Schreiner’s Media Landscape

It’s tragically but tantalizingly ironic that the once-mighty Republican Party is cowering in the shadows of an approaching storm, not terrorists, oil companies or even the Chinese. Bush and Cheney have canceled their last chance to say something good about their horrendous nightmare of an administration. The GOPhers are talking about cutting the convention short: more worried about being seen partying during a national disaster (isn’t that what they’ve been doing the last seven years?) than actually doing anything to help.

What the Republicans fear most is America watching John McCain give his acceptance speech in split screen with live video of bodies floating in the streets of New Orleans. Especially after Obama’s triumphant Denver address that was more like the Jacksons’ Victory tour. But that’s the Republicans’ karma. They created the PR nightmare that is approaching our southern coast, not Nature. And hopefully, many of them are thinking what Robert Preston’s character Big Ed Bookman, faced with divine retribution for his corruption, confessed so eloquently in “Semi-Tough”: “Lord, I’m a sinner and now you’re gonna f**k me.”

Keeping up appearances is a 24/7 gig when all you’ve got is the APPEARANCE OF CARING OR ACCOMPLISHMENT, not any kind of record of it. But after seven years of monumental gaffes and dismal failures- 9/11, Iraq, energy prices, the federal deficit, Social Security, the housing crisis, one ill-fated debacle after another- it is Hurricane Gustav and Nature that frighten our pillars of strength and integrity more than Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama, protesters- even Janet Jackson. You think the GOP considered curtailing its little bash in the face of threats of violence, $4/gallon gasoline, and crippling recession?

Bush, Cheney and the Republicans have led an all-out assault on Nature during their reign of error. Now, their endless, senseless campaigns of destruction make any hurricane, wildfire, even a bear attack or other act of Nature seem like justifiable revenge against an evil overlord. I feel for the people of New Orleans and hope Gustav and his younger sister Hanna who’s yet to come are not as bad as everyone fears. But I also hope that Bush and his partying party finally get the message:

YOU MESS WITH NATURE- NATURE MESSES WITH YOU. Party on, fellas. Don’t bother cleaning up when you leave. We’ll pick up. Just go.

$24 million. Not a bad investment in the security, independence and economic stability of our country as recently announced the Regime. But their “efforts” to help implement solar energy on a mass scale pales before similar programs in Germany, China, India and virtually every country on the planet. We can only hope that the next administration recognizes the urgent need to develop renewable energy- not give away more public land for fruitless drilling and digging by obscenely wealthy oil and coal companies who THEMSELVES admit the days of fossil fuels are numbered.

The Chinese government got what it wanted from the Olympics. So they didn’t win as many medals as they wanted. So a couple of meaningless Americans got stabbed by a suicidal madman. So the army had to put down some skirmishes in the territories they occupy. The important thing was that the world did as the Chinese demanded and now, after being wined, dined, wowed and cowed, obediently goes home to say only great things.

But as the NYT, Washington Post and innumerable bloggers like me write, the world is not going to forget what China is despite their best propaganda efforts. They did prove their Olympic security is second to none but that’s to be expected from a regime where oppression is policy. What would’ve been a bigger, more pleasant surprise was if their tolerance and freedoms were increased and their promise of greater openness was fulfilled. Alas, those did not happen.

You can expect China to go back to the way it really is- not what they work so hard to make us believe it is. In fact, as some observers suggest, their regime may be more oppressive than ever to keep the population down after their day in the sun. Of course, now that they have more venues for foreigners to feel safe in that are more like their own western-hemispheric homes than a totalitarian mass prison, you can expect China to be more open to tourists. The ones with money, not protest signs.

Oh BTW- I also got what I wanted from the Olympics. 300 people clicked and watched at least a portion of my 2006 documentary “Kora: Tibet and the Trail of Truth” (stats from my Urchin service). And I got to use that cool Beijing Olympics protest logo (which also generated lots of hits). But this is probably- and hopefully- the last time it’s ever used.

As an official boycotter of the Beijing Olympics, I must find things to do to fill the hours and hours I would waste watching people I don’t know play games I’ve never heard of in a country I don’t like. Fortunately in Utah, that’s easy. There are so many things to do outdoors year-round that it’s more a question of what to do, not “what is there to do?”

So after cleaning the hot tub, the backyard patio, trimming the bushes and reworking a graphic for work, I shot some of the hummingbirds that zoom around the house this time of year. This has been an especially great summer for hummers. They battle for territorial supremacy from sunrise to sunset from April to September. The hatchlings usually emerge in July and join in the action. The video here was what I gathered from about a half hour sitting in the backyard in a director’s chair in the shade with a cold drink.

I walked into Maui Tacos at 5400 South and State in SLC and immediately noticed, as I have been trained (conditioned?) to do, that all the TV sets in the place were tuned to the Olympics. As you may recall, I announced here April 21 that I am boycotting the Beijing Games because of their horrible human rights record and their environmental chicanery. It’s also a protest of the Bush Regime’s handling of our trade relationship with China and NBC’s historically Ameri-centric and generally piss-poor coverage of what might otherwise be considered the greatest spectacle in sports.

I was trapped. I sat down to eat with my back to all the sets but I couldn’t help seeing everyone else watching, even though what was on was the fencing competition which the U.S. swept hours earlier and which I had already read about on the Internet. It was immediately followed by a women’s beach volleyball match (is that a sport? Do they have frisbee and jarts too?) between the U.S. and the Netherlands. I finished the tacos (which were great BTW) and ran for the exit before I found out who won.

It made me wonder what the attraction of the Games is anyway. Is it watching sports you’d never ever watch any other time in your life between people you’ve never heard of and never will again? Is it hoping for a glimpse of something other than the inside of a stadium which could be in in Chicago, Utah or anywhere else in the world? Nearly all the events are not live (unless you’re up at 2 a.m.) so the attraction of the unpredictable isn’t there (especially knowing the NBC and the Chinese have their fingers on the Delete button.

