Pride

a.k.a Vanity, the sin from which all others arise: guilty as charged. A few weeks ago I read a MySpace blog that really bugged me (This link sends you to my page, not hers). It displayed so much ignorance that I was forced to respond. Her blog title alone was fightin' words. My friend D*Nice once told me that arguing via the World Wide Web is futile because no one wins and both parties end up looking foolish. I still don't know whether or not I agree with this, but the reply I received several days later was too scornful and condescending for me to take the high road. The gauntlet had been thrown down, and my pride was pricked. What follows is one of my foolish and futile internet arguments. If you're a glutton for more sinfulness, you can find another one here. In both cases, the name of my nemesis is disguised because I don't have permission to reprint their writing and they're not here to defend themselves.
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[Original Blog of Sunday, January 30, 2005]

Democrats love america like OJ loved nicole

...if you're a Democrat or liberal, that is fine. just don't hide under the ruse that you love america.

i myself am Independent, there are some Dem ideology/policy i agree with, and some GOP ideology/policy i agree with.

but on the topic of Iraq, i have to side with the right. the left has done nothing but berate the war while begrudgingly saying "well... fine... free elections in Iraq would be a great thing... i guess..." (usually followed by a hasty "unless there is MASSIVE DEADLY VIOLENCE THAT DISRUPTS THE ELECTIONS OH THE QUAGMIRE!!!")

sometimes, i wonder if the democratic nat'l committee is the mouthpiece for al-queda.

we heard that afghanistan would never be able to hold free, successful elections. they did. congratulations hamid karzai.

we heard that the palestianian authority would never be able to hold free, successful elections. they did. congratulations mahmous abbas.

we heard that iraq would never be able to hold free, successful elections. they did. congratulations, people of iraq.

i am sorry so many in the world secretly hoped your innocent civilians would be killed in a massive outbreak of violence. and i feel sorrow for those were killed by suicide bombers. but i am very pleased to hear about iraq the model, now emerging in the middle east.
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From: Xopher
Date: Mar 4, 2005 11:22 PM

Hi. I hope you're not offended by me writing you out of the blue, but I think your blog of January 30 is a little bit ridiculous. I hope that you're joking about that "Democrats love America..." line. If you're not, then I would challenge you to quote any prominent, or even obscure, Democrat who has expressed the desire for violence during the Iraqi elections. You appear to be employing the Fox News technique: you claim without evidence that Democrats are actually saying things that you wish they would say. Which only makes me think you're not being honest when you state that you're an independent. You heard that Afghanistan, the Palestinian Authority, and Iraq would never be able to hold free, successful elections? Was that before or after the 1996 free, successful elections in the Palestinian Territories? Was it that evil Democratic National Committee who told you these things?

While it is good news that Afghanistan and Iraq have both held elections, there is more to democracy, freedom and stability than voting. The violence in Iraq continues apace, and large swaths of Afghanistan are still controlled by the same warlords who were loyal followers of the Taliban. In fact, democracy and reconstruction in that country are being seriously threatened by the swift rise of the drug trade, according to both the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime and the Bush administration's Office of National Drug Control Policy. Opium production, a staple crop now in every province, is at an all-time high.

In practice, democracy only takes hold when nurtured from within -- no matter how many elections are held. Lebanon could fast become the shining light for democracy in the Near East. Another good reason to look to Lebanon is because their yearnings for sovereignty involve ejecting an occupying power: this could be an ominous forshadowing for sovereignty movements Iraq & Afghanistan.

