Olympic letdown

The closing ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics ended this morning with a fitting and thrilling display of fireworks. Just before that a children‘s choir sang to an enraptured audience in the Beijing “birdsnest“ stadium and to the rest of the world.

I have no idea what the words were that the kids were singing, but to me at least they were a cry of dismay, a stinging rebuke to the leaders of all those countries—in primis the US, the UK and Canada— who refused to send their diplomats to Beijing, choosing instead to stay behind to play cops and truckers and other far more dangerous war games.

EC

Poor diplomacy

 The US initiated a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics, and—predictably—Canada, Britain, Australia and a number of other countries followed the example of the American diplomats and did not attend yesterday’s Beijing’s opening ceremonies. We can be kind to these diplomats and recognize that they did so out of concern for human rights violations in China. Having said this, we should also, however, remind these diplomats that their fundamental role as diplomats is to display their “skill in handling affairs without arousing hostility (Webster’s.)

Anyone who watched the opening ceremonies yesterday is sure to have seen the Chinese leader Xi Jinping standing, all alone, watching the ceremonies in the Birds Nest stadium in Beijing. If diplomacy is indeed the art of not arousing hostility, it is hard to imagine anything more undiplomatic than the failure of our leaders to have been there, alongside Xi Jinping, to greet and encourage with their presence the young athletes of the world who, unlike our leaders, were assembled there  in a show of unity and hope.

2/2/22

 OK, just two hours more and we’ll be out of 2/2/22.

Like all of you I have done a bit of headscratching over the meaning of repeating numbers like this one. So I have consulted the all-knowing Google to see what is the science behind repeating numbers, and this is what I have learned:

I have learned that “a very popular explanation of repeating numbers has to do with the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS is a network of neurons situated inside the brain stem that acts as a “gate” for what enters our awareness. It basically filters information and decides what to deliver to our attention.” So I have learned that there is such a thing as a RAS, which, aside from basically nothing, it seems to mean that there is something special about this Second day of the Second month of the Second year of the Second decade of this century. So what’s this something special?

Well, if you’re at all a soccer fan you won’t fail to know that on this 2/2/22 the Canadian national soccer team has scored 2 goals against El Salvador,

just as it had scored 2 goals against the US a few days ago, and that thanks to these goals it is now very likely to go to the finals of the World Cup for the Second time in its history.

So, take that oh all of you numerology skeptics—and enjoy the remaining minutes of 2/2/22!  :)