Link Banana

Another coincidence worth noting:

• The Big Picture has a great set of photos of life in Rio de Jinaro.
• While at Passport, Patrick Fitzgerald argues that the IOC should make Rio the host of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Though his argument is at times tepid, I find myself in agreement.

Tommy Craggs — with good reason — thinks that the whole “Redeem Team” shtick is nothing but the most insidious marketing campaign the NBA has ever waged.

The Redeem Team’s greater triumph in these Games, though, has been one of marketing, branding, and message discipline. With assistance from Nike, which partnered with NBA Entertainment to make a five-part Team USA documentary called “Road to Redemption,” USA Basketball has relentlessly peddled the notion that this new bunch has embraced the virtuous and selfless habits of international ball.

Uncommon Knowledge highlights interesting facts about the Olympics. This one was new to me:

the disruptions in the host city - or at least the perception of disruptions - are actually a major boon to competing locales. In 2002, the year Utah hosted the Winter Olympics, counties with ski resorts in Colorado netted an additional $160 million in retail sales, according to sales-tax data.

This on isn’t surprising, but it’s still interesting:

Male athletes were seen as more composed and intelligent in victory, and less committed in defeat. Female athletes were seen as more courageous in victory, and weaker athletes in defeat. A similar pattern was found [in NBC’s coverage] with regard to nationality. Americans were seen as having more concentration, composure, commitment, and courage in victory, while non-Americans were granted more athletic skill. The authors note that “parallels between long-held racial stereotypes (e.g., blacks being ‘born’ athletes and whites being superior intellectually) may transfer in similar ways within the domain of nationalism.”

Specifically: Why does India have so few Olympic medals? Tyler Cowen and others speculate. I do believe that cricket remains my favorite explanation.

It’s a momentous date for number of reasons. The three most prominent:

1. The Olympics begin. That’s a link to a Big Picture post.
2. Russia and Georgia are in the midst of an “undeclared war” over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. This had been speculated about for a while — The Economist even ran an analysis piece on their website today about what trouble such a conflict would cause. Passport has a wrap-up.
3. It’s the 20th anniversary of the biggest pro-democracy demonstration in Burmese history. That one, like the recent “Saffron Revolution”, was pretty handily suppressed. (Link goes to The Irradday’s special issue, via Passport.)

Speaking of Beijing… Chinese officials has banned the service of dog during the month of August. It’s not that important anyway, Fuchsia Dunlop says, because few Chinese eat them, and it’s a winter food anyway:

Dog eating, in any case, tends to be a seasonal pursuit. According to Chinese folk dietetics, which classify every food according to its heating and cooling properties, dog is one of the “hottest” meats around, best eaten in midwinter, when you need warmth and vital energy, not in sultry August.

Perhaps in part to validate their story predicting this occurance, Wired Science says that though China’s making a valient effort, air quality in Beijing isn’t really better. (Though, as anyone who’s been in a big city could have told you, rain and wind do a good deal to improve visibility.)

If only to demonstrate how much a fan I am of The Big Picture, another link to another stunning series.

At least one scientist doubts China’s ability to keep Beijing’s air quality within acceptable limits for Olympic competition:

China’s basic air problem is that the city experiences roughly weekly meteorological cycles in which stagnant, polluted air coming from the provinces south of Beijing is flushed out by cold fronts from Mongolia. When the weather doesn’t cooperate, there is little that the authorities can do, Rahn said.

“I’m glad I’m not an Olympic organizer responsible for canceling these events,” Rahn said. “It is a borderline situation and unpredictable until the 11th hour. “

The Big Picture really should try to do a post about this. Even Passport’s rather small picture is impressive.

More than 10,000 people have been mobilized to clean up green algae that has invaded the Olympic sailing venue in Qingdao, Shandong, China. The Qingdao Olympic Sailing Committee estimates that the area will be cleared before July 15.

In a simple chart, The Economist makes the interesting point that though the United States, Russia, and China fought fairly evenly for the most medals in 2004 — and most other games — it’s actually countries like The Bahamas, Australia, and Cuba that did the best per capita.

