The Olympics specializes in two rough categories of shameful behavior:
in what it doesn't allow and in what it does.
In a barefaced and biased political decision, it denied credentials to
the qualified Olympic teams from Iraq to come to Beijing and
participate in the 2008 games.
But it hasn't so much as taken notice that national Olympics
authorities in both Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have prevented women
from competing.
I don't how long the sham of the Olympics goes back. But certainly
its claims to sportsmanlike rules have been traduced many times: in
1936 in Nazi Germany, in 1972 after the massacre of the Israeli
athletes at Munich, and next month in Beijing when the most ancient of
prejudices against the competence of women will be allowed to exclude
athletes simply because of their gender -- although there are many, many
gender-specific competitions.