Beijing 2008 OLYMPIC:Pomp,Pageantry And Splendour

Hantu Laut

It was an awesome display of pyrotechnics and pageantry.A show of epic proportion.The best Olympic opening ceremony I have seen so far.It's a coming out party for China, showcasing its 5000 years of history,economic and technological advancement with pomp and circumstance.

The countdown started with 2008 drummers, pounded thundering rhythms on the drums accompanied by flying acrobats on wire, stunts usually seen in Hong Kong made Shaolin movies.

It was probably the most expensive extravanga ever hosted in Olympic history.There were almost 30,000 fireworks ignited within the stadium and its surrounding area for the duration of the opening.A psychedelia of colours illuminated the Bird's Nest stadium and the hazy skies of Beijing.

World leaders who attended the ceremony were US President George W. Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak and many others.With the exception of the Thai Prime Minister, leaders from other Asean countries were conspicuously absent and some,including Malaysia, didn't send prominent figure to represent the country at this very important world event.

If the Prime Minister or his Deputy were too busy they could have requested the Agong to represent the country.Being a sportsman himself,I am sure His Royal Highness would be more than pleased to go as head of state,unless he is also busy with his official functions.

The ceremony went on for almost four hours without a dull moment.The choreography was excellent and executed with utmost precision and splendour.

I believe China will overtake the U.S. in medal tally this time around.In the 2004 Olympic at Athens she lost to the U.S. short of 3 gold medals.

Medal Tally
United States	35	39	29
China	32	17	14

Only rich country can host the Olympic.The US$40 billion spent to host the Olympic will not go to waste.

Has China joined the rich countries, maybe not yet, but it has shown the world what it can do to its economy in a short span of time. It's a nation that has taken an arduous journey from its days of closed-door communism to an economic behemoth worthy of envy and respect. It's certainly a force to be reckoned with in the future.

China boleh !

Note:My apology to Malaysia and the Agong, I understand later from news report, he was there, maybe the commentator and cameraman think Malaysia doesn't deserve a mention.

Opening Ceremony:Beijing Olympic

Hantu Laut

  

I made this video playlist at myflashfetish.com

More than 90,000 spectators will stream through the gates of the National Stadium in Beijing  to-night for the opening ceremonies in this gigantic birdnest.

Beijing 2008:Spirit Of Olympic -One World One Dream

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES

Ancient Olympic Games

The Olympic Games begun at Olympia in Greece in 776 BC. The Greek calendar was based on the Olympiad, the four-year period between games. The games were staged in the wooded valley of Olympia in Elis. Here the Greeks erected statues and built temples in a grove dedicated to Zeus, supreme among the gods. The greatest shrine was an ivory and gold statue of Zeus. Created by the sculptor Phidias, it was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Scholars have speculated that the games in 776 BC were not the first games, but rather the first games held after they were organized into festivals held every four years as a result of a peace agreement between the city-states of Elis and Pisa. The Eleans traced the founding of the Olympic games to their King Iphitos, who was told by the Delphi Oracle to plant the olive tree from which the victors' wreaths were made.

The victors of these early games were crowned with wreaths from a sacred olive tree that grew behind the temple of Zeus. According to tradition this tree was planted by Hercules (Heracles), founder of the games. The winners marched around the grove to the accompaniment of a flute while admirers chanted songs written by a prominent poet.

The Olympic Games were held without interruptions in ancient Greece. The games were even held in 480 BC during the Persian Wars, and coincided with the Battle of Thermopylae. Although the Olympic games were never suspended, the games of 364 BC were not considered Olympic since the Arkadians had captured the sanctuary and reorganized the games.

The games were held every four years from 776 BC to 393 AD, when they were abolished by the Christian Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I. The ancient Olympic Games lasted for 1170 years.

The successful campaign to revive the Olympics was started in France by Baron Pierre de Coubertin late in the 19th century. The first of the modern Summer Games opened on Sunday, March 24, 1896, in Athens, Greece. The first race was won by an American college student named James Connolly.

THE MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES 1896 - Athens, Greece

The very first modern Olympic Games opened in the first week of April 1896. Since the Greek government had been unable to fund construction of a stadium, a wealthy Greek architect, Georgios Averoff, donated one million drachmas (over $100,000) to restore the Panathenaic Stadium, originally built in 330 BCE, with white marble for the Olympic Games.

Since the Games were not well publicized internationally, contestants were not nationally chosen but rather came individually and at their own expense. Some contestants were tourists who happened to be in the area during the Games. Athletes wore their athletic club uniform rather than a national team one.