I apologize for the length of this message, but I just wanted to point out to you that no American in their right mind (Democrats included) would actually WANT more violence in Iraq. Like you, I am neither Republican nor Democrat...but I think we should be fair to both, on all issues.
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From: xxxx
Date: Mar 8, 2005 6:40 PM

my blog title was facetious.

the reason i feel the way i do is because SO many democrats were SO vocal about how iraq would never be able to hold elections. same with afghanistan. but the aftermath of the afghan elections?

nearly ignored. read charles krauthammer's "miracle begets yawn" in the dec 10 2005 issue of washington post (page A37). or william safire's "the afghan miracle" on october 6 2004.

however... you cannot deny that had the afghan election broken out in mass violence as the insurgents promised, that everyone would be condemning it and (ultimately) blaming bush.

as for the PA election of mahmoud abbas (i like to quote to make more of an impact): "You heard that Afghanistan, the Palestinian Authority, and Iraq would never be able to hold free, successful elections? Was that before or after the 1996 free, successful elections in the Palestinian Territories?

you should've told that to:

steven erlanger in the 12/29 edition of the NYTimes, section A, page 3, column 1, Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem, in the 12/28 UK's paper the Guardian page 13, Khaled Abu Toameh in the 12/22 Jerusalem Post, Section: news, pg 2.

...and that's just 3 i grabbed from a recent research paper of mine that i had by my desk.

i feel the way i do because i concetrate very much on the area. i'm a poli sci major. i am also well-versed in islam, and many early islamic scholars (such as ibn khaldun - the reason i mention that is you cannot gain an understanding of a region without also knowing its history)... i know the middle east/middle eastern events going back to pre-Islamic arabian civilization.

if i simply hated democrats (and i take offense to that, by the way, the late senator paul wellstone was a family friend) i would be bashing them over a ton of things. or quoting anne coulter.

i am independent, but something about the disappointment in the voices of many democrats when having to discuss middle eastern elections, was very unsettling to me. not that the GOP doesn't unsettle me as well, but there is a difference when one is actually HOPING for harm to befall on our troops (example: the democrats' "protest vote" against more money for troops in iraq... if one was truly concerned, i have a hard time believing one could honestly vote to render parts of their electorate vulnerable). honestly, when i say "democrats," i don't think i mean the moderates or even the heavily left-of-center. i usually am referring to the far-left extremists who've hijacked the party.

xxxx
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From: Xopher
Date: Mar 15, 2005 9:41 PM

Hi, xxxx. I apologize for the delayed response, but I wasn't online for most of last week. I had hoped that you were being facetious with your blog title, as well as with some of your other statements (wondering if DNC = al-Qa'ida mouthpiece; Dems loving America = a ruse; implying that Democrats secretly hoped innocent civilians would be killed in a massive outbreak of violence, etc.).

Thanks for the article recommendations. While I agree with both Krauthammer and Safire that free elections anywhere in the Near East are a positive development to be lauded, the premise that they're miraculous is laughable. What's so miraculous about the armed forces of a rich, powerful country (what some would call the world's last superpower) routing the Taliban militia within 100 days, installing a government and subsequently holding elections?

Krauthammer goes on to state that liberals are now complaining about poppies, and that this is merely a case of 'dog bites man' news. It's not just liberals, however, and it's not the same old poppy story. As I said in my previous message, even Bush's O.N.D.C.P. acknowledges that opium production is at an all-time high -- accounting for 60% of the Afghan economy. This is a 239% increase in the poppy crop since the Taliban was driven from Kabul. Antonio Costa, exec. director of the U.N.O.D.C., said that "The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is slowly becoming a reality. Opium cultivation, which has spread like wildfire... could ultimately incinerate everything: democracy, reconstruction and stability."

Please understand that I'm not lamenting the departure of the Taliban (though they still run much of the hinterland) or disrespecting the courage of candidates and voters in Afghani elections; I just think we should hold off on the self-congratulatory circle jerk for awhile.

While I don't deny that had violence marred the elections I (and many others) would have held Bush partly responsible, that doesn't imply that I (and many others) wished for bloodshed. There is already a mountain of failed policy for which Bush is to blame. His detractors don't need any more evidence, especially at the cost of American lives. His Iraqi adventure has drawn vital money, troops, and supplies from the rebuilding of Afghanistan and the hunt for al-Qa'ida. I am reminded now of Saint-Exupéry's quote from The Little Prince: "Men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." I doubt Bush, who admittedly hates reading (especially about policy), ever read any Saint-Exupéry. Nevertheless, he shares the burden of responsibility for the direction of democracy in Afghanistan.

