kitty: peace on earth good will to most????

(M always ask for Peace on earth good will for me for his birthday or Christmas. I always tell him that is to expensive, but I buy him the Olympic flag tee-shirt each year. And tell him this is as close as I can get.)

8-8-08 The start of the 2008 Olympics

Here at Knitbuddies, MG and I really try not to post things about subjects that are not related to crafting. I am the bigger of the offenders of this policy, but there are times that certain subjects really strike my heart and I feel the need to post about the subject. So here goes... If you want to come back another day I completely understand. I am really one of the biggest Olympic fans you will run into; collecting pins, memorabilia(My desk is surrounded with Olympic stuffed animals from different years.), contributing the US Olympics athletes when ever I can. One of my life long goals is to actually go to watch it live. I have been having a lot of mixed feelings about the summer Olympics this year. On the one hand I am very happy that the world is being shown a small glimpse of China. I am happy that they are beginning to talk about the subject of human rights and the environment even if it may just be serving lip service it is a start. You can not build a mountain in a day, week, month, or 4 years. I will certainly give them that, but then you start looking at what they agreed to with the Olympic committee to be given the rights to host the Olympics you really realize how much lip service was served. They agreed to open up the internet, but when the npr reporters tried to reach there homepage they were blocked. Reporters are forced to register with the local police and stay with host families while covering the olympics. China is putting there best foot forward but I certainly wouldn't call this unrestricted access that was guaranteed to the Olympic Committee. Then there is the treatment of the people of Tibet, the human rights issues, the air conditions, etc. It breaks my heart at a time when we should be celebrating Peace in the world, at least for 17 days. I had a lot of problems watching the opening ceremony last night. And one of the blogs that my husband found really summed it up better than I really could: "Special Affects - Gold Performance and Dance - Silver Soul - They didn't show up The blogger wrote that they walked away from the opening ceremony with the feeling that the only thing that they will remember is that China just has a lot of people that were great at automated mechanical effects." (sorry I don't have a link, M just told me about it) The ceremony was beautiful, but.... So many things wayed on my heart.

If you don't recognize it, this is Taiwan's flag. Not the olympic flag the Taiwanese Athletes are forced to carry.

Another thing that is always really hard for me to take is the treatment of Taiwan during the Olympics. This year though China has in my opinion dropped to an all time low. In English Taiwan has been called Chinese Taipei since 1984, this year they change the Chinese character to China Taipei in Chinese. Just think of the feeling that the Taiwanese people must feel. There athletes are not allowed to carry there flags, hear there anthem, or even mention there country. Now to be just denoted as a Chinese province allowed to compete. This discrimination is now even being carried over to the video gaming world with a protest by the Koreans during a World Cyber Game Asia in Singapore during 8-8-08. They protested that Taiwan should be listed as Chinese Taipei because that is the way it is listed at the olympics. But a small victory was given today by CNN. Wei-Ling Chen - Taiwan , won the first bronze medal of the games for Taiwan today. CNN did an interview with her after the games, and though they could not show her flag during the actual broadcast, when they cut to Atlanta they showed the world her Flag and the pride of the nation she represents. And things tonight seem to be changing, M found this on Yahoo UK & Ireland. Wei-Ling Chen - Chinese Taipei with her flag next to her name. So this Olympics, I really can not say that I feel like there are 17 days of peace on earth. Especially with Russia going to war with Georgia on the opening day of the events.