Potemkin Olympics ~ The PRC's Unreality Show

While I'm a huge supporter of the Chinese people and ancient civilization, the authoritarians in charge leave much to be desired. As IHTribune's oped piece noted, The world will be watching China's unreality TV.... This past Sunday, the Globe's Patricia Wen wrote an embarrassing cover story about China's Vanishing Act, where "Beijing's rundown storefronts are concealed behind walls as China puts best face on for the Games"... That's actually been tried before, by "Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787" with this fraudulence immortalized as Potemkin Villages. So now we have the Potemkin Olympics in Beijing 2008.