So, Friday’s opening ceremony is widely being heralded as the coolest choreography since…well…maybe ever.

Co-Directed by Zhang Yimou, the director who created Raise the Red Lantern and Hero (one of the coolest visual movies ever), it was pretty off the hook. Or, off the meter Peter. Or too cool for school. Or Something. But Friday night was also one of the greatest conceptual exercises in my recent memory of the ironies of interdependence, and the moral complexities of the world we live in.

Here are a few images:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vM3ppwg8qk
A few thoughts to get a discussion going:
1) Could the American presence, both in the announcing on NBC, and our 43rd president in the stands, be any more inane? Here’s dubya:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FV0XI22blA
2) The Beijing pollution makes me cringe. Check out this Wired post about the most polluted Olympics in history.
3) The forcible removal of an almost estimated two million (!) Beijing residents for the Olympics makes my head spin. Also makes New York’s imminent domain shenanigans look pretty all right by comparison.
4) I love Yao Ming. I think he’s Andre The Giant: The Next Generation. I really hope they make Princess Bride 2 and he stars in it.
5) I love me some Dwyane Wade. That dude’s got more hops than a Stella Artois brewery.