Beijing Olympics -- The Bloom is Off the Rose

My indignation with NBC has cooled a bit since last Friday, along with my respect and enthusiasm for the World Olympics scene. It has been clear for years that the IOC is both political and corrupt in the everyday pejorative use of those words. If it were a country it would receive very low marks for "transparency" and "corruption."

Aside from the obvious propaganda aspect of the events, it has come to light that deception was embedded even in the opening ceremonies. First, the "footsteps of history" sequence turns out to have been computer-generated and prepared in advance (in case of inclement weather, you know, or the possibility that the year-round blanket of smog that normally covers the city was not gone in time). And now we learn that the little girl that grabbed my heart was not really the singer we heard... she was lip-synching to a recording because the real singer had crooked teeth and was judged not to be pretty enough to appear at that occasion.

Finally, an anguished comment from yet another Tibet expat that appeared in the Times comments thread got me to thinking. In this protracted time of relative world peace we may have become hypnotized by the smooth, deceptive images of former "enemies." When all is revealed, no earthly national power is free of serious fault, as the US has so vividly illustrated with a "preemptive" war in Iraq.