Come to Think of It...Is This the Olympics or Just a Brilliant Disguise?

"So when you look at me, you better look hard and look twice. Is that me baby or just a brilliant disguise?"                                                                                                              - Bruce Springsteen      

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time believing anything involving sports these days. I mean, I still love the games, but it's the steroids, point shaving, and crooked referees I can do without.

So when I see something that should be glorious, like US swimmer Michael Phelps winning more gold than Fort Knox, I get suspicious. Isn't that terrible? At the same time, isn't that the way it is these days? Records are falling like the Billboard charts and some of us wonder if there is something murky in the Beijing water.

I like to believe my sports are pure, unadulterated, open competition, free of the stain of uncertainty. And so far, except for one failed drug test, we have no reason to believe our American athletes competing at the Beijing Olympics are anything but wholesome, apple pie and Chevrolet.

Ah, but it's the ceremony itself that has been partially fake.

First, we find out that the opening fireworks display by the Chinese were "digitally enhanced." Which means, some of them were computer generated, in order to make it appear as if all of Beijing was illuminated.

Next, we discover that the sweet, pretty little nine-year-old girl who sang wasn't really singing. She was lip-synching her performance. 

Lin Miaoke replaced Yang Peiyi for the opening ceremony performance of Hymn to the Motherland because she was cuter.

Yang has uneven teeth and a chubby face.

The Chinese government has censored the story and it doesn't appear in any Chinese newspapers.  References to the story were blocked or deleted from the Internet.

So now we're to believe everything else is on the up and up.  OK, I'll buy it, for now. if for no other reason then I want to believe it. I don't want to find out this whole performance has been produced by Criss Angel, using smoke and mirrors.

And hey, don't blame me if you think I'm being too suspicious. Did you know that neither the IOC nor the organisers want to talk about it, but at these Games, suspicious-looking female athletes will be forced to take a sex test? True dat.

The Chinese authorities have set up a sex-determination laboratory where they say that tests will be conducted with the "utmost delicacy" by four experts from the Peking Union Medical College Hospital.

Can you imagine being pulled out of line and told you look like a man, so please turn your head and cough? Again, this craziness is symptomatic of the times we live in, unfortunately.

Anyway, all is well as long as Americans continue to win medals. We have the lead so far. Come to think of it, do we really or is this just another brilliant disguise?