Its all bad; its all good

My landlord Nikki V is doing a piece for KBOO Radio about austerity measures people (may or may not have learned from their parents/grandparents) are using to get by in "this nasty economy."

I listen with mild interest, because so far my economy seems unaffected by Wall Street's 777+ drop this week after the big bailout failed to get past the taxpayer. I mean, please, does any of those bankers truly believe we are THAT stupid? Supporting a war for oil is one thing, but supporting the big wig banker down the street -- the same guy working on your foreclosure -- naw man. no love for the banker.

I wonder how long I will be able to sit and observe all of this going on before i have to work the strip again just to pay rent ...

Is anyone out there tightening the belt? I know that there are now about 100,000 yuppies wondering what to do with themselves in NYC. They better start learning Chinese and drinking baijiu with some corrupt greedy bureaucrats in Beijing ... Joint Ventures will need their "help" trying to get lying ass Chinese partners to do the right thing ...

The right thing ... the Shenzhou spacewalk is to the Sanlu milk scandal what Palin is to the Republican Party is what Cruise missiles are to Lewinsky is what TV is to woes is what a religion is to the spirit.

There was an insert in last Sunday's paper called Obsession: Radical Islam's War against the West. It caught the attention of a few people ... as it is some pretty uninformative scare-mongering propaganda. The basic goal of the DVD is to equate Radical Islam with Nazism both as anti-Semitic and anti-Western.

Now a few people have pointed out that the Treaty of Versailles did help to bring about Hitler, but no one would go so far as to excuse the Nazis for what they did because of WWI. The Treaty of Versailles took land from the Germans and brought about massive economic collapse in that country .. is that an excuse for genocide? never.

So if we keep playing this relativist game, then we have to equate

the conditions in Germany during the 1930s
the causes of those conditions
Germany's response

to

the conditions in the Middle East since the end of WWI
the causes of those conditions
and Islam's response

it gets a little messy and circumstantial. But i think if you read the history of the Middle East since WWI and replace the Middle East with, say, the US, then you will (if you are American) most likely find yourself contemplating mass rebellion and guerrilla warfare. The Arab states were partitioned and controlled by outside forces (Britain, France, US) and pitted against each other and eventually placed under the control of the most iron-fisted despots in the region. Of course an ideology of rebellion will arise out of those conditions ...

I suppose the true link between Nazism and Radical Islam is the Jewish State of Israel. The Nazis (and their many many European collaborators) felt guilty enough to give the Jews a state, but they did not feel guilty enough to give them Switzerland or Luxembourg or Prussia or some other swath of territory from the people who slew them.

Instead, Europe made the Arabs pay for their mistake. And used the Book as justification.

What will arise, eventually, out of America's economic crisis and the wars around the world is a new appreciation for History amongst a people (Americans) who have been taught to believe that history died during the boat trip to the New World. If it means re-learning what Grampa did to get by during the hard times, or what exactly hobo glyphs are or just the aftermath of the Great War ... it will be a maturing of our young nation. Maybe I will live to see it.

Day 15 - Ending with a Bang

Today was quite a day. I watched Cuba whup up on the US in the baseball semifinal and then headed to a spa to wash my stankin sweaty body and watch the US whup up on Argentina in basketball.

On the way to the baseball game, i shouted out GO USA! and told jokes in the subway to anyone who would listen. The Chinese loved it and laughed along. They were curious as to who I was and where i am from and extremely gracious about kicking our butts in the gold medal race. In fact, not one Chinese person I have spoken to mentioned the gold medal count. Instead, they ask about the rules to baseball, whether or not i play beach volleyball, what i think of Phelps and Bolt and complain about Chinese men's soccer and Chinese team sports in general.

I discussed the finer points of basketball and the future of the Dream Team, Yao Ming and several other players with a Beijing cabbie for a good 45 minutes. He asked me if I had ever seen Dr. J, then he told me that back in the 1980s, people would tape the games, send them back to China and play them against white walls in his village for free, serving iced water for pennies ...

It is in the media and from the government that we here all of the patriotic speeches and see all of the imagery. I sat and watched some Olympic coverage with my Chinese homies yesterday and we all laughed at the desperate eagerness with which the commentators try to "reassure" the people and tow the Party line. It was embarrassingly biased and over the top.

