A Word from Rebecca

Another bit about the Olympics, this by Rebecca Solnit in Orion Magazine (July/August 2008)

"Bodies in peak condition performing with everything they've got are images of freedom, as are pristine landscapes like Yosemite and the Tetons. But the reality of freedom only exists when these phenomena aren't deployed to cover up other bodies that are cringing, starving, bleeding, or dying, other places that are clearcut, strip-mined, and contaminated. Television coverage of the summer Olympics probably won't cut away from those sleek athletes to the charred bodies of massacred villagers and the anguished faces of young gang-rape victims in Darfur, or the bloodied heads of young monks and uncounted corpses and prisoners in Burma and Tibet. But the associations between the two are crucial to our sense of compassion, and of what it means to be a part of a global community."

Read the whole article here: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/3058