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March 2022
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Dave Lindorff is an antiwar writer who hosts the This Can't Be Happening website. He posted an article recently titled "Germany Deserves a Big Share of the Blame for the Disaster in Ukraine." My comment is not to discourage people who are against war, nor is it meant to denigrate Dave's staunch position against war. I have followed Dave for twenty years, so I know where his heart is. My comment hopes to clarify the problem, and hopefully points to a solution.
My Comment: Blame time! But Germany is just a vassal state. It's just an American base to bomb, kill, and destroy. It talks mightily and pretends to be independent and brave. I'll be more inclined to believe after ALL American and foreign soldiers/weapons/missiles are kicked out. Why blame a dog when its master orders it to attack? They're also the first to die when the victims fight back. You want to know why the world can't have peace? Try blaming these people. What population elects liars, miscreants, and warmongers to be their leaders? What population grants their leaders the freedom to lie, freedom to plunder, freedom to wage war, freedom to destroy countries, freedom to starve whole nations, and freedom to commit atrocities in the name of the people with impunity? What population gets into slavish debt in order to supply the money for endless wars? What population sends their children all over the world to commit atrocities for their lying warmongering masters? What population turns a blind eye to their own war crimes while wagging their sanctimonious fingers at their victims who dare to defend themselves? Look in the mirror, Dave. Don't blame your dogs. Don't blame your government. Don't blame your mainstream media. Don't blame your politicians. Don't blame your warmongers. At the end of the day, nothing could have happened without the people's consent. "A man can't ride your back unless it's bent." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Daniel Dumbrill has another powerful post "The Media's Public Manipulation Exposed From the Inside: A CBC and Steven D'Souza Case Study" Here is my comment:
Excellent post! I have commented earlier on AJ+'s "How the Threat of China Was Made in the USA" and posted it on my blog. I explained that I once worked for the mainstream media and even built a national Chinese language television station in Canada. I ended up living and working in China for almost two decades, learning the shocking truth that Western mainstream "journalists" were without exception paid liars to smear and denigrate China by any and all means. Steven D'Souza cannot possibly tell the truth as his livelihood is at stake. One only has to refer to Upton Sinclair's succinct comment on the mainstream journalist's freedom to lie, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Now we know why Steven seemed to listen intently, nodding his head all the while, and then turned around to lie as was required of him. His job was to lie for the lord of lies; why would he do anything different? Sure he was shameless, but people have done worse for a loaf of bread. Steven accuses others of being paid, but why should anyone listen to him when he is without question a paid liar and a minion? Is he not paid? And what is CBC but a tool of imbeciles? I do not say this because I can slander as well as the next guy, but because I have direct knowledge. Here is another blog of mine titled "How do we know that certain people are lying about China?" The first example actually comes from Daniel Dumbrill. I added my experience from three decades ago, "I was privy and even party to some rather unpalatable transactions ... I knew how the foremost investigative television program of Canada was manipulated ..." I did not mention the culprit and victim in that post, but I will do so now. The program was The Fifth Estate of CBC. The investigative "journalist" simply accepted the lies as fact because it implicated China. There was no evidence and no proof. The editor quickly approved the piece because it was a great anti-China hit piece. How do I know? I was the one who created the illusion and duped The Fifth Estate. It was in fact a bunch of wealthy people trying to make a hostile takeover of the TV station. I did not approve of the unwanted publicity but I was overruled. I was a member of this cabal for other reasons, and my involvement was secretly approved and encouraged by the CRTC. Recognize that most of what we read in the news does not even begin to scratch the surface of the truth. If we accept without question the lies of our government and our mainstream media, then we are fools and we deserve to be lied to. Daniel Dumbrill is exasperated because the voices of truth are not heard. At some point, the truth speakers need to learn how to attack the liars at the pocketbook, which is the reason behind why they lie. But for now, just exposing them will be damaging enough.
