While you stitch - who's watching the Olympics

Only a partial joke. It is a country that regularly puts its own journalists in jail.

Indeed, if the Olympics are to try and retain any credibility.

It is China as it has been, more or less, for centuries and if the west doesn't care for it, the IOC should never have agreed to having the Olympics there, now that they have, suck it up ! I noted that they simply deported several objectors, I have no problem with that.

I admit I am not watching but don't all athletes involved have training regimes ? I was amazed what a local paddler was going through. I am certain that US athletes receive rewards for medals too, there has been talk about Canadians as well, but of course, we have far less to worry about.

Sure the money could be better spent elsewhere, but one can say that about any city, any country. I was proud of my home town when it backed out of the Commonwealth Games after it was seen that even a city the size of Manchester could not do it without cost overruns. There was an uprising of the citizens against pouring all the money into the games (mostly I thought for the benefit of the promoters, certainly not the taxpayers) and it worked, the little guys won, no games, common sense prevailed.

BC has the winter Olympic Games and already have gone way over budget, plus they have rammed highways through old forests for the convenience of the ticket holders. So it is clear, it's not just the Chinese who spend recklessly.

Yes and if other journalists really commiserated with them, would they be there ? Ah yes, not quite enough commiseration lol

Absolutely. But, supposedly as part of the Chinese proposal to host they agreed to the more western open access for journalists, travel in for sponsored persons. The issue is that end of the bargain hasn't been held up. So while China gets great PR for most of this, the other side is their active prevention of any potential negative by restricting some access or entry. To be overly simple, in a huge place such as this, the ruling party is doing what they can to present the image they wish to, and in this instance, feel no compunction about stifling potential negatives - before the fact.

Ellice

We started because Imus was there and DH likes Imus. (I'm not a fan, nor a detractor).

I like the gardening and the Quilt in a Day show is entertaining.

You aren't asking me to believe that the IOC actually thought it would be so ? lol

The IOC saw the potential for lavish spending, as seen with the Opening Ceremonies and of course, said she super cynically, there were all those trips to China beforehand with every luxury lavished on the officials. Toute ça change...

Don't know - I have heard some stories from people DH works with about everyday life for the everyman. They are scary.

Cheryl

It varies about the prizes for medals. But, yes, the US now gives them - didn't always. Many, many countries do - surprisingly. The prizes are nice

- not enormous - but certainly repay some training costs or lack of income. IIRC they're in the US around $12-$15 K depending on the medal. Others - maybe Canada - were mentioned as being about $20 K for a gold.

It's human nature for so many to spend recklessly, or not fully see what they're getting into. That said, the proposals to host I think take at least a couple of years to put together. But, how costs, economics change

-well, they will is predictable, how isn't so. I think a lot of places do this because the influx of revenue from tourism, advertising, and future tourism, or the like covers the cost, plus. In most, but not all, cases.

ellice

Years ago - 20 - when I was in grad school, I had a Chinese post-doc as an office-mate. There was a famous ex-pat Chinese professor at CMU at that time, in a different department. He was a bit outspoken, but a gifted academic - not a rabble rouser. Said professor was murdered in very suspicious circumstances - eventually traced to the Chinese (not the mob). That year - at PhD qualifiers (we did oral exams to move into candidate status in our dept) virtually all the Chinese students (including Taiwanese) did not pass, and were not asked to re-take (norm is you failed some part and would re-take). We students called it the year of the "great yellow purge" - not politically correct. The university was clearly concerned with the political situation in the 80s. Happened across the campus. Our Chinese post-doc joined us 2 years after the purge. Great guy - very, very careful

- took a while for him to open up at all. And gave us lovely trinkets from China. But, it took a long time for him to open up about the situations at home, and his many concerns.

Life in many parts of the world just isn't what we're used to, and we tend to be surprised, and assume thinking, governments act the same - they just don't. Makes you think abit when we complain - sometimes I think we have too much info floating out there - harder to tell truth from fiction from embellishment.

