We went out last night to the local grill and watched the men's tandem diving on big screen. Incredible. With any event there's great respect for the athletes who've trained that hard to get to this place; I think with diving and gymnastics especially, what an awful lot of pressure, not just for your moment of reckoning and not messing anything up, but letting your teammates down as well. Equally impressive was the men's fearlessness in standing before the entire world wearing nothing but those teeny bikinis. Yikes.

The controversy of China hosting the Olympics has been diminutive to say the least. The most surprising moment for me came during the opening ceremonies when the 50 or so children came out with the little girl "singing" (whom we just found out today faked it because the little girl who actually sang was deemed too ugly by Chinese officials), and it went straight from the children to soldiers picking up where they left off. The clear image was the universal doctrine of Communism: "people are made for the state." Most shocking was the American commentator who gleefully pointed out this imagery, applauding it and saying "Now China's government will give the children hope for stability, which they haven't had for 30 years." Very scary, although not surprising to hear from a member of the media. These are the same people who gush over the advantages of living in Cuba.

I have a few personal ties to China - a man I knew in college who lived here but traveled back a couple years ago and was imprisoned in China for several months while researching a book that the government deemed "subversive;" a teacher who came over and worked with my mom teaching her students about Chinese culture; a friend who lived and studied in Shanghai for a year; and an aunt who frequently travels there. I've heard firsthand about the propaganda shown daily on state-controlled television and about living in fear and without freedom of speech. The account that struck me as most uncanny, however, was from the teacher who came over. She was (justifiably) appalled at the level of noise and chaos demonstrated in the elementary students in American schools; however, she was equally amazed at the creativity and the vivaciousness in the kids. She told my mom, "In China, there is no joy in our students, and no individualism. If you had a group of children this size and told them to draw a picture of a dog, you will have thirty drawings that look exactly identical."

The weather these past few days may as well have been custom-ordered: sunny and low humidity and a gentle breeze blowing - perfect, and not at all normal for August around here. Thursday evening we went to see speaker and author Joyce Meyer and the band Delirious? at the stadium in Hershey. Just before we arrived, a thunderstorm cleared and the most spectacular rainbow we'd ever seen appeared right over the stadium and the park. Coming down Hersheypark Drive, vehicles were pulled over and people were out of their cars snapping pictures. All I had was my cheap camera phone, and didn't get the full double rainbow which stretched from arc to arc across the sky. Here are just a couple shots from Hersheypark Drive.