so the chinese wouldn't let the actual little girl singer sing at the opening ceremony, because she had crooked teeth. tell you what. after our athletes have returned triumphantly, let's just nuke beijing, where the regime combines the most repellant aspects of the disney channel, wal-mart, and francisco franco. on the other hand, maybe they just have different, groovier values. like all good people, they value appearance over reality, and because of their amazing solidarity, they are courageously willing to bring an infinite totalitarian state to bear in order to humiliate a little girl, who, after all, is only an individual, and therefore barely exists at all.

here's what i'd ask the collectivists or brooksian communitarians: how, if each person is nothing, can you add them all up and get something?