Kinda reminds me of Fox and CNN. This story here emphasizes the "Rising Dragon" aspect of these Games, but I have seen something else here as well:

Exchange and the thirst for more exchange. If the Chinese government had not been such control freaks leading up to the Games, so many more foreigners would be here to meet with so many more Chinese; if the media weren't as stifled and stilted as it is, there would be so many more stories told about so many more people.

On the street, people exchange greetings, ask each other to take pictures and cheer for each others' respective teams. The robotic volunteers that I laughed about in earlier posts are actually the vanguard for contact across cultures. They are certainly cute and hilarious, but they also help old ladies cross the road and expertly handle annoying sorority girls' demands.

In the baseball game today, i was loud and obnoxious and everybody loved it. I had people cheering for the USA, against Cuba, singing strange songs, laughing at jokes. They filmed, followed my lead, expanded upon the old "Add Oil!" cheer and generally were down to have a good laugh throughout. Everybody here is irrepressibly curious and open and polite.

And that is really what is happening.

There must be a separation between the peeps and the official line, because they never really walk the same path.

A crazy thing happened on the way to the Cuba USA game, i met Greg Hallahan again after 8 years. I never really forgot this kid because he is a tall rangy Irish dude with a good sense of humor. We came in on the same train to China -- teaching English -- and had orientation together. After a month or two, no one on that train every stayed in contact with me and we just all went about living out our lives.

A few weeks ago, one of those teachers, Cameron Wilson, hit me up and said hey, you remember me? and let me know what was going on with all of the people from that group. He mentioned Greg and said he was in Shanghai doing his thing. I said cool and me and Cameron have sent a few messages back and forth ...

well bigger than ish, Greg walks onto the subway to the baseball game, holding tickets just a few rows away from me. We recognize each other for the "China cliches" that we are (English teacher, freelance journalist, yellow fever carrier, import-export pretender etc.) and have a good laugh.

Turns out Danny, my boss at the security firm I am working for during the Games, is his boxing coach. I have been saying here from time to time that this whole China trip feels like a Moebius Continuum and I have reached the "beginning" once again. Well it can't get any clearer than this.

In other news, the China - terrorism story takes an interesting twist, with the Bank of China being sued by Israelis for aiding and abetting terrorism ...

Rage against the dying of the light

or just post some love on yer blog and send it through the underground.

i remember telling some young Chinese friends about the Tank Man in Tiananmen and they all laughed at me and said it was a piece of CIA propaganda. I think for everybody who does not live in China, the image of the lone bespectacled middle manager forcing the tanks to swerve around him was probably one of the most moving images of our lives. I will never forget it. It is sad and horrible that his sacrifice is meaningless in the land he loves.

And it is one of the largest jumps across the chasm of mis-communication between us. How can young Chinese understand us if they lack the essential info that we take for granted? How can we understand them if we speak to them in a language of images that they have never seen?

everyone of these links are blocked in China.

this one some how made it through.

如果有中国朋友在看这个blog，我希望你们也有办法看到这个中国英雄。这样，也可以明白为什么外国人必需说哪么多。对我们来说,“他们”的目标是让我们变傻，不了解自己，无法勾通。

And in parting, i would like to say i am proud to be a broke ass member of the "Right but Poor" club.

Friedmann has found his issue

He is just hammering away, hammering away at the alternative, renewable energy grid that would bring the US out of its doldrums. No mercy. I remember being annoyed with good ol TF for some of his views on globalization and war in the middle east, but he's got this one nailed. his issue is important and his thoughts are clear: every column rips into the opposition and drops knowledge on what we can do. props.

speaking of getting ripped (i know i link to the NYT a lot, but hey, they got good stuff these days), McCain gets the proverbial "second orifice" from Frank Rich in this one. I laffed pretty hard at some of the statements .. not meant to be that funny, but you know there was more behind the statement that Rich left out cuz he ain't offensive.

Clean Energy

Friedmann has been hammering away at this issue for the past few weeks. I think the nation is ready for a Kennedy-style mission to develop clean energy. talk about killing a flock of crows with one stone:

A US developed clean energy alternative to oil would revamp the economy, create jobs, remove the need to kill and occupy Arabs, remove the dagger from the throat of the environment and bring the nation back into the spotlight as a beacon rather than a dark force of war and imperialism. If yer American, get to the phones and holla at your worthless representatives and give them something worthwhile to do.

The Most High

Next time they ask you what the deal is, just be like ......

Chinese activism

this is about Migrant Workers jumping from buildings to protest corrupt ass developers who refuse to pay salaries. its a spoof in Sichuan Dialect.