Stranger Than Fiction

In what can only be explained as unexplainable, Beijing has set up a gender determination lab to make sure that there are no male athletes secretly disguising themselves as females in order to give themselves a physical advantage in the games:

Experts at the lab, located at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital, will evaluate dubious cases based on their external appearance and take blood samples testing sex hormones, genes and chromosomes, Xinhua news agency said.

Sex testing has been routine at the Olympics and other sports events for decades, triggered by fears that male athletes sought to cheat by posing as women.

Indian athlete Santhi Soundarajan was stripped of an Asian Games silver medal in 2006 after failing a gender verification test.

Not sure what to say about this, other than the fact that when China usually tests you for gender, it's in the womb so they can find out if you're a girl baby and abort you. Here's hoping nobody gets killed over this, but seeing as how it's China, you never know...

Take That, Evil Chinese Beast

A very well put piece by Susan Elfers from the Op-Ed section of today's Cincinnati Enquirer sums up all the reasons that I no longer fund The Revolution From The East:

Tibet - Since China invaded Tibet in 1950, the Chinese government has worked diligently to extinguish an ancient civilization and annihilate a cultural heritage. Over 20 years, 1.2 million Tibetans died as a result of China's policies. The Chinese are still imprisoning thousands of Tibetans for their political or religious activities; torture is carried out regularly; sexual assault is used to punish, humiliate and coerce nuns.

Religious persecution - Most Christians in China worship in secret. They must hold Mass in the middle of the night, changing locations to avoid police raids. Nearly 2,000 Christians are arrested in China every year.

Death penalty - An estimated 7,000 to 8,000 prisoners were executed in China in 2006, about 22 people per day. About 70 crimes are punishable by death, including tax fraud, embezzling, accepting bribes and drug-related crimes.

Free speech - The Chinese government has the most sophisticated apparatus blocking or banning hundreds of Web sites in China. Web sites containing the search results for such words as "freedom" and "human rights" are censored.
They also block access to thousands of news Web sites and jam the international radio stations of Chinese and Tibetan language programs.

Forced abortions - China's one-child family planning has resulted in forced abortions, infanticide and imbalanced boy-girl ratios. Women in China who have not been given approval by their government to give birth are forced to have abortions as late as nine months into the pregnancy.

Additionally, here's a link to a petition to get President Bush to personally boycott the Beijing Olympics. This is the chance for all you anti-political types out there to participate in the process without having to actually vote, so don't let it slip away...

IOC To China: Keep It Live, Yo

The International Olympic Committee, in what appears to be an attempt to keep Big Brother's Beijing Bureau honest, is lobbying that the broadcast of the torch lighting ceremony and other various Olympic events be transmitted live, regardless of whatever peasant-beating protests may be impending. French president Nicholas Sarkozy, in a surprising display of backbone, has been suggesting using his influence with the European Union to coordinate a boycott of the games. We'll see how all that works out.

Here in the states, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (who years ago traded her soul and used the rebate money to purchase a rather unconvincing plastic smile) had the following input to offer about a potential U.S. boycott of the Olympics:

"I believe a boycott of the Beijing Olympics would unfairly harm our athletes who have worked so hard to prepare for the competition."

That's right. we wouldn't want anyone to be unfairly harmed here. Let the peasant beatings recommence!

What The Vatican's New Seven Deadly Sins Are... And What They're Not

File under: The Wonder That Is (British (Lack Of)) Religion?

At the prompting of the inimitable Jimmy Richter, my comrade in (sleeve tattooed) arms, I have decided to weigh in on this provocative subject. Please bear with my fumbling analysis.

Much has been made of a Vatican pronouncement of seven new deadly sins, which, after reading the sources, was neither a pronouncement, nor an enumeration of seven sins. You gotta love British journalism. It makes real news into tabloids, and tabloids into real news.

That being said, it's not a bad thing at all to discuss the things mentioned in L'Osservatorio Romano as deadly sins. Nor is there any sense in which the things wrongly cast as a "replacement list" are anything new, especially to anyone who has been paying attention to what's been coming out of Rome for decades. As such, we have decided to set down to explain what each of the British media's interpretations of the new "seven deadly sins" are, and what they are not.

Sin #1: Thou Shalt Not Engage in "Morally Dubious" Experimentation

What it is not: A prohibition of all stem cell research. As some who are paying attention have noticed, the Vatican is extremely in favor of stem cell research. What the Vatican is against is creating test-tube babies for the sole purpose of killing them and harvesting their parts in order to treat Michael J. Fox.

What it is: A stern warning to those who would do anything that Dr. Ian Malcolm would see as being really, really bad, especially when it comes to human-animal hybrids, and the exultation of discovery over ethics.