I can't help but notice that you begged the question when answering my challenge to "quote any prominent, or even obscure, Democrat who has expressed the desire for violence during the Iraqi elections". In response, you stated that "SO many democrats were SO vocal about how iraq would never be able to hold elections". If there were that many and they were that vocal, their quotes shouldn't be that hard to find.

Regarding the three articles used in reference to your research paper, none of them refuted my point, which was that I hadn't heard anyone in the media saying that Palestinian elections could never be held. The authors confirmed the sundry difficulties (including voter apathy) facing Palestinians elections, especially in Jerusalem, but none stated that "the PA would never be able to hold free, successful elections".

If Senator Wellstone was a family friend, then you have my condolences. However, you shouldn't have been offended by anything in my message. I never said that you "simply hated Democrats" (your quote), I only questioned what you wrote about them in your blog (re-read my first paragraph for a summary). Actually, now that I look over what you wrote again, it does sound like bashing. By the way, you have my thanks for leaving Anne Coulter out of the discussion.

In your last paragraph, you still appear to believe that Democrats were "HOPING" for harm to befall our troops; nothing could be further from the truth. The protest vote you cite as evidence was not a protest against funding the troops, only against the way in which that $87 billion would be spent. The Democrats in question wanted some of that money to be a loan to Iraq, while most other members of Congress wanted it to be a gift, leaving the burden on the U.S. taxpayers. Had that bill not passed, another one would have been crafted with a different spending layout -- the troops would still have been supported. Perhaps that other, unrealized bill would have allocated even more funds to body armor. Incidentally, Bush threatened to veto said bill had $10 billion of the funds been allocated in the form of a loan. Using his own logic, he was thereby threatening to not support our troops. By the way, there was plenty of high-grade body armor available on the market in the spring of 2003 -- many soldiers' families purchased it themselves. Why wasn't it bought by the government right from the start? Why didn't the Pentagon send the troops to Iraq with proper protection in the first place? Did Bush and Rummy not want to support our troops?

I laughed when you wrote that "far-left extremists" have hijacked the Democratic party because I feel the opposite is true. In my opinion Kerry -- their candidate of choice -- was a milquetoast, meandering, stodgy windbag whose position on Iraq (on many issues, actually) wasn't all that different from Bush's. And he was the face of the mainstream Democratic Party. Even Clinton was Centrist, considering his economic and social welfare agendas. The last president who had a left-leaning domestic policy was Nixon (he also successfully engaged China and the Soviet Union, the opposite approach of Reagan & Bush Jr. regarding their own percieved evil enemies). It was even known then as the "liberal consensus". Weird, eh? If Kucinich had been nominated by his party last year I'd have to agree with you, but that wasn't the case. I also happen to believe that the Neoconservatives and to a lesser extent, the Religious Right, have hijacked the Republican party. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway, I know it's hard to convey tone in email, but I want to reiterate that none of this is an attack on your background knowledge. I'm glad you take history into account and are familiar with Ibn Khaldun, though I prefer reading Khalil Gibran or Omar Khayyam. While I'm neither a poli sci major nor a Near East scholar like you, I did live there for two formative years as a child and came away enriched and fascinated. Apart from its oil, it's a long-neglected part of the world with which all westerners, Left & Right, need to come to terms.

Xopher
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[I'm still waiting for a reply...]

Sloth

I am a lazy man, and readily admit that I'm guilty of sloth. Instead of doing actual work I've been playing around on the internet, and I've come across two cool sites.

