Sun Wukong, The Monkey King

Sun Wukong, The Monkey King

Let’s face it, this monkey king character is kinda creepy, especially the clip where this freakish thing has that disturbing cackling, insanity-laden laugh. This strange hero would give my kids nightmares. So China’s great heroic figure was a psychotic monkey who waged war on heaven. Am I the only one here who’s befuddled by this creepy monkey-hero?

And now for the serious part of the blog:

This particular passage stood out from Gittings: “The journalist Liu Binyan wrote a fictionalized report, ‘On the Bridge Sit’, showing how a disaster was caused while officials waited for ‘higher instruction’ instead of taking decisions during an emergency. Liu was labelled a rightist. So was the young engineer who dared to make decisions on his own and provied the model for Liu’s story.” (Gittings, p. 49)

For me, the big red flag is the SARS scare back in 2002-3. I remember following that story. The whole world stood aghast that China had failed to report the disease to the world health organization. Their failure put the entire global community at risk. Personally, I just rolled my eyes at the time. I scoffed…China! That was pretty much the end of my commentary. These military wax figures in their ironed uniforms and their dead doll eyes made a few announcements. I grew up bouncing from one military to the base. I knew the drill. You get a face-man to act as a go-between. The face-man is always some guy who looks like one of those old-fashioned GI JOE dolls, fresh out of the box. They’re trained in non-verbal communication. That means they are trained to control their non-verbals as well as the vomitous spewing from their fetid lips. They have to control those non-verbals. There are people who watch those non-verbals like they’re reading a book. So those wax figures say what they want us to hear, divulging nothing more. But then they made a mistake. This woman from the CDC comes on to give us the low-down. She’s a scientist, not an expert in communications. She was the most nervous twittering thing I’ve ever seen. SARS scared the hell out of this woman. Her mouth said, “We’ve got it under control.” But her body was screaming aloud, run for hills! Run for the hills! We’re all gonna die! I have to admit, that nervous little woman scared the hell out of me. So I gathered up all the data I could find. It was alarming. According to the rate of transmission, SARS had the potential to kill every man, woman and child on the planet THREE TIMES over in a period of six months.

So I was livid at those slacker Chinese who played craps with the entire world community. And here I am, several years later reading this piece by Liu Binyan about “how a disaster was caused while officials waited for “higher instruction” instead of taking decisions during an emergency.”

And I reckon since Dr. Anderson did specifically say we should look at the RSS feeds, it’s only fitting that I should add something to my blog that complies with his suggestion.

http://www.fool.com/investing/international/2008/01/25/todays-strong-buys-international-edition.aspx

This particular article is one of those boring investment articles. Let’s face it, investment is specifically about taking the money you’ve got and turning it into more money. Now how boring is that? There were a few things that jumped out and punched me in the eye. The most obvious assault was that fact that the international stock they mention, with a whopping 63% RETURN!! I’m not a stock juggler. However, the remarkable return is significant because it underscores that China is quickly becoming a powerful economic entity in the global economy. It also forces me to consider how they achieve such a high return. I’ve already moaned about the use of forced slave labor. Stock values are calculated by return on investment. Obviously, if consumer goods are produced using free labor, the margins are going to be larger. However, there is still an undertone of instability. I can’t put my finger on it yet, but something is rotten in Denmark. I’m always suspicious of artificial economics. Right now, China is leaping forward in the global economy. But artificial economics have imploded on every artificial structure with which I am familiar throughout the entire course of human history. If I had to make a wager, I would guess that China is going to enjoy a quick burst of energy which will find equilibrium when the whole thing implodes. Artificial economics is cocaine. At first, it’s great, great, great. You feel larger-than-life invincible. But the inevitable crash is so *not* worth it. Unfortunately, there is no 12-step program. I reckon they’ll just have to white-knuckle it through the crash. No doubt, American soothsayer-carpetbaggers will be there to exploit, er, help them out of their dire crisis.

Nah. I changed my mind. Exploitation! The protein power-bar of choice for American economic body-builders worldwide. If your country is feeling exploited, there’s an American involved somewhere. Americans are gluttonous larvae. We’ll feast on any carcass until nothing but a rotted shell remains.