Olympic Games

During the Los Angeles riots in 1992, the Amateur Athletic Foundation on Adams Avenue was on the edge of danger. Unarmed guards with nothing more than their uniforms and a plea for reason kept the building and its extensive grounds safe by telling potential looters that the place was a museum for the city's Olympic history. Even the rioters seemed to understand. Los Angeles is an Olympic city. The history and artifacts of its accomplishments in that regard are special, to be cherished and celebrated, not looted.

In 10 years on China's highest court, Xuan Dong had a hand in the executions of 1,000 people -- most carried out by a bullet to the back of the head, often within weeks of the verdict. On his worst days, he considered himself a Communist Party hanging judge. Sitting on the Supreme People's Court, he represented the last hope of the condemned.

President Bush is catching quite a few javelins for his decision to attend the Olympic Games this summer in Beijing, with one Republican congressman saying his presence would be akin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt attending Adolf Hitler's Berlin Olympics in 1936. Setting aside that we're all thoroughly sick of rhetorical references to Hitler, Bush is, for a change, on solid diplomatic ground. The comments came from Rep. Frank R.

From the time they entered the world two minutes apart, Javier and Oscar Molina shared everything: bunk beds and a bathroom, honors classes and sports teams. For much of their 18 years, the Commerce twins have also shared a passion for boxing, and a dream of competing in the Olympics. Now they are one step away from sharing a trip to Beijing -- with a historic twist.

Mexico's Golden Generation will not be going for the gold at the Beijing Olympics. A favorite to secure one of the two berths being awarded during regional qualifying, El Tri did not even make it past the group stage. After Canada trounced Guatemala, 5-0, Mexico's Olympic aspirations came to a shocking end Sunday at the Home Depot Center. The Tricolores played their best game of the tournament, but a 5-1 win against a nine-man Haiti team was not enough.

There is something bizarre yet familiar about the fact that China's crackdown in Tibet has provoked more discussions on the fate of the Beijing Summer Olympics than on Tibet itself. The Games are supposed to be China's coming-out party as a 21st century economic superpower. The brutality of the clampdown on the Tibetan protesters puts this at risk. Countries seeking a piece of China's economy have rushed to de-link the crackdown in Tibet with the Olympics.

THIS isn't exactly the show Chinese government officials had in mind when they signed on to host the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer. They had envisioned a sporting event full of Hollywood splendor (Steven Spielberg would serve as an artistic advisor to the Games. So would Quincy Jones and Ang Lee). But the only thing the Chinese government is getting from Hollywood these days is a lot of guff and very little glitz.

As the Olympic torch made its way through the streets of Paris, London and San Francisco, tens of thousands protested China's treatment of Tibet and the Dalai Lama. But inside some Chinese American communities, notably the San Gabriel Valley, the view of Tibet and its spiritual leader is far more complex.

The last time Antisha Anderson was in this third-floor operating room at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, she was groggy from anesthesia and puzzled by the big, round lights shining down on her. "They looked like alien eyes," she said, laughing. Anderson, a four-time national youth heptathlon champion and aspiring Olympian, was in that surgical suite Nov. 28 to undergo a rare heart procedure. Returning recently for a visit she was greeted like a friend, not merely a statistical success.

The U.S. women's softball team calls its pre-Olympic tuneup the Bound 4 Beijing tour. A better name is Bound 4 Beijing . . . and then Olympic oblivion. The International Olympic Committee, in one of the less enlightened moves by a rarely enlightened body, voted in 2005 to kick softball and baseball out of the Games after this year. There's a semblance of logic for dropping baseball. Because its season conflicts with the Games, its top players aren't available for the Olympics.