Sloth project #1. Surf to maps.google.com and type in your home or work address. Notice that when the map appears you can pan and scroll around without waiting for the page to reload. Cool, huh? But it gets cooler. Click the "satellite" link in the upper right. Now continue to pan around or zoom in & out. Let the malingering begin!

Sloth project #2. Surf to Gone2TheDogs.com, click on the link on the right that says, "WHAT DOG ARE YOU?" and answer the ten questions. Turns out that I'm a Pharaoh Hound, so named because of the breed's resemblence to Anubis, the jackal-headed ancient Egyptian god of death & the underworld. Sounds cool, but their looks don't always live up to their regal & divine name.

Anger

The Washington Post reported yesterday that Zalmay Khalilzad has been named by President Bush to take over from John Negroponte as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Before this, the article mentions, he was the U.S. Special Envoy and Ambassador to his native Afghanistan. There is no mention in the article, however, of Khalilzad's past prior to 2001.

In 1998 Khalilzad, along with his Neoconservative colleagues at the Project for the New American Century (Donald Rumsfeld, Elliott Abrams, Dick Armitage, John Bolton, Richard Perle and, of course, Paul Wolfowitz), signed a letter to President Clinton demanding military action against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, "to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies". Always with the WMDs, these guys. As I've discussed in a previous blog, the avowed aim of this group, which has now overwhelmed the leadership of the Republican party, is to intervene and remake the rest of the world in the image of the U.S., unilaterally and with military force if necessary. Which to me sounds more like Neocolonialism or Neoimperialism than traditional Conservatism.

During the Clinton presidency Khalilzad was a paid advisor to Unocal, the oil company that was trying to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. Remember the scene in Fahrenheit 9/11 that showed Unocal giving flown-in Taliban officials the VIP treatment in Texas? Khalilzad was part of the U.S. contingent trying to woo them with a two billion dollar pipeline deal. While human rights organizations were blasting the Afghani warlords for their repressive attitudes toward women and religious freedom, Khalilzad defended these gangsters and pushed for the U.S. to officially recognize their regime, something which no other country in the world would do save Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and The U.A.E. Khalilzad wrote of his new buddies: "The Taliban do not practice the anti-US style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran. We should ... be willing to offer recognition and humanitarian assistance and to promote international economic reconstruction. It is time for the United States to re-engage." In December of 1998, after the U.S. embassy bombings, Unocal was forced to withdraw from the Afghan pipeline consortium. In other words, who cares how bad these guys are? As long as they don't bomb us, we'll give them millions of dollars and make them our business partners.

Prior to that, Khalilzad worked with Paul Wolfowitz at the State Department, where he "successfully pressed the Reagan administration to provide arms -- including shoulder-fired Stinger missiles -- to anti-Soviet resistance fighters in Afghanistan" (The Washington Post, 11/23/01). These resistance fighters were the mujahideen. The same mujahideen that eventually became, oh nothing, just a group of bitter assholes who called themselves the TALIBAN. Ever hear of 'three strikes and you're out', Zalmay? Now, some may argue that this aid was a necessary evil at the time, given the fact that the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan and we were in the middle of a cold war. The U.S. is not guilt-free in that affair, however. The Soviets always claimed they were fighting against a secret involvement in Afghan affairs by the U.S., a claim which was denied by the latter until Zbigniew Brzezinski, in a July 1998 interview with French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, rather proudly admitted that the CIA had been giving aid to the Afghans a full six months before the Soviet invasion: the U.S. was happy to play its part in giving the U.S.S.R. its own Vietnam.

What does all this add up to? It means that the Neoconservative element at the head of our government is shameless. It means that they will continue to promote from within no matter how wrong or stupid or dangerous or short-sighted the promotees are.

In case you couldn't tell, it also means that I'm angry.

