From the Inside Out

USA has taken the gold again. More specifically, Plano has taken the gold. Nastia Liukin just won the gold medal in the women’s gymnastics all-around competition at the Beijing Olympics. She trains at her family’s gymnastics club, World Olympic Gymnastics Academy, in Plano, TX. It’s the same gym where Carly Patterson (the previous winner of the all-around competition) trained. Yay Plano!

Coming in second place was another amazing girl from the USA, Shawn Johnson. Take that, China! After all the lies about the ages of the Chinese gymnasts, I feel like justice has been served. According to a news article today on Yahoo! Sports, nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government’s news agency reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13 making her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold metal earlier this week. The Chinese government states that her age was incorrect in that article. To quote Mike Myers from Wayne and Garth, “Yeah, and monkeys fly out of my butt.”

Regardless of the age controversy, the lies, and the cheating, the real champions showed up tonight and demonstrated that they can get the job done with honor, grace and integrity. I’m so proud that these are the girls representing my country.

Go USA!

I don’t understand it. Why is our society so obsessed with beauty? Why is the value of individuals based primarily upon appearance? I want to believe that all people are treated equally regardless of the way they look; however, it seems this standard of equality exists only in my idealistic little world. The reality is that beautiful women are treated differently than those who were less blessed in the genetic lottery. I don’t get it. The structure of your face is not something you can control — it’s the way you were born. All of our faults and differences make us unique, but our uniqueness isn’t celebrated by society. Instead, our unique differentiators are deemed as imperfections and ugliness.

China displayed a perfect example of this ridiculous beauty standard to the entire world last week. Just moments before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, officials determined that the 7 year old girl who was supposed to sing the Chinese national anthem, “Ode to the Motherland”, wasn’t good looking enough. Although her voice was beautiful, her chubby face and crooked baby teeth were deemed unacceptable, and she was not allowed to represent her country. Instead, a more attractive girl (a veteran of television ads) was trotted to center stage to lip sync while the less attractive girl sang behind the curtain.

When I read stories like this, it angers me. No wonder girls have self-esteem issues. They are held to an impossible standard and are judged “unworthy” if they don’t measure up. It doesn’t matter if they have a brilliant mind, a Grammy-winning voice, or a beautiful heart. All that matters is the outer appearance. It’s a shame.

Life shouldn’t be a professional beauty pageant. Women should be valued for their intellect and skills, not their attractiveness. We’ve come a long way since the “leave it to Beaver” days when women were just supposed to be pretty, bear children and keep the house clean. Yet we obviously have a long way to go until we are respected as intelligent human beings with skills and value beyond a pretty face.

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics will air on television Friday night. Approximately 91,000 spectators and 15,000 performers will participate in this ceremony which is expected to attract a global television audience of more than 3 billion people. It will be a 5-hour spectacle that includes 35,000 fireworks — an amazing sight to behold.

Despite the controversy surrounding the host nation of the Olympics — including concerns over pollution, security and human rights — the games will go on. Athletes from 205 countries will represent their countries and compete to earn one of the most coveted awards in sports, the gold medal. This year, NBC will broadcast events live via the Internet. If you don’t want to wait for the tape delayed broadcast on TV, you can visit www.nbcolympics.com and watch what you want, when you want it. It’s the Olympics “ala carte” style. Simply pick and choose your events. You can even open two windows and watch multiple events at the same time. About 2,200 hours of programming will be available on the Web — impressive, huh?

Because of the time difference, while we are watching the opening ceremony on Friday night, the Olympic games will be gearing up in Beijing. To calculate the time difference, here’s an easy shortcut. Flip the a.m. and p.m. to go from Eastern time to Beijing time. Remember, it’s always ahead in China. So, 8 p.m. Friday in New York is 8 a.m. Saturday in Beijing.

The Internet viewings enable you to watch the games online Friday night and cheer on your favorite athletes while the events are occurring “live” Saturday morning in Beijing. Ah, the power of the Internet. Remind me again…why do we need broadcast TV? Oh yeah, so we can watch mindless commercials and advertisements, but that’s a different rant for another night.

Go team USA!!