I hope there's a whole chapter

in the memoir on how bad taste just cannot be cured. Could they really not have left the choice to the new residents? The legacy mounts . . . 

Graphic

of the week.

Okay

Now it's serious.

Well

put. 

Not fud, just "The Lives of Others"

The short version.

And the long.

Olympic image of the day

From "Nibbles" in the Guardian: 

"On Monday, McClatchy Newspapers reported that in Changping, guards carefully monitor the perimeter of Lin Yuan's farm, where carrots, peppers and tomatoes will ripen in what Nibbles imagines to be a sort of vegetable POW camp. If you think that's ridiculous, spare a thought for the 10 secret pig farms set up in the countryside to provide meat for the Olympic Village. Destined for the dinner plate, the animals get a strict two hours of exercise a day, eat organic feed and are monitored around the clock. Guards go so far as to mentally train them, too: regular cries of "Trough it, you filthy beasts!" and "Eat for China!" ring out over the farmyard. (We freely admit our imagination ran away with us at this point.)"