As the Olympics gain the attention of the world, one wonders if the spotlight will glow at least a little into the penumbra over Tibet. As China cracks down here and there giving the lie to any promised human rights loosening, perhaps there will be some motivation to report on the loss of Tibet to Chinese incursion and the continuing enslavement of Tibetans. I won't hold my breath, or for that matter even know for sure whether it occurs; I don't usually follow the Olympics, and I won't again this year.

China is little different in its control freakishness than it was during the Tiananmen Square crisis and massacre. It starts out tentatively in a potential face-loss but then turns harsh and the view from the outside goes blank. And many wind up in prison or disappeared, as is discovered later, usually much later.

It might never be known how many have been "detained" by Chinese authorities in order to cleanse the path for the Olympics. It is known that China has the clamps on the earthquake survivors, it is persecuting Christians, and of course it is eliminating Tibet as a culture. How many other areas are being silenced is not known.

Today George Bush excoriated the Chinese human rights record while on a stopover in Singapore; His reception in Beijing might be chilly as a result. Bush is right. The Chinese should be held accountable. But in a closed country, the crimes are hard to locate. China should never have been selected for this Olympics.