September 26, 2008

China and North Korea

Dear China,

I will never forgive you for Tibet. And if you even look at Taiwan funny, we will bomb you back into the stone age. I mean I'll do it fucking personally. (Sure. Taiwan is part of China. Just not one that you are allowed to touch. Or look at. Or think about. Or name.)


But go ahead and unofficially take over North Korea, via your "friendly ties" with its military leaders. Of course I'd rather see the country reunite with South Korea, but that isn't realistic, and in the meantime the people there are living on tree bark; the atmosphere is, quite literally, Orwellian.

Bring the North Koreans food, and that watered-down capitalism you're learning so well. Help 'em put together an infrastructure. Rice in their bellies, bicycles and cars. Air-conditioning. Agriculture. Building codes. And that castrated version of the internet you use.

Later, we'll talk. You can help a few other dictatorships to become merely "authoritarian regimes," and then we can sweet-talk you into setting your satellites free, so they are merely "close allies," and not de facto colonies. (Eventually, you'll see the light: having a colony is like maintaining a vacation home, or an RV—or even a pool, if you don't swim. You don't use this thing much, and it costs a bundle to keep up.)

But for crying out loud: get some food into those people's bellies, a bit of education, and some transportation. Stabilize it as an authoritarian basis for the time being.


I've seen the pictures: China, for all its faults and immorality, is far, far preferable than the slave camp that is North Korea in the present day.

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August 08, 2008

I Do Not Think It Was Wise to Include a Tibetan Figure.

They should have stuck with pandas.

olympicmascots-1.jpg

It's called "leading with the chin."


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August 05, 2008

Pandas Just Fine?

I had heard that China's earthquake destroyed a large part of their biggest panda reserve; I wish this article had more details on that. But I'm glad their numbers in the wild are going up.

(I also think it's wrong about Los Angeles getting the first pandas from China; IIRC, the first pandas China sent overseas landed in Washington, D.C.)

The Atlantic website had a wonderful pictorial on the panda reserve several months back; I'd love to know more about how many of the pandas there were saved, and where they were relocated to.

Wikipedia has more, but no apparent post-earthquake update.

Is there anyone who doesn't like pandas? He or she would need to have a heart of stone.

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May 25, 2008

One Child. One School.

The New York Times discusses one of the schools that toppled in China's quake. Reading it is heartbreaking: parents shouldn't have to endure their children's deaths.

And yet, and yet . . . a 7.9 earthquake is not a manageable thing under any circumstances. A 7.9 is mass death, no matter what. The Northridge quake was a motherfucker that hit the San Fernando Valley hard—and brick buildings miles away—an entire mountain range away—in Santa Monica nearly as hard.

You'll recall that the Richter scale is counter-intuitive. It is not normal, linear deal. (What is the terminology I'm looking for? Not arithmatic, but something-or-other? Not thingamajig, but doohickey? Doesn't progress like a thermometer, but spikes more and more with each point? Help a sister out.)

So, yeah: I do want to cut my own heart out after reading the NYT article, and a sic-year-old building should be reasonably safe, but I have some essay questions nonetheless. For instance:

(1) How many children were lost in the average American family two generations ago? How about in China one generation ago? Is child mortality going down in China, or up?

(2) Has the carnage in China's schools as a result of the quake altered the average Chinese perspective on the one-child-per-household policy? Or didn't the writers at The New York Times ask about that?

(3) How has the widespread availability of education changed Chinese life over the last 30 years? As your eye doctor would say: is it better, or worse?

(4) Which country has worse building codes: China, or Mexico? China, or India? China, or the Philippines? China, or South Korea? China, or North Korea?

That is, I see that rural schools in China might not be up to the standards we expect, here in the richest country in the history of mankind. But how do things look from a broader historical or geographical perspective?

In short, there was a lot of data in the NYT piece. But not a lot of information.

h/t: Memeorandum.


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April 11, 2008

Made of Japan . . .

no "torch thugs" for the Japanese.

Huzzah, my friends.


(I am not here to argue which Asian culture has killed more people—or which Western one, either. I'm here to say that the Chinese government has been, will be, and deserves to be embarrassed by the upcoming Olympics.)

Three more things: (1) free Tibet; (2) free Taiwan; (3) fuck the Chinese government. Google it.

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April 15, 2006

Free Hao Wu

Rebecca's updates on the jailed Chinese blogger are here.

Using the Chinese embassy's website as a jumping-off point, I found the consulate in Los Angeles to lodge my complaint, using my private e-mail account, real name, and actual town. Others might find the consulates nearest them and do the same.

Via Glenn.

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