Olympic Droppings and Other Shit

The Olympics continue to piss me off as Rogge marches unerringly towards absurdity. He feels it necessary to chide the Jamaican Usain Bolt for his celebrations post 100 and 200-meter record breaking, gold medal winning performances, but is clearly not moved to the same level of indignation necessary to comment about 70-year old grandmothers being sentenced to re-education through labor after petitioning to protest in Beijing. The former “lacked Olympic spirit” whereas the latter, you know, is full of all kinds of spirit. In a stunning development, US women’s softball team lost its final to Japan 3-1 after going undefeated since 2000. In 2005 the IOC decided to drop softball for London 2012 partly due to the US’ domination of the sport. Any plans perchance to drop ping-pong in the near future, thus denying China a guaranteed medal and restoring self-esteem to the athletes forced to play such a ridiculous sport? Of course not, not when the IOC is too busy trying to adjust the new world order. Ziing!

While I’m on the subject of irrelevancy, Maureen Dowd comes out with another spectacularly dumb column, proving yet again that the only way she knows how to stay in business is by being so stupid that people are left too shocked to fire her. In contrast, her NY Times colleague Gail Collins keeps it funny on Leiberman’s prospects for the VP slot: “of all the negative achievements in Lieberman’s career, it’s hard to top making Cheney the most likable man in the room.”

Speaking of VP picks, the Cook Political Report smacks the watch down as being unnecessary speculation, the NY Observer begs to differ and RCP wallows in constant coverage, so take your pick. This is going to get me flack, but I’m still hoping its Clinton.

McCain’s hating seems to be paying off and FT reports that the new Reuters/Zogby poll has him up by 5. Pundits are flummoxed and have pounced on two options: Obama is too cool or simply not satisfying America’s daddy complex.

A couple of interesting articles about architecture in Beijing recently, but the titles, as usual, are cringe-worthy.

From Mao to Wow! from VF

Lost in the New Beijing from IHT

In Beijing’s Ancient Alleys, Modern Comforts from NYT

I have a couple of title suggestions for future columns. They apply to any and all subjects relating to China:

“Sleeping dragon awakes. Again. China’s military buildup”

“As fragile as porcelain: social stability”

“China rising. And rising…there it goes”

The IHT one is by far the best in terms of content. I suggest looking through the VF slide show as opposed to the 5 pages it devotes to “China’s developing so fast! Yayyyy!” …that might be a lie since I didn’t get past the 1st page, so someone tell me if I’m wrong. Note to VF: naivete is never attractive unless worn under a schoolgirl uniform. That being said, disillusionment is not attractive either unless hidden under humor, ahem, Ai Wei Wei. Hope he likes writing from the UK ’cause he’s going to find it his permanent home soon. I mean, look at Zhang Yimou, he clearly has no problem sucki–I mean, paying lip service: “From Banned to Wow!”

While most of this blog is going to be commentary about US and/or China news, this op-ed by Mikhail Gorbachev is just too good to pass up. According to him, Russia wasn’t looking for any conflict with Georgia. Mr. Gorbachev: the world disagrees.