17 Days

Very impressive opening ceremony.

Haha... This just said by the honest Hong Kong announcer...

"And there is the Kazakh leader... please don't ask me how to pronounce his name."

I find the whole Olympics a joke. The Olympics, not the athletes. The Chinese Olympics. A sick, polluted, human rights joke.

I totally agree with @_@ Artman.

And as much as I respect the tremendous commitment and effort of the athletes -- who cares?

Who has time to waste watching/following "professional sports" [read: corporate logo/brand carrot-and-stick publicly subsided money machine] in general? Those teams are no more local than the man in the moon -- why not just have the Nike team compete against the Pepsi team?

There's no difference.

Well, we agree on one thing.

Anyway...for people who need that "feel good" fix, here's the wonderful Boston Globe "Big Picture" blog's entry of fine, almost desktop sized opening ceremony pictures.

The last picture's quite poignant...

2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony

Enjoy the propaganda.

Hee hee -- maybe that, and only using Gill Sans and Joanna for clients that tick me off.

On a personal note. I'm home this week on vacation .

I'm also watching my girlfriend's dogs. I have 2 myself and she has 6 ( they're small )!

Anyway my girlfriiend and her two daughters are in Beijing even as we speak. My girlfriend's oldest daughter is in a local High School Wind Ensemble here in Salem that had the honor to get to perfom for some of the Olympic events there.

So my girlfriend went as a chaperone and her youngest daughter also just went along. Yes I'm jealous as hell! Yes I'm spending my last vacation until Xmas doing stuff around the house and baby sitting ( many ) dogs! And yes! They're walking through the streets of Beijing eating really strange stuff and sleeping on mattreses a little over 6 inches thick.

But talk about an opportunity of a lifetime!

I guess I should go pour out some more dog food!

Wow. It's like Cirque du Soleil as seen by a fly.

Those pictures are amazing. I might have to actually check it out tonight.

Yep.

The TV coverage shows it to be quite a bit more amazing than even the excellent set of photos would suggest.

Very nice, one of the best I can recall seeing.

I was a bit surprised at Hong Kong competing as a separate Nation, thought it had become part of China after the 1997 transfer?

Our only complaint was the Hungarian women's outfits for the Parade of Nations.


Unfortunately, this will be hanging over the games too. I still find it hard to believe China even got the Olympics.

I saw McCain's attack ad during the opening ceremonies; the man is both desperate and tone deaf.

He went with an attack ad for opening ceremonies??

Goodness, that makes no sense to me. People tuning in to see an uplifting event (opening ceremonies) are not going to respond well to an attack ad. It's much more a forum for a positive, feel-good, I'm a veteran one.

This guy is my neighbor. He's pretty local. Just because they aren't local to you doesn't mean they aren't local to someone.

I expanded that without a proper segue. The Olympics as an idea is outstanding; if you throw in the effort and commitment of the athlete -- it's a testament to our species.

But.

Being asked to hang on every moment of 300-500 hours of programming --all of it processed sausage with highly targeted cheap shots at my attention span -- and being asked to live vicariously through the athletes, and identify with "mah CUNTry"?

No way. Never.

It's a sporting event to be admired, not another intellectual marketing crevace for corporate America.

The year they demolished the KingDome, and then proceeded to build two stadiums, right next to each other -- while the 40-year-old school across the street got "renovated" -- is when I realized that America has no problem getting its priorities in order when it matters.

...which segues into the NFL, NBL, NBA, etc.

Why do you hate America, DMZ?

Why?!!

I'll tell you why!

Two of my friends were arrested in Hong Kong in separate protests. Christina Chan and Matt Pearce. I am especially close friends with Matt and I'm afraid he may be put into jail for a long time this time, as he is a repeat offender with the same MO, and was jailed for 6 weeks last time.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...18zGYtVAJ0mIng

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7550802.stm

http://news.google.com/news?tab=wn&h...ng&btnG=Search

http://news.google.com/news?tab=wn&h...ng&btnG=Search

I wonder if this was a local market thing. I didn't see any political ads.

That was an amazing ceremony.

The ceremony was very impressive. Reminded me of North Korea's Mass Games or May Day ceremonies. Very synchronized and massively choreographed. I little too creepy IMO.

I agree with dmz though, with as much as I like the achievements of the athletes they are being exploited in very much the way other athletes are. I hope they all get through these games without any real problems, security wise.

Oh...and this...my Olympic picture of the day, President George Bush slapping a female volley ball player's ass.



"Giddyap!"

Pretty eye-popping.

At times it would go from impossibly beautiful to world's biggest bucket 'o kitsch in just a few seconds. Still, there's really something to be said for having literally thousands of trained from birth performers at your disposal, not to mention untold numbers of seamstresses, engineers, and artisans. It also appears to help if you're willing to spend 40 kajillion dollars on video gear.

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing. All the pretty in the world falls a little flat when we know that, for China, paeans to "harmony" and "the union of nature and man" are little more than a bitter joke; then again, if all nations were obliged to live up to the ideals expressed in their most florid ceremonies it would be a very different world, wouldn't it?

The modern world has never seen the like of what China is becoming-- an economic powerhouse with vast resources and human capital but severely constrained political freedoms. The assumption in the west is that "free markets" always bring other freedoms in their wake, but that remains to be seen.