Ellice

I think the IOC wasn't fooled a bit.

Try living in Baltimore, home of Michael Phelps, who graduated from the high school on my street, not half a block away. At one time part of my street was re-named "Michael Phelps Way" (thankfully it was a short time; the signs mysteriously disappeared a couple of days after Phelps was arrested for drunk driving a couple of years ago). And Katie Hoff, who swims at the same club that Phelps does. That's all we hear about, day in and day out! The newspaper has a "scorecard" set up in the sports section for each of them to list their medals with full expectation that they will medal in every event they enter. Poor kids! What a burden to be carrying!

I can't get excited about the Olympics, which has become such a media event, it's taken over the original intent.

I've heard that the fireworks for the opening ceremony were photoshopped because the air quality was so bad, they didn't want to add any more pollution. There were apparently a few fireworks, but most of them were shown on the big screens in the stadium, not real fireworks. I just don't see the point. It's like the PBS fireworks on TV on the fourth of July - is there any point to fireworks if you're not seeing the actual thing?

(Rumor is that it kept a team of programmers busy for a year for the photoshop fireworks display. Couldn't that effort/expense be put into something more worthwhile? Like world hunger? Water supplies? Curing cancer?)

sue

I know it was several months, but because it was before I met her, I don't know exactly how long before she was allowed to resume her full training schedule. Given that in those days repairing a knee required a full side-to-side slash, it may have been as much as 6 months.

Bravo! We just discussed this in another group, that the chicks are coming home to roost.

Succinctly, one of the group members is the only middle-ager in a department full of Gen X-ers, and because these kids have grown up getting medals just for showing up, they seem to think that actually working toward a goal is optional, and expect awards and raises for doing nothing. Meanwhile, she's doing all the work for the whole department, while the kiddies think that it should be enough that they show up for work, not even necessary to show up ON TIME.

Exactly what I'd predicted when the "everyone gets a prize" movement started, but no one listened to me because "you don't have kids, you don't understand."

That's more likely timewise. The knee repair - typically 1 long vertical, or 2 parallel vertical incisions, sometimes with a small horizontal nearby. Don't ever remember seeing anyone with a big horizontal incision - anatomically - that's a weird thought.

ellice

Over the last few years there have been some amazing stories in the press about schools and sport in the UK. I am not sure who is to blame - the parents who will sue at the drop of a hat or the school governers who are leaning over backwards to be politically correct. In at least one school the sack race and three-legged race have been banned from a school sports day because the children might fall over and hurt themselves. Another school (which didn't ban the sack race etc) banned parents from attending its annual sports day to spare the children from embarrassment if they do not win. Instead, the school held a non-competitive sports day behind closed doors. It's reminiscent of the dog shows that we used to attend a few years ago where there were competitions for the Kennel Club pedigree breeds as well as for "mutt dogs"; there were always special prizes for those dogs who hadn't won a prize all day...

Don't you agree that the Olympics has lost some of its glow?

From Today's news:

1. Some opening ceremony fireworks were faked.

1. Games organizers confirm that Lin Miaoke, who performed "Ode to the Motherland" as China's flag was paraded Friday into Beijing's National Stadium, was not singing at all. Lin was lip-syncing to the sound of another girl, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who was heard but not seen, apparently because she was deemed not cute enough.

Why do I feel that the 40 billion bucks they spent on this extravaganza could have been better spent !!!!

Lucille

I remember in 1996, when I was stitching the parrors from ER. The Danish handball team were going for the gold. I had no tv so I was listening on the radio. I swear I never did so little in a day. I remember holding my breath when Anja Anderson blew the penalty throw but they won later. What a game!

Your point - even in China you have to be cute???

Money can always be spent better, but it is their money to spend as they wish. At least I haven't heard any allegations that the Chinese govt. used forced labor to build any of this....