The San Francisco Citizen

Coming Saturday, April 12, is “Beijing, Are You Ready,” a newly-released series by Oakland’s D3 Production, Inc.

Officially approved by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic games, this special series features Chinese athletes in training, the construction of the bird’s nest (Beijing national stadium) and much more behind the scenes with rare access to key people and places. Viewers also will experience the variety of ways that China’s capital city is preparing to host the 2008 Olympic games – the first ever Olympics held on Chinese soil. Film producer Duffy Wang and others will be available for discussion. Cosponsored by the Chinese Center.

Well, if it’s “officially approved by the Beijing Organizing Committee”, it must be good, right?

Let’s get some early reviews, how about from national state television, a sub-ministry of People’s Republic of China’s central government within the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television and as such it does not have any editorial independence from the PRC government.

“Beijing is counting down to the 2008 Olympic Games!”

“And the people of Beijing are busy preparing for this international sports event with great enthusiasm!”

Meanwhile, back on the planet Earth, the authorities in Beijing are “absolutely wetting their pants” over the possibility of protests at torch events around the world. And those corporate sponsors of the torch relay are getting a little nervous, it seems:

“What started off as a small number of organizations threatening to create some disruption has escalated significantly,” said Dan Parr, the head of Asia-Pacific for brandRapport, a marketing consulting agency. “This must be taking some of the gloss off for some of these sponsors.”

Now let’s hear from Steven Spielberg:

“I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual. At this point, my time and energy must be spent not on Olympic ceremonies, but on doing all I can to help bring an end to the unspeakable crimes against humanity that continue to be committed in Darfur.”

Mmm. It’s almost like there’s a chance that the Olympics can backfire on a host nation. 

Beijing, are you ready?

It’s hard to say. Let’s think about this.

Which is worth more?

A thousand words…

Or a picture?

To speak is a sin/
You look first, then stare/
And once in a while/
A smile, if you dare

Yahoo! sure has taken a little heat over the years about its activities in China. Like “…morally you are pygmies,” - remember that one from Tom Lantos when Jerry Yang was on the hot seat in Washington D.C. last autumn?

But now Yahoo is trying “to atone for revealing ‘cyber dissidents’ to Chinese officials” by setting up the Yahoo Human Rights Fund and having it run by Harry Wu. 

Read all about it on Yahoo Search, or Google Search if you prefer. But don’t try searching on Yahoo China - not too much info there yet.

Jerry Yang on the hot seat last year. It looks like he’s turning things around.

chenta on Flickr

The problem is that, just like Fight Club, the first and second rules of censorship is/are don’t talk about censorship. So, sending an email talking about the latest issue to be censored can land you in jail once the government finds out who you are.

If Yahoo is stepping up on this issue, good for them.