In the movie Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, one of the heroes contracts malaria at his re-education camp, and they treat him by hitting him repeatedly with sticks of a special wood. I was intrigued by this, as I’d never heard of such a treatment and it seemed to cure him quickly. Now I see that this cure was developed by the Chinese during the Cultural Revolution and is now becoming internationally accepted as the disease becomes increasingly immune to traditional treatments. It may well revolutionize our approach to dealing with malaria.

I enjoyed browsing through this new expat blog. from an English-teacher in Xi’an. It shows promise. (And he agrees with me that the CCP’s banning of the Chinese Peasants’ Survey is a bad thing, so he’s obviously smart!) Have a look.

Modernization and the Three Gorges Dam are among the catalysts for vanishing dialects and greater adoption of putonghua.

The original 27,000 residents of Shenzhen, a former sleepy fishing village, have melted into today’s metropolis of four million – and so has the local dialect they used to speak.

Similarly, mass migration of entire villages along the Yangtze River to make way for the Three Gorges Dam project and the scattering of their residents, has sounded the death knell for the villagers’ local dialects.

Modernisation is posing a greater threat to China’s more than 1,000 dialects than the government’s efforts to popularise putonghua or Mandarin since 1955.

‘The modernisation process is a main reason for the decline of dialects,’ said assistant professor Jing Wendong of the Central University for Nationalities.

The popularisation of putonghua – the national language based on the Beijing dialect – only quickened the pace of decline, he added.

So is this a good thing or a bad thing? It’s always sad to see aspects of local culture be wiped out by the bulldozer of progress. But in this case, I have to lean toward thinking this is a good thing. Ideally, those affected would be able to retain their dialects and adopt putonghua — just like the Shanghairen have done.

That’s the topic of discussion in this wonderful post that has apparently kicked up quite a storm in the blogosphere. Quite remarkable, how the writer approaches this emotionally charged subject with clarity and objectivity. The comments are eye-opening; I can only conclude the Little Green Footballers heard about the post and attacked en masse. Go see just how nuts these guys can be.

Link via Instapundit (yeah, I read him now and then).

The three most controversial decisions that Li Peng made. including crushing the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, were not his decisions at all, but were forced upon him by Deng Xiaoping. That’s according to an article Li wrote — one of the only times in writing he’s referred to the TS crackdown.

Li’s article was among several from former leaders published in the journal to mark the centenary of Deng’s birth, the Post reported.

But it was the only one to refer directly to the 1989 military crackdown.

“In the spring and summer of 1989, a serious political disturbance took place in China,” Li wrote.

“Comrade Deng Xiaoping — along with other party elders — gave the party leadership their firm and full support to put down the political disturbance using forceful measures.”

….

Li also revealed some of his feelings when he was appointed premier in 1988, describing himself as a timid apprentice who needed encouragement from Deng, the Post reported.

“Comrade Xiaoping said, ‘What I am worried is that you are not bold enough to carry out your work. You have to learn hard and train yourself in work in order to make yourself more mature,'” Li wrote.

Li also wrote that it was Deng who ignored opposition in Hong Kong — which neighbors Guangdong — and pushed for the building of the Daya Bay nuclear plant.

Additionally, Li described Deng as the “main decision maker” behind the Three Gorges Dam project.

Based on all I’ve read about Li in the past, including but not exclusive to how he was the leader most detested by the TS students, I am highly skeptical. Li always struck me as the ideal lackey, eager to delight his masters by going the extra 9 yards, no matter how ghastly his assignment. If he thinks this is going to get him off the hook….

UPDATE: A better piece in terms of explaining the origins of the article and when Li wrote it can be found here.

I always found it intriguing, the way Catholic priests in Beijing have to swear their allegiance to the CCP and not the Vatican. Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao is, in effect, their pope. And it’s strongly recommended you don’t rock the religious boat.

A U.S.-based Christian rights group says China has detained eight Catholic priests who are loyal to the Vatican.

The U.S.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation says Chinese police swept through a small village in Hebei Province last week looking for priests who support the pope.

A statement released by the foundation alleges that 20 police cars surrounded the town, and police then went door to door until they captured the eight men, along with two seminary students.

…..

Separately, Reuters news service quoted the Buddhist Foundation of America on Wednesday as saying China had arrested a “living Buddha” for violating Chinese policy on religious practice.

The religious leader was reportedly jailed during a ceremony celebrating a recently renovated Buddhist temple in Inner Mongolia.

Mr. Becquelin says Chinese laws restricting religious activity are all-encompassing, and punishment for violators can be severe. “Technically, anyone who practices religion outside of the state control system is liable to punishment, including administrative detention, sentence to labor camp or even criminal sentences,” said Nicolas Becquelin.

I know, I know, things are getting better (well, at least some things). It just bothers me, to see a country making such magnificent strides in so many areas to continue to repress its people like this.

Dave Neiwert puts the whole thing in perspective, as usual

The “Swift Boat Veterans” topic is on all the lips of the conservatives. Just like Vince Foster’s suicide, the rabid right thinks that it has finally latched onto just the right personal smear (the kind in which it specializes) for bringing down John Kerry.

It’s all that conservatives want to talk about, at least among themselves. This weekend, my brother-in-law — a Mr. Oxycontin fan and a guy who roots for politicians like he roots for football teams — and his equally clueless cousin were exchanging verbal high-fives over all the Swift Boat talk.

