Glen Mills just forwarded this one:
Olympic nightmare: A red tide in the Yellow Sea
BEIJING: With less than six weeks before it plays host to the Olympic sailing regatta, the city of Qingdao has mobilized thousands of people and an armada of small boats to clean up an algae bloom that is choking large stretches of the coastline and threatening to impede the Olympic competition.
www.iht.com/.../china.php
Then there was this:
Olympics clean-up Chinese style: Inside Beijings shocking death camp for cats
Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Olympics-clean-Chinese-style-Inside-Beijings-shocking-death-camp-cats.html
This was early on, but it sounds like they will have as much as half the amount of cars on the road by banning all government workers from driving:
Olympians air a gripe about Beijing
March 12, 2008
Matt Reed was 1,500 meters into the last segment of the triathlon when he found himself gasping for oxygen. His legs were still pounding away at the pavement, his body pumped up after cruising through the swimming and cycling contests, but his lungs were shutting down.
The 32-year-old triathlete from Boulder, Colo., blames air pollution for triggering his asthma attack during the September track meet.
articles.latimes.com/.../fg-olyair12
Former Member
Slow here is the BBC report with a video news.bbc.co.uk/.../3920865.stm
They falsely accused a security guard.
Yes a bomb went off in Centenial Park, but Centential Park was a couple of miles from the Village and was controlled by Atlanta not ACOG. A bomb has never gone off in the Village as was said here earlier.
I did not say this was my belief about Atlanta. I said that I have heard. I don't really care. I do know that several Christian groups were handing out flyers just about every where I went in Atlanta during the Olympics.
The People Republic of China can produce so much propaganda it is overwhelming. I am sure we will hear nothing about the people displaced from their homes so that stadiums could be built. We will hear nothing about the hundreds of people who were left homeless with promises of apartments that still haven't been made. Or the people sent to the countryside because there is no place of them. Or the country left with nothing but elders who don't have there daily needs met because all of the young people have gone into the cities to escape poverty. We won't hear about the plunging decrease of farm goods produced or the lowering of the age of death after about 35 years of it increasing in The Peoples republic of china.
So...she was murdered several hours before 5:30am when her body was found. Coming back from where? A corporate party? "Waitressing"?
How does this compare with the murder rate in New York? Los Angeles?
If you are not out in the middle of the night/early morning, and avoiding certain lifestyles or occupations, that probably increases your chances of survival quite a bit.
um..........nooooooo
It was Rose in "So I Married an Axe Murderer!"
Rose Michaels: Let me make you some breakfast.
Charlie Mackenzie: Oh, gee, you know, I'd love to. But you know, I'm really running late, but thanks!
Rose Michaels: What would you say to silver-dollar pancakes, fresh-squeezed orange juice, bacon, and Kona coffee?
Charlie Mackenzie: Well, that sounds great!
Cut to Rose pouring cereal in Charlie's bowl]
Rose Michaels: Sorry. I didn't have those other things.
Charlie Mackenzie: No, no, that's fine. That other stuff will probably kill you... whereas "Froot Loops" are light, and reasonably high in fiber. I care for "Apple Jacks" a great deal.
And just for you Stud:
Stuart Mackenzie: Look at the size of that boy's heed.
Tony Giardino: Shhh!
Stuart Mackenzie: I'm not kidding, it's like an orange on a toothpick.
Tony Giardino: Shhh, you're going to give the boy a complex.
Stuart Mackenzie: Well, that's a huge noggin. That's a virtual planetoid.
Tony Giardino: Shh!
Stuart Mackenzie: Has it's own weather system.
Tony Giardino: Sh, sh, shh.
