The Beauty Shot

In TV sports "The Beauty Shot" is what they call the wide-angle view of the entire venue you get from an up high camera.

Any shot from a camera in a blimp, for example. It's there to show you the grandeur that is the Arroyo Seco watershed on New Year's Day at the Rose Bowl

so you can feel just a little bit better (or not) about how your team is getting its' ass kicked down below in The Big Game before they take you back down the Main Camera so you can actually see the ass getting kicked more, you know, up close and personal.

Pictures in today's LA Times show us how difficult getting that Beauty Shot at the Beijing Olympics next month could prove to be:

China's National Stadium, known as the Bird's Nest, is seen under polluted skies a month before the opening of the Olympic Games.

The clock is running for the start of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Traffic passes an Olympics countdown clock in Beijing.

It might just be me, but does this think look a little, I don't know, rickety to you?:

Construction workers erect scaffolding for an Olympics exhibit in Beijing. The city is putting final touches on Olympic venues.

Finally, here's a shot which has nothing to do with sports, pollution or TV, but which answers the question: "How long does it take to get the blood out of the cracks? 19 Years.

Workers clean Beijing's Tiananmen Square a month before the opening of the Olympic Games.