For China, the period of western ascendancy has been an unfortunate and relatively brief state of affairs. You get the feeling that these opening ceremonies were intended, at least in part, to remind the world of what this country is capable of, given its ability to single-mindedly marshal resources in ways that the west can't really match. I have little doubt that the mandate was something on the order of "the greatest opening ceremony the world has ever seen, no matter what the cost."

It's that "no matter what the cost" part that makes the new China kinda unnerving.

This is interesting...



Did Invisible Hands Turn Beijing’s Staging Upside Down?


Great Internet fodder? Or will some poor schmuck in charge of handing out flags get executed for this.

bet you can't wait for the 2012 olympics from old blighty.

The stadium will be half built, twice over budget. The performers will be the local hoodied youth serving community service sentances, sniffing diesel and stabbing eachother with knives, while the never ending summer rain will extinguish the one firework we can afford as a nation.

I guess Prince Philip wont be there having died from cancer, so the opening ceremony will be done by Prime minister David Cameroon and one of his hug-a-hoodie chums from eton, who will be 5 hours late because his bike has been stolen, and he discovered he couldn't take the tube because some hackers in the Netherlands managed to hack the the card system.

Spectators are advised to bring their own flashlight to help illuminate the games, as the environmentalists managed to shut down the last remaining British powerstation, the remainder of them having been sold to the French - who are on strike this month over the price of toilet paper.

Absolutely not. They'll just use the Oval and the Millennium Dome/O2 for everything. Swimming will just have to be in the Thames. What else do you need?!


Absolutely not. The hoodies will be thoroughly banned by then, leaving only roving gangs of chavs from Brixton to carry on the tireless work of shiffing diesel and stabbing each other.

I agree about the firework.


Don't forget: it is entirely possible that Boris will have forgotten that he needs to set up olympics stuff at all, and Ken will be in the limelight, waiting for his chance to seize control of the city.


Sounds totally plausible, especially since people will only be flushing every third poo to conserve water.

Personally, I'd like to see all commentary done by the Top Gear guys. I'd also like to see some new events created by them.

So what do you think is going through his mind?

He looks like he's smiling!

" I'd like to have you in my stable back in Texas honey! "

" But the wife won't let me! "

Im watching the opening ceremony repeat right now, probably the most impressive feat of human engineering i've ever seen....and then Sarah Brightman appears on top of the world. WTF? I almost despise her more than...um someone beginning with S and ending in W.

Best wishes to all participants. But shame on the IOC for selecting China, of all places, to be host. Where will they think of next? Myanmar?

The Olympics are hard to watch with commercials like every 2 minutes. It's the ADD-lympics.

I hate seeing him have so much fun...



"Oh man, I would SO take a hit of coke off THAT ass!"

Why? Was Soviet Union more deserving? Or Yugoslavia?

China deserves the Olympics. They've come a long way on the world stage. The more they are assimilated the more their actions will be constrained by world opinion. Of course, like with the former Soviet Union, that constraint is limited. Still better than nothing.

Deliberately snubbing them on the world stage by denying them the Olympics after brutal regimes have gotten them in the past (Germany, Russia, Yugoslavia) isn't going to do a whole lot to mitigate their behavior but reinforce resentment.

Between coupling their economy to the west, the importation of western culture (with its assumption of the superiority of democracy and capitalism) and the growing middle and rich classes the next generation of CCP rulers will be different in many ways from this one.

Plus if they wish to get Taiwan back without a war, the political system will shift to more autonomy and democracy at the provincial level...even if for only Taiwan. Possibly even another major political party...though that seems a stretch.

They're making money, improving their standards of living and experiencing national pride. Let them enjoy the moment. We had 200 years to get our act together and arguably are not snow white yet either.

I figure in two more leadership generations things will have worked themselves through to a real democracy. One much healthier than the Russian one to boot.

That may not help the Tibetians today but should in the long run.

Not sure about Yugoslavia off the top of my head, but IIRC 60+ countries boycotted the Soviet games in 1980?

In China's case, yes, they are slowly making progress in the right directions. Having the games should help spur the process along, that I can agree with. Perhaps my original post was a bit of overstatement on my part, though China still has their issues.

(Like any country does, including the USA; although many of our issues should be corrected next January if things go right)

Of course not. 2016 will be in Sudan!

+1. Tru dat.

NBC edited /changed the sequence of events in the opening ceremony. God bless America and it's view of reality.

I think you are just jealous Artman. As you noted all the photos show the athletes enjoying Bush and he is enjoying them. The media can't bias or hide it.

Finally, even though he didn't take it, that ass pat was offered up with a cute smirk....


Dude, you are a lame duck. You've got to slap that butt!

I watched the footage of Michael Phelps winning his first gold last night. I fell asleep before I could see what happened in the women's relay but did get to watch several other swim races. I've really grown to appreciate swim since my kids have gone into it and I spend weekends timing the events. Phelps must have some just insanely powerful legs. His arms on his freestyle were just all about breathing yet he could pull away from the others. That was amazing to watch.

USA versus China in basketball today. I'm going to join the half million watching it worldwide even if it is tape delayed here. I caught a very small bit of the Chinese and Japanese men in gymnastics yesterday. It looked cool but I have no idea besides an obvious screw up as to what would be better versus best.

I would've slapped her ass and I would've slapped it good.