Is the whole world gonna be there?

I am not an athlete, and I actually find watching sports to be on the dull side; except of course for football (soccer). Tell me it's an international competition, though, and I'm all over it.

Swimming, fencing, diving, weight lifting, gymnastics, cycling ... I don't really care for these sports on their own, but the Olympics make them my one and only concern from the moment the Olympic torch is lit, to the closing ceremony.

I love whatever brings people from every corner of the world together in the spirit of industrious competition. What's more beautiful than people with differing languages, beliefs and cultures getting together and speaking one language; the language of football, gymnastics or cycling, to name a few?

I'm not only glued to the TV watching sports I don't understand the rules for, but I have gone so far as watching the Korean and Chinese language channels broadcasting the Games. It's cool, because when a sport gets too boring on NBC, I switch to the Korean or Chinese channel to find something more interesting, even though I have no idea what the commentators are saying.

For instance, I watched fencing with Korean commentary, and the only thing I understood was observing which player got poked, and seeing the score go up. I was pretty much in the dark with regards to any other thing involving fencing-- if there is anything else-- but I still got an adrenaline rush from the energy that traveled all the way from Beijing into my living room.

Passion strikes again

I haven't been doing much at Intrepid Media lately, save for one relatively short piece about The Golden Girls that I posted in the gallery a little over a week ago. That piece wasn't too passionate a piece, but rather an attempt to exercise my column writing muscles. Today, after reading about a group of American athletes passion struck me like a ton of bricks and I went right to work.

I've been sitting back and watching all the stuff coming out about China in the midst of its preparation for the Olympics, and in the shadow of scandals surrounding Chinese made products. Newspaper and magazine articles, photo essays, blogs and opinion columns have all been talking up a storm about China. My observation so far has been that almost no one has anything good to say about the country, save for those writing pieces of the travel variety. This bothers me to no end.

When I read about a group of American cyclists who'd arrived in Beijing wearing masks, my observation period ended. Since I've never been to China, I can't say just how bad the smog and pollution are, but I can't help but find it incredibly rude to get off a plane wearing a mask anywhere short of an epidemic outbreak site. It's rude, it's ignorant and just incredibly presumptuous. Suddenly, all my observations of the media's far from objective coverage of a country everyone says is a mystery, yet enough is known about it to point out its faults materialized into a piece full of passion and plenty of oomph.

I titled the piece "China. The Black Sheep" and posted it in the gallery. I am having trouble reaching the Intrepid Media web site right now, so I am unable to provide a live link, but look for the piece in the gallery at intrepidmedia.com. I hope you find it a good read.

It took much work to get my message across the right way, and it took much editing for it to be what it is now. I must've spent three hours just getting the piece written out, and now it is out there for all to see.

In the meantime, I have been doing plenty of other writing; fiction and non-fiction. My excitement is building for my class, which is actually starting on Tuesday, August 19, and not the 18th like I said in my last post.

And that is all I have for now.