links for 2008-04-09

• AsiaMedia :: Japan's garrulous bloggers go strangely silent
  "The government's proposal to regulate Internet content, including forcible correction or deletion of material on blogs, personal websites and bulletin boards, passes with little uproar"
  (tags: japan freespeech censorship privacy internet)
• apophenia: does work/life balance exist?
  "I can't help but wonder - is it possible to really be in the flow and have work/life balance? Or will I find that, at the end of the day, I have to walk away from my work culture to have a life?"
  (tags: life work health balance)
• Beware an angry China - International Herald Tribune
  "Tibetans have a strong case against Beijing. But mixing it in with the Olympics and Darfur is a red rag to a wounded young bull...."
  (tags: china nationalism tibet olympics geopolitics)

Comments

[mahathir_fan]

"Tibetans have a strong case against Beijing. But mixing it in with the Olympics and Darfur is a red rag to a wounded young bull...."

Have we all forgotten that we should use this Olympics to fight for human rights for the Chinese people? Why are we now so focus on Tibet? What about people like Hu Jia or that reporter or just fighting for the rights of an ordinary Chinese? Shouldn't we use the Olympics to fight for the rights of an ordinary Chinese?

wait...these people that we are supposedly suppose to be fighting for their rights, they turned out against us, they are over there in the pro-China camp! I'm so confuse now. Please help me understand. I thought the Chinese people will stand up against their government. That's what the Western media have been tellin me, they abuse their human rights. So how come the Chinese people are out in droves supporting their government instead of turning out against? I'm duped again??

[Charles Liu]

MF, perhaps a POV different from the "red rag/Chinese people are animals" one.

Perhaps it is not the Chinee, but those of us who wish China well by bashing China:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/09/commentary.wang/index.html

"Bashing China is not the answer"

It is an oped from a Berkeley professor:

"Sadly, most Americans know little about international issues and for that matter, China, as demonstrated by the conspicuous absence of information regarding historical context and complexity. Instead, the media, politicians and organized groups prefer to use only sound bites and, frequently, disinformation to perpetuate ignorance, instill fear, and incite racial hostility, or worse, hatred toward China."

[mahathir_fan]

Charles,

Why are you still reading CNN? Never mind, while you are there, why not read this one:

Commentary: Why we protest China
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/08/commentary.savitt/index.html

by Jill Savitt is executive director of Dream for Darfur. Her organization has been at the forefront of linking China, Darfur and the Olympics for the past year.

She said , "China, in fact, has used the Games as a blunt political tool for 50 years, denying athletes from Taiwan the right to participate."

What I would like to say:
"1958, China withdrew from the International Olympic Committee over the issue of Taiwan representation. China was reinstated 21 years later in 1979, but did not take part in the Olympic Games until 1984 in Los Angles. [China joined the American-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest against the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.]"

I always criticize America because I hope to make America better. I hope to be thanked one day for these unsolicited criticism.