Put down that bagpipe!

Bagpipe player Andrew Aitken, from Galashiels, who went to the Olympics to raise money for the National Deaf Children's Society on a sponsored walk along the Great Wall of China, was almost arrested when he was practicing his bagpipe near the stadium (the Birds Nest), not realizing that he was close to a major electricity source, a sensitive security location. When a Chinese officer stopped to arrest him, a passing tourist helped explain that the bagpipe was not a weapon.

Mr Aitken said: "I'm not all that good on the pipes so I thought I'd go off on my own and have a practice before I had to play in front of the people I was doing the walk with.

"I had a silly soldier's hat on and my kilt and a few locals gathered round and seemed to be enjoying me playing, but just as I finished a police car pulled up with four officers.

"They weren't happy and it emerged that it was heightened security all over China because of the opening ceremony." via bbc.co.uk

Relatives say 79 year old woman with disabilities in China sentenced to labor camp

Disability Nation reports on the case of two elderly women, one who is nearly blind and uses crutches to ambulate, who have been sentenced to labor camp as part of a re-education program after applying to protest their housing eviction.

Perhaps you caught the NBC Nightly News Report earlier this week that examined the process that China established through which citizens could petition for the right to protest at three specially appointed locations during the Olympics. It turns out that of 77 requests filed by citizens that none of them were granted. Further, it appears that some who have made these requests have been arrested or, as in this case, sentenced to re-education programs which appear to be nothing more than a quick and convenient way to punish people without allowing the individuals any rights or chance to defend themselves.

Wu Dianyuan, 79, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77, were notified Sunday that they were to serve a yearlong term of re-education through labour, said Wang’s son, Li Xuehui. Officials did not specify a reason and still had not acted on the order, he said. via Disability Nation

A spokeswoman for the re-education through labor program denied having either woman's name on record.

[image description: Wu Dianyuan, standing on crutches, and Wang Xiuying are pictured standing on a brick walk on a street with an officer nearby.]

It's not the Para-Olympics Bob..

Bob Costas, during a feature on Natalie du Toit, referred to the Paralympics as the Para-Olympics which , if you think about it, could be because he's just spent over a week saying the word Olympics hundreds of times a day.

Or it could be because he really thinks the Paralympics are called that.

I have an idea how to fix all of this. Let's break the word down in disability terms.

Para as in paraplegic

Lymp as in limp

Ics as in prosthet"ics".

Whereas Para-O -lympics sounds like cheerleaders running around, shouting "give me an O". Reminiscent of CheeriOs. It just doesn't work.

This could be the first controversy of the Paralympics.

Paralympics.

No O.

Natalie du Toit finishes marathon

Fulfilling her dream of being in the Olympics, she finished in 16th place in the marathon event and now looks forward to the upcoming Paralympics, where she'll compete in numerous swimming events.

And du Toit says no quarter is given by her rivals in the water and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Whatever the competition, able-bodied or not, nobody is going to hold back,” she said.

“I don’t look at other amputees and think ‘her leg is off higher than mine, so I’ll swim slower’. You train hard and give it everything." via www.thetimes.co.za

Du Toit swims without a prosthesis and can’t move her left leg, which was amputated just below the knee. She’s got half the kicking power of her opponents. She compensates with her left arm.

She stayed near the leaders for the first half of the race, but lost ground when her cap got caught on a turning buoy. She got stuck in the pack and got "dunked" on a couple turns, when the race becomes a Roller Derby of pushing and yanking.

via news.bostonherald.com

She finished in fourth place at the world championships in May.

Natalie, who told reporters she gets frustrated when people "look at her stump or prosthetic leg before they look at her face", says she loves racing "because it's pure meritocracy" and going to the Olympics was a victory of inclusion.

[image description: Natalie, an amputee, is shown diving into a pool.]

Dancer falls in Olympic rehearsals

A Chinese dancer slated to perform a solo who fell during rehearsals for the Olympics opening ceremonies has been diagnosed with paralysis of her lower legs.

In her first photo after injury, Liu Yan smiled ... and made a victory sign. "I'm not going to feel sorry for myself. I fell at the Olympics, but I will be back to create beauty for the world in one way or another," she said.


via china.org.cn

The full story and videos can be found here.

Watching the Olympics: it's just not the same

When NBC purchased the exclusive right to broadcast the Olympics, they planned on using new technology to show over 36,000 hours of unprecedented coverage. Inserting live coverage of selected events in primetime slots, they also offer taped TV coverage, videos on their site and the ability to download onto Vista computers. Since the last Olympics, the changes in technology opened up new possibilities never before used.

But with the changes have come criticisms of some of their decisions: a delayed showing of the Opening ceremonies by 12 hours and going after YouTube and other sites for posting videos of events prior to TV coverage. A viewing audience that appears to be more attuned to internet viewing than ever before, doesn't seem to be satisfied even with features that allow downloading of events overnight to be watched in the morning.

NBC's decision to delay broadcasting the opening ceremony by 12 hours sent people across the country to their computers to poke holes in NBC's technological wall – by finding news feeds on foreign broadcasters' Web sites and by watching clips of the ceremonies on YouTube and other sites.