Pole vaulting, sprints, shot put, weight lifting, swimming, cycling, target shooting, tennis, marathon and gymnastics were all events at the first Olympics. The swimming events were held in the Bay of Zea in the Aegean Sea. Gold medalist, Alfred Hoyos Guttmann described it: "I won ahead of the others with a big lead, but my greatest struggle was against the towering twelve-foot waves and the terribly cold water." (Guttmann, pg. 19) Approximately 300 athletes participated, representing thirteen countries
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1896 - Athens
1900 - Paris
1904 - St. Louis
1906 - Athens ("Unoffficial")
1908 - London
1912 - Stockholm
1916 - Not held
1920 - Antwerp
1924 - Paris
1928 - Amsterdam
1932 - Los Angeles
1936 - Berlin
1940 - Not held
1944 - Not held
1948 - London
1952 - Helsinki
1956 - Melbourne
1960 - Rome
1964 - Tokyo
1968 - Mexico City
1972 - Munich
1976 - Montreal
1980 - Moscow
1984 - Los Angeles
1988 - Seoul
1992 - Barcelona
1996 - Atlanta
2000 - Sydney
2004 - Athens
2008 - Beijing

No games were held during the two World Wars, 1916, 1940 and 1944.

The official opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic will be on 08.08.08 at 8.00 p.m.

Beijing has the same time zone as Malaysia.Malaysians wouldn't be deprived of their sleep throughout the duration of the games.

So, stop politiking, watch the Olympic to heighten the sporting culture of this nation.

'Genocide Olympic' by whose version?

Hantu Laut

Janjaweed = Devils on Horseback"

Janjaweed. Literal translation = devils on horseback.

I have removed my link with "mia farrow.org". I don't agree with her recent action of asking the Western countries to boycott the Olympic Game in Beijing and to pressure the Chinese government to divest its economic activities in Sudan in relation to the Darfur crisis.

Her action is typical of American hegemonic policy, smack of double standard and without any basis other than trying to further American monopolistic control over the world crude oil trade.

I have been and still is a strong advocate of 'Save Darfur' campaign, as can be seen from my many previous posts, to bring awareness to the rest of the world of the genocide in Darfur.I appreciated her work in that respect.

As an individual she has done more than most countries and other individuals to bring to the world attention the human tragedy happening in Darfur and the Sudanese government participation in the genocide.

Even today as women,children and men are systematically slaughtered, raped and driven away from their land, the world stood still and did nothing to stop this execrable human tragedy.

The countries that have the resources to stop or lessen the atrocities would be America and her allies, Britain and the Western European countries.None have done anything significant to stop the Sudanese government from using the Janjaweed militia to commit such atrocities.

American and her allies, in defiance of UN Resolution, have conducted an illegal war on Afghanistan and Iraq that killed hundred of thousands of innocent people in the two countries that have no means of defending themselves against the military might of the Western alliance, but wouldn't lift a finger to exert military pressure on the Sudanese government that have already killed more than 500,000 of its own people.

I believe Mia Farrow had fallen victim to politicians with an agenda and being used by those in the corridors of power to try subvert China's rising economic power and growing importance as a global player in the world's market.

PetroChina, the biggest oil producer in Sudan is targeted by Western media and made as scapegoat for the atrocities.One of the major investor in PetroChina is Fidelity Investment, an American company.Despite months of engagement and thousands of complaints, Fidelity has thus far refused to accept any responsibility or divest its investment.Another American hypocrisy!

In February Steven Spielberg resigned from his role as artistic director of the Beijing Olympics declaring that in the face of genocide it "cannot be business as usual."Another American hypocrisy!

Below is an article written by Ronan Farrow and Mia Farrow and published in the Wall Street Journal on March 28,2007 calling the Beijing Olympic "Genocide Olympic".

The 'Genocide Olympics'

By RONAN FARROW and MIA FARROW

"One World, One Dream" is China's slogan for its 2008 Olympics. But there is one nightmare that China shouldn't be allowed to sweep under the rug. That nightmare is Darfur, where more than 400,000 people have been killed and more than two-and-a-half million driven from flaming villages by the Chinese-backed government of Sudan.

That so many corporate sponsors want the world to look away from that atrocity during the games is bad enough. But equally disappointing is the decision of artists like director Steven Spielberg -- who quietly visited China this month as he prepares to help stage the Olympic ceremonies -- to sanitize Beijing's image. Is Mr. Spielberg, who in 1994 founded the Shoah Foundation to record the testimony of survivors of the holocaust, aware that China is bankrolling Darfur's genocide?

China is pouring billions of dollars into Sudan. Beijing purchases an overwhelming majority of Sudan's annual oil exports and state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. -- an official partner of the upcoming Olympic Games -- owns the largest shares in each of Sudan's two major oil consortia. The Sudanese government uses as much as 80% of proceeds from those sales to fund its brutal Janjaweed proxy militia and purchase their instruments of destruction: bombers, assault helicopters, armored vehicles and small arms, most of them of Chinese manufacture. Airstrips constructed and operated by the Chinese have been used to launch bombing campaigns on villages. And China has used its veto power on the U.N. Security Council to repeatedly obstruct efforts by the U.S. and the U.K. to introduce peacekeepers to curtail the slaughter. Read more....

The article is lop-sided, grand-standing, sardonic and smell of a rat.

China is not my friend and it is neither the best example of preserver of human rights and what I wrote here might not make any difference to people like Mia Farrow and her conscience, but it's a revelation of the truth and the way I feel about this whole charade of sanctimoniousness and high moral principles.

Related articles:
China's Crude Conscience
Olympic Sponsor Report card. Most flunk.