I’m not gonna lie – when my friend sent me a link to an 8-minute YouTube video last week I was less than thrilled. Was I going to take 8 precious minutes away from Facebook-stalking to watch some dumb video and then spend another 4 minutes feigning interest in it?

Out of friendly obligation, I pushed play. And it was seriously the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t look away; not even when I saw my Facebook tab blinking, informing me my FWB was FB-chatting me.

I haven’t jumped rope since my mom signed me up for Jump Rope For Heart in middle school (and even then I only did it to win a fluorescent pink water bottle with a bendy straw). It’s not the coolest sport in the world. In fact, until I saw this performance, I didn’t consider it a sport at all. But these girls (especially the little ones!) are true athletes. And what they can do with a couple pieces of rope is pretty effing insane.

Just watch and you’ll agree.

Sure, if you want to go to the Olympics, you’ve got to be the best at your sport. But for some, even that isn’t enough.

This year’s Beijing Olympics are possibly the most politicized Olympics to go down on the planet in decades. It’s always ugly when politics enter into something supposed to be as pure an ideal as the excellence of sport, but the polluted skies over Beijing aren’t the only source of dirt and grime these days.

Everyone knows about the furious and polarizing debates and protests over Tibet. It’s hardly news anymore that there are monks on the march, and Chinese police cracking down on them. What I find even more disturbing, however, is the crushing influence of the Chinese government over people’s free speech. When so-called public opinion polls emerge saying that over 90% of all Chinese people are wholeheartedly in favor of every aspect of the Chinese government, as I’ve been reading about in the New York Times, you know something’s wrong.

No country likes their government that much, unless they’re too frightened to say differently. And now, this strong tendency to crack down on opposing opinions has gone one step further: it entered the olympics.

Princeton student Joey Cheek, class of 2011, a world champion speed skater and former Olympian (who was only going to the Olympics to support his team) has had his visa revoked by the Chinese government. The reason? Cheek is an outspoken activist for the genocide in Darfur, and has been critical of China’s many investments in the Sudan. Read More »