I still don't understand why people don't just lay down in the middle of the road sometimes. What power a protest like that would portray? Don't we all remember the lone man stopping a column of tanks in Beijing in 1989?

People of Beijing told what not to wear

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:21:08 -0700

Stephen McGinty | Aug 2

Scotsman - THE Little Red Book, the sayings of Chairman Mao, has been replaced by a little red booklet that instructs Beijing's residents how to act and dress ahead of next week's Olympics.

** Don't mix more than three colours

** Do shake hands for three seconds only

** Don't wear your pyjamas in public

Like a totalitarian version of Trinny and Susannah, Zheng Mojie, deputy director of the Office of Capital Spiritual Civilisation Construction Commission, has penned a booklet posted to four million Beijing households stating acceptable standards of dress and behaviour.

IOC says it cannot order China to lift internet blocks

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:59:27 -0700

July 30

dpa - The chairman of the International Olympic Committee's press commission, Kevan Gosper, has said he was 'disappointed' that the Chinese authorities were blocking websites deemed sensitive, but that the IOC cannot tell China what to do, according to a report in the South China Morning Post Wednesday.

Gosper's statements to the newspaper indicate the IOC apparently knew in advance that the websites would be blocked, despite having told the international media that the estimated 25,000 journalists who are in Beijing already or will arrive in coming days to report about the 2008 Olympic Games would be granted unfettered access.

'I have also been advised that some of the IOC officials had negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked,' the Hong Kong-based newspaper quoted Gosper saying.

'I would like it all to be open. I am not here to defend the Chinese decisions. I am here to ensure journalists can report on the Games. I am disappointed the access is not wider. But I can't tell the Chinese what to do,' Gosper said.

Old News, Courtesy The New York Times

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:39:27 -0700

Funny, the old hutong neighborhoods have been disappearing for the last thirty years. But leave it to the New York Times to put it on the front page and explain to us it's all the fault of the Olympics. Anything to sell the games, fraud that they are.

Let me add, before anyone gets into a tizzy: the games are a fraud not because they are in Beijing. They are a fraud because they lost the true Olympic spirit a long time ago, when VISA and MacDonalds and all the other commercial outlets weren't the 'Official insert name here" crap began. It's all a bunch of commercial garbage now.

The House That Ruth Built

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:49:57 -0700

Say what you will about the Yankees (I'm I life long fan and that will never change) I'll miss Yankee Stadium and wish I could watch the All Star Game tonight. Yankee Stadium is the High Temple of Baseball, it's where God watches his perfect sport, played by his perfect people. (Please excuse the hubris as I am waxing poetic here.) When one walks into the stadium you can hear the ghosts of baseball past, DiMaggio and Ruth, and Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and Yogi Berra. Then there is Mr. October, Reggie Jackson, who, while not the greatest player that ever lived, certainly captured my imagination as a child that year with his home run pyrotechnics. Sadly, the team has A-Rod on it now, who doesn't add to the mystique, just detracts. And yet, inside this hollowed field you can feel the ghosts of baseball and come to a small understanding just why it is America's game.

I remember my first game there, back in 1996, Wade Boggs hit a two run homer to beat Chicago. And then my father and I watched the Yankees beat the Red Sox on September 8, 2001. What a game! What a time to be in New York, early fall weather, blue skies for ever and cool. Plus, the Yankees won.

Enjoy the game, folks.

Lhasa's monks all but vanish in Chinese crackdown

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:53:10 -0700

Geoffrey York | Lhasa | June 23

Globe & Mail - Severe restrictions, including checkpoints and surveillance, imposed since wave of anti-government protests in March, exiles say.

The pilgrims returned to the Potala Palace yesterday, spinning their prayer wheels and prostrating themselves in front of the Dalai Lama's ancient palace on a mountaintop in Lhasa.

For two days, the Buddhist pilgrims had been pushed to the sidelines to make room for the Olympic torch relay in Lhasa. The traditional pilgrimage route at the Potala Palace was unceremoniously shut down, in one of many security measures by Chinese authorities, even though a month-long Buddhist festival has drawn thousands of pilgrims to the Tibetan capital.

Resistance snuffed out as Olympic torch tours Tibet

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:06:33 -0700

Clifford Coonan | Beijing | June 23

Independent - China paraded the Olympic torch through the streets of Lhasa at the weekend in a blaze of red flags, eager to present a picture of national unity and domestic harmony just three months after the Tibetan provincial capital was rocked by anti-Chinese riots.

With the Olympic Games to begin in Beijing on 8 August, senior Chinese Communist Party officials in charge of the restive province used the opportunity of the torch relay to denounce the Dalai Lama and underline China's tight grip on the Himalayan region. "Tibet's sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it," said Zhang Qingli, the hardliner who heads Tibet's Communist Party. "It is certain we will be able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama's clique."

Students for a Free Tibet: Announcement

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:05:15 -0700

Subject: FreeTibet2008.org: SFT Launches New Olympics Website /Video

With the start of the Beijing Olympics only 49 days away, SFT HQ is stepping up our Olympic campaign efforts. To ensure that you are kept up to date with news, analysis, and ways to participate in creative, strategic and effective actions for Tibet leading up to and during the Games, we are excited to launch SFT's Olympics website: http://www.FreeTibet2008.org.

Visit http://www.FreeTibet2008.org now and watch our new SFT Olympics Campaign video, a moving account of what is at stake inside Tibet and the power we have – as Tibetans, supporters, and people of conscience – to make history for Tibet at this crucial time.