It's all a matter of opinion

So I'm sure you've heard about how China "replaced" the face of the girl singing in the opening ceremonies with the 'perfect face' girl on the right. Personally, I think it's wrong. What about that poor little girl who actually sang the song? How in the world do you explain to her that even though she is highly talented, that she isn't pretty enough to be featured in the Olympic Opening Ceremonies? I remember hearing Matt Lauer say during the opening ceremonies that China had picked 'regular children' to be featured in the opening ceremonies. Guess the sweet girl with the angelic voice was too 'REGULAR' for China? Here's what they had to say about the swap:

“The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feeling and expression,” he said. “We felt the coupling of a perfect voice with the best appearance produced the most optimal result.”

And then you have the controversial issue of the Chinese gymnasts. The IOC requires that you are age 16 in the year of the Olympics. You cannot convince me that some of these girls are 16 - the girl in the picture appears to not even have all of her adult teeth in yet (or maybe it's just a bad picture but anyways) - I know gymnasts a lot of times look younger than they are but still - something fishy is going on.

And I sit here and remember what was said last night on tv about these gymnasts...they are taken from their home at the age of 3. They see their parents once a year. One of the girls told her parents that she wanted to go home but her parents told her that it would be best for her and the future of her family if she stayed and they refused to let her quit. I guess if from the age of 3 you are forced to do gymnastics for probably almost every day of your life, you'd be amazing, too. I don't knock that these girls are fabulous athletes but I do question the integrity of how it's being accomplished. I just can't imagine turning over Peyton now (or Nolan in a year) to be transformed into an athlete and only see them once a year from that point on. Nothing in this world is worth doing that to my children.