It’s this crazy thing: they’re eating dinner while we’re eating breakfast! It’s the Olympics in China! August 7, 2008
Posted by thomas in : Uncategorized , 3 commentsAs the Olympics get set to kick off tomorrow evening/morning (depending on your hemisphere) some of the political tensions surrounding the games have increased in intensity and visibility. President Bush arrived in the country today after comments criticizing China’s human rights record and restriction of civil freedoms, which provoked a swift response from the Chinese government:
“The Chinese government puts people first, and is dedicated to maintaining and promoting its citizens’ basic rights and freedom,” said the statement by Qin Gang, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, as translated by The Associated Press. “Chinese citizens have freedom of religion. These are indisputable facts.”
China has demonstrated its respect of basic rights and freedoms in recent days by denying former Olympian (and co-founder of Team Darfur, “an international coalition of athletes committed to raising awareness about, and bringing an end to the crisis in Darfur, Sudan”), Joey Cheek’s visa ; limiting internet access for foreign journalists; and deporting/arresting various protesters. Joey Cheek hardly seems like much of an Olympic-wrecking-nutjob; in fact an athlete who donated his 2006 medal winnings to Sudanese refugees in Chad seems like the sort of guy who might comfortably embody the Beijing Olympic slogan “One World, One Dream“.
Adding some further complexity and flavor to these already very spicy Olympic games is the sheer amount of money involved. The youtube video above is a Coke commercial featuring Chinese track superstar Liu Xiang, the former world record holder and reigning Olympic champion in the 110m hurdles. For many companies (and some athletes) what makes the games of the XXIX Olympiad so appealing is the potential to reach the massive, growing (and largely untouched) Chinese consumer market. There are articles about the huge wads of cash thrown around to secure official Olympic sponsorship rights here and here. There is a huge financial interest in encouraging the increasing openness of Chinese markets, and this demands a certain sensitivity towards provoking the government. A cynical observer might suggest that the huge money making potential of the Olympic games is at least part of the reason why the International Olympic Committee has been so reluctant to offer any criticism of the various measures taken by the Chinese government in the days and weeks leading up to the opening ceremonies tomorrow.
Let them eat dirt? July 29, 2008
Posted by thomas in : Uncategorized , 2 comments
With rising food prices it is important to compare your shopping options…
There are plenty of reports like this one on American news programs: advice on how to stretch your food budget, how to manage the 30% increase in the price of eggs or the rising cost of milk. The authors give good tips like eating before going to the grocery store, and buying generic as opposed to brand name products. I wonder how the people in Haiti manage to choose between generic and brand name mud cakes? Haiti relies almost exclusively on imports for food and with rapid inflation discs of hardened mud are a staple to combat hunger. I realize this sort of thing isn’t exactly breaking news (which is sort of absurd in itself - the fact that this sort of story isn’t that surprising for us), but I was just struck by how advice that you should eat before shopping to prevent impulse buys would strike so many in the world as an unbelievably surreal response to rising food prices. In some ways we do live in a global village and we are becoming increasingly interconnected, but in others the deep rift of separation and difference - the accidents of geography and history that leave some people literally eating dirt and others struggling with obesity - is so absurd that it is beyond comprehension.
SURPRISE! July 26, 2008
Posted by thomas in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farSomeone dear to you has an upcoming birthday/anniversary/random reason for rejoicing - what should you do to celebrate? Maybe you could throw them a surprise party…
(Apologies to my Canadian readership as I have doubts as to whether you will be able to view this video… and to everyone else for the advertisement. Video is provided by the rather clever site www.hulu.com - now there are only a few clicks of the mouse and some 30 second shampoo advertisements between you and those Remington Steele reruns you crave)
Keep calm. Don’t resist. Believe the government. July 24, 2008
Posted by thomas in : Commentary , 4 comments
The piece of advice that provides this post’s title is not a quote from Orwell’s 1984. It comes from an anti-terrorist attack manual provided by the Chinese government in advance of the Beijing Olympics (from BBC reporter James Reynolds’ excellent China/Olympics blog). The manual also includes sage advice for detecting terrorists like the following (all translations are provided by Reynolds and his “Chinese colleagues”):
Terrorist suspects won’t put a sticker on their faces to say they are terrorists. However they will have some abnormal behaviour that can make us alert, such as:
- Those who look panicked and strange in their words and behaviour
- Those who dress in clothes that don’t fit their identity or the weather
- Those who pretend to be close friends, and flatter
- Those who refuse to do security checks, and sound arrogant
- Those who frequently appear at big event venues
- Those who frequently appear around security areas
- Those who look like wanted suspects
I had assumed that the “wanted suspect look” was something most terrorists would try and avoid/disguise.