Gluttony, Part II: The Gourmand Strikes Back

Yesterday I met Shera on Melrose for brunch. We were both an hour late because of the damned DST change. Losing an hour of sleep truly vexes me. This was my second attempt to enjoy a meal at Crepe To Go, and will most likely be my last. I much prefer Acadie in Santa Monica...too bad it's far away on the west side. CTG's gimmick of naming their crepes after movie stars (I had the curry-and-sausage Bruce Lee) is cute but doesn't make up for dry crepes and smoothies over-packed with ice. I can't understand why Shera commutes all the way down from the Valley into Hollywood every weekend for the Marilyn Monroe. She always tells the Japanese proprietor to make her crepe extra crispy with just a little Nutella, and he never listens. She's friends with him anyway. When we left, I wanted a boba to wash the taste of the bad smoothie away and he told us there was a boba joint down the street next to the "bonn-dodge store". Uh, okay. We walked west looking for one of the several stores on Melrose that could easily pass as a bondage store, thinking that's what he meant. Then Shera spotted a VON DUTCH store on the north side of the street, with a Crazy Boba next door. Ain't Engrish grand?

Later, Jon came downtown and we picked up some imagawayaki from Mitsuru Cafe on our way to Daikokuya for the best ramen in L.A. Unfortunately, they're now temporarily closed on Sundays so we doubled back to Weller Court for Yakitori Kosiji, one of my new favorites in the 'hood. It's not as energetic as Kokekkoko and the set menu doesn't include hearts, gizzards and liver, but it's got more variety (with Kobe beef and pork-wrapped asparagus instead of the chicken entrails), it's delicious, and the atmosphere is relaxed and more refined. I finished my weekend with a bar of OCUMARE, another variety of Chocovic's "Unique Origin" line. This one is pure unmixed Venezuelan chocolate, with strong hints of tobacco, cedar and dried plum. I'm not talking about the taste of second-hand smoke; I mean that whiff of fresh tobacco you get when you open a new pack of cigarettes. Mix that "perfumed aroma" with "tones of exotic wood, nuts and dried fruit as well as spicy nuances," and you've got yourself some 71% cacao Ocumare. My quest for good chocolate is expanding, and I feel that it may soon lead me to Teuscher and Debauve & Gallais. $32 may seem a bit steep for an 8 oz. box of champagne truffles, (or in the case of the latter, $115 for a 1.32 lb box of "Pistoles Saveur" -- 99% cacao!), but when one is a glutton on an investigative mission to pursue the highest form of Epicurean pleasure, what's a few dollar bills? Okay, time for lunch!

Gluttony

Sometimes I find myself pondering my relation to the 7 deadly sins. I readily admit guilt in all the sins of incontinence, so I'll one day be residing in one of (or perhaps all of) the upper four circles of Dante's Inferno. And that's actually not so bad. I'm averse to sins of violence and malice, so I don't think I'll be forced into real estate below the river Styx. You see, In Hell, that's like living on the wrong side of the proverbial tracks. The uppermost layers are much more pleasant. I'll have interesting neighbors with whom I can commiserate; we get to watch the pennant race in the Vestibule of the Futile; and we can poke fun at the bloody fools across the river. It's kind of like my current situation: "Yeah, it sucks being in the U.S. right now...but at least I don't live in a red state!"

Last night I ate dinner with my Thai friends and this morning I suffered the after effects of Gluttony. Puki cooked and as always, it was delicious. As always, the copious amounts of chili melted my internal organs and forced humors to the surface...tears squirted from my eyes and my skin flushed beet red. The Gewürztraminer wine I bought specifically to counter the spice didn't help at all. So be it. I finished off the nuclear feast with a slab of delicious taro-flavored cake leftover from Niki's birthday and, after I drove home, an entire bar of Valrhona chocolate. Speaking of godfodder (the scientific name of the cacao tree, so dubbed by the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus, is Theobroma Cacao -- which translates from the Greek to "food of the gods"), right now I'm finishing off a bar of GUARANDA varietal from Ecuador (71% cacao). It's got a "perfumed aroma with fruity, acid notes and floral tones of acacia honey, with milky and exotic wood nuances". Yes, I'm a chocolate fiend. One more reason to find me guilty of gluttony.

