BBC reporting that PM Gordon Brown will not attend the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics on August 8.

President Bush is under pressure at home, most recently from presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, to skip the opening ceremonies. Congressman Neil Abercrombie has also joined a group of other House members in pushing for a hearing on a resolution calling for an Olympic boycott until China improves its human rights record.

Since winning the Olympic bid in 2001, China has come under pressure from numerous sources to address human rights before August. Protests in Tibet in the last few weeks have people focusing more and more on the idea of a boycott.

I have many more thoughts on this issue, but have to run to do a story/video. In the meantime, take a look at this site, Anti-CNN.com, which is dedicated to shaming the Western media’s coverage of the situation in Tibet. It gives a different perspective on what’s happening over there.

A Los Angeles Times story over the weekend mentioned Punahou and Sacred Hearts among an increasing number of schools that are sending students to far-off places during spring break. The trips are not just opportunities for those who can afford it to practice their French verbs, however. The excursions combine cultural learning and language studies with community service projects.

The Punahou-Sacred Hearts group’s blog about their 2007 spring break trip has some cool photos from Vietnam. On the trip this year, students can earn up to 14 hours of community service credit for providing stuffed animals, clothing and medical supplies to two Vietnamese orphanages.

Unfortunately, seeing/saving the world is expensive: The families of students at the private Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Ore. shelled out a whopping $3,385 per student to give them the rare opportunity to deliver 500 lbs. of school supplies, flash drives, music players, sports equipment and medical supplies, including HIV-AIDS antivirals, to Cuba.

Hopefully they were grateful — the Cuban recipients AND the students.

I would love to see more opportunities afforded locally to students who, because they may not have the means, have never considered a trip to countries like Germany or Guatemala. More than the community service aspect, going abroad can help students immensely, especially those at the high school level. This is especially true for Hawaii high school students who may have lived “on the rock” their entire lives.

One of the best experiences of my life up until this point was my semester abroad in China. Being in a culture and environment that was foreign, and at many times incredibly uncomfortable, got me to see past some of the more petty problems plaguing me at the time and helped me to put life in perspective.

Especially for high school and college students, it is easy to get absorbed in and weighed down by personal issues. I’m a big believer in the concept of “uncomfortable learning,” and going abroad, or at least throwing yourself into an experience that is totally different and strange, can have invaluable benefits.

PHOTO: My friend, Nat, and I atop the Great Wall at Huairou (outside Beijing) freezing our butts off. March, 2005.

A interesting article in the New York Times on Thursday about the measures US Olympic athletes are taking to prepare for Beijing’s notoriously bad pollution.

I took the above photo in January 2005 from an overpass on one of the grayer days in Beijing. On the worst days, you wouldn’t be able to make out the tall buildings in the distance because of the “wuran” (pollution).

When I lived in the city, the “wuran” was definitely something you noticed. Returning from a short walk to the Carrefore down the street, your clothes would smell foul and if you blew your nose, the tissue would turn black. Lovely.

Some researchers say that pollution levels on an average day in Beijing are as much as five times above World Health Organization safety standards. Many athletes with asthma are worried that the bad air conditions will exacerbate their breathing difficulties.

Trainers are telling athletes to avoid training in Beijing if at all possible and are even working out ways for them to possibly compete wearing masks or other super-secretive breathing devices that would give them an advantage over the competition.

Many news sources are really zeroing in on this issue of Beijing’s pollution. Beyond the danger to Olympic athletes, however, the article also mentions how any masks or other gadgets used by American athletes to protect themselves from the pollution could become a political issue:

The I.O.C. spokeswoman Sandrine Tonge said the international federation for each sport made the rules on what athletes can and can’t wear in competition. So it is conceivable that some athletes will wear masks during their Olympic events, but Mr. Wilber [the lead physiologist for the US Olympic Committee] said no Americans would do so.

“I think it would be a huge political issue and an embarrassment to the Chinese people and to the I.O.C. if American athletes wore masks in the event itself,” Mr. Wilber said. “If that image was beamed around the world on TV, it would cause nothing but problems.”