Sin #2: Thou Shalt Not Engage In Bioethical Violations

What it is not: A backward and reactionary knee-jerk response to anyone who wants to make medical and reproductive advances in our culture.

What it is: An upbraiding of the Western ideal that we should screw anything and everything that will hold still, and some things that won't, whether by coercion or free will.

Sin #3: Thou Shalt Not Abuse Drugs

What it is not: A Scientologist's guide to mental illness.

What it is: Seriously, if someone has to explain to you what constitutes drug abuse, you're probably on drugs.

Sin #4: Thou Shalt Not Pollute The Environment

What it is not: An assurance that you will go to hell if you drive an SUV or don't recycle.

What it is: A reminder that a correct environmentalism has to have the dignity of human life at its center, as opposed to having a hatred of human life at its center. Whenever we pollute water sources or waste food, we should realize the effect that it has on the poor nations and peoples of this earth, rather than thinking about how those poor people should freaking stop procreating so us Westerners can continue to drive SUV's and throw our Wendy's bags out the window.

Sin #5: Thou Shalt Not Contribute To Making Others Poor:

What it is not: An admonition to stop working hard so as to succeed in this world.

What it is: A slap in the face to the oil industry (Western and Arabic alike), the CEO's who fire people in Detroit and perpetuate below-minimum wage sweat shoppery in third world countries, and those of us who haven't thought hard enough about how to stop buying from China. Every penny spent is a vote ratifying the policies of the corporations from which we buy things. Is conscious consumerism such a difficult thing to ask?

Sin #6: Thou Shalt Not Store Up For Thyself Excessive Wealth:

What it is not: A commandment that applies to yours truly.

What it is: A reminder that retirement from work is not a retirement from social responsibility. You're still part of the human race, even if you think some of the rest of the human race smells sort of funny. From everyone to whom much is given, much will be required.

Sin #7: Thou Shalt Not Widen The Divide Between The Rich And The Poor:

What it is not: Does anyone feel like the disingenuous denizens of the British media really just tried to cut Sin #5 in half in order to make an even Seven?

What it is: A call to reflection for those who keep making the rich richer and the poor poorer, who rely on third world labor laws to perpetuate their daily surf and turf dinners but make sure their hourly employees never average enough hours to where the company has to provide health insurance.

We hope this brings clarity to the Vatican's updated list of Seven Deadly Sins, which was never intended to be a new list of Seven Deadly Sins in the first place.

Re-Education

China, our bestest ever trade buddy, has sentenced 21 protestant "house church" leaders to labor camps for an Orwellian "re-education" that will last 15 months to three years, depending on how long it takes to break the ministers.

Is anybody listening yet?

"We Don't Want The Olympics, We Want Human Rights!"

Too bad, pal. Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect housing reimbursement.

'Atta Boy, Steve

Even though it took a little pressure from Mia Farrow, it appears that Steven Spielberg has decided to sever his ties with the Chinese organizers of the 2008 Olympics, with whom he was previously signed up to serve as an artistic advisor for the games. Oddly enough, the pressure he was recieving wasn't based on the 1.5 million Chinese displaced to make room for Olympic structures; it was actually based on the fact that China buys the majority of the Sudan's oil, partially in exchange for supplying the Sudanese government with weapons to continue their genocide. Oddly enough, most of the "Save Darfur" shirts probably also come from China.

Tip of the hat to the ever-vigilant vigilantes of Creative Minority Report.

Apoloblogology: your official source for news about all famous people named Steve.

The Olympic Spirit

How does a packed city like Beijing prepare to accommodate the rest of the (by contrast) free world for the upcoming Olympiad?

By forcibly driving 1.5 million citizens from their homes and imprisoning or beating to death those who request compensation or transitional housing.

Some may accuse me of having a "thing" against China. I accuse China of having a "thing" against human rights.

Let The Bodies Split The Door

Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati has made national headlines by forbidding Catholic schools in Cincinnati from seeing "Bodies: The Exhibition" at the Cincinnati Museum Center:

"The public exhibition of plasticized bodies, unclaimed, unreverenced, and unidentified... is unseemly and inappropriate."

What's so bad about displaying 'unclaimed' bodies obtained from a known gross human rights abusing country that has a history of arresting people for no reason and sending them to gulags, never to be heard from by their families again? 'Unclaimed,' indeed. Also 'unclaimed' is the money the Chinese medical facilities made selling these dead people, which I'm sure, if any 'claimants' inquire about, will be returned to the family so that they can pay for a dignified memorial...

I find it very interesting that there are several of these types of exhibits out there, and all of their bodies come from You Know Where.