I haven’t read the book in years, so memory might fail, but I seem to recall a line (perhaps the opening line) from William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer: “The sky was the color of a tv set turned to a dead station.”
Such is Beijing.
Beijing has announced ‘special environmental measures’ that can be implemented on an ad hoc basis including the closing of 100 more factories, the extension of odd/even automobile restrictions in Tianjin and Hebei province, and a new numbering system in Beijing allowing only those cars whose number ends with the same digit as the date to cruise the streets. The air was marginally better the past few days, with some rain and a decent breeze, but more and more it looks like, despite all the precautions taken and policies enforced, it will come down to whichever way the wind decides to blow–not exactly what you want to bet on if you’re planning a major international event broadcast live around the world.
Unfortunately, there are other PR disasters which loom darker than the Beijing sky. After months of promising (kind of) unfettered internet access for journalists covering the Olympics, BOCOG got out the vaseline and royally screwed Jacques