Lopez Lomong, humanity's hero

I'll be watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies tonight to cheer for Lopez Lomong, who participated in what may well be the greatest anti-totalitarian, triumph of the human spirit Olympic moment since the US hockey team beat the Soviets in 1980. If you do nothing else today, read Tom Boswell's column about Lomong, a Sudanese lost boy who is now running for America and "Team Darfur" -- and who carried the flag for the USA today. Excerpt:

For seven years, China has dreamed of orchestrating every detail, athletic and political, of its glorious Opening Ceremonies to the Olympics. Now, one lean 1,500-meter runner from the United States, chosen by his teammates in an act of open defiance, may steal the show. Lopez Lomong, one of the Sudanese "Lost Boys" and a member of the anti-genocide group Team Darfur, has been chosen by his 595 U.S. Olympic teammates to carry our flag on Friday. What, we couldn't find a Tibetan monk on the team?

What a coincidence. Just hours before U.S. team captains met to decide on the flag carrier, Chinese officials rescinded the visa of Joey Cheek, a speedskating gold medalist who carried the U.S. flag at the Closing Ceremonies at the 2006 Winter Games and later co-founded Team Darfur. After that slap at Cheek, U.S. athletes here had almost nothing to say on the topic. One even referred to the subject as "the question they warned us about."

Perhaps they didn't answer individually. But the entire U.S. team gave its answer -- as a group and in capital letters -- with Lomong's selection. You jerk Cheek's visa. We put Lomong in your face. And do it proudly.

You have to hand it to the Chinese Communist Party: They certainly know how to muzzle Americans. Cheek, a Princeton grad, might have held a seminar. Four billion people around the world will see Lomong carrying our flag.

Far more than that, untold millions of people, in the next few days, will hear Lomong's life story, in his own words.

For that life story, read on. It's breathtaking, absolutely breathtaking -- especially the moment of his figurative resurrection. If that doesn't make you weep, boy, I don't know, check your pulse. Go to NPR and see a photo of Lomong carrying the flag today -- and even better, listen to audio excerpts of Lomong himself telling his story in a report from Beijing. Reader Chad B., who sent me the Boswell link (thanks man), writes that this is why he will watch the Games.