Erotic Fiction-ary: 8/17/08

The New York Times put up an editorial that seems to be just one more kick in the rear of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Sure, what's one more shot to the Lil' Olympics. Why not. So here we go, one more stab.

According to the New York Times Beijing "got what it wanted out of this globally televised spectacular. It reaped a huge prestige bonanza that it will surely use to promote its international influence and, we fear, further tighten its grip at home.

It pocketed these gains without offering any concessions in return. When it increased repression — rather than loosening up — a supine International Olympic Committee barely offered a protest. Most world leaders, including President Bush, were nearly as complicit."

No, really. I know this is an Editorial but, what, did the person writing this think the President of China was going to throw his windows of his bedroom open on Opening Day and reinact the ending of "A Christmas Carol" (only instead of sending presents and a turkey to Bob Cratchett or however you spell that, he frees Tibet and whatever else he's oppressing, disbands communism and runs for democratic office)... hmm... actually it might have been more reasonable to expect the President of China to send presents and a turkey to Bob Cratchett than the other thing.

Yeah. Even I didn't think giving China the Olympics would make them a better country, heck it didn't even make them a better country at concealing their human rights abuses. Like a bad stereotype of a fat beer swilling drunkard from old situation comedies, China scratched it's lil Beijing, drank some more, then sat in it's favorite chair and bitched at the world for criticizing it.

Of course speaking of Opening Ceremonies day, again from the New York Times.
"In Beijing for the opening ceremony, Mr. Bush seemed eager to play the role of the apolitical sports fan, instead of publicly pressing China’s leaders on the ongoing Olympics crackdown. That nicely fit into the Chinese script of talking up sports while shutting down politics."

Apparently Mr. Bush needed to make that strongly worded speech towards China in a place other than where he did before going to Beijing (maybe if he only did it in the Chief Editor's office of the New York Times maybe the newspaper would have remembered him saying something that rocked the boat prior to Opening Ceremony).

So how did China get the games? New York Times knows that one.
"To win the right to host these Games, China promised to honor the Olympic ideals of nonviolence, openness to the world and individual expression. Those promises were systematically broken, starting with this spring’s brutal repression in Tibet and continuing on to the ugly farce of inviting its citizens to apply for legal protest permits and then arresting them if they actually tried to do so.

Along the way, government critics were pre-emptively rounded up and jailed, domestic news outlets tightly controlled, foreign journalists denied full access to the Internet and thousands of Beijing’s least telegenic residents were evicted from their homes and out of camera range. On Friday, the Chinese police confirmed that six Americans protesting China’s rule in Tibet had been sentenced to 10 days of detention."

So I guess the IOC are wimps. After all giving China the games seems now to have been like letting the schoolyard bully "borrow" your favorite possession. It won't make the bully a better person, or change his/her habits, just make them that much more of a jerk (though at least China won't try to keep borrowed item, after all it's not like at tomorrow's closing ceremony the president of China is going to kick the President of the IOC down a flight of stairs and shriek "MY OLYMPICS!! MINE!! MINE!! ALL MINE!! MINE!!!")

In the "China hates eldery people" category, we have this from the New York Times.
"Surely one of the signature events of these Games was the sentencing of two women in their late 70s to “re-education through labor.” Their crime? Applying for permission to protest the inadequate compensation they felt they had received when the government seized their homes years ago for urban redevelopment."

Yeah. OK, now I'm going to watch tomorrow's closing ceremony because if that dickless wonder called the President of the IOC even hints that this was the "best games ever" he's going to earn my fondest wishes that somebody kicks him in his lil' president. Freak.

As for the IOC? Yes, the New York Times has things to say about them too.
"A year ago, the I.O.C. predicted that these Games would be “a force for good” and a spur to human-rights progress. Instead, as Human Rights Watch has reported, they became a catalyst for intensified human-rights abuse."

Well just look at the IOC's track record on something as simple as, say, their video game franchise. They can't even make a simple video game that doesn't suck at a bottom ratio of one out of 5 dammit! How can they do anything else if they can't even do the simplest tasks! (Maybe the IOC is the long standing answer to the question of what happens if you put 100 monkeys in charge of a worldwide celebration of sports and world peace.

Oh, the New York Times does have something more to say about the President.
"Mr. Bush has taken some note of China’s appalling human-rights record this summer — privately meeting with Chinese dissidents in Washington just before his visit to the Games and gently nudging his hosts on religious freedom while in Beijing. With these repression-scarred Olympics now drawing to a close, Mr. Bush and other world leaders must tell Beijing that its failure to live up to its Olympic commitments will neither be ignored nor forgotten.

The medal count and DVD sales cannot be the last word on the Beijing Games."

And yet why do I have a feeling it will be?
So... hmm... anyone else on a present repression spree getting the Olympics anytime soon? Anyone? About 2014 or so? Hmm? I wonder...