New Buzz

I've spent most of my online time in the past week and half updating my photoblog at Buzznet. New stuff includes: more galleries; many new photos have been added to the London, Thailand, Portugal, Prague, Cambodia, Paris, Amsterdam, and Holga galleries; older photos from those and other galleries re-uploaded at a higher resolution; different gallery themes and header images. I'm not yet finished with the revamp but my tax preparation procrastination is getting sad. I've got to get crackin' on that business.

I also started work back at Morgan Creek this week, on this movie. I may be there for a month or so. I'm not passionate about it, but it'll help propel me into the future, and my next retirement. I seem to swing from one retirement to the next, like Tarzan on a vine. Last Sunday I went back to the Body Worlds exhibit at the Science Center. I think I liked the first round of bodies better -- there seemed to be more interesting poses and body types. But this time there was a hands-on section where I got to pick up a real brain and a liver. The brain was smaller and heavier than I'd imagined.

This week has also been interesting on the female front. There haven't been any developments to speak of, but lots of internal ruminations. I won't go into it now, but there are some issues I need to work through.

Okay, before I start work on my taxes I'm going to power through some more scans for Buzznet. Don't make me do all this work in vain! To borrow a phrase from my friend Caleb, who runs TheLaptopTraveler.com, I'll like you better if you visit Xopher.buzznet.com.

Birthday weekend

Friday I went to the Lakers' game: these guys suck. A night at the Staples Center is always fun, though, and my friend Jon almost put the smackdown on an incredibly annoying Pistons' fan sitting next to us. Saturday was my birthday: I went to Kokekokko for dinner with a new friend. They'd run out of hearts, gizzards, skin, and liver so we only got to eat the boring parts.

Sunday morning I got to attend an Asian Film Foundation screening of Stephen Chow's new film, Gong Fu (International English title: Kung Fu Hustle). The U.S. poster art is ridiculous and the trailer isn't all that seductive either, but ignore them both and go see this movie when it's released nation-wide in late April. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard in a movie theater, and the kung fu was top-notch. For me, this movie cements Chow's reputation as the worthy successor to Jackie Chan. Stephen Chow has been starring in mo lei tau ("slapstick" or "makes no sense") comedies in Hong Kong since the early eighties and began directing his own successful films about a decade after that: the top four boxoffice earners in Hong Kong in 1992 were all Chow vehicles. He is arguably Hong Kong's biggest star and Asia's highest paid actor. Never heard of him? I'm not surprised. His only U.S. release was Shaolin Soccer (a.k.a. Siu lam juk kau), (2001). Here's where this blog gets nasty.

Disney-owned Miramax acquired the U.S. distribution rights to both this film and Zhang Yimou's Hero (Ying xiong) in 2002 and proceeded to sit on both films for two years. There were rumors that the Weinstein brothers delayed Hero's release because they didn't want it to compete in the Oscars with some of their own productions, such as Gangs of New York and Chicago, but they also believed the films were "too Chinese" to achieve any commercial success in the West. They tinkered with both pictures extensively: dubbing English dialogue, cutting scenes, adding western soundtracks, and holding multiple audience test screenings. Finally, Quentin Tarantino himself convinced Miramax that Hero (which by this time had broken box-office records across Asia) was actually a good film and should be released intact. Miramax still wanted a hook, so they asked Tarantino if they could attach his name to it. It was subsequently released here as "Quentin Tarantino presents Hero" even though he had nothing to do with it, and it was still cut down to 1 hour 38 minutes. Shaolin Soccer didn't fare nearly as well -- it only got a limited release as a poorly dubbed print, and was edited from 112 minutes to 80 minutes. Even so, it received positive reviews: an outstanding and extremely rare average rating of 100% on RottenTomatoes.com.