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Sana Saeed is a host and senior producer at AJ+, the digital news service distributed over social media and owned by Al Jazeera, which in turn is owned by Qatar. It's always advisable to know the source of your information. I normally do not pay much attention to Al Jazeera, as they tend to repeat the lies of the Western mainstream narrative. I'm therefore intrigued when I came upon Sana's AJ+ YouTube post titled "How the Threat of China was Made in the USA" Here is my comment: I came from Hong Kong and have become a Canadian like Sana. I worked in the mainstream media in the early days of my career and actually built a national Chinese language television station in Canada. That was several decades ago. When Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997, I returned to watch the ceremony. I ended up getting a job in China and lived there for almost two decades until retirement. I have witnessed China's rise and I can share my experience in a few words. I was utterly shocked by the complete disregard for factual reporting of China by Western journalists. I am almost ashamed to say that I started my television career in Canada working as a director for a news crew on the streets of Toronto. These so-called Western "journalists" willfully lie about China, and they're paid liars. It is their job to be dishonest about China and they have no shame lying. China is by no means a perfect society, and no one should lie about that, but why should we expect any human society to be perfect? China has at least helped its people improve their lives from extreme penury and with a very disadvantaged hand; what has our government done for us lately, except using the people's trillions to send the people's sons and daughters into wars, committing atrocities in our name, and buying lies from the mainstream media, so we can all blame China? Meanwhile all the money flows into the coffers of the 1%. Sana's clip is one of the clearest revelations of the egregious role Western journalists and their media bosses are taking on as liars on all reports about China. Unfortunately, lies and delusions will not overcome truth and facts. Not only will the mainstream media destroy our trust in them, they will destroy themselves, as well as our society. This is what will happen when our society no longer has trust. One of the symptoms of our sickness is how we now have lying presidents and prime ministers and lawmakers, and how it is now normal for them to lie. The problem is not that they lie, but that they lie poorly, like America's last president. I have recently written a short rap titled "Blame China" on my blog. Feel free to read for a laugh.
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How to Win Big This November? -- by Michael Moore
Poor Michael Moore is still full of hope and change. Let us not mock ourselves with vain hopes. The Dems will lose big. Here is what I say: Why would anyone vote for the Dems when the people have been lied to every time? Remember Clinton? Remember Obama? Many Dem voters are already regretting that they have been duped (again) to vote out the cretinous Trump, because how is Biden any different? Hasn't poor Michael (who--bless his soul--has his heart in the right place but not so much his head) noticed that Biden has continued most of Trump's imbecilic policies? Biden turns out to be Trump 2.0. He lies just like Trump, perhaps with more finesse. Notice that under Biden the pandemic is reaching another peak? Notice how Biden is going to get America to fight wars with Russia and China at the same time? Notice Biden's approval rating dives below that of Trump's? Why should people bother to save this "democracy" when Michael himself says that ever since Bush senior, "our" numbers have been greater than the other side in every election for thirty years, yet what has this "democracy" done for the majority? Big fat nothing, not even when "our" side wins. It's a big fat joke. How many people are still delusional enough to believe that we have to save this "democracy"? Should we hope for a better result when we believe in the next Democrat lie? Whose problem is it when the people keep believing in lies from the same liars over and over again? And even if the Dems win, let us not forget that the Trump majority in the SCOTUS don't give a flying fig about "our" majority. "Saving our democracy" is just a slogan meant to distract. Voting for the Democrats will save nothing and no one. Better to take the red pill and think of how to wake the people from this sick lie and save this once beautiful country from those liars, hypocrites, thieves, murderers, and miscreants, whom by the way the people have elected by this "democracy," and to whom the voters have granted the imperious power and unlimited funds to commit atrocities in "our" name with impunity. We have met the enemy and he is us. A Peter Man screed Comment from John Rachel (Counterpunch.org contributor): Thank you, Peter, for introducing clarity and perspective into the vapid puff of delusion Michael Moore has subjected us to. While I've admired the man in the past for making powerful movies accessible to everyday people, the last few years he's become unhinged with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) and a puerile obsession with the corporate Dem hypocrisy machine. Nice Work!
