from the soapbox

Living outside the US, in a country whose language I can barely just get by with, has made it necessary for me to make an actual effort to keep up with current events and world news - I can't just soak it in haveint the tv on in the background. So, every few days, after I finish perusing my daily diet of blogs and celebrity news (hey, we all have priorities), I surf the wave of cnn.com to see what the world's been up to. Today was one of those days - and man, do I need a drink. A(nother!) shooting spree at a college; routine death and destruction in too many countries around the world, and suspicions that mentally disabled women were pimped out by staff in their psychiatric hospital to serve as possibly unknowing suicide bombers (??? can't make this shit up); penguins dying in the south pole and polar bears dying in the north pole (and the latter being waitlisted - WAITLISTED! - for the endangered species list) due to climate change - and all this is just this morning's news.

And then there's Beijing and the Olympics. That China was chosen to host the Olympics is exciting and great and all that, but - to be completely honest - for me, only a little bit. I just can't muster up that much of the warm and fuzzy in the face of all these other China-related issues that are a little difficult to kick under the rug. Things like human rights and mistreatment of animals and Darfur and the general bass-ackwardness of so many things about this country that is my motherland and fatherland (ok, not exactly, more like ancestorland). And the Chinese government's position that the Olympics should be purely about sport and not at all about politics and the state of the world - C'MON, PEOPLE, you've been given the honor of hosting an event that is supposed to represent the harmonious coming together of different countries around the world. It is not at all outrageous for people to want you, as representative of all this harmony and togetherness, to maybe consider bringing your policies and actions a little more in line with the more generally accepted (and acceptable) basic philosophies of the world.

And can anyone tell me why the IOC would choose, as the host of the mother of athletic competitions, such a badly-polluted city?

I fully appreciate that China has invested oodles of time and money and other resources to show the world how far it has come, and I hate that I am coming off as bashing China - but fireworks and fancy buildings can't take the place of actual meaningful reforms in the things that matter.

But those fancy buildings - especially to me as a former almost-architect - mama like.