No. This is why people are watching:

1) It’s the only thing on that’s not a rerun except for Monk, baseball and a handful or other junk.

2) It’s got Americans in it and we love the promise of kicking someone’s butt, even if it’s Surinam or Luxembourg.

3) It’s too hot outside for most people so sitting dumbly in front of the TV for hours with the AC on 72 is the only possible thing to do. Such is the American imagination.

4) Little girls in tight gymnastic suits or beach bikinis, strapping young men in rubber suits, and those endless heart-rendering video essays about the third-stringer on the archery team who overcame a bad hair day, a D on his biology mid-term, and his girlfriend dumping him to drag himself on to an airplane (having kicked anti-depressants) and spend a month’s all-expenses-paid vacation in one of the world’s top tourist destinations.

It was close but I got out of there just in time. My injuries are severe, my spirit all but broken. But despite the personal nightmare I experienced which I now have to work harder than ever to transcend, I’ll be back. Because I love Maui Tacos.

Most of today’s articles and stories from the Olympics are about foreign journalists’ first encounters with Beijing’s air pollution. But most of these writers come from big cities including Salt Lake City (left) who have some of the worst air, quantities and forms of airborne pollutants in the world. As critical as I am of the Chinese, it’s time the editors of American media recognized and restate for the benefit of their audience and in the interest of fairness and accuracy that air pollution is a global problem of which THE UNITED STATES AND ITS CITIES ARE THE MAJOR CAUSE.

When athletes start dropping from breathing problems, warnings or other societal alterations occur, those stories should be done. But I think we’ve already gotten the message that Beijing has bad air. Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Houston and other big U.S. cities cannot claim the moral high ground on this issue. America can get away with being preachy about things like democracy, human rights and even product safety when it comes to China. But pollution isn’t one of them.

An evocative feature from AP sports writer Rachel Cohen asks why we defend and tacitly encourage peformance-improving drug use among not only Olympic athletes, but everyone from the pros to little leaguers, even our own children. But the answers should be obvious:

1) We want to see people do incredible things- especially our children. That’s why they call them “spectator sports.” Whether it’s an athlete on steroids or a musician on smack, WE WANT THEM TO BE IMPOSSIBLY TALENTED.

2) Most of us are doing drugs. Drugs to excel at our jobs or just make it through the day. So why should athletes be any different?

3) Americans care more about high gas prices and celebrity childbirth than they do about drugs. The only thing that bothers them about drugs is that THERE AREN’T MORE AND BETTER ONES AVAILABLE.

I’m surprised by the journalists upset at the International Olympic Committee for the Chinese government’s censorship of websites and failure to deliver the freedom of coverage the Chinese promised in order to get the Olympics. These are all smart, ostensibly and self-proclaimed experts on how media and government work. They are, however, apparently not experts on how China works or perhaps how the Olympics work either.

The Chinese government lies, cheats and does anything it can to get what it wants and the Olympics are no different. The fact that they are not awarding the “freedom” to news people they promised is not only consistent but exemplary of not only how China does things but also how the IOC and its individual, national subsidiaries are complicit, routinely turn their backs, or are oblivious to censorship, escalating drug use, rules violations and other deliberate or accidental indiscretions of the athletes, sponsors, governments and other institutions engaging in the quadrennial gagfest of human self-indulgence and narcicism the Olympics have become.

Throw in the increased (you mean they have MORE?), suffocating security after the latest terrorist acts of Muslim separatists in Xinjiang and the recipe for a less-than-inspirational spectator experience, whether you’re there or watching on TV, is less than alluring- unless you’re watching to see what gets blown up or who gets disqualified for doping which you probably won’t see anyway because the IOC, NBC and the Chinese government won’t let you.

But these are just additional reasons why I’m boycotting the Games. Tibet, Bush’s economic and human rights policies and the fact that I just have a lot of better things to do are also the reason I won’t watch them. But you can bet I’ll be following them. Even if my web search for “Tibet” turns up a blank page.

Escorting the United States into Third World status would seem to be a hard job. But Utah’s U.S. Senators Orrin Scratch and Bob Blownit are doing their darndest. Besides overseeing the accelerating downward spiral of the American economy, endless war and the most incompetent and corrupt administration in history, they are making China the preeminent, world-leading nation by letting them SAVE THE WORLD FROM AMERICAN EXCESS AND IGNORANCE.

I’ll admit to being a harsh critic of the Chinese government. But their progress in renewable energy is enviable and responsible. They may emit the most CO2 now, but the biggest eco-criminal has always been the United States. So let’s give credit where credit- and discredit- is due. China, despite its brutal oppression and deception, is really trying to reverse the effects of its economic growth. Can America say the same thing?

Thousands of crazed citizens fought and stampeded, barricades destroyed, soldiers beat up and expelled news media from the designated media zones. Another Tibet protest? No- it was the first day the final batch of Olympic event tickets went on sale in Beijing. But the authorities handled the situation- which they obviously helped create by not correctly handling the crowd correctly- with the same tact and restraint they handle every other public security crisis: first, get the cameras and reporters out of there. Soldiers dragged them out of the media zones the government had established for news people.

But as the Chinese authorities are finding out, muzzling the news media is not as easy as they would like. The promises the Chinese made to the IOC and international media to allow unprecedented access to the country appear to be in serous jeopardy if not already blown to bits. That doesn’t bode well for this or future Olympics where freedom, peace, love and unity are SUPPOSED to be the idea behind the whole Games.

But as the ticket riot and relentless censorship prove, the Beijing Olympics are all about money, power, and propaganda.