Spielberg to Beijing Games: “Cut!”

Steven Spielberg will not continue as an artistic adviser to the upcoming Summer Olympics in China—a one-eighty Spielberg attributes to a pang of conscience over China’s continued support of the Sudanese government.

And you can thank Mia Farrow, it would seem, for panging him. It was she who last year warned the director of Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List, and Munich that he risked becoming “the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games.” (Yeouch!)

Farrow intends to continue panging the consciences of advertisers—most definitely an uphill battle, as you cannot throw even a Japanese Ninja star without hitting something displaying a Made in China label , leaving American congloms hungry for a bigger slice of reciprocal trade.

While we should no doubt keep the Darfur-China connection in mind, we should also remember that Christians (and members of other faiths) continue to suffer at the hands of the authorities in China itself . Or have cheap manufacturing costs made even that of no consequence? (This as I shamelessly eye a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 . . . No! I will resist! There’s at least one more good year left in that Commodore 64! Who needs Vista or Leopard—DOS rules! )