I got angry and told them this was the scummiest kind of politics I could remember seeing in a long time, which was saying a lot. “You want to see scummy politics,” the cousin told me, “just wait till Kerry gets going.”

Right.

Problem is, the Kerry people aren’t even punching back. Yet.

Look, I understand. What we should be talking about in this election is the fact that we lost over 2 million jobs in the USA under this administration. We should be talking about a federal deficit that has ballooned to a record $435 billion. We should be talking about the diversion from a serious “war on terror” in invading Iraq and how it has harmed our national security. We should be talking about the outing of CIA agents, and the setting of energy policy by consulting with corporate interests, and the concrete degradation of environmental standards.

But we’re not. We now have a thoroughly trivialized press corps, which is now busliy feeding the maw of a conservative movement that demands attention to truly insignificant personal smears whose entire purpose is to attack liberals and non-conservatives. Serious issues are “boring” and do little for your ratings.

This should be the No. 1 issue to all of us bloggers: the disgraceful trivialization of the media, which refuses to call the administration on issues that really matter, and instead spends countless hours going over non-issues planted by PR people to distract us all from the government’s malfeasances. Ann Richards is a lesbian. John McCain had an illegitimate black child and wasn’t really a war hero. Al Gore said he invented the Internet. John Kerry’s recollections of a 33-year-old incident in or near Cambodia are inconsistent (heavens!). Kerry once said it was medals he threw in protest 30-some years ago but later said they were ribbons (must be a congenital liar, no?).

As Dave says, by dwelling on such idiocies, debate on the issues that really matter to us — health care, education, the environment, that war in Iraq (remember?), etc. — are stifled, and the political discussion is reduced to meaningless drivel. Like, how dare Kerry use the girlie word “sensitive”? (Never mind the context.) And that is what our political dialogue has been reduced to.

This didn’t just happen in a vacuum. It’s not just that the media have become trivialized; they have allowed themselves to be trivialized. It was a deliberate, carefully architected strategy implemented by our friends Karen Hughes and Karl Rove, and our media have only rarely demonstrated the cojones to fight back.

This is a topic I plan to expand upon as soon as I finish the new book I’m reading, All the President’s Spin, by the fellows who bring us the invaluable Spinsanity site. There’s only one thing I’ll say about their book for now: it’s a masterpiece.

Update: Another great Kevin Drum post on this kerfuffle.

In a scathing criticism of the failed war in Iraq, conservative columnist George Will accuses the bush administration of ignoring history by seeking to mold a Middle East nation in its own image. After pointing out all the times similar ventures have failed — and they always have — Will closes with a grim look at the next stage of Rumsfeld’s folly.

But in a New York Times story from Najaf, readers learn, regarding the problem of Moqtada Sadr and his militia, that a Marine spokesman says, “We’ll continue operations as the prime minister [Ayad Allawi] sees fit.” And readers learn that U.S. commanders “curbed a broader national amnesty proposal announced by Dr. Allawi earlier this week, limiting its terms to exclude any rebels who have taken part in actions killing or wounding American troops.”

So does sovereignty reside with the prime minister whose will evidently commands U.S. commanders? Or with those commanders who curb the prime minister’s will?

A house so divided cannot stand. If it is the prime minister’s will, or that of Iraq’s embryonic democratic institutions, to conduct with insurgent factions negotiations that strip the Iraqi state of an essential attribute of statehood — a monopoly on the legitimate exercise of violence — the U.S. presence will become untenable.

Untenable even before what may be coming before November: an Iraqi version of the North Vietnamese Tet offensive of 1968. To say that the coming offensive will be by “Baathists” is, according to one administration official, akin to saying “Nazis” when you mean “the SS” — the most fearsome of the Nazis. Such an offensive could make Sadr’s insurgency seem a minor irritant. And it could unmake a presidency, as Tet did.

Please bear in mind, this isn’t Paul Krugman talking, it’s Republican George Will. He is saying that bush is now in direct danger of losing the election because of the collapse of Iraq into near anarchy. And he’s saying al Sadr may be just a gnat compared to the next phase of our occupation.

Anyone listening? Are we really going to let our stupid little president keep us bleeding forever? Can we really pulverize the Iraqis into loving us?

This is sobering. Remind us again, why should we vote for shrub?

I was dumbfounded to read yesterday that the Google founders actually granted Playboy a full-length interview a few months ago, when they knew their IPO announcement was imminent. This is a huge no-no, and their PR person should be fired right away. The interview has appeared in the latest issue, sent out to subscribers at the time when Google isn’t supposed to be saying a word. Not a single syllable.

“Quiet periods,” the time before announcing an IPO or major financial news, are sacred — you say nothing at all that might influence investor opinion. And they broke this cardinal rule. This should scare smart investors away — Google has no in-house IR (investor relations) )counsel and their PR people are true amateurs (and I promise, I know). Amazing, but true; you’d think at this late date they’d have the sharpest people in the industry handling all their PR. Instead, they’re stumbling like a bunch of amateurs.

My friend Jeremy has posted on his company blog about other reasons to fear the Google IPO. Jeremy and I have both been in high-tech PR for ages, and worked together in Silicon Valley in the late 90’s, when we were all going to become multi-millionaires. (Hah.) His points are well-taken.

When it comes to publicly traded Google stock, my mantra, at least for now, is simple: steer clear.