I have really enjoyed some of the Chinese government propaganda machine’s attempts to prepare for the upcoming Olympics (mostly in a bitter and angry way). They have had a number of slogans and initiatives that are alternatively hilarious or heartbreaking. For example, the following gem: “It’s civilized to queue, it’s glorious to be polite” - a slogan which encourages people to form orderly lines when waiting for subways etc. (You can read Reynolds’ description of Beijing’s “Queue Day,” held on the 11thof each month, here). There have also been campaigns against public spitting, littering, public smoking, and an intriguing project called “The Beijing Workers’ Civilization Cheering Squad.” I have no idea what the Workers’ Civilization Cheering Squad is supposed to accomplish but it brings to mind the image of construction workers breaking into coordinated bursts of applause and gymnastic routines while chanting praise for “Give Up Your Seat Day” (another initiative) - which would definitely impress me as a first time visitor to China. (more…)
Dark Lords, Muggles and Islam: Harry Potter and Mark Steyn’s “The Future Belongs to Islam” July 22, 2008
Posted by thomas in : Commentary , 1 comment so far Over here they transcend chaos and discuss freedom of speech and Mark Steyn’s tussles with politically correct Canadian bureacratic machinery. I’ve weighed in with some hasty and poorly-developed thoughts of my own, and for the most part feel largely ignorant and ill-equipped to provide much of a contribution to the discussion of free speech and the borders of the public square. So, feeling a bit self-concious and uncertain of myself I retreated into the land of children’s fiction and finished reading the final (immensely popular and successful) Harry Potter book, which I soon realized provided some valuable insight for interpreting and critiquing Mark Steyn’s article “The Future Belongs to Islam” (an excerpt from his book America Alone, which unfortunately I have not read as I was busy reading Harry Potter instead, but I am assuming that the argument advanced in the article is continued in the book).Outside the human rights circus that accompanied its publication in Canada I found Steyn’s article intriguing, funny and, at least in its characterization of Muslims and their relationship to Western Europe and North America, wrong. In the midst of the hubbub and drama of the recent human rights tribunal hearing it might be tempting to glorify the article based on its embattled status (yet another example of how Canadian Islamic Congress really shot themselves in the foot with their approach), and so outside the controversial context surrounding the article’s publication and reception I want to deal more directly with the actual content of what was written…in 2006. (Insert embarrassed cough here). So, I’m a little late with my input, and everything I say has probably already been said and said better, but at least my input includes Harry Potter references…
I just finished the final Harry Potter book, and if you’re unfamiliar with the series (ie. you’ve spent the past few years wandering in the Gobi desert, drinking yak milk, counting grains of sand) the main character is a young orphan, lonely and abused, who discovers he is a wizard, and not only a wizard, but a famous wizard who (through his parents’ loving sacrifice) caused the defeat of a powerful-evil-fascist-terrorist sort of wizard named Voldemort. Voldemort has a group of followers called “Death-Eaters” who advance a propaganda of Pureblood (meaning only wizard ancestry) superiority over Mudbloods (a pejorative term referring to the descendants of non-wizards and/or the products of intermarriage) and Muggles (or regular human beings who generally don’t wear cloaks, play high altitude games on brooms or receive invitations to visit Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and participate in a harrowing yet ultimately satisfying quest to defeat evil, attain meaning and grow in self-knowledge). Voldemort’s ultimate goal is the elimination of impurity in the wizarding society and the establishment of himself as the eternal master of a pureblooded wizarding overclass and the books largely chronicle Harry Potter’s adventures as he grows and matures and does battle with the “Dark Lord.” (more…)