Olympic spirit

By Jennifer J. Foster

There are very few honors that can top representing your country in the Olympic Games.

But carrying the flag for your country’s contingent in the Opening Ceremony of those Olympics is one of them.

The Opening Ceremonies are now only hours away. If hearing about Dana Torres, Michael Phelps or any of the other incredible athletes we have in Beijing didn’t already get you in the Olympic spirit, reading about the man who will carry the Stars and Stripes into the stadium certainly will.

Lopez Lomong, 23, is part of the track & field team. A Sudanese native, he was six years old when he was separated from his parents at gunpoint. He spent 10 years in a Kenyan refugee camp near the Sudanese border.

The Associated Press says that in 2000, while he still lived in that refugee camp, Lomong’s friends “talked him into running five miles and paying five shillings to watch Michael Johnson on a black-and-white TV set with a fuzzy screen. At that point, he knew he wanted to be an Olympic runner.

Lomong came to the United States in 2001 as part of a government program to relocate lost children from war-torn Sudan. In 2006, he became an American citizen, and exactly one year later, he earned a spot on his new country’s Olympic team.

He campaigned for the flagbearer spot and told the Associated Press earlier this week that “the honor would be memorable, but he also was thrilled to be part of the democratic process that might get him there.“

“In America, everyone has a chance to do all these things,“ Lomong said. “You follow the rules, people will choose, and if I’m blessed to get that opportunity, I’ll get it.“

He seemed in awe when U.S. Olympic team captains elected him, calling it “more than a dream” and saying, “There are no words to describe it.”

From CNN:

“This is the most exciting day ever in my life,“ he said in a USOC statement. “I’m here as an ambassador of my country and I will do everything I can to represent my country well. ... “The American flag means everything in my life—everything that describes me, coming from another country and going through all the stages that I have to become a U.S. citizen,“ Lomong said in the USOC statement. “This is another amazing step for me in celebrating being an American.“

In choosing Lomong, American team captains are making a statement of their own to the world. Lomong is emblematic – not only of the world’s ongoing concern with the genocide that has raged in Darfur since 2003, but also of the hope and opportunity that America represents to so many oppressed people around the world.

The Opening Ceremonies begin at 8 p.m. local time Friday in Beijing. They will be rebroadcast at 7:30 p.m. ET Friday on NBC.

See also:

“Thanks to Lopez Lomong, it’s good to believe in the Olympics again,“ from the Los Angeles Times

  NBC’s Olympic Games home page, with schedules, TV listings and highlights

Steven Curtis Chapman on LKL

By Jennifer J. Foster

Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, will appear on Larry King Live tonight to discuss how their faith has sustained them since the tragic death of the couple’s five-year-old daughter,, Maria, in the driveway of their home in May. (In Memory of Maria)

In advance of the appearance tonight, Chapman produced a this personal commentary, posted on CNN’s web site, on care for orphans around the world. I encourage you to read it.

Here is an excerpt from Chapman’s piece:

In our travels to Latin America, Africa and Asia, we have visited many different orphanages. If you look past the surroundings and into the eyes of the children, they all have the same look. They seem to convey, “I don’t think this is what I was made for. Where do I belong?“

These children are crying out for the hope of a family, for the hope of community, for the hope of a permanent love. Our mission, and the mission of our adoption charity, Shaohannah’s Hope, is to show hope to these children and to mobilize people, families and communities to be living examples of God’s love for them.

We started Shaohannah’s Hope in order to connect willing families with waiting children, but the reality is that there are many orphans who cannot be adopted. Even though we may not be able to bring them into our homes, we still have the opportunity to show them the hope we have.

If only 7 percent of the 2 billion Christians in the world would care for a single orphan in distress, there would effectively be no more orphans. If everybody would be willing to simply do something to care for one of these precious treasures, I think we would be amazed by just how much we could change the world.

We can each do something, whether it is donating, adopting, fostering, mentoring, visiting orphans or supporting families that have taken in orphans.

So often we hear politicians and other public figures telling us what we need to do to address the various problems facing our country. Most times, it’s a do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do lecture that they deliver from their perches of popularity or notoriety. 

The Chapmans have been through an extraordinarily heartbreaking experience. Maria came to their family—and was taken from them—in ways that no one could have expected. This is one of the most devastating things, if not the most devastating thing, that life can offer. Yet still they stand on their faith and their determination to make the difference they can in the world.

It’s that old saying: I cannot do everything, but I can do something. I am only one, but I am one.

The message the Chapmans are sending is a variant of that saying: You may not be able to change the world. But you can change the world for one orphan.

Watch the Chapmans on Larry King Live tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern. Their story is worth hearing.

Dems to Edwards: Clear it up

By Jennifer J. Foster

John Edwards is getting a helpful nudge from Democratic colleagues: Failing to to address the National Enquirer’s reports about his mistress and infant daughter will likely cost him his speaking spot at the party’s convention later this month. From the Charlotte Observer:

If Edwards fails to clear up the story in short order, he risks party officials deciding not to have him speak or, if they do, creating a distraction from a week focused on Barack Obama accepting the nomination.

“If there is not an explanation that’s satisfactory, acceptable and meets high moral standards, the answer is ‘no,‘ he would not be a prime candidate to make a major address to the convention,“ said Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chair.

Democrats gather in Denver on Aug. 25 and Edwards, as the 2004 vice presidential nominee and a presidential candidate who won delegates this year, ordinarily would be locked in as a speaker.

“He absolutely does have to (resolve it). If it’s not true, he has to issue a stronger denial,“ said Gary Pearce, the Democratic strategist who ran Edwards’ 1998 Senate race. “It’s a very damaging thing. … If it’s not true, he’s got to stand up and say, ‘This is not true. That is not my child and I’m going to take legal action against the people who are spreading these lies.‘ It’s not enough to say, ‘That’s tabloid trash,‘ “ Pearce said.

Every journalist knows that the best defense against libel is truth. If there was no truth to the Enquirer’s charges, why wouldn’t Edwards have long since joined the long line of people in the public eye who have sued the supermarket tabloid?

You can extrapolate the rest.

Brett Favre ...

By Jennifer J. Foster

... is going to the New York Jets.

I don’t want to talk about it.

National Enquirer offers Edwards pix

By Jennifer J. Foster

This week’s edition of the National Enquirer offers something that had been lacking as details of John Edwards’ recent unscheduled interview with the tabloid emerged over the past two weeks:

Art.

Click here to see the Enquirer’s photos, one of which the tab says shows Edwards holding his infant daughter with former campaign aide Rielle Hunter.

The Enquirer compares the curtains in the background of that photo with photos of the accommodations at the Beverly Hilton that are available on the web. The curtains are the same, the Enquirer says, and that places Edwards at the Hilton with Hunter and baby Frances Quinn.

If you’ve gotten a copy of the Enquirer and have seen the entire story in the print edition, let me hear from you. I haven’t been to the grocery store yet.

See also:

One ombudsman’s column explaining why his newspaper hasn’t gotten after the Edwards story, and my banter with another reader on a journalism industry site about it.

Previous posts on this issue:

Holy Smokes, July 23

Why isn’t anyone talking about the Edwards story? July 24

Edwards catch-up, July 28

What Edwards v. Enquirer means for journalism, July 28