Raging Moderate

Raging Moderate

The Chinese Olympics

Will Durst

By WILL DURST

By now, if you are not in the early stages of tertiary overdose from cloyingly mawkish Up Close and Personal previews emanating out of that quadrennial athletic meet going down in Beijing, you should consider yourself as lucky as a John McCain handler at a canceled photo op in a grocery store. As they say up in Maine, "The sap is running." I swear that if I hear the word "dream" uttered one more time, somebody at NBC is going to have chopsticks sticking out of parts of their body that chopsticks don't normally stick out of.

They call it the games of the XXIX Olympiad, even though this is only the 26th time that games are actually being played. Don't ask. It's a math thing. A couple of assemblies back in the early 20th Century got called on account of Germans. As opposed to a couple of assemblies in the late 20th Century which should have been called on account of Germans playing fast and loose with the laws of gender. But I digress.

I realize that what I'm doing here might be misconstrued as ambushing the Olympic Torch with a Supersoaker full of wet-blanket juice; so I implore the Chinese secret police to leave my e-mail alone, because this askance glance will be tossed offhandedly aside with more than a modicum of taste and the barest minimum of cheap shots. Not to mention my own personal guarantee that no MSG will be added in the writing or the printing of this purported humor column. Never had it. Never will.

Here's the shape of the bone stuck in my craw. China? What the hell? You got the world's premier sporting event embedded for three weeks at a location where breathing itself is considered a competitive sport. Where javelins are in danger of finding a sticking place before they hit the ground. Where the term "hot dog" isn't just a menu item, it doubles as an ingredient listing. And where the designated free-speech zones are located next to mental asylums because history has shown that anybody who would publicly protest in China is crazy.

The trade-off to awarding these games to a country whose treatment of dissidents makes Guantanamo Bay look like a Nathan Lane Musical Comedy Summer Camp was supposed to be a pledge by the Chinese leaders that they would implement human rights reforms. But that promise was treated with the same regard that the Bush administration might have for an unpopular U.S. Supreme Court decision. Look. Laugh. Toss. 2 points.

Here's the tricky part. Mix all the above random vitriol with the little-known fact that every Olympics host country gets to include its own event, bake at 250 for an hour forty, and the resulting repast is the real reason for this rambling rhetoric. A little something I like to call Will Durst's Top Ten List of Possible New Events the Chinese Might Want to Include in the XXIX Olympiad.

10. Synchronized Waterboarding.

9. The Barbed-Wire High Hurdles.

8. The Tibetan Monk Toss.

7. Starving Doberman Obstacle Relay.

6. Speed Wheezing.

5. The Re-Education Spiky Bamboo Pit Leap.

4. The Beach Border Minefield Crawl.

3. The Twelve-Year-Old Factory Worker Pee Hold Marathon.

2. Rhythmic Baton.

1. The Baby-Girl Bayonet Stack.

Copyright ©2008 Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate.

Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at durst@caglecartoons.com . Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst's book, "The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing," is available now from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Better bookstores, not Borders.