Old News and Forgiving Old Friends

Although we may already know that Bush's policies on pretty much everything have been resounding failures, this in depth analysis of the incompetence and duplicity of the Bush Administration is a good place to look if you want to get angry. Remember: McCain will be the same type of leader, haplessly sure of himself in a world that left him behind decades ago.

i had a conversation with my man Su Wei last night at his small bar on the outskirts of Chengdu. Its a beautiful place called Orange -- if you are in Chengdu go to the Hemp House and ask about it ...

He said that China's development has been all brain and muscle, no heart. He said Deng Xiao Ping mentioned back in the 1980s that China needed concurrent "civilizational revolutions" -- as in an economic one and a spiritual one. So far the spiritual has not manifested itself across the nation the way the economic one has, and Su Wei lamented this.

I played devil's advocate and said the government had provided one "religion" in the form of China itself -- the patriotic love of an ideal motherland.

He brushed this off slightly and spoke of "forgiving the culture of the past ..." for him, the resuscitation of the Buddhist and Daoist religions would be the greatest step forward. Right now, most temples and monasteries are tourist attractions and the "real" Buddhists in Tibet are under the thumb of the Party.

Su Wei looked wistfully into the night and said, "Imagine if all of the temples were alive again, and people went there to worship like they did back in the day .. how beautiful would that be ..."