The Beijing Olympics

Opening ceremonies take place tomorrow.

Since the number 8 itself is considered lucky in China, the idea of opening their games on 8/8/08 especially appealed to the hosts.

Just free-associating here, but hey, it's my blog: the comic strip Doonesbury has used the Olympics as a way of re-uniting Duke with "Honey," the woman who served as his aide and gal-Friday when Duke was ambassador to China in the 1970s.

Duke is now a public-relations consultant for tyrants. In particular, he is trying to refurbish the image of a dictator from a central Asian country with a name that ends in "-stan," trying to make the world forget some nasty bit of ethnic cleansing there.

In the service of that goal, Duke has built up the -Stan country's Olympic team with some ringers, and accompanied the lot of them to China. That of course is where he re-encounters Honey, who is in charge of Olympic credentialing.

Of course, they've run into each other repeatedly since the 1970s. I believe their most recent encounters involved post-hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf of Mexico three years ago. That is what honey refers to in yesterday's strip.

Now she's a "powerful sports bureaucrat" who feels no "sexual tension" while in the room with Duke. I love it.

Let the games begin.