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I swear, I swear. I have actually started cleaning. There's a Goodwill bag and everything!
I'm even trying to decide if I want to take the clothes hamper itself to Goodwill, as all it's held for the past 7 years is dry cleaning. Dry cleaning that is about four sizes too small now. (I'm better about dry cleaning now. And those will get cleaned before going to Goodwill.) The question is, since I have a rolling hamper in the bedroom, do I ditch this other one, or make it the "linens and towels" hamper? (Eh, come to think of it, if I don't ditch it, it'll just become more storage.)
***
The Olympics and Politics
I've always been a firm believer in the idealistic (and yet totally impossible to enforce) notion that politics should have no place in the Olympics.
It's an ideal, though, that's ever-increasingly more impossible to hold to. The problem is that the IOC (fairly based upon its principles) wants every country to have a chance to host if they can afford to host (what "afford" means is relative). So the democratic West runs into problems when a country like China is chosen, a country that not only has very different ideals, but a country that everyone knew going in, despite promises otherwise, would blatantly disregard basic political rules of the IOC at the last minute, putting them over a barrel.
The IOC is idealistic, but sometimes I think we need that idealism. In a way, it's "let the government of China make the mistake so that other countries are actually freaking aware of what's going on". The people of the world need to see how it can go wrong to appreciate when it goes right, even to understand just what people in other countries are putting up with on a day to day basis.
Quite frankly, China will learn nothing from this because the IOC will not cancel the Olympics at the last minute. No country will boycott at the last minute, because they've done that before and it only served to hurt the athletes. I honestly feel like sticking to the ideal and going is better than boycotting for one reason:
Because if that host country starts it, anyone else can finish it. *g*
Look, China is going to be a lesson to the IOC. Playing nice with the new global powerhouse is all well and good, but there are guarantees that they need to prepare for in the future that countries don't pull crap like China is pulling. China won't get the games for a very, very, very long time, and even then there'll probably have to be a major regime change for the Olympics to come back.
The great thing is that because China has decided to be political (even though they claim they aren't - their mindset is a bit fudged on what constitutes political), any athlete that wants to take a stand at any point will do so with blessing from many. I think it's the athlete's choice how they want to express their political dissidence in China, not their home country's. There are more athletes than countries. They all are their own individuals. They have their own minds to make up. More power to them for what they want to say and how they want to say it.
(In my way of thinking, there are also two types of political activism in relation to the Olympics. There's the kind where a country or athletes have issues with the host country or other countries coming to the Games (where the other athletes are made the target because of their country's political stances). Then there's the kind where an athlete brings light to an issue in their own country or to an international issue that knows no borders (human rights violations, or the more innocuous example of Right To Play). The second I'm all for use of an international stage to point out the problems.)
The list of things China's up to at the moment (that I know of):
1. Limited internet access for journalists, despite a promise of completely free access.
2. Revoking Joey Cheek's Visa hours before he's to leave for China, because he formed Team Darfur, a consortium of Olympic athletes hoping to raise awareness about the situation in Sudan (international consortium - it is not limited to U.S. athletes).
3. Horrendous pollution that could affect the outdoor athletes, especially runners.
4. The displacement of their own citizens to make way for the Games.
I'm even trying to decide if I want to take the clothes hamper itself to Goodwill, as all it's held for the past 7 years is dry cleaning. Dry cleaning that is about four sizes too small now. (I'm better about dry cleaning now. And those will get cleaned before going to Goodwill.) The question is, since I have a rolling hamper in the bedroom, do I ditch this other one, or make it the "linens and towels" hamper? (Eh, come to think of it, if I don't ditch it, it'll just become more storage.)
***
The Olympics and Politics
I've always been a firm believer in the idealistic (and yet totally impossible to enforce) notion that politics should have no place in the Olympics.
It's an ideal, though, that's ever-increasingly more impossible to hold to. The problem is that the IOC (fairly based upon its principles) wants every country to have a chance to host if they can afford to host (what "afford" means is relative). So the democratic West runs into problems when a country like China is chosen, a country that not only has very different ideals, but a country that everyone knew going in, despite promises otherwise, would blatantly disregard basic political rules of the IOC at the last minute, putting them over a barrel.
The IOC is idealistic, but sometimes I think we need that idealism. In a way, it's "let the government of China make the mistake so that other countries are actually freaking aware of what's going on". The people of the world need to see how it can go wrong to appreciate when it goes right, even to understand just what people in other countries are putting up with on a day to day basis.
Quite frankly, China will learn nothing from this because the IOC will not cancel the Olympics at the last minute. No country will boycott at the last minute, because they've done that before and it only served to hurt the athletes. I honestly feel like sticking to the ideal and going is better than boycotting for one reason:
Because if that host country starts it, anyone else can finish it. *g*
Look, China is going to be a lesson to the IOC. Playing nice with the new global powerhouse is all well and good, but there are guarantees that they need to prepare for in the future that countries don't pull crap like China is pulling. China won't get the games for a very, very, very long time, and even then there'll probably have to be a major regime change for the Olympics to come back.
The great thing is that because China has decided to be political (even though they claim they aren't - their mindset is a bit fudged on what constitutes political), any athlete that wants to take a stand at any point will do so with blessing from many. I think it's the athlete's choice how they want to express their political dissidence in China, not their home country's. There are more athletes than countries. They all are their own individuals. They have their own minds to make up. More power to them for what they want to say and how they want to say it.
(In my way of thinking, there are also two types of political activism in relation to the Olympics. There's the kind where a country or athletes have issues with the host country or other countries coming to the Games (where the other athletes are made the target because of their country's political stances). Then there's the kind where an athlete brings light to an issue in their own country or to an international issue that knows no borders (human rights violations, or the more innocuous example of Right To Play). The second I'm all for use of an international stage to point out the problems.)
The list of things China's up to at the moment (that I know of):
1. Limited internet access for journalists, despite a promise of completely free access.
2. Revoking Joey Cheek's Visa hours before he's to leave for China, because he formed Team Darfur, a consortium of Olympic athletes hoping to raise awareness about the situation in Sudan (international consortium - it is not limited to U.S. athletes).
3. Horrendous pollution that could affect the outdoor athletes, especially runners.
4. The displacement of their own citizens to make way for the Games.
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