United States Olympic Committee Censors the Entire World, Apparently

I find this very Big Brother-like.

A couple of months ago I created a T-shirt for myself about the Olympics. At first, I had the words Olympics in the T-shirt and as a result it was removed from Zazzle. Fair enough.

So, I thought to myself, well, if that's a copyright infringement then I'll just refer to the Olympics without actually using the word: Olympics.

Once again, it took them a while but they found me and they have asked Zazzle to remove my shirt. Unbelievable. I don't even use the word Olympics in the text. I don't understand how they can have the power to do that when I'm not even using the word Olympics in the text.

Here's what Zazzle sent me in an e-mail.

Dear Zazzler,

Thank you for your interest in Zazzle.com, and thank you for publishing products on Zazzle. Unfortunately, it appears that your product, “Five Ring Circus T-shirt”, is in violation of Zazzle’s Copyright policies. Specifically, your product has violated the intellectual property rights of the United States Olympic Committee.

We have been contacted by the United States Olympic Committee and we will be removing this product from the Zazzle galleries shortly.

Apparently the United States Olympic Committee has a lot of time on their hands and are really insecure about the Olympics.

I'd like to know why the United States Olympic Committee gets to make that decision when the Olympics are an international event - I'm a Canadian so I'm not one of their citizens - Thank you God - and they don't own Zazzle as far as I know.

And, everyone is going on about how there's no free speech in China and about how certain websites have been blocked. What did I say before in another post?

Get a mirror. Breath on it. Wipe away the fog!

Hypocrisy? Canadian Judge. 10.5

You've probably seen them. They are spread over the front page of The Globe and Mail and The Vancouver Sun and undoubtedly many other papers internationally. Two little girls. One physically attractive. The other less so as deemed by North American standards.

Does anyone else find it incredibly hypocritical not to mention laughable that the media, and if you were to believe what they have written - the world - is aghast that Chinese politicans decided that the "pretty little girl" should lip sync to the less pretty one's wonderful singing voice. Or, that god forbid, they enhanced the broadcast using the latest methods of multimedia. Or, that the hostesses who led the athletes into the birds nest stadium had to meet certain physical attributes (just like at Disneyworld).

I mean, can we really berate them for such judgments. Afterall, they're just following North America's lead. Isn't imitation the highest form of flattery? They're just trying to emulate us and they are doing such a good job that they will soon crush us economically.

The shocking part to me is the incredible hoopla being made of this in a world that has become monotonously homogeneous in favour of superficiality and where physical attractiveness, (especially for females) is pretty much more important than any other attribute.

And, just think, your level of attractiveness didn't require you to do anything at all. It's not even yours to claim really. It's luck. It's the combination of genetics provided by your mother and father. It's a "You got peanut butter in my chocolate" experiment that either produced favourable results (or maybe not)!

Am I the only one who actually finds it quite easy to forget sometimes that certain female body parts aren't actually commodities. They aren't actually located on the stock market next to pork bellies (do those really exist?) as a result of the juvenile response to them by more males than not the world over. Biology or immaturity? Which is it?

I actually think the hypocrisy of the Olympics is so great that it's actually the most competitive sport in the Games. I'll give it a 10.5.

And, I hear as well that people are boycotting watching the Olympics on TV because of China's poor human rights record. I also find that laughable not because there aren't good reasons but because all you have to do is go onto some native reserves in Canada, look at the lack of services for people living with mental illness,walk into the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, know how little affordable housing exists in Vancouver and the length of waiting lists, learn how many children are living below the poverty line in B.C. and then you might as well get a mirror, breathe on it and wipe away the fog before pointing a finger.

The only difference is that our tactics are the result of a lack of action and priorities that focus on the monetary over humanity while theirs, at times, are the result of aggressive action and therefore more visible and easier to use against them.