Weekend open thread

Posted By Blake Hounshell Saturday, August 9, 2008 - 10:00 AM Share

The opening ceremonies? I have to say, I was blown away.

Consider this an open thread. 

EXPLORE:OPEN THREAD
 
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HELLOMIKE

12:18 PM ET

August 9, 2008

I think they blew away

I think they blew away everyone who was able to watch. I have a feeling this will be a fairly important historical turning point as far as China's primacy goes. It will now be basically impossible to ignore the developed modern China now (not that it was easy before). It was a beautiful ceremony, and while it's obviously not a media free-for-all, they are making some fairly impressive steps. Canada's CBC has been able to do some excellent journalism from inside China this past week, and it's encouraging to see things slowly change. Now if I could just say more than "I don't speak well" in Mandarin...
 

JGARZIK

4:33 PM ET

August 9, 2008

Emergence of China and India

Although the "emergence of China and India" story has been written and pundit'ized a thousand times over, I fail to see our leaders and media doing much to emphasize to the general population some basic facts about our changing world: one third of the entire planet (China: 1.3 billion, India: 1.1 billion, World: 6.7 billion) is industrializing at a pace never seen in history. Our own industrial revolution took far longer, if that is a fair comparison.

Other countries of the world are going to have to do a lot of adjusting. The Beijing Olympics are a memorable milestone, marking this period of rapid global change.

We'll know in 100 years whether or not the Beijing Olympics are a grim milestone, or a turning point into a brighter future of global growth and prosperity.

Jeff @ Armchair FP

 

F P DISCUSSANT

8:13 PM ET

August 9, 2008

blown away

You were blown away? So were some people in in Xinjiang today. Those Chinese sure put on a good show. The Nuremburg Rallies were a good show, too. Ebert was blown away, too. http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/08/zhang_yimous_gold_medal.html
 

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