Ooops ...let me print a retraction!

In Saturday's Australian a retraction published of a story some what earlier. It reads that costing the Olympics the original article said "therefore each gold medal cost the taxpayer $30 million" that should have read '$13 million'.

Can't help but think it was a little tongue-in-cheek!

The party's (nearly) over

It's difficult to imagine that the Olympics is now nearly all over. Though of course when you catch yourself watching European handball, synchronised swimming, and strange types of shooting...then you should probably recognise the signs.
What a concatenation of conclusions it brings about.
The stupid headlines which says "Phelps unseated as King" because now a runner has run faster than he can swim. Isn't there room for both.
The obvious sadness about the assessment of some (even many) that the Olympics has actually worsened the Chinese human rights situations...this depends of course on the side you are on.
And has the voice of Tibet been heard...the words "The Dalai Lama is a fool" from the mouth of a 16 year old resonate recurringly.
And then the incessant whining that we haven't won enough gold medals, as if some how our athletes have let us down. Read the story fo Anna Meares (here) who only won silver! I thought her father said the most perceptive thing I have ever heard anyone say..."I would have been pleased if she had come last!" Indeed all of them should be proud of just being there.
Any way, for most of us the Olympics will be put to bed until 2012.
Can't get enough of that synchronised swimming!

Our ethnic heritage

K, presently in the US, assures me that their Olympic coverage is impossible, as they seem to think that only America is competing!
In this country, where the majority of us also have strong ethnic links outside our nation's borders thank goodness for the wider Olympic coverage being offered through SBS.
At least it gives us the opportunity to understand that this sports fest is not just about who Australia is beating or getting beaten by.

Olympic Fever

Each time some manifestation of international sport occurs we are gripped with fervour,or is it fever. So it is good to have a Chinese citizen in the house on this day when the Olympics open.
I think she is a bit non-plussed about why everyone isn't just totally in love with the Chinese State (as she is required to be - see below or here)
But it is good to have someone who is so proud of her country with us today. This mornign as we watched 5 mins of breakfast TV she said to me "What does 'Bag China' mean?"
I didn't quite understand until I saw the little footnote on the screen which said "Everyone takes opportunity to Bag China!"
I was a little sad to have to explain to her what this meant.

Caring Little, Caring Less

Few Australians know or care much about Tibet. What we do know seems to be largely romanticised twaddle about a Shangri-La like culture which existed before the Chinese occupation just after the war, which sent the Dalai Lama into exile in Northern India.
The Dalai Lama is an exemplary person who appears to live out in reality what he proclaims in practice, non-violence. Whilst being articulate and outspoken, he nevertheless has refused to be drawn into a slanging match with the Chinese.
If China decided to end the Tibet crisis it could do it now. The truth is that China can essentially do what it likes. It comes from being the biggest kid in the classroom. It doesn't do it (presumably) because it cannot afford to isolate itself from world opinion when it has just spent the best part of the last two decades getting back into the mainstream.
Australia has discovered an interesting thing, we can be frightened or we can be strong. Frightened that we alienate the world's largest market. Strong as we realise that we are not without bargaining chips...coal. But also a sense of place in the world.
We cannot get too cocky, China could sit on us as easily as it sits on Tibet.
But we should try and be strong and do what is right. That's what seems to be hapenning.
Cooperating does not mean agreeing to every whim. Nor does it mean being painfully priggish.
But one imagines no one will pretend any more that the Olympicxs are or can be politics free

Carrying the torch

It is, I suggest, a vain hope that the Olympic will be free of political interference or issue. Even the Sydney Olympics had the question of who would open them, our Head of State or our benevolent dictator!
That question is mild by comparison with the complex of issues that surrounds the Chinese dragon, not the least of which is Tibet.
Although we have Olympic representatives like Monsieur Rogge wanting us to believe that there should be no protests, and that some how they should be kept free of politics, this is rather laughable. There will be protests (here), because the Olympics are political.
China, in wanting to stage sthe Olympics, is acting politically (when has it not). But it is nto alone in doing that. The IOC uses its not considerable influence to curry favour and influence in the whole process of country selection, it (if you like) plays the politcial situation off against itself.
The idea that 'sport' is some how pure and above the mortal plain is clearly laughable in these days of doping, sponsorship the billion dollar industries it spawns.
We should get real.
I think Rudd is right in not getting too alarmed by the possibility of protest. By saying that in Australia it is OK, and indeed we expect the right, to protest we are doing more for democracy than whisking the torch into some warehouse so that it is not some how 'defiled'.
China likes to do wrong in the world's eyes, and to use its might to forbid discussion.
That doesn't sound to me like new found freedom or emergent democracy, it looks rather like bullying and tyranny!