Think the IOC is sorry now it chose China?

I know columnists who have covered every Olympics since Munich who are trying to do anything they can to get out of going this time.

 

Don't blame them. Having to turn a blind eye to douchebags for a fortnight is not a soothing way to spend a significant part of your life.

 

I don't blame them for a second. A lot of papers are having a hell of a time finding writers who are willing to go.

 

So what would happen to a writer who wrote something about the terrible restrictions placed on them, or even a protest? Would they just immediately have their credentials stripped and forced to leave China?

 

I want someone to write the same kind of column about China that Woody Paige did about Utah six years back.

 

What did he write about Utah?

 

He was trying to be funny, but he wrote a column that was interpreted as a rip of all things Mormon. People went fucking nuts. Depending on who you talk to, it damn near got him fired.

I thought it was funny, but in a "OMFG, I can't believe he wrote that." way.

 

I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but I did three different searches for it and I can't find it.

I know it's been erased from The Post's archive and isn't even out there on Lexis Nexis.

 

We're sending fewer writers than we ever have before to an Olympic games and that includes winter.

I think we sent four apiece to Nagano and Lillehammer. We were planning to send three to Beijing, but one of the writers just bailed citing the health of a family member that nobody believes, but nobody blames him.

 

The problem was that Paige was ripping inaccurately. He called the Olympics "a massive Mormon marketing scheme" and said young women were thrusting "Mormon literature at passersby." I was there for all 17 days -- the only people proselytzing were obnoxious evangelicals. The LDS made a concerted effort not to get in people's face about spreading the word about their religion.

I suspect he'd written the column in advance, then didn't pay any attention to the surroundings when he actually got to Salt Lake City.

 

Think the IOC is sorry now it chose China?
Puh-leeze. Once all the IOC members got their bribe in the form of a Swiss doggie bag, the IOC won't give it a second thought. The Olympics could be hosted jointly by Iran and the Sudan, if they bribed enough IOC members.

 

In a pinch, maybe they could move the games to Burma.