Monday, July 23, 2007

Snap Out of It, China!

The 2008 Olympics are nearly upon us. It will be a mess. A big Communist mess. as we learned from Animal Farm. And once again, everything bad in the world all comes down to Animal Farm.

First we heard of the tricky problem of ticket prices. No one in China can afford to go, not even when tickets are going as cheaply as $16!
But even at these rates, Olympic seats will be too expensive for many of China's 1.3billion citizens, who live on less than $350 a year.

However, the prices will be highly affordable for the country's rapidly growing middle class - those earning at least $10,000 a year, most of whom live in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Li Qian, 28, a professional who lives in Beijing, said the tickets were cheap. "To watch an Olympic Games is a once-in-a lifetime experience. [The cost] is nothing - it's the cost of admission to a dance party or a dinner with friends. I pay [about the same] for one session of yoga in Beijing." Citation
What is Li doing even going to Yoga!!?!? That's a story for another time, I suppose, but I can't imagine the Animal Farm chickens would be able to go to the Olympics, let alone do fun yoga.

Second, we have this fun story: Olympic organizers want the Chinese people to be nicer.
With most venues for the 2008 Summer Olympics near completion, organisers said Beijingers still had to work on improving their behaviour in order to hold a successful Games, state press said Monday.

"The Olympic Games is not simply a matter of competitive sports -- it is also a question of raising the quality of the people," the China Youth Daily quoted Zhang Faqiang, vice head of the Beijing Olympic organising committee as saying.
Damn. Smackdown on rude China. The quality of the people need to be raised. This won't be the fun Lillehammer Olympic village I guess.

3. And most bizarre. China wants to ensure nice Olympic weather. Which is a nice intent. But in an freaky Mr. Burns blacking out the sun kind-of idea, here is how they want to produce nice weather: Cloud-scaring rockets.
China will fire rockets into the sky to scatter any rain clouds ahead of next year's Beijing Olympics to ensure perfect weather, state media said on Tuesday.

China has already guaranteed perfect weather for the August 2008 Games, but until now had not said how it would make sure its forecast comes true.

Zheng Guoguang, head of the China Meteorological Association, announced the decision to use rockets in Beijing on Monday, the China Daily said.
Exsqueeze me, Zheng? This seems a tickle extreme. If this were Ok, wouldn't say Wimbledon, major gold tourneys, hell, even the commercially driven Superbowl want to employ these nice weather rockets? How about some rockets to drive some manners into the Chinese, which I guess is necessary as well?

I digress. Lindsay Davenport is maybe eyeing a U.S. Doubles spot. 2008 is gonna need some joy like this, as it will be headache inducing political year.

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