In case you haven’t been following along:

In January, athletics’ governing body the IAAF banned the 21-year-old South African from able-bodied events.

It was claimed Pistorius’ prosthetic limbs give him an unfair advantage, but he disagreed and went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

“I hope this silences the crazy theories circulating about my having an unfair advantage,” he said.

Cas said in a statement that the IAAF had not proved competition rules had been contravened.

“On the basis of the evidence brought by the experts called by both parties, the panel was not persuaded that there was sufficient evidence of any metabolic advantage in favour of the double amputee using the Cheetah Flex-Foot,” the statement said.

The New York Times ran three interesting Op-Eds yesterday about the Olymics. All of them, I should note, were blessed with blandly simple titles.

The first, Matthew Forney’s “China’s Loyal Youth,” details how, contrary to expectations, Chinese most well-educated youth are among it’s most patriotic. An example:

As is clear to anyone who lives here, most young ethnic Chinese strongly support their government’s suppression of the recent Tibetan uprising. One Chinese friend who has a degree from a European university described the conflict to me as “a clash between the commercial world and an old aboriginal society.” She even praised her government for treating Tibetans better than New World settlers treated Native Americans.

Elliot Sperlings’s “Don’t Know Much About Tibetan History” detail’s Chinese distorted historical claims to Tibet. The basics:

In China’s view, the Western misunderstandings are about the nature of China: Western critics don’t understand that China has a history of thousands of years as a unified multinational state; all of its nationalities are Chinese. The Mongols, who entered China as conquerers, are claimed as Chinese, and their subjugation of Tibet is claimed as a Chinese subjugation.

And finally, Buzz Bissinger’s “Faster, Higher, Stronger, No Longer” argues that the “Olympic movement” should be completely disbanded. (A similar argument is made by Stephen Hugh-Jones.)

A permanent end to the Olympics might actually not be that difficult. All it would really take is a single act of courage and morality by the United States to pull out of the Games forever on the basis that the mission is not coming close to being served. An American departure would severely dilute the Games since it would no longer be a world competition of anything.

You thought it was just the United States, but now some Chinese patriots are discussing a boycott of all things French.

The latest country to face Chinese wrath is France, which Chinese netizens singled out as the worst embarrassment in terms of the torch relay over the past week (frankly, things weren’t pretty in London or San Francisco either). Citing a human rights banner at Paris city hall and a protester trying to wrench the torch from a Chinese girl in a wheelchair, grassroots sentiment is again spiraling out of control, though only in cyberspace for now. Calls for boycotts of French companies — including L’Oréal, Louis Vuitton and Givenchy — have appeared on Web sites and chatrooms.  Meanwhile, Xinhua ran a story today biting back at the French media entitled “Paris slaps its own face.”

Also about China: Channeling Sex in the City in Beijing. (via Mr. Fallows)

Breifings by the Economist Intelligence Unit are rarely compelling reading, but this one I actually read. And I found it thoroughly disheartening for sounding so… accurate.

In theory, the Chinese government stands ready to negotiate with the Dalai Lama on two conditions: that he renounces violence, and that he accepts Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. In the West’s view these conditions have already been met, as the Dalai Lama has repeatedly argued that his goal for Tibet is real autonomy, not independence. On March 25th, moreover, the Dalai Lama repeated his threat to resign as head of Tibet’s government-in-exile if anti-Chinese violence continues. Both the Dalai Lama and the leader of the parliament of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India have also recently said that they support China’s hosting of the Olympics and would oppose a boycott of the games. China, which has traditionally accused the Dalai Lama of insincerity, argues that these statements are belied by his alleged role in masterminding the violence in Tibet.

As a result, the prospects for meaningful negotiations are exceedingly dim. Even if it were possible to envision a scenario in which China, concerned about the damage to its pre-Olympic international credibility, agreed to negotiations in principle, it would be very difficult to imagine the government approaching such negotiations with a view to making significant compromises. Since China sees the problems in Tibet as primarily rooted in separatist elements based outside the country, it is unlikely to consider granting Tibetans more autonomy or easing religious restrictions.