China 2008

Curling can be quite entertaining, you should watch it more!

 

RE: Re: China 2008

Hey now, I curl! Although, it is Canada.

The Olympics bore me and China irritates me. I've been to China, it's a third world country, forget it.

 

RE: Re: China 2008

i like a lot of the events of the summer olympics -- especially track and field (and soccer, of course). what kills me is friggin' Bob Costas and the networks having to turn every athlete into some special interest story. ugh!!

tell me how training is going or why Jamaica couldn't get the baton around the track in the Sprint Relay --- don't tell me how <insert random athlete here> had to run 34 miles up hill to school, carrying his 4 brothers while not having any shoes!!!

 

RE: Re: China 2008

I do miss the days of the Olympics being an amateur sporting event and more air time being spent on the events rather than the individual athletes. Ah the good old days!

 

RE: Re: China 2008

How about we award the Oylpics to cities that can keep their enviornment all clean? London is doing that, Beijing are just a bunch of upper-class cunts who like to hire thugs to get the job done. And those thugs aren't good at cleaning up the fucking place!

 

RE: Re: China 2008

Aside from the gross pollution eminating from China, and the myriad horrendous civil rights violations taking place as I write this, I query: 'why was this country awarded the Olympics?' And I will answer myself: oh yeah, money...

 

I've been to China and Beijing. A couple of summers ago. It is polluted as like nothing I've ever seen before.

It's going to be hard on all the atheletes unless China shuts down half the country to keep the skies clean for two weeks, which they might actually do.

It's going to be mess I bet because of the politics and pollution.

 

Not an alarmist. Just someone with an International Relations and International Law degree (which makes me nothing really, and certainly not an expert). But, for the forseeable future, the biggest threat to the United States national security and well being is, in my sincere opinion, China.

Tianamen is a distant memory that has been shoved under the rug. And the world, and in large part United States policy, is to blame for that sacrifice and great democratic movement being quickly choked to death and purposely forgotten.

 

Re: RE: Re: China 2008

And the "backing" of a billion citizens? Well, maybe not...

I guess the Olympic committee bought into and ate up all the positives that the Chinese delegation presented to them, and forgot that most of the country is still a third-world cesspool. With all the problems that have (and haven't) been mentioned here, it's puzzling that Beijing could become the venue for such a major world event.

The level of pollution in China has gotten so bad that it is now starting to have a negative affect on air qualities of neighboring countries. Every few weeks during springtime, a dust storm pops up in a desert somewhere in China; most of the dust gets mixed up with pollutants and other toxins. Then it gets blown eastward, making beelines for Japan and Korea -- and sometimes, the effects are bad enough to paralyze entire cities.

I went to Japan during the month of May and experienced the dust storm first-hand -- twice. On one of those days, I was to leave my city (Kitakyushu) on a bullet train for a destination that was over an hour away. When I left, the city was covered in a rather thick cloud of dust, and I barely recognized the sun. And it didn't look any better at the destination, either; if anything, the effect of the dust actually looked stronger there.

Safe to say, it wasn't a very pleasant sight. But it only lasted a day in Japan. Imagine having to wake up to that for 365 days per year... :?

 

Yeah, coming back from the Great Wall we experienced a dust storm in Beijing (not the first time I had seen one having lived several years in Lubbock, TX). In Hong Kong, a typhoon that I ended up landing in in Taiwan, pushed all the pollution and dust into the area and created something like a heavy orange fog.

 

human rights/pollution/olympic committee corruption/bob costas and keith olbermann aside...

China is like 12 hours ahead so nothing will be live and i can just hop on the information superhighway (remember that??) to get the info/stats.

i may watch some basketball. but i will probably stop after the USA loses to Montenegro and Gambia, and Coach K blames the different rules and not the fact that americans dont know how to play the game (correctly) anymore.

Doesnt it put you in unemployment though? :wink:

 

I despise the Olympics. I don't know why really. I guess it is just because nothing about it fascinates me.

Now if they were to show more soccer matches, then maybe I'd be more inclined to watch.

 

They still put on the Olympics? China got the olympics?!!!


Hmmmm...

Seriously, I find it amusing that someone seems to think the great democracy movement in china is dead. Because the government isnt showcasing it!

Far from it. All the ills stated above are without doubt true.. but they will serve to promote China into the real world.

- apart from those 'educated' in the west, some of whom will advocate they all go back to backyard foundries and 1/8 acre of land farming.

Yes, even the tainted foodstuffs and toy painting will serve their purpose.

 

Stop the whining!

Well I must say its become quite fashionable to bash the Olympics in our media. Its seems the sportswriters and such do nothing for two weeks but complain about how terrible the Olympics are and how they're not what they used to be. They do this rather than REASEARCHING AND COVERING THE EVENTS.

And as is always the case what is presented repeatedly over a long period of time i the media tends to rub off on the people who adsorb the media, us. And so now everyone bashes the Olympics, cause thats what you do.

I think its all a load of bull. I love the Olympics. Ya the commercial tie-ins are annoying, there also annoying every time I turn on the Tv, radio, open a newspaper, go to the grocery store, go to a fast food restaurant, and oh ya lest I forget WATCH A SOCCER GAME. If you are a footy fan surely you have no right to complain about commercial tie-ins, surely.

Come on senor Don you complain about doping. Its a competitive event in which some will do anything and compromise anything to win. Does this not also happen in soccer for example? Along with Tap-ups, Bungs, back door deals, as well as good ole match fixing.

And of course you'll be able to see the soccer, they show every event. And if your sick of people complaining about the basketball team then do the opposite and support them. I tried doing that during the world championships last summer on here but I was alone in the fight, everyone else just....complained.

The things you guys are spewing are near the exact words that the so called experts on ESPN spew every time the Olympics start up. Don't tell me you lot are going to be suckered into that, defining your opinions based on what the likes of Tony Kornhieser and Skip Bayless tell you. You guys need to stop the hatin!

 

Sometimes. The funny thing is that with all that background, I work in the real estate arena for the time being.

My point being, your degree doesn't make who you are or what you do. It mostly shows that you had the discipline and interest at one time. While I still maintain an interest in things international (especially footie these days), I would consider myself somewhat embarrassingly out of the loop. Family life can do that.

 

RE: Stop the whining!

Well, said Spencer...
And NOW I have to admit I was cowed by the comments on the personal interest focus. Before I even read them.. it seems to be built into the 'cynical fan' personna we all have to put up as a front.

I like the personal stories. There i said it.

No one likes to be seen as the whitebread emotionalist watcher.... but that's what the Olympics is REALLY all about, isnt it?
Look at the great movies:
'Chariots of Fire', 'Miracle {on Ice}' even 'Cool runnings'

Anyone really hate those?

It takes a certain guy to pull it off, though and we dont have Jim McKay around anymore. Brent Musberger didnt do too bad a job, Bob Costas could and did pull it off but made it worse at the same time.

It's ONLY that the bar has been set so high by McKay, and to an extent Curt Gowdy, that we are so cynical.

Let's get up a petition to force ABC to loan Al Michaels for the event

 

RE: Stop the whining!

I do not mind Costas at all. I think he does a great job with the Olympics and any other event he covers. What is so bad about him?

 

RE: Stop the whining!

I could go for some Al Michaels shouting, "Do you believe in Miracles? YESSS"