Sports News
Pranks cannot resist the brilliance of Olympic sacred fire
by mtippett | April 9, 2008 at 04:55 pm | 275 views | 3 comments
The headline for this story is unchanged from its original wording on the People's Daily. Aside from the headline, here are my favorite parts of this spectacular piece of propaganda.
With the blessing of the entire world, the sacred Olympic flame is being relayed by thousands of torchbearers across five continents. As the supreme image of Olympic spirit, the torch carries a shared dream of the humankind. Through its relay, people of different races in different regions with different beliefs share the civilized concepts of"peace, friendship and progress". It is also precisely for this reason that the 2008 torch relay has been welcomed and supported by nations and their populace in its global journey.
It is regrettable, however, that a handful of people sought to disrupt the relay. Since the Olympic sacred fire set off in Greece, a small number of Tibetan independence elements put up one prank after another in a bid to obstruct the Olympic torch relay. In Greece, some of these Tibetan independence protesters were lying on the road when torchbearers were passing by; in London, they attempted to snatch the Olympic torch from the torchbearer and, in Paris, a"Tibet independence" protestor tried to use a fire extinguisher to put out the Olympic torch.Source: english.peopledaily.com.cn via mtippett
But wait there's more...
If they want to draw on the international attention to the so-called Tibetan issue so as to"pressurize" the Chinese government to settle it given that chances are left till the opening of Beijing Olympics in early August and to disrupt the torch relay, it is extremely stupid for them to do so, and things would run counter to their desires.Source: english.peopledaily.com.cn via mtippett
And if you have any doubts about where the world stands in relationship to this issue, the People's Daily sets the record straight:
So any deeds to interfere with and sabotage the Olympic sacred fire constitutes not only a blaspheme of the Olympic spirit and but a grave challenge to the human civilization.Source: english.peopledaily.com.cn via mtippett
It's nice to finally see some decent journalism on this important story.











Comments (3)
Chinese Chicken Out! They are running 2 miles from route! Are you watching this? It's on CNN. on cable and online.
I would describe having to basically hide the torch as a failure, but I guess I'm using the wrong measurement.
Some more coverage from craiglloydsf, mpix and kaywood.