In response, NBC sent frantic requests to Web sites, asking them to take down the illicit clips and restrict authorized video to host countries. As the four-hour ceremony progressed, a game of digital whack-a-mole took place. Network executives tried to regulate leaks on the Web and shut down unauthorized video, while viewers deftly traded new links on blogs and on the Twitter site, redirecting one another to coverage from, say, Germany, or a site with a grainy Spanish-language video stream.
via seattlepi.nwsource.com

In a world where YouTube rules and is available on cell phones, laptops, and other mobile devices, it's hard for TV coverage to compete. News is now delivered in shorter pieces, pared down to highlights of events the viewer chooses, rather than content chosen by a network, interspersed with stories about the athletes, their parents and other Olympic venue news and views.

It's no wonder that in this kind of media environment, viewers aren't satisfied with watching taped performances of outcomes they've already seen scrolled across their iPhones or Blackberries when they get home from work. Nor is it surprising that bloggers, whose numbers have grown geometrically since the last Olympics, are posting videos.

It's all just another sign that the more traditional media outlets are lagging behind. They still have a TV audience, folks who want to know that they can see taped portions of an Opening Ceremony in primetime, but by the next Olympics, more of that audience too will have converted to new ways of watching sports, news and current events.

It's time for networks to embrace the reality - and not a bad one -that watching the Olympics will never be the same again.

Olympic stuff - AND Brett's a Jet

Yes I saw Brett on the sidelines last night at the Jets game, talking to the quarterbacks, tossing a few balls, fitting in with the guys. He was quoted as saying "To a certain degree, I don't know what I'm getting into."

But hey that's just the football part. What's important is that jerseys are already selling and EA announced that their newly released Madden 09 football game cover will show Brett in his Green Bay uniform but a downloadable cover in his Jets uniform will be available on their site for fans.

Now that we ALL have that out of the way, I'd like to share an Olympic link Don just sent me. Click here for videos and a schedule of the events at this Beijing 2008 Olympic Games site. What's special about this Olympic site? I see links to the upcoming Paralympic games posted over there too.

In Olympic news: the second Hamm twin, Morgan, had to drop out of the men's gymnastics competition a few days ago due to injuries, as did his brother Paul who dropped out at the end of July. Both twins, who took a break from the sport to finish their degrees in college before returning for an Olympic 2008 run, plan to retire and pursue other careers.

This flamboyant Greco Roman wrestler is sure to attract attention at the games from someone I know who loves the sport, name not to be mentioned but you know who you are. His name is Ben Askren and he says he's going to win. He's shown in two pictures below: with his flamboyant reddish hair "poofed out" on the left and in dreadlocks on the right, wearing wrestling outfits in both pictures.



At the University of Missouri, he won two NCAA titles and two Dan Hodge trophies as college's top wrestler. If there was an award for flamboyance, he'd have won it, too. As a junior, he sported a hairstyle he'd let grow for two years.

His poofed-out, blondish-brown hair protruded from all sides of his headgear. Some of his fans wore wigs to mimic him.

At the Olympic trials, his fans wore T-shirts showing his face, silhouetted from the side, against the flag of China. Askren has a jutting chin. The T-shirts carried the slogan he coined: "Putting the CHIN in CHINA."
via usatoday.com

US Boxer Russell had to drop out of the Olympics, after collapsing and allegedly suffering dehydration while trying to make weight.

Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders issued an on air message to Chinese officials, stating they want human rights, not games.

President Bush, during the dedication of a new embassy building, talked about freedom of speech and religion and was criticized by the Chinese government that he was meddling in the internal affairs of China. He then attended services in a government sanctioned church.

Olympic athletes are praying with state sanctioned religious affiliates as well. This article discusses how religions work in the Chinese government where the state controls religion.
The Roman Catholic Church is outlawed in China because the government considers papal influence to be interference in its domestic affairs. Instead, churches are overseen by the state-run Patriotic Catholic Association. The Vatican opposes the association's ordination of priests and appointment of bishops, decisions normally made by the church. via bloomberg.com

I wrote about Catholics in China in this post.


The Opening ceremonies, already being held, will be televised this evening in the US.

Olympic news and views

Here's a quick roundup of some articles on the upcoming Olympics:

A typhoon has disrupted preparation for the Olympic equestrian events

A 10 is no longer a perfect score in gymnastics, much to the dismay of Mary Lou Retton, who feels the new scoring system is so hard to understand, even she doesn't get it...

Some US cyclists arrive at the airport in China wearing masks which were given to them, causing a reaction by officials stating that it's an overreaction to the issue of air quality

This ESPN writer asks everyone to stop making fun of synchronized swimmers

Here's the kind of thing synchronized swimmers have to endure, shown in this video of the Gootnick pool party


An ancient Olympic calculator has been found

Security concerns and the beating of Japanese journalists is discussed here

California strawberries will be attending the games

an article about the Olympics as sports, TV event and potential political protest

and Steven Smith writes about the non-protest waivers for athletes