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How to prove there is no genocide in Xinjiang? You can’t prove a negative, so don’t try, because you’ll be using the liar’s narrative, which is the whole purpose of the lie. Once you start answering the lie, you will lose no matter what because you’re giving credence to the lie, and people’s mind will be made up by a human defect known as “Conformation Bias,” which is characterized by “my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with facts.” This is the War of Narratives; if you don’t believe in its power, try answering to the false accusation that you’re a pedophile and a sex predator. So what can one do to combat lies? Reveal the liars and their lies. Attack the liars at their foundation. If the liars lie every time they open their mouth, why should anyone believe in their lies about China? If the villagers do not trust the boy who cries wolf three times, why should anyone waste even a second of their time pondering the endless lies that erupt from the mouth of habitual and pathological liars? You can't even fool a squirrel three times with the same trick. Maybe it’s not the liars that is the problem but the people who give credence to the lying machine’s thirty thousand lies. Maybe it's another human defect known as hypocrisy. We choose to believe in a certain lie because it makes us feel good. It reinforces hidden prejudices that have been spawned by other lies. Meanwhile the liars are rewarded by being elected to positions of wealth, prestige, and power. Why should the liars stop lying? Let me share the indignant voice of a rare mainstream journalist Yonden Lhatoo, Chief News Editor of the South China Morning Post, who excoriated the insufferable hypocrites of the West on SCMP’s official YouTube channel. Click the link and enjoy. In closing, I would also like to share the prophetic words of a sage written in 1995, not long before his passing to a better realm: "I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what is true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (my comment: Wow! I forgot how long the sound bites were; YouTube now has 6 second ads), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentation on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance." -- Carl Sagan (from his 1995 Best seller "The Demon-Haunted World -- Science as a Candle in the Dark") We have met the enemy and he is us. By Peter Man
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Words of a Prophet in 19952/1/2022 "I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what is true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (my comment: Wow! I forgot how long the sound bites were; YouTube now has 6 second ads), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentation on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance." -- Carl Sagan (from his 1995 Best seller "The Demon-Haunted World -- Science as a Candle in the Dark")
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Iranians are the nicest people in the world?29/12/2021 I have never traveled to Iran although I have been to many places in the world. I have however a reliable source of information, my mother. First, let me provide a little background. My mother was a career educator in Hong Kong. She retired thirty years ago and since then had traveled the world. She loved traveling and had visited every nook and cranny on earth. Another thing about my mother is that she is a diehard redneck to the right of Proud Boys. America is paradise, it is being destroyed by evil China and illegal immigrants from Mexico, and Dubya Bush and MAGA Trump are her heroes who will save America. This is no joke. My mother belonged to a large, maybe a majority, group of people who had been teaching the young minds of Hong Kong. They are also government employees paid with public funds. Anyone who had visited the Hong Kong Teachers Association and seen the vitriolic anti-China propaganda there would understand. The organization had decided to disband after the implementation of the China Sedition Law.
