After seven days away from US soil, I arrived back in the land of the free yesterday. The Delta 777 descended out of the clouds to gray wintry skies in the normally-depressing (for me) city of Detroit. But, cloudy, cold winter skies over the former auto capital of the world were welcomed by me as I knew what I'd soon be able to do- visit the greatest website in all of the land.

In mainland China, I couldn't keep up with BS via twitter, Facebook or on the website. J kept everything running smoothly as he rode solo, but I didn't know it until today. Turns out, the Chinese government does not like the razor-sharp honesty displayed by the BS staff.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a Chinese citizen who is in prison in the country for protesting human rights violations. But, the headline in the English-speaking paper that I found told a different story, " Most of the World disagrees with Peace Prize Recipient."

After I read the headline, I didn't take a hole bunch of time to investigate the rest of that rag. But, I'm sure they had an American Sports section. If so, some of its sports headlines would have probably read like this:

College basketball

" Without national hero at shooting forward, Boiler wins don't count...season over for Purdue back in September."

Other articles might say, " Spartans' benevolent leader-coach, Izzo doesn't need to put his team on the court, let-alone lead them to victory to keep well-deserved top-10 spot in AP poll." or

" Wildcats crush national power at Rupp as they flirt with top-10. Calipari remains squeaky-clean, nothing to investigate in Lexington."

Pro Football

" Manning lulling divisional opponents into deep sleep by intentionally throwing interceptions at key times."

College Football

" Auburn, like the rest of the SEC, follows NCAA rules and holds high academic standards. Newton's Heisman upholds long standard of high-character recipients."

I missed out on all college basketball with two exceptions. The Iowa v. NIU game and Duke v. Bradley game both were aired live in China with unedited feeds. There was clearly no rhyme or reason behind what made it on the air- One was a BTN feed, the other, an EsPN feed.

And, in spite of commercials in which EsPN International bragged about coverage of many sports, it was generally all-soccer, all the time. Yay for me, the viewer!

Oh yeah, I also couldn't access youtube. Damned shame too. Without good TV, it would have been fun to catch up on videos like this (a little propaganda of our own):

Great job, as usual, Kitchel!

Glad to be back in the states.