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So cute it brought tears to my eyes ...

The kids from "Slumdog Millionaire" at the Oscars.
(NYT photo)

Olympic Delirium

After weeks of 100+ temperatures in North Texas, we finally got a break in the temperatures and the return of rainfall, and not too soon! Trees had started dying, the grass was browned-off, the air was fetid and people were beginning to act wacky.

With the rain gently falling and the accompanying comfort of rolling thunder, I have been captivated, more or less, by the Beijing Olympics. Although I haven't caught it all, it IS on all night on the bedroom TV so I can catch things as I walk by.

Everything is amazing. What I don't catch on TV is easily caught at www.nbcolympics.com, once you get past their stupid new viewer that is quixotically not compatible with my computer. You can watch soccer, sailing, you-name-it in real time. The BMX bicycling cross-country was just beautiful ... they seemed to be in the air half the time. The gymnastics were very impressive, as have been the swimming and diving.

Its especially wonderful tonight watching the gymnastics exhibition to raise money for the Sichuan quake victims.

It was sad to see Liu Xiang leave the Bird's Nest with an injury, but other heroes like the spectacular diver He Chong I think will demonstrate that there is room for more than one Chinese Idol.

Darcy Zhang adds:

Liu Xiang is quit , too bad, he is suffer from the illness for a while ,i thought he might not able to attend the game, and i am right. I watched the women vault and floor exercise , our athlete Cheng Fei is failed for some small mistake , and i do found the Liukin and the other US woman athlete is good !

Of course the controversy over local Nastia Liukin's losing a tiebreaker is best expressed by Marcus Hayes in The Wall Street Journal yesterday:

"It’s not unusual: The same system was used to break a tie in the men’s vault competition last night, but with much less hubbub ... That’s the difference between men’s and women’s gymnastics: hubbub."

When asked about various western controversies like Ossetia or the Spanish basketball team making Asian eyes, Darcy says:

We never heard the things you mentioned in your letter. Seems the media focus on different things. We just broadcast the games nonstoply.

And he's not kidding; evidently in Chengdu they have SEVEN channels broadcasting the Olympics simultaneously. No doubt they are spared the endless dueling ads for John McCain and Barack Obama.

The other news item I did observe was the notice today in the Times that two old Chinese ladies in their late seventies had applied to officially protest being unfairly compensated after their homes were demolished in the wake of Olympics construction. The Public Security Bureau sent them away to the countryside for re-education through labor, which goes to prove that you are never too old to learn something new!

If they were anything like the old lady in the Nationwide Insurance commmercials, one could understand the authorities' fear. Now that they have international attention, and the officials will potentially lose face, chances are things will work out for them.

Still, anyone who's ever lost precious unrecoverable hours at a Neighborhood Association meeting knows there is always someone who desperately needs to be sent away ...

 

Really!??!?

This is just a short tribute to the new "Really?!?!?!?" segment that Amy Pohler and Seth Ryan did on "Saturday Night Live" last night.

In rapid-fire, they quote some official or celebrity saying something bogus, offensive, or patently stupid, then say "REALLY?!?!?", and then shoot it down with rocket-propelled bullseye snarkiness.

It ought to be online at NBC by now, and you will be AMAZED at how versatile the word "really" can be. Really!

The skit posits an attitude which is long overdue in this society, a society which was beginning to never question anything around it, and is now reaping the bitter retching harvest of never asking, "REALLY?!?!?"