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Friday, August 15, 2008
And now we have a scandal
The Communists are now contradicting their own mouthpieces in the press on the age of their Olympic gymnasts. Meanwhile, the rural interior - the one place the cadres need to have swooning in patriotic Olympic fervor, is tuning the Games out.
It's been a long time since we've seen an Olympic flop, but that may be what we're seeing today.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on August 15, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink
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Comments
You see now? This is why I was so opposed to an olympic boycott.
Posted by: dp | 2008-08-15 9:21:16 AM
Gymnastics does not allow competitors younger than 16. But the youngest Olympian is a 12-year-old swimmer from Cameroon. There also is a 13-year-old swimmer from Seychelles, a 14-year-old British diver, a 15-year-old Chinese diver and two 15-year-old American divers. In the past Olympic champions in gymnastics have often been younger than 16, so not only is the restriction on younger athletes inconsistent, but it probably means that the best athletes are excluded. That is unreasonable.
So by entering underage athletes, the Chinese really should be lauded as yet another "unsung hero of liberty" ( http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/08/an-unsung-hero.html ). Yes? Moin? Care to defend them?
Posted by: Fact Checl | 2008-08-15 9:35:55 AM
Could someone educate me? When did they slap on this age restriction? Wasn't Nadia Kominich 13?
Posted by: dp | 2008-08-15 9:45:48 AM
And now, the pre-emptive reply about the motivation for the ban being to protect vulnerable children:
The Chinese gymnastics training programme is child abuse. There is no denying this. From the youngest ages these kids are put in stress positions like they were detainees in Guantanamo and systematically emotionally abused, among other things. But preventing them from competing at the Olympics until 16 will not change that one bit. They will still be just as chewed up and spit out by that machine. It will, however, deny those kids one small reward that they can get from being put through so much - the chance to compete. It is one thing to not get to compete because you are not good enough. It is another because of an artificial barrier designed to help you that only hurts you.
And if other countries feel "victimized" because they "played by the rules", they get what they deserve for appeasing a freedom hating organization. Bad rules are made to be broken.
Up next: Why athletes using banned substances are also "unsung heroes of liberty", just like Marc Emery is.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-08-15 9:46:38 AM
China has killed off millions of its young girls by abortion. Some have coined it "gendercide." Yet the media and others in the western world have a fixation with a young girl being subsituted for another because she was more beautiful to the eye. Let's face it these "games" are an obscenity, in a country that tortures and oppresses its own people, and anyone with any human decency would abhor them instead of participating.
Posted by: Stephen J. Gray | 2008-08-15 9:50:35 AM
Mr. Gray- I think some of those abuses are as old as China itself. Gendercide is not a state imposed practise. Chinese family values have always favoured male children. It's hard to blame the commies for that one.
The same can be said for the substitution scandal. My girlfriend is Chinese, and I've found out just how much they value good looks. It's not all that different than our society, except for the fact they don't feel the least bit guilty about it. Chinese men have no problem openly criticizing a total stranger for being overweight or "ugly". If a Canadian man does this, he's usually held accountable in some way.
Posted by: dp | 2008-08-15 10:52:49 AM
Now, we have reports of actual scandals, i.e., the regime trying to fix the outcome of events.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on August 15, 2008
You mean things like that happen in the pure as the driven snow Olympics? I'm shocked, absolutely shocked. But I sort of remember the Koreans doing something like that in 1988 in the boxing competition. And didn't the pairs figure skating competition in 2002 have the result fixed? Just wondering.
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-08-15 11:18:44 AM
The grooming of child athletes, especially in repressive regimes that do not open themselves up to scrutiny, should be a concern to everyone who cares about child welfare.
The peaceful use of marijuana by consenting adults should be nobody else's concern.
Only a fool would try to establish some kind of parity between these things.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-15 3:18:33 PM
The peaceful use of marijuana by consenting adults should be nobody else's concern.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 15-Aug-08 3:18:33 PM
So if an airline captain and the first officer smoked up 5 minutes before takeoff you wouldn't be concerned?
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-08-15 3:34:17 PM
1. The very essence of a game is that it involves the setting of arbitrary obstacles to the achievement of arbitrary objective: see Bernard Suits, "The Grasshopper" --
http://nigelwarburton.typepad.com/virtualphilosopher/2007/12/tom-hurka-on-be.html
2. In a competitive game, if everyone does not play by the same arbitrary rules that define the means and objectives of the game, the whole purpose of playing the game is defeated.
3. As important as games are to life, life is not a game. The purposes of life are not arbitrary, however subjective they might be; and the rules of life should not be arbitrary, however difficult it might be to identify them.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-15 3:37:08 PM
Stig, don't confuse obtuseness for cleverness.
Airline pilots who toke within a certain time period of liftoff violate their employment contracts, not to mention and several very non-arbitrary sections of their professional and criminal codes. That is the very opposite of "consenting."
Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-15 3:41:29 PM
"So if an airline captain and the first officer smoked up 5 minutes before takeoff you wouldn't be concerned?"
That's just an idiotic, knee jerk question.
Airline Pilots aren't allowed to drink 24 hours before a flight...why should any other mood enhancer be the exception. Recreational/ Peaceful use of pot or alcohol is still none of the governments business.
And the Olympics this year are as far as I can tell by listening to people on the street, are the biggest "Yawn" in Olympic History.
Posted by: JC | 2008-08-17 12:13:52 PM
dp,
Nadia Comaneci was 14 (almost 15) when she competed in the 76 olympics. I'm at a loss to explain the new rule. A 17 year old in the little league world seris is an advantage. I'm not sure we all shouldn't be celebrating a 14 year old capable of competing and winning at this level.
Regards,
cj
Posted by: Cyrano Jones | 2008-08-22 10:36:34 PM
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