Stuart Mackenzie: HEAD! MOVE!
they said yes to China because they have been saying no for so long. It is truly ne of the worse governments in the world. what is truly upsettign is that we will only see the "Beautiful China' I'm sure NBC is going to kiss the toes of the Chinese leaders and sho nohting truly happening in The Peoples Republic of China. If NBC leaves the olympics we will see beautiful little children, the Great Wall, the buried Army and maybe pandas. Nothing about the polution in northeastern China where daily people die from efects of pulotion, no world about the coditions in china's prisons (the worst in the world), no story about the flood of young going into the cities leaving the countryside full of elderly who can't take care of themselves nor provide the agricultural needs of the cities.
quote]
Craig, I have seen you expressed your resentments against Chinese government in several of your posts concerning China. Nothing wrong with that. And most information I have read in your posts is true, especially the statement you made that the government is one of the worst.
one thing you kept repeating is that you constantly imply the absolute linkage between the government and the "ugly" side of China (this is not a proper word. It is just used as opposed to the Beautiful you mentioned). And there is no doubt that the government, in one way or another, has caused the misery or escalated the situation.
BUT it is wrong to assign all the responsibilities of those misery to the government. Most of the misery, if not all of them, have existed and continued in CHina for centuries. The current government, in its essence, has nothing different from the previous government or dynasties. What it did was following the footsteps of its predecessors, either leave those problems alone or solve them, or try to solve them but failed to do so and escalated them.
Li, thank you for your post. We are fortunate to have someone like you on this board who can speak about these issues from a local's perspective. I also appreciate your honesty. For what it's worth, I am glad the Olympics are being held in China. I think it will be good for China, and good for China's relationship with the larger international community.
-Chris
Thanks for your understanding. I agree that the government has done a great deal of harm to China and its citizens. But I do not think that isolation China from the international community is going to do any good to the ordinary people here. Take Iraq for example, before the war the international community put sanctions on Iraq. the result was very obvious: the ordinary people suffered more and Sadamm enjoyed more. Right untill the war. The same thing would happen in China as well if China were isolated. The only difference would be that the government, or the interest-gained/powerful group replace Sadamm because in China it is now a group dictatorship pollitical system rather than a one-person dictatorship.
Another thing why I oppose an isolation approach to China is that China needs new ideas, new ideology from other cultures/countries to change its own way of thinking. An Isolation approach would block the spread of those new ideas into China, which would escalate the situation here.
Many Chinese people, significantly influenced by the traditional Chinese culture, have no idea or very little idea on what another culture is like or what another political system works. As a result, when they think the government is wrong they still turn to the Chinese culture/political theories trying to find a "new" way to reslove the problems, which, in my opinion, is not new at all. The same recipe with different ingredients.
If we look into the nearly three thousand of years of Chinese history we would find a continuous replacement of a new dynasty to the old one, then the new one was replaced by the next new one. What kept change was who controlled the country. What remained unchanged was the controlling mechanism each dynasty used. In terms of political/philosophy theory behind the political mechanism, confucianism, the dominated theory, was upheld by generations of CHina for neary two thousand years. Individualism, individual's Freedom, democracy, the respect of private ownership of property, etc. all those important ideas never gained a position in Chinese history.
The communist party we have today is no different. They may call themselves communist party but in nature they are still more or less a traditional Chinese ideology dominated political party. As Chairman Mao put it: the ideology adopted by the chinese communist party is a combination of the Maxism with the real Chinese situation. or probably more correctly, the localization of Maxism. Mao emphasized the REAL CHINESE SITUATION again and again in his works. In his early political life Mao was critised by classical Maxists as being a not real maxist and was suppressed until he led the chinese communist party to survive the Long March. Coincidence or not Mao actually never set his foot on a foreign land except Russia. All the leaders after Mao, no matter how they disagree with him, still carries Mao's perception into the new ideas from another culture. For example, all the important policies made by the government must emphasize the unique characteristics of the chinse society when introducing new ideas, new approaches, etc. In theory, it is correct that every new idea must consider the real situation of each case before those new ideas get implemented. But in real world, many parties distort the new ideas to gain their own interest under the name of considering the unique characteristics of our sociey.
All I want to say is that CHina must look outside of both its geographic boders and its culture/political sphere to take new blood to guide its sustainable development. Only more communication with outside world can contribute to that. An isolation approach would only make things worse. Why we need the new ideas from outside? because the continuous three thousand year of history makes it very very difficult to change by only resorting to the things of our own.
Finally I want to point out that the above said is only my personal opinions. Many many of my fellow countryman would not agree with me. Those who read them should be aware that if they want to explore more about China.
Li
