Beijing: Reviving the Julio-Willie
Back when Not News had a message board, I said that we should have an official award for things that seemed like a good idea at the time. I was motivated by hearing the Julio Iglesias/Willie Nelson duet “To All the Girls I Loved Before,” so I suggested the award be named in their honor. If you were to say that this suggestion would, itself, be a leading candidate for the award, I would not be likely to argue with you. But in any case, I have a feeling we may be handing out a whole bunch of the awards to the 2008 Olympics. At the very least, it’s an interesting learning opportunity. The latest incident regarding Joey Cheek’s suddenly-revoked visa is one example. On the one hand, it demonstrates China’s severe desire to avoid bad publicity. But it also highlights the reason why China gets so much publicity in the first place: given its economic clout, and its willingness to trade with nations like Sudan, there’s simply no avoiding dealing with China and trying, in some way or another, to get on its good side. As a result, you see many folks – like the US Olympic Committee – bending over backwards to avoid casting China in a bad light. It’s an interesting position to be in for a country that’s used to throwing its weight around with most folks.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.
Saturday, August 9th 2008 at 10:26 pm |
I for one had never heard of Joey Cheek until his visa was revoked.
Wednesday, August 13th 2008 at 12:52 am |
I’m more of a Winter Olympics guy than a Summer Olympics watcher – although that’s changed a little bit this year because my daughter has become an Olympics fanatic – so I kinda sorta remembered him, and then Pattie was listening to an NPR interview he did about a month ago. But yeah, the Chinese sure did figure out a way to give him a shot of publicity, eh?
Tuesday, August 26th 2008 at 1:59 pm |
Well, with the tragic exception of the volleyball coach’s family, it looks like the Games managed to avoid any significant disasters. I’m happy to be wrong, and we’ll see what kind of long term impact the Games turn out to have.