Obviously the Olympics is all about China putting on a show and they are willing to do whatever it takes to make it at least appear they kept up with their promises. Although it does seem to be having some good effects such as new buses according to Brandi, the Olympics should not be the only reason for these positive changes. My question is will we see the city of Beijing as well as China as a whole continue to try to better itself even after the Olympics? That would certainly be nice to see, but it seems as thought they may need some sort of spectacle to strive towards.

Also, there can sometime be a delay in the upload of the blog POSTS you submit …. my student assistant who loads them is in the office two days a week (only), sometimes yours are in line behind others that came in, I often try to space them out so everybody’s post can be digested and reviewed and commented on by others, my hold of loading them because they time well with another post that’s coming, etc.

We will continue to post things as quickly and efficiently as we can. Overall, the system works well.

Some good discussion on this thread and blog post. Good job. That’s the way it works, and this part of your learning in this facet of this course will continue to be correlated to effort and commitment given.

The alternative that I reiterate in the syllabus and FAQ document …. happy to call multiple class meetings in the evening or on Fridays to discuss such items and current events in person and/or have people hand in assignments in person during said physical class sessions if folks wish to go there. So, pick your poison …..

Next, please notice that this article stated that “…IOC officials are already pointing out how the Beijing Games have apparently inspired more volunteerism, still relatively rare in modern Chinese society.” But why is it relatively rare? And why is it now that they have a surge of volunteers? I would argue that their sense of patriotism is coming out, and it gives them purpose that they did not have before. After going through two revolutions in the past half century, the people have lost a lot of faith in their government. (This is why many environmental issues and human rights issues are often ignored by their own people. They feel powerless to do anything about it.) The olympics gives them something to work towards, and we will see much more passion and volunteerism come out of this summer event.

Finally, I have to disagree with Mr. Dick Pound when he says, “Having the Games there and having the media attention was a tremendous influence on the move towards a genuine democracy.” Democracy is not the goal here, and the Chinese government would be foolish to pursue such a proposal. This relates to Prof. Carr’s note that China has 1.3 billion people. How do you propose that democracy would work in China, Mr. Pound? Democracy is a terribly inefficient form of government, and no government is perfect. So, why try to change China into a democracy when it’s not even better than its current form of government? As Winston Churchill stated quite well, “Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.” I’m not a China lover, and I don’t like China’s flavor of communism (or socialism.. or whatever they claim they are now). But, I don’t think democracy would work there. Consider the US House of Representatives. The framer’s intentions were that each member of the house would represent the people of a certain locality, and so, they mandated that one in every thirty-thousand people would be electable as a representative. Each bill that passes through our system must be viewed by the House of Representatives, the Senate, and even the President. A bill can spend months, even years before becoming a law. Now take China. 1.3 billion people. That’s nearly 44,000 representatives. Try to get everyone’s voice to be heard in that congress to have equal say. It’s ridiculous to even suggest. China has always used emperors and communism for a reason throughout history. Yes, it does take away representation, free speech, and other human rights, but what is the alternative? We should complain about our inability to come up with a better solution before we complain about freedom of speech, human rights and other “abuses” in China.

This focus on China’s pollution is just the beginning. As a former elite athlete, I know that performance in this Olympic Games will be severely impacted by the pollution. Once after training at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs for three months, I went straight to a World Cup competition in Mexico City. It took a week of training before I could even make half of my routine, which was perfected a week prior. My eyes burned, I had trouble breathing, and my performance was horrible. I bet this will be one of the first years that not many Olympic records will be broken.