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China spins protests abroad to buttress support at home

BEIJING — It was a moment so perfect that it could have been scripted by Beijing’s propaganda masters. A beautiful young Chinese woman, bravely ignoring her physical handicap, is shielding the Olympic flame with her body to protect it against Western attackers.

The incident, captured on video, has galvanized China’s masses and created a new national hero. A star has been born, and she is 27-year-old Jin Jing of Shanghai, an amputee in a wheelchair who was carrying the Olympic torch in Paris this week when she was confronted by protesters who wrestled for the torch.

The one-legged Paralympic fencing champion, whose picture has been splashed across front pages in China, has become an iconic image of everything the Chinese want to believe about the innocence of their country and the dastardliness of the West.

Raptors demolish the Nets

It is not often that the Raptors can point to defence as the prime reason for a win. It’s just as seldom that anyone ever hears about slight in-game defensive adjustments turning things around.

But for all the good they did offensively last night, if they didn’t start stopping people and didn’t make a nearly imperceptible change in a defensive strategy, they might be talking today about another bad loss to a team below them in the standings.

Instead, the Raptors are revelling in a rise to sixth place in the East, their fans are overjoyed at the grief they caused Vince Carter and that confidence that seemed so shaky about a week ago now abounds.

Johnston wheeling and dealing

CARSON, Calif.–As Major League Soccer’s spring transfer deadline approached, Toronto FC manager Mo Johnston stayed busy yesterday, signing one player, waiving another and pursuing a third.

Johnston signed English midfielder Rohan Ricketts after the 25-year-old was formally released from his contract with Barnsley of England’s League Championship.

Ricketts is with the team as they prepare to play the L.A. Galaxy and, if he can get his papers in order, he’ll be eligible to play tomorrow.

Johnston said the release of Trinidadian striker Collin Samuel wasn’t related to the Ricketts signing.

Instead, Johnston said Samuel will return to Trinidad to deal with a family matter.

CBC Radio’s classic mistake

You’ve got to hand it to the folks at CBC Radio 2. Not content with running a historic, irreplaceable service unlike any other in Canada, they decided to give us something really useful. Like another easy listening station.

Early last month, CBC Radio 2 announced it was going to ditch much of the stuff that made it distinctive (classical music) and play a lot more pop, including such underplayed artists as Diana Krall and Joni Mitchell.

Then it immediately went on the defensive (in a full-page newspaper ad) and said it would still be playing a lot of classical music, really it would, it’s just that it would be playing it when no one was listening, on Sunday and weekday afternoons.

A few days later, CBC bigwig Richard Stursberg went even farther and said none of the new music would be “pap . . . schlock . . . (or) dumbed down.”

Problem is, the rot has already set in.

One day, I tuned in and got some ancient Abbott and Costello routine; another, it was an opera pastiche overlaid with the voice of Bugs Bunny.