"The obvious precedent for Beijing was the Berlin Olympics, in 1936.  Both were showcases for a muscle-flexing nation, although Hitler made an elementary error when he chose not to dress his young National Socialists in lime-green catsuits laced with twinkling lights."

"[Watching the opening ceremonies, we ask ourselves] what kind of society is it that can afford to make patterns out of its people?"

"I watched the cyclists pass through Tiananmen square, near the start of their road race, and none of them seemed in danger of expiring.  Logic suggested that they zip up the east side of the square, since they were heading that way anyhow, but politics demanded that they take the western route, and then hang a right.  This allowed them to pass in a pretty blur beneath the portrait of Mao Zedong, who, having overseen the deaths of up to seventy million of his countrymen (and having earned a spot on their banknotes for his pain), was more than happy to survey a handful of fat-free Spaniards in red-and-yellow spandex."

"[Thanks to a trusty Olympic guidebook at the water polo match], I was primed to note the fine distinctions between three kinds of foul that can be committed in the course of a game; after a minute, I laid the book aside, having realized that all three were being committed all the time by everybody.  The rules and infringements of this ancient sport are of a solemn complexity, but all are founded on the fundamental desire of one person to treat another as a tea bag.  You find your opposite number, grab him (or her), and dunk, regardless of whether the ball is anywhere in the vicinity; neck-holding is especially popular, involving, as it does, much frantic splashing on the part of the drowner, and the whole exercise looks weirdly like a lifesaving class, except that the motive is reversed."

-----Anthony Lane, excerpts from his New Yorker article, "The Only Games In Town"