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POPSXXIX Beijing Olympics The Chinese government promoted the Games and invested heavily in new facilities and transportation systems.
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POPSBeijing National Stadium (bird's nest) designer didn't get an invitation to the Opening Ceremony ?!!
Q: You’ve coined the phrase, “pretend smile,” as a label for China’s Olympic effort. Why? Ai: I did say it’s a “pretend smile.” I was questioning whether it’s possible for a society that doesn’t have democracy to excite the joys and celebrations of its people. Q: What disappoints you about China’s Olympic effort? Ai: The biggest disappointment is that China has fallen short of its promises, which is, “One World One Dream,” or to show the world a “New China, New Beijing, New Olympics.” I doubt there’s anything new here. What we’re seeing are the deep-rooted lack of courage and confidence, and the want for real happiness and civil participation. Instead, we see more of inept management and a blind sense of self-defense. Q: How can China benefit from the Olympics? Ai: Maybe China and its people will further realize that today’s world cannot be divided. China has common political, cultural and economic interests with the rest of the world. The only way for it to produce wonders is
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POPSChina's National Flag To Go Up in White House on Sept 20 By Hou Lei "Many Americans admire China due to the success of last year’s Beijing Olympics," said Chen. More than 1,000 people will attend the ceremony and the performances held after it, according to Zhao Luqun, who will direct the performances. Zhao said the performances will demonstrate the friendship, magnanimous spirit and kindness of modern Chinese people.
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POPSevery postwar olympic stadium... I was recently asked to express an opinion regarding... "Have the olympics become too expensive?" This is an initial bit of some background information I've started collecting.
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POPSTragedy of Falun Gong The Chinese government “used the Olympics’ security as a pretext to apprehend, torture, and murder people who had already suffered prolonged human rights violations in China. The U.S. continues to ignore China's humans rights violations in deference to its own economic interests. Every time we buy something marked with 'made in China' we are contributing to the worsening human rights violations that directly violate pre-Olympics promises. “Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Christians, and human rights lawyers and defenders have been victimized and lost their freedom because of their refusal to conform to the abusive regime,” the report ends “But those who choose to be in the same boat and rise and fall with such an abusive regime have lost their conscience.”
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POPS2008 Zeitgeist All the other countries of the world have similar lists and its interesting to see the similarities throughout the world.
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POPScycling piccies cycling is too dangerous where I live that is why I am campaigning for 20mph zones. You'll need to centralise the slider as the pictures are slightly too big for the frame
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POPS"World needs a vacation from USA" He called for immediate technology transfer from the West to the Third World, to allow development based on clean technology — stressing the need to “reject intellectual property rights”. funds should not be distributed through the World Bank, which was trying to regain legitimacy by portraying itself as a “climate bank” while continuing to push fossil-fuel-driven development. Confronting global poverty and climate change means confronting US power. “I don’t think the world needs US leadership”, he said. “They should be more humble.” Whether the US achieves its goals “is where we, as civil society come in”, Bello said, suggesting that, by making intervention costly for the US, civil society could encourage a “new US isolationism”. The struggle is, he stressed, global. “The world needs a vacation from the messaianism of the US … A few decades of a self-absorbed US would be very good for the world.”
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POPSTo make a king Binyavanga Wainaina's excellent commentary on how we in Africa stereotype ourselves, turn our leaders into kings, and then act all surprised when it results in violence. It's worth reading the full article.
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POPSphotos from the 2008 Summer Paralympic Games in Beijing Click through for captions & explanations of the photos. I love how scarred & battered their chair wheels are in the photo of the wheelchair rugby players. It seems that rugby is rugby, regardless of how you play it. I have a feeling that their street wheelchairs have the classic bumper sticker: "GIVE BLOOD: PLAY RUGBY". :-)
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