Alienated by Miramax, Stephen Chow has taken his latest offering to Sony Pictures Classics for American distribution, but that's no guarantee of non-intervention. We'll have to wait until April to find out how Sony treats Kung Fu Hustle. Until then, go rent the uncut Shaolin Soccer or any other Chow film and enjoy the mo lei tau!



After the movie/moderated discussion, Jon, Kama and I drove to Venice. We had tea and cakes in the garden at Jin Patisserie, another westside gem.

Myspace Migration

Today is my last day at Morgan Creek...for now. I just returned from lunch at Echigo (I could write an entire blog on this place), and I'm in the process of rendering my final shots and cleaning up my desk space. Not a huge job, considering I've only worked here for a little over a month. Today I've also finished setting up this blogspot site. All the posts you see south of this one were originally written on my Myspace Blog. Over the past few weeks, however, I've grown to admire my friend Kapooch's weblog so much that I decided to migrate over here myself. (Thanks to Kapooch, as well, for aiding me with my Blogspot html question. My site is now the doppelgänger of hers.) I finally canceled my old Earthlink service and pointed my domain name to this site, so as of now www.NineDragons.net should lead you here. The result of all these online hijinks? A consolidation of my online presence: less loose ends, less unused threads dangling from the worldwide web.

Okay, I can't stop thinking about my fantastic lunch. If you live anywhere near the wesside and enjoy sushi, you owe yourself a lunch at Echigo. The lunch special, featuring the chef's choice of 6 servings of buttery fish on tiny beds of warm rice is only $11. Come early, though, and I would avoid Fridays. This joint is no secret and the overworked waitresses will close off the line earlier than the 14:00 cutoff if it gets too long.

I don't got your back

From the New York Times, 18 February, 2005:

"The People's Republic of China," Mr. Rumsfeld said, "is a country that we hope and pray enters the civilized world in an orderly way without the grinding of gears and that they become a constructive force in that part of the world and a player in the global environment that's constructive."

The hubris of this myopic fool continues to amaze me. China is the oldest living civilization on the face of the earth. It is a country with 3,500 years of written history -- and for most of that era China was outpacing the West in artistic and scientific developments; a country that, while slightly smaller in size than the U.S., boasts more than four times as many people; a country whose GDP has quadrupled since 1978 and is set to overtake our own within ten years; a country that now exhibits a sometimes alarming growth in nationalism; a country whose naval fleet will be larger than that of the U.S. within a decade; a country which Dummy Rummy writes off as if it were living in the Bronze Age. How very "constructive" of him.

Regarding Europe in 1914, historian Barbara Tuchman wrote that, "like the Visigoths for the later Romans, [Germany felt for England] a contempt combined with the newcomer's sense of inferiority." Germans at the time were, in the words of Thomas Mann, "the most educated, law-abiding, peace-loving of all peoples, [who] deserved to be the most powerful, to dominate, to establish a 'German peace'". Many Americans, Rumsfeld apparently included, now feel exactly the same way about their own fatherland. Though I doubt that an inferiority complex is to blame, the insolence of a smaller, newer country toward a potentially more powerful, older one could be viewed unkindly by future historians, to say the least. Look at what the end result of the German ego was.

Most people have had a friend at one time in their lives who liked to pick fights, especially if he knew his posse was behind him. I can't remember how many times in high school and college I would hear the phrase "You got my back?" right before one of my cohorts would yell something insulting and stupid to a complete stranger at a party or after a lacrosse game. Of course I defended my friends, but that was in a different time, when blind loyalty outweighed logic and reason. Not anymore. If my Secretary of Defense wants to insult other peoples and cultures, I can't stop him. I can, however, stick my hands in my pockets and declare myself uninvolved. The world is my country, you small-minded imbecile. If you continue with this "Old Europe" and "Uncivilized China" crap, don't look to me if, when you visit Asia later this year, you get the cold shoulder.



