I.
Ranked fourth in the IOC's Beijing candidate evaluation report is "Environmental Protection and Meteorology". Evidently, the Committee members were more concerned with Beijing's claim to make the 2008 Olympics "the greatest Olympic Games environmental legacy ever" than how many Chinese women are getting forced abortions or how many organs are being "donated" by Chinese political prisoners or how many people are getting beat up, shot, and imprisoned for uttering something politically incorrect. I can understand that we don't want our international kayak teams paddling through flaming rivers of raw sewage, but let's try to see the forest for the trees, or more accurately, the dictatorship for the victims.
II.
When the Committee analyzed Beijing's proposed budget ($14.256 billion alone just for venue, airport, road and other development work), I'm taking a guess that they didn't talk to any rat-eating factory workers who helped produce this blood money with their wonderfully exportable shower curtain rings and portable radios.
III.
The location of the beach volleyball matches is purely pragmatic. First of all, the idea of seeing a beach volleyball tournament in China is worse than hearing Robin Williams say Good Morning Auschwitz in Jakob the Liar. But even though Beijing's Bid Committee recommended it, "The [IOC] Commission took the view that the Tian'anmen Square site was inappropriate" for beach volleyball. I'm not sure why they thought that; they didn't say. Perhaps it's the "potential traffic and transport difficulties" for the athletes, as they insinuated. Or maybe the blood stains on the pavement will be too distracting to the barefooted Iranian chick going up for the spike.
IV.
According to the Committee, "There appeared to be no terrorist risk in Beijing" and "There are no significant security risks anticipated." Are they effing kidding me? We're talking about a country that, according to the C.I.A., is pointing long-range nuclear missiles at over a dozen American cities. What evidence of possible terrorism do you need, if not a nuclear missile pointing at you? Do you actually need to have a piece of plutonium hanging out of your ass, with Jiang Zemin's hand on the end of it? Does the IOC think that it's only "terrorism" when the terrorism isn't completely sanctioned and performed by an actual government? I have to wonder what Beijing's Olympic Bid Committee put in the IOC's egg rolls.
Speaking of egg rolls, I should note that the IOC was truthful enough to admit in their Beijing report that "There are difficulties in providing proper equine quarantine measures [for the] re-exporting of horses." Even if Beijing does solve their horse health problems, though, I still wouldn't recommend that members of the equestrian team bring along any other bestial buddies. The phrase "a dog's life" has a very distinct meaning behind the Great Wall, and Rusty ain't quite as lucky as Secretariat Jr. when the dinner bell rings.
