At least two women who have protested being evicted from their homes ahead of the Olympics were rounded up and taken to a police station, amid ramped up efforts Thursday by activists to use the games to spotlight their causes. (Protesters rounded up by Beijing police )

Zhang Wei and Ma Xiulan, who have been vocal about the pain of losing their family compounds near Tiananmen Square to make way for Olympic construction, were taken from their homes late Wednesday and early Thursday morning, according to Ma.

The efforts are part of stringent security measures for the games by Chinese communist authorities determined that the Olympics should be an international showcase for the country.

With the world's eyes turned on Beijing in anticipation of the games, which start Friday, activists have stepped up their protests to publicize their causes.

(To those who are shocked by this, why? China is run by an evil government. They don't follow God, or believe in human rights unless you are their backers. It is my hope that nations like the USA will do great at the games, and somehow the truth about China will be shown on TV networks around the world.)

 "This is dangerous."

-- Soviet apparatchik Yuri Andropov, upon learning of "The Gulag Archipelago"

Andropov knew whereof he spoke. When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's three-volume chronicle of the Soviet prison system appeared in the West in the early 1970s, it delivered a decisive blow to the moral standing of Soviet communism.

The book attained its power not just as a memoir, a philosophical reflection and a historical account of the gulag, but as a profound work of literature. Solzhenitsyn gave it the subtitle "an experiment in literary investigation." He believed that the Soviet system, even with an apparatus of a mighty state at its disposal, couldn't survive the threat of truth expressed through art.

In his Nobel lecture in 1970, Solzhenitsyn spoke of how "the convincingness of a true work of art is completely irrefutable." The ultimate weakness of Soviet communism was that it was built on deceit: "Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence." In its testament to the truth, art disperses falsehood and then "the nakedness of violence will be revealed in all its ugliness -- and violence, decrepit, will fall."

(The above is part of a column written by Rich Lowry. Lowry is right Solzhenitsyn was and is a moral giant. Do read the whole column  right here.
Also below are links to other thoughts on this moral giant.)

Remembering Solzhenitsyn -

 Cal Thomas

Tributes to Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Yet More Tributes to Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Kevin Kush, a longtime teacher and football coach at Boys Town, sees a serious problem with youth sports, and parents and coaches are largely to blame. So he co-authored a book aimed at revitalizing youth athletics.

"What do we do at Boys Town better than anything else?" he asked a group of two dozen gathered at Boys Town Tuesday to hear him speak. "We teach skills."

In "Competing with Character: Let's Put Sportsmanship and Fun Back in Youth Sports," Kush and co-author Michael Sterba packaged everyday teaching methods used at the organization Father Edward Flanagan founded and adapted them to sports.
( It is time that we change youth sports. The most important rule when kids play is that they have fun and play right not that they win or are stars all the time. Read more of this story  sportsmanlike behavior.)

 China's last minute decision to deny a politically active 2006 Olympic gold medalist a visa to attend the Beijing Games is not unique. Chinese authorities have also denied a bronze medalist, a respected New York-based journalist and a Danish sculptor entry to China in recent months -- a sign that Beijing is still cracking down on freedom of expression in the lead up to the Games. (Others Denied Visas )

The visa denials highlight how Chinese authorities are worried that human rights activists will bring international attention to politically sensitive topics -- such as press freedom, the Tian An'Men crackdown, and China's problematic role in Africa -- during the Olympics, according to China experts.

 

(This should remind us that China is not a free nation and that it was a mistake to give them  the Olympic Games. It is my hope that the USA and other free nations will do well in the games.)

 A hero of mine and of the cold war has left us and I am asking why didn't the media give more coverage to his death. I am talking about the death of  Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He along with President Reagun will and should never be forgotten how they stood up to an evil government. God Bless them. Part of a story about Alexander Solzhenitsyn's death  I am posting below.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author whose books chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89.

Through unflinching accounts of the eight years he spent in the Soviet Gulag, Solzhenitsyn's novels and non-fiction works exposed the secret history of the vast prison system that enslaved millions. The accounts riveted his countrymen and earned him years of bitter exile, but international renown.

And they inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person's courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire.

Beginning with the 1962 short novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," Solzhenitsyn (sohl-zheh-NEETS'-ihn) devoted himself to describing what he called the human "meat grinder" that had caught him along with millions of other Soviet citizens: capricious arrests, often for trifling and seemingly absurd reasons, followed by sentences to slave labor camps where cold, starvation and punishing work crushed inmates physically and spiritually.