With this in mind, we should understand that before visiting Iran, my mother had already been inculcated with an ingrained and immutable idea of the evil Iran in her mind, thanks to the excellent work of the mainstream media (MSM) of the West. She probably wanted to go and see for herself, so that she could tell others she had seen and experienced the evil Iran in person. In fact, she visited while there was an upheaval in Iran. The mainstream news was filled with images of angry protesters demonstrating in Tehran (that was over 10 years ago, and I don’t remember the exact occasion or timing). There were travel warnings for people wanting to visit Iran, and tour groups were canceling left and right. My mother was, and still is at 95 years of age, a fearless traveler (in the midst of Covid explosion, she just flew to Newark by herself, and then to Florida and back with my sister’s family, now spending New Year’s Eve at Princeton). Her Iran tour group had been delayed earlier, but this time she insisted on going and somehow there were just enough people to form a group. So away she went. My mother has a failing memory now. She has also mellowed somewhat. Only about a month ago, I asked her of all the places she visited, and that’s like, everywhere, which country had the nicest people. To my surprise, the answer was Iran. Not only Iran, but she said by far Iran. I said, What? Explain. Interestingly, the first thing my mother said was after her Iran trip, she would not trust mainstream news anymore. That’s a good start! She said after landing in Tehran, the group was told not to visit a certain district where the protesters were restricted to hold their demonstrations. Otherwise, the city was calm, peaceful, and fun. At no time did she notice or feel any dangers or disquiet. The mainstream media were warping the reality to make it seem like Iran had descended into a war zone. Okay, for some of us who have visited and even lived in evil China, we know about the all encompassing and relentless mainstream media lies of the West, but what makes my mother think Iranians are the nicest? Has she been brainwashed by evil Iranians? Although my mother sometimes traveled to different countries with tour groups (she actually traveled to many places by herself; but at 95, her adventuring days are pretty much over), she seldom, if not never, took local tours to visit the regular tourist traps. To her credit, she liked to interact and observe people. So while others in her group would visit the museums, historical sites, and shops, my mother would wander off by herself to the nearest park, for example, and checked out the ordinary people living their regular life. So on this day in Tehran, my mother was sitting by herself on a bench in a park watching the children play. A young Iranian lady sat down on the bench beside my mother. The young lady noticed that my mother’s shawl was not properly covering her head. It was a scarf that was not meant to be a hijab. She dug out a spare shawl from her handbag and put it over my mother’s head properly. They only communicated by hand signals. After a while, my mother wanted to walk around, and she thanked the young lady and tried to return the shawl. She was very surprised when the Iranian stranger told her to keep it. That was not just good luck. The next day, she was invited by another stranger (an English teacher) to visit her home and have tea with her family. The day after, a young boy brought over tasty snacks for her. She was an old Chinese lady sitting in a Tehran park all by herself being pampered. This was in a country which had been severely sanctioned by Western countries and vilified by Western mainstream media for decades, and the people were made to suffer for it. But everyone treated her with the utmost respect as if she was the matriarch of the family. My mother was utterly amazed. Iranians are the best, this is my mother’s conclusion. So how does that reconcile with her understanding of Iran as promulgated by the American beacon on a hill which always wags their sanctimonious finger at evil countries like China, Russia, and Iran? My mother quickly found her answer. The Iranian government and the religious leadership are evil but the people are nice. That explains the apparent contradiction. Since all human beings suffer from a psychological condition known as “confirmation bias,” which you will notice when some people basically say, “my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with facts,” making it impossible to carry on an intelligent conversation, I would therefore give up and leave it at that. This is a personal anecdote of course, and does not represent some statistical research based on measurable metrics. But there may be a moral lesson somewhere that we can all learn from.