Your twin cobra fist notwithstanding, I doubt you can take on 1.3 billion offended people by yourself, even if you do have that village idiot from Texas behind you. If more of your "friends" called you out on your idiotic insults you might be saved some embarrassment, but I don't see that happening. I guess the moral of my story is this: if you run off at the mouth like a drunken frat boy, you have no right to complain to your peops if you catch a black eye.

KARATE FIGHTERS ONLY

I watch a lot of kung fu movies, as you can probably tell from my movie list. One of the plot singularities of these films that I love the most is when one guy is like, "Hey Holmes, I just learned a new fighting style" and his buddy goes, "Oh? Cool, let me try it", and they just go have a fight. Oh, nothing, just a kung fu fight in the courtyard or outside the hut or wherever. No big deal. Just to test out the technique, to see how it fares. I love how it's just a normal thing for them. Shit like that doesn't happen enough in the real world.

Every once in awhile my life turns into a movie, if only for a fleeting moment. On Sunday I was cruising around my hood with Chef Mel with our Holgas in tow. As soon as we step outside of my building we get accosted by a homeless woman with chicken pox and a handful of disposeable lighters. At least she said she had chicken pox. I was skeptical, but backed up anyway. She did have an incredibly thick lisp, though. Even though we continued walking while apologizing, and struck the head-shaking-with-hands-in-the-air pose (the universal signal for "You're not getting any money from me"), she continued stalking us, relating her chicken pox story and holding out her lighter-filled hands. Needless to say, it was extremely awkward. She reminded me of the beggars in Shanghai: some of them would follow me for blocks, supplicating and trying to hold my arms the whole time. Not in a threatening way, mind you -- at first I thought I was being targeted for a pickpocketing, but I was wrong -- they just don't have anything better to do and figure that eventually, to make them go away, I would give up a few yuan. But I digress.

Our escape route from Chicken Pox Woman led us behind the Japanese Cultural Center. I knew there was a cute little garden back there that I thought might offer some prime photo opportunities. As we speedwalked up to the gate of the garden, I was vaguely aware that there was a kid standing there. There were people all over the place actually, which isn't out of the ordinary for a cultural & community center, but this kid was standing right at the gate, just lounging. Like a sentry, or a GATEKEEPER. And just as I approach he sort of comes to life and goes, "Only karate fighters are allowed inside". I was completely dumbstruck. Did my life just turn into a movie? Was this some kind of challenge? What's going on? Is this guy asking to try my kung-fu right out here in the open, in my own hood? In MY OWN HOOD? This kid was like 12 and he was wearing thick spectacles; his slight paunch aside, he reminded me of a 12-year-old version of myself. My mind raced -- could a 12-year-old me beat up a 30-year-old me? Depends on how good his kung fu is. Does he know Drunken Praying Mantis Style? I sized him up -- he was scrupulously avoiding eye contact. Hard to tell what his technique is. Dangerous to try to read a book by its cover. I thought of looking at Mel to see if she comprehended the situation better than I, but what if he launched his attack while my back was turned? It was way too crazy.

Finally, I spoke. "Oh, really? Karate fighters only, huh?" I was stalling for time.

"Yeah. Well, you can come in the garden, but you have to stay out of the building because blah blah blah". I didn't even get the reason because as I looked down where he pointed, I saw through the basement windows a room full of little kids, each one wearing a gi. It was all becoming clear to me. There was some kind of competition going on. That's why all the people were milling about in the plaza behind me. That's why some were wearing track suits and slippers. Why some kids were carrying trophies. Ahhh, soooooo. The moment devolved back into real life. The heightened reality dissolved. My life as a movie ended. It's a good thing, too, seeing as how I don't know the first thing about martial arts except for what I've seen in the movies. I would have had to fake the funk with The Gatekeeper, all while trying to keep my Holga undamaged, and hoping the resulting ruckus wouldn't draw the attention of Chicken Pox Lady. Which would have been completely different, and would have made for a really memorable Sunday afternoon.

Reality bites sometimes.