Just when you thought it was safe to watch the Olympics.

Most of you readers know me. You know I could really care less about all the political backdrop of what is going on with the Olympics. Yes, I'm aware of what's going on with the whole China-Tibet mess, and I'm not condoning it or anything like that, but as I've stated here before, there are a lot of other ways I could be expressing my political beliefs and all that.

However, there are a couple of things that I found out about the opening ceremony that really chap my ass. I will be the first to say, I didn't see any of this in the first place, but I've heard a lot of follow-up in the news. First of all, what I consider the lesser of the two things: apparently the big elaborate "footsteps across the sky" fireworks show didn't actually happen during the opening ceremony itself. According to reports, the officials of the ceremony decided it was too cloudy and the effect was a little less stunning than it could have been, so they decided to cut to stock footage from one of the rehearsals, when it was more dazzling. Fair enough.

Now, the one that I can't believe is about the singing kid. Some of you might know this story already, but if not, I'll give you the Cliff's Notes version: basically, there was a little kid singing "Ode to the Motherland" at the opening ceremony, and as a result, she's picked up fans all over China (and presumably further), except for one little problem: she wasn't the one who was singing. Chinese officials decided they needed the perfect balance of looks and voice for this singing kid, so they dubbed a kid who was a MUCH better singer, and this girl lip synched along. Now, for pop music, I can almost understand that kind of thing, but this kid is seven fucking years old. How in the hell can looks be that much of a factor? The musical director said everything was done in the interest of the country. The quote that got me was "The girl appearing on the picture must be flawless in terms of her facial expression and the great feeling she can give to people."

I'm just going to leave that as "WTF???"