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When we watch the Western mainstream media talk about China, all we get is the endless vilification of China as some evil empire planning to ruin the world or rule the world or both. When we listen to politicians of the West, we also get a sense that China is about to invade America, India, other Asian countries, Australia, Africa, Europe, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the North Pole, the Pacific Ocean, the Moon, and everywhere else. Then of course there are numerous Western NGOs, non-profits, spokespersons, brain-trusts, think-tanks, talking heads, military experts, political pundits, religious leaders, and humanistic organizations funded by those who have funds also amplifying the evil China narrative. Even in the social media, we have numerous click-baiters regurgitating and reverberating horrific stories of Chinese communists committing genocide against ethnic minorities, stealing American wealth, controlling every Chinese citizen, and bullying everyone else. For people who have lived or are living in China, it is easy to know who is lying, but for people who have no idea what China is, their information and therefore impression about China is going to be completely wrong and overwhelmingly negative. But if people can't trust their mainstream media, elected officials, and NGOs, who can they trust? Since I don't have all the answers (hint: you can put more trust on someone who professes not to know everything), I'm going to get some help from others. Here is a Youtube clip from Canadian expat Daniel Dumbrill who lives in China and owns a small brewery in Shenzhen. Daniel knows his stuff and has been exposing lies from the West. His recent post titled "Mainstream Media Dishonesty" is a must watch. And to reap the benefits of Daniel's lucid truth, watch all the way to the end, subscribe, give it a thumbs up, and share it with your circle of friends. Learning the truth has never been easier, and you don't have to thank me. Thank Daniel Dumbrill! It is always best not to trust everything you hear or see, and to get your information from more than one source. It is also important to be critical and to objectively analyze the information you receive from others to ascertain their veracity. On first blush, it seems implausible that all of your esteemed mainstream media to which you entrust with the freedom of the press and depend to be the gatekeeper of the truth can be deliberately telling lies about China. It's also unbelievable for all your elected officials from both sides of the aisle to whom you entrust with the power to tax, go into debt, create laws, conduct surveillance, issue unilateral sanctions, fund the military industrial complex, patrol the world, torture enemy combatants, lock up whistleblowers, bomb anyone that looks suspicious, and generally make war on a whim, to be lying with one voice about China. Again, I seek help from a Canadian expat living in China. His name is Numuves and he is an ethnic Chinese. Numuves has traveled to Xinjiang on his own and shot videos of the people and places as he walked through the streets of Xinjiang. He is more fun and jokes about how the Chinese communists suck at genocide. But here are three clips that will help elucidate the doubters' mind because the information comes from the horses' mouth. The first one is by US Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell under Dubya Bush. It will explain why we hear all these lies about Xinjiang. Ex-FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds who was ordered by the US attorney general to stop blowing the whistle somehow knew about the coming US attack on China regarding Xinjiang in 2015. Here is the clip. Finally, a German ex-mainstream journalist who spilled the beans about the Western Media being bought and put under a leash by the CIA to tell bald-faced lies on behalf of their masters. Udo Ulfkotte was vilified as a deranged nut and died in 2017 at the age of 56 from a heart attack. These things happen. One may want to research a bit on Operation Mockingbird to see if this guy was completely bonkers. The next vlogger is a Jewish guy from Israel who practically grew up in Beijing. His father apparently manages an equity fund from Israel specializing in Chinese investments. Raz Gao-Or's channel YChina is very popular and basically talks about China, the Chinese people, and foreigners living in China. Raz is basically a fun guy and is not interested in a lot of political mumble jumble. Unfortunately, he did travel to Xinjiang to find out for himself and his channel followers what was happening there, whether all the Western news reporters were telling the truth. That offended the Edifice of Truth in the West, the New York Times. And the mighty Gatekeeper of the Ultimate Immutable Truth of New York wrote a hit piece that referred to many expat vloggers in China, including Raz. NYT should know better than to incur the wrath of a Jew much less an Israelis. The following is Raz's reply. There are actually a whole lot more of the same from the Barretts (father and son from England living in Shenzhen), Kirk Apesland aka Gweilo60 (beer swigging shoot-from-the-hip Canadian living in China, in fact retired in Nanning; his latest clip explains very well why these giant mainstream media organizations would attack individual vloggers from China), another Brit Jason Lightfoot's Living in China (regularly stuffing Burger King triple burgers into his pie hole at a small city in Guizhou accompanied by his wife Jiao and their son Lincoln), Cyrus Jannsen, an American golf pro who lived and worked in China for ten years now relocated to Vancouver, eccentric American techie Nathan Rich, and Matt Galat, an American in China vlogging about his round the world trike adventures on his Jayoe channel, who has been forced to defend himself and China on his Nuance channel. Warning: Matt recorded his entire interview by the New York Times which lasts two and a half hours. Learn the truth if you dare. This is the tip of the iceberg. These vloggers normally just want to share their experience of living in China. Suddenly, they're targets of our lying Western mainstream media. Anyone interested to discover China can type China vloggers on Youtube and get a whole bunch. See for yourself their daily posts. Most of them don't ever talk about politics until they have to defend themselves.
