Absurdity, Allegory and China

There is a good piece by John Leicester in the Seattle Times concerning the former Chinese gymnast, Dong Fangxiao, who won a bronze medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympics: China leaves underage gymnast in the cold. Ms Dong is now at the center of a records falsification storm, abandoned by the officials who most likely [...]

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If you follow this blog you know I am not a fan of Jacques Rogge, the current president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He is seen by many – this blogger included – as a CCP lapdog and a free agent who, under the charade of officialdom, always goes to the highest bidder. In [...]

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It’s difficult to get through an entire spring and summer without writing something about baseball, even if it won’t ever get much of a grip here in China. Despite the MLB’s recent series of promo events in Shanghai, Wuxi, Guangdong, Chengdu, and now, as I write, in Beijing. I think baseball has about as much [...]

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Access to the NYT started to waver last night here in Tianjin. On, off, on again. This morning on, but for at least the last several hours off again. So do we blame it on Jim Yardley’s After 30 Years, Economic Perils on China’s Path, and his coverage of the 30 year “reform and opening” [...]

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In the latest dance of finger-pointing into empty space, the IOC has unveiled their newest strategy, which is actually an ESL Revisionist View of Recent History. As the flap continues over what the IOC was promised by BOCOG and China and what the IOC head, Jacques Rogge, actually meant to say about the censorship issue [...]

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The big news of the day is that China has broken the promise it made to hook the IOC and land the Olympics seven years ago. This is only news to those who believed that this could possibly have happened, though seven years out there was at least a modicum of hope that things might [...]

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The persistent pollution problem that has received so much press in the long run-up to the Olympics is claiming more and more press space as more and more press arrive in Beijing: “Where’s the sun? Where’re the mountains? Where’s the next building?” Don’t look for the assault to let up. It is after all, Huabei [...]

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From Networks Fight Shorter Olympic Leash in the NYT: One I.O.C. commissioner, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid further complicating the situation, said matter-of-factly that Chinese officials had “put a tourniquet” on the Olympics. “Had the I.O.C., and those vested with the decision to award the host city contract, known seven years ago that [...]

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So what’s happened to BOCOG Executive Vice-President Jiang Xiaoyu? He was on the ground in San Francisco, through the besieged triple legs – four thru six – and arguably the longest row in the field. There’s a photo purported to be Jiang Xiaoyu, or at least his hands – the left wrapped around the ring [...]

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