Olympics badly need big change

I'm not sure what Pierre de Coubertin would say about the Beijing Olympics, but I have a pretty good idea.

The Olympic founder was all about participation, fair play and the athletes.

That's not what the Chinese are about in Beijing. The Chinese are all about making the Chinese look good.

When a politician can call at the 11th hour and have a little girl singer replaced in the opening ceremonies because she has crooked teeth and isn't considered cute enough to represent China to the world ...

When that girl is replaced by a cuter girl who lip-synchs the song...

When little girls are taken from their families and go more than a year without seeing them so they can train to win medals for the host country ...

When 13-year-old girls are passed off as 16-year-olds in a systemic, institutional form of cheating that will deliver gold medals...

When fake audiences are shipped in to fill empty seats in Olympic venues to make the event look better on TV, even while real fans are trying to get tickets ...

When fake fireworks are dubbed into the televised version of the opening ceremonies to make them look more spectacular ...

When Chinese officials promise not to censor the media and then do exactly that ...

When a group of free-Tibet protesters are arrested for making a small protest ...

When a journalist is pinned down by police and dragged along the ground and pushed into a police van just for covering that protest ...

When Olympic officials are telling locals how to dress, right down to the color of their socks and shoes...

When a mind-boggling $44 billion is spent on the Games — four times the previous record — to host the Olympics and win world acceptance ...

When that country that is spending billions on the Games does so while it is trying to eradicate poverty in a nation so overburdened that families are allowed to have only one child ...

...It's time to make some changes. It's time to revisit an old idea whose time has come. It's time to find a permanent site for the Olympic Games.

It's become a game of one-upmanship. The 1996 Atlanta Games and the 2000 Sydney Games were about $1.5 billion. The 2004 Athens Games were $11.6 billion. China has quadrupled the ante. The Beijing Games make the Olympics of the 1980s look like carnivals in the parking lot of the local mall.

The Chinese have created a wonderful facade but one that is a facade nonetheless. They show the world one face, but behind closed doors, they are far more sinister.