(Read more about this man who stood up to evil here.)

In 1966, Time magazine ran a provocative cover with the bold question, "Is God Dead?" The story led to sharp backlash from social conservatives and sparked a public debate about philosophy and religion. The editor responsible for that story, Otto Fuerbringer, has died at 97.  (his obituary)

Fuerbringer was politically conservative, reflecting the views of Time's founder Henry Luce, and was a staunch early supporter of the Vietnam war. Later, Fuerbringer came to see that the war could not be won in a conventional sense and publicly wrote that in 1968. Despite his innate conservatism -- he came from a long line of Lutheran ministers in Missouri -- Fuerbringer had an openness to social trends that set him apart for his time.

The famous 1966 cover, with the words "Is God Dead?" emblazoned in red type on a black background, actually led to a far-reaching story about the theological and philosophical implications of faith in a secular age. Many people, however, were too quick to judge the magazine by its cover and denounced Time as a haven of godlessness.

(Well Fuerbringer  has found out that God is not dead but very much alive. Read more on Fuerbringer  life   right here.)

Most inhumanities start small, like the beginning of a tsunami, but then build, as they head toward inevitable and unstoppable destruction.

It is difficult to pinpoint the precise beginning of the cultural tsunami that has devalued human life. Did it begin with the subjugation of women? Did it begin with slavery? The Nazis made their contribution with the Holocaust and Josef Mengele's hideous human experiments. Surely unrestricted abortion added to the growing list of inhumanities.

Now we have the next wave. Randy Stroup is a 53-year-old Oregon man who has prostate cancer, but no insurance to cover his medical treatment. The state pays for treatment in some cases, but it has denied help to Stroup. State officials have determined that chemotherapy would be too expensive and so they have offered him an alternative: death.

 The Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what journalists arriving at the lavishly outfitted media center here had suspected: Contrary to previous assurances by Olympic and government officials, the Internet would be censored during the upcoming games.

Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages - politically sensitive ones that discuss Tibetan succession, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown of the protests in Tiananmen Square and the sites of Amnesty International, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.

On Wednesday - two weeks after its most recent proclamation of an uncensored Internet during the Summer Games - the International Olympic Committee quietly agreed to some of the limitations, according to Kevan Gosper, chairman of the IOC press commission, Reuters reported.

Gosper said that he regretted the limitations but that "IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related.

(This is an outrage. I wonder if the  International Olympic Committee agrred to blocking sites when the games were in Germany and Hitler was that nation's leader. Read more on this issue Internet blocking at the Games )

Here is  a  very good TV spot ( Celeb ) from the McCain people. McCain and his people need to point things out about Obama. This is not dirty politics but these are just issues.

Stuart Taylor Jr., the writer of the National Journal's latest cover story, used to report on the Supreme Court for the New York Times. He is now an author, a Contributing Editor at Newsweek, a regular columnist for National Journal, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. He is a Harvard Law School grad who once worked in the profession for the D.C. firm of William, Cutler and Pickering.
He is certainly not from the right  camp but I have been told his  writings are substantially more honest and insightful than most of what is produced by the mainstream media. And that's why particular attention should be drawn to his NJ article, an analysis of what will likely happen to the Supreme Court  depending on who wins the White House.

Part of  the article is below.

"The conservative nightmare (and liberal dream) is an Obama Court requiring taxpayers to fund essentially unlimited abortion rights throughout pregnancy; ordering all 50 states to bless gay marriage; expanding and perpetuating the use of racial preferences far beyond the 25-year phaseout suggested by the justices five years ago; prohibiting tuition vouchers for religious schools; stripping "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance; banning the death penalty; striking down the new federal wiretap law; expanding judicial oversight of military detentions, CIA interrogations, and perhaps other operations worldwide; opening the floodgates to big-dollar lawsuits against business; eroding property rights; and perhaps creating new constitutional rights to physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, and massive government welfare and medical care programs...."

(Knowing what kind of judges we will get should encourage all on the right to support and vote for McCain, outside of the Iraq war  this is the biggest issue we all should look at. Read  all Taylor's column right here.)

China will censor the Internet used by foreign media during the Olympics, an organising committee official confirmed Wednesday, reversing a pledge to offer complete media freedom at the games. (China to censor Internet during Games:  )

"During the Olympic Games we will provide sufficient access to the Internet for reporters," said Sun Weide, spokesman for the organising committee.

(It is looking more and more that it was a mistake to allow China to host these games. Freedom is not allowed in China. I hope Bush and others will express outrage to the leaders of Red China.)