David Carradine is dead at 73.

Thanks for the memories…

Part twelve in a series

“Tiananmen” means “Gate of Heavenly Peace.” Ironic, then, that most Americans know it, if at all, as a scene of violence and bloodshed.

photo by Jeff Widener, A.P.

June 4 marks the 20th anniversary of the Chinese government’s violent crackdown on protestors who’d gathered in Tiananmen Square. The incident made headlines across the world, and the image of a lone protestor blocking a line of tanks proved especially powerful.

The protesters had camped out in the square since the April death of a pro-reform Communist Party official, Hu Yaobang. By June 4, after a great deal of international attention that embarrassed the Chinese government, tanks and troops rolled in and started cracking skulls.

Western news outlets reported yesterday and today (June 3 and 4) that no media would be allowed near Tiananmen Square on June 4th. Soldiers and uniformed and plainclothes police stood at attention everywhere in the square this morning, and visitors were being searched.

But visitors to Tiananmen Square are always searched. Full story »

Part eleven in a series

“China is more capitalistic than any capitalist country.”

Amy, an employee at a jewelry booth
in Beijing’s pearl market, strings
together a strand of pearls after
striking a bargain with a shopper.

Roger Perkins of Cooper Industries told us that early on our trip. You’d have to see it to believe it, perhaps—but I’ve seen that firsthand several times on the trip, most dramatically at the silk and pearl markets. It happens on the scale of global companies, too.

“China is pragmatic,” says John Chen of Prometric, a company that specializes in testing and surveying. “When it wants to be capitalistic, it’s capitalistic. When it wants to be communist, it’ll be communist.

Chen likens China’s approach to situational management: different situations require different management approaches.

China needs the influx of cash that capitalism provides in order to continue to fuel its burgeoning economy. But at times, the country’s top-down dictatorial style allows things to get done that otherwise couldn’t happen in a democracy.

“India, for instance, is the most democratic country in the world,” Chen points out by way of example. “Everything gets debated to death and nothing ever gets done.”
Full story »

• Devil in the ACES details – fossil fuel industry pork
• Science academies call for Copenhagen to address ocean acidification
• Permafrost’s complex response to rising temperature
• Swiss RE expects a wave of climate litigation

In any legislation that’s nearly 1000 pages long, it’s inevitable that there will be some interesting details. The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) is no exception. Last week, Solve Climate reported on one of those interesting details, namely that ACES has a $50 million per year “self-assessment” that directly benefits the coal and other fossil fuel industries.

According to the article, the direct benefit comes down to the creation of a federal Carbon Storage Research Corporation that is funded by per-kilowatt charges on electric bills instead of a tax on fossil fuel-burning utilities. Full story »

“A TOP TEN LIST? Really? Are you fucking kidding me, Cargo? You do not appear to have the qualifications to make such a list, what with your lack of tooth gaps and, well, jeez. I mean, you? A Top Ten list? Gawd. You must be out of mate–OW!”

No.

As the American Dream™ continues to gnaw on every last bit of exposed flesh it can pick from our flailing limbs, it will no doubt, for many of us, also eat those debt-strangled, rapidly depreciating havens of dirty secrets, personal failure and indoor allergens known as parcels of real estate.

It will eventually, after a judicial process, a waiting period and probably more judicial processes, send a henchman or three to, at long last, relieve you of the burdens of homeownership and shelter.

But, come on. People in any line of work are nonetheless good, hard-working people too! They know just as well as anybody that remembers what it’s like to be employed in recent memory that work sucks and is hard, and comic relief can get us through even the toughest of times.

Accordingly, when the Evicto Man comes to summon you to your shiny new life as a spent munition in America’s War on Prosperity, here are the:

TOP TEN ADVISORIES FOR YOUR FRIENDLY FORECLOSURE EVICTION REPRESENTATIVE!

Full story »

Over the past nearly four years, nearly 2,600 posts have appeared on Scholars & Rogues, almost all researched and written by the 15 folks whose names appear on our writers’ bio page. S&R writers have devoted thousands of hours to the task of filling this space.

These are skilled people with diverse interests and even more diverse points of view. Three are college professors. Also writing for S&R have been or are an Hispanic activist from Texas; a foreign affairs writer who specializes in nuclear deproliferation issues and civilian casualties resulting from armed conflict; a gay staff cartoonist; a management consultant specializing in organizational behavior whose clients include 20 percent of the Fortune 500; an ex-pat South African economist; three experts in popular culture; a former director of the Berkeley Stage Company and statistical demographer for the U.S. Census Bureau; a professional stage actor; two stay-at-moms; a photographer; and occasional guest columnists.

However, we all share one trait: We are volunteers. We don’t get paid. We have other lives, other responsibilities, other people dependent on us to make a living. As business models go, ours sucks. Modest ad income and passing the hat means S&R remains a labor of love. But can love be a sustaining force for the online medium in the absence of profit?
Full story »

We were depressed. It was Tuesday morning, the second day of summer vacation in 1965, and we were already being yelled at by The Dad. Out of boredom, we asked if we could mow the grass that morning, even though it didn’t need it. The Dad agreed, and we spent a whole half hour pushing our mower across the uneven ground. But the yard was big and the grass was thick, so we abandoned the job to play with our friends. At lunch, The Dad wasn’t impressed, and had laid it on us.

“I don’t know why he was so mad,” said Glenn. “We didn’t have to volunteer to cut the grass at all. So half the yard was cut and it was like he didn’t even appreciate it.”

“What is a halfast job anyway?” I asked. Full story »

Part ten in a series

Walking into the Beijing Silk Market is like walking into a combat zone. Shopping is a full-contact sport.

My colleague, Darwin King, negotiates a price for
silk scarves at Beijing’s Silk Market.

The Silk Market sits on Chang’an Street near the city’s diplomatic district. Six stories tall, the building is crammed chock-full-o every stereotypical Chinese product you could imagine: imitation Rolexes, fake Nikes, real silk, clothes, clothes, clothes, and cheap Chinese souvenirs.

Different floors feature different merchandise, crammed in stalls not much bigger than 10×12, although it’s amazing to see just how much stuff gets crammed into each little crammed stall. Ask for a particular size of style you don’t see on display and a salesperson will pry into some surprising cranny to pull out the goods you want.

Each stall comes with two salespeople—usually young women—although some stalls have three, some stalls have one. Personal selling is the modus operandi.

“Silk?” one of them asks as I walk by. “Silk scarf?” I wave my hand “No, thanks.” She shifts gear. “Fan? Chinese fan?”

I pass by, but the girl at the next stall is already ready for me. “Shirts? You need shirts? Silk shirts.”

As a Westerner, I have a target painted on my forehead. Full story »

Part nine in a series

Nothing says “China” quite like a panda.

It’s no wonder, then, that the Chinese have used these famous black-and-white faces as emissaries around the world. There’s even a term for it: “panda diplomacy.”

Over the years, some 100 pandas have been sent to foreign countries as ambassadors of good will. Currently, around twenty-five countries host pandas, including four zoos in the United States.

I get to see them up close and personal, on their home turf. Full story »

Hot links from recent days Full story »

Regarding Bill O’Reilly’s campaign against George Dr. Tiller, as reported by Gabriel Winant at Salon, a recent precedent exists for a civil lawsuit against O’Reilly.

If you have read the book A Hundred Little Hitlers: The Death of a Black Man, the Trial of a White Racist, and the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement in America by Elinor Langer, you’ll no doubt agree with her (though no white power advocate, she) that the godfather of American white power, Tom Metzger, was railroaded. But this Wikipedia passage accurately explains in brief how he was convicted: Full story »