The Absurdity of News Pt.2

True Lesbians

Residents of the island of Lesbos are upset that Gay Women have adopted their island name.

Some residents on the Greek island of Lesvos say they are the only true Lesbians and they want gay groups to stop using the word.

Several residents have begun legal proceedings, and pending a ruling have asked a court to ban the Gay and Lesbian Community of Greece from using the word lesbian in their title.

Plaintiff Dimitris Lambrou says the dispute is over identity and not sexuality.

"We must protect our identity, the name that defines our origin from being stolen," he told Reuters TV today. "Our legal actions have nothing to do with the sexual orientation of our adversaries."

Lesvos, in the Aegean Sea just off the Turkish coast, is the birthplace of the 7th-century BC poet Sappho, whose love poems inspired the term lesbian for gay women.

The island has become a gathering spot for gay women from around the world, especially at Sappho's village of Eressos.

In other words, "Piss Off Poofs and Don't Come Back". I think they're over-reacting. They could always sell up and move to... SPARTA!!

The Beijing Olympics

It's one of those weird things that China has hardly participated in the Modern Olympics. They only started showing up in 1980 at Moscow. They edged out Taiwan, who now designate themselves as Chinese Taipei (Go Chine-Ming Wang!), but in most part they've been bad sports about it.

Since joining the Olympic Games bandwagon they've been pushing to have the Olympics held in their capitol Beijing and now they've finally got it coming in less than 100days. It's a bit like joining a club late and wanting to be Chairperson in an awful hurry. Consider that Australia has never missed an Olympic Games, has sent regular competitors to even the Winter Games and only ever got Melbourne 1956 and Sydney 2000 Olympics. You get the picture.

In every contest where they've been peddling Beijing as an option, they've been sore losers, and when they did win, they were really ungracious losers. The sense of pride and entitlement has been a bit on the nose. But then so was Australia's sense of chest-baring "we're Wonderful!" posture of the 1990s, so we'll let that pass.

Now that the Olympics are going to China, protests about China's human rights abuses are bursting out of the woodwork. And really, there's no justifying it - China is very bad in the human right record books precisely because it is a one-party dictatorship. Not that this sort of thing precludes having an Olympics there. Berlin 1936 and Moscow 1980 are case in point. The Olympic Games have always gone to weird places at weird times in History - Berlin 1936 Melbourne 1956, Tokyo 1964, Montreal 1976 Moscow 1980, LA 1984 to mention a few.

Then, there were all those Chinese athletes over the years who tested positive to steroids. They haven't much been busted lately, but it seems it is not because they quit using the stuff but they got better at it. Who knows, they probably funded BALCO, but I'm just guessing when I say that. .

Part of the problem is that so many nations load up their national prestige in holding these games it gets a little silly. Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, and Sydney 2000 were all more or else exercises in National chest-beating and Athens 2004 was a sad expose of how inept Greece was in carrying out the event.

Which brings us to Beijing 2008. Chinese officials have always courted the world with 2 arguments: It's never taken place in China before and almost a quarter of the world's population is Chinese. The other argument is that China is such a historic place, how can the Olympic Games never go there? Certainly after Athens, such considerations seem almost reasonable.

Unfortunately, Beijing is an incredibly polluted place and rumours persist that athletes are trying to set up programs so that they only have to be in Beijing for the minimum amount of time. Even Journalists covering the event are doing the same. For the IOC, it seems they get what they buy into; you buy into Chinese bullshit, you get Chinese bullshit. At the end of the day I imagine the Olympics Games to be even more tarnished by having been held in Beijing.

Dalai Lama Branded A 'Criminal'

On a related absurd news note, China is calling the Dalai Lama a criminal on the eve of its talks with the Tibetan Government in exile.

Tibet's government-in-exile announced on Friday that envoys of the Dalai Lama were heading to China to discuss riots and protests across Tibet that have shaken Beijing's preparations for the Beijing Olympics and stoked Western criticism of a security crackdown in the restive mountain region.

The Olympic torch's world tour has been dogged by demonstrations, mostly over China's crackdown in Tibet, which have deeply embarrassed Beijing and provoked retaliatory rallies at home and abroad by patriotic Chinese.

China proposed the talks after a welter of calls from Western governments for it to open new dialogue with the spiritual leader, who says he wants a high level of autonomy and religious freedom for his homeland, which he fled in 1959.

China's state media has not mentioned the planned meeting, the first since the unrest erupted. But on Saturday it continued a torrent of bitter criticism of the Dalai Lama and his supporters, suggesting that Chinese officials are not seeking compromise.

The official Tibet Daily accused the "14th Dalai Lama and his followers of a litany of crimes", according to the region's official news website (chinatibetnews.com).

The paper repeated official claims that the Dalai's "clique" had orchestrated deadly riots in the regional capital, Lhasa, on March 14 to wreck preparations for the Olympics.

"The Dalai clique's hopes of achieving Tibetan independence are increasingly dim, and at this time when their homes have been destroyed, the Dalai clique launched a bloody violent event -- their last bout of madness."

I have no idea how this is supposed to make the talks go smooher.

Myself, I am a sceptic when it comes to Tibet and the Dalai Lama. It's not like Tibet was the most open-minded liberal of places on the planet prior to the arrival of the Chinese; not that the Chinese are open-minded or liberal either, being totalitarian Communist chumps. In that sense, their dialogue is steeped with the phenomenon where a pot calls a kettle black. I guess the Chinese are upset that repression is the natural way for Chinese government so they don't see why the Tibetans don't simply cop to it. Meanwhile the Tibetans are upset that if repression is what the Chinese want, why can't the Tibetans be left alone to administer it to themselves.
I just don't see what kind of contribution a 'Free Tibet' is going to make if it's going to be run by the Gucci-heeled lamas again.

Just A Little Thing I Noticed

Fashion Week 'Dahling' Akira Isoagwa is looking like Shoko Asahara of the Aum Supreme Truth Sect.

I don't know if that's a good move for a dude workin' in fashion.