I'm not going to end this post without leaving a small contribution of my own. Since we're talking about the mainstream media, I will disclose now that I used to work in the mainstream media. In fact, my first job in Canada was working as a news field-director. I took a crew around town to shoot news worthy stories. I also dabbled as an on-air news reader. I would eventually become the head of a national Chinese language television station in Canada. My experience has been that no one at the stations where I worked knew if the news that got disseminated to the gullible public was true or not. That was a long time ago of course, when we still trusted that news sources were not deliberately passing on insidious lies. Having had the pleasure of working in the mainstream media business for nearly twenty years, I was privy and even party to some rather unpalatable transactions. For example, I knew how the foremost investigative television program of Canada was manipulated by the leaking of partial confidential information engineered to fit a certain narrative popular to the news organization (i.e. anti-China), prompting them to go ahead with the story that was secretly meant to benefit a commercial undertaking. China was actually not involved at all, but they were vilified just the same. The world is really a complicated place. When I visited China in 1997 to get a better idea of the world we live in, I began to hold the suspicion that everyone in the West was working in concert to deliberately smear China. I did not want to believe that such a world-wide conspiracy could be possible. It was unbelievable that journalists entrusted with the sacred duty to safeguard the freedom of the press would so egregiously destroy that trust by deliberately lying about China. Perhaps they were too lazy to verify their stories; perhaps they were duped by people who understood their weaknesses; perhaps there were a few journalists not doing their job and giving the profession a bad name. I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. I would eventually live and work in China for almost twenty years. I was lucky enough to be trusted and befriended by a general who was influential in the development of the PLA's communications department. He was also the technical head of the project that launched China's first communications satellite. His name was Yang Qianli (RIP). Director Yang introduced me to an old friend of his by the name of Sidney Rittenberg (RIP). Sidney had a storied life, sixteen years of which he spent in a Chinese prison. More than ten years ago, in one of our casual meetings, Sidney told me that he was invited by the Foreign Correspondents' Club to attend one of their gatherings in Beijing. They obviously thought that Sidney must hold a serious grudge against the Chinese Communist Party for the wrongful imprisonment. They were dead wrong. Sidney said he was shocked that all these Western journalists were conspiring in broad daylight under the nose of the Central Government in Beijing, a couple blocks away from government headquarters in Zhongnanhai, to maliciously smear and attack China. Oh yes, they all knew what they were doing. They all knew they would be telling bald-faced lies and half-truths, using false narratives and obfuscations, and they would be coordinating with their lying partners at the NGOs. think tanks, and political organizations. Why should we believe in Rittenberg, you ask? Well, the old man spent so many years in jail because he refused to admit that he was an American spy. He was told if he admitted, they would immediately send him back to America and he would be free. But Sidney would rather rot in jail than to admit to something that he was not. He paid a heavy price for maintaining the truth. Why would he tell me such a trivial lie about foreign journalists that would change nothing and benefit no one? Given the evidence, I think I'd much rather believe in Sidney Rittenberg. As for those lying liars who have betrayed our trust to shamelessly and remorselessly lie to the world causing death and suffering to millions, I hope they all rot in hell! Wait a minute; it's Christmas. In that case, good will to humankind and peace on earth. I hope these lying miscreants all die a slow painful death on earth and then rot in hell! Upton Sinclair once commented on journalists, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Now we know we've been delusional. We should not expect the truth from salary earning journalists.
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Blame China13/12/2021 This little ditty practically germinated and gestated in a matter of minutes while I was trying to figure out a crossword puzzle clue: "One of 1200 in Central Park," an eleven letter word, first letter is "a," fifth letter is "i," and tenth letter is "l."
Blame China (by Peter Man) Why can’t I sleep a wink? Blame China. Why do I need a drink? Blame China. Why can’t I pay rent? Blame China. Why can’t I get a grant? Blame China. My papa hates my mama; blame China. My mama hates my papa; blame China. My brother hates my guts; blame China. I don’t know WTF; blame China. Why am I watching Fox? Blame China. Why do I watch Maddow? Blame China. Why is Biden just like Trump? Blame China. Why are donkeys like elephants? Blame China. Freedom of choice gets us asses; blame China Freedom of voice gets us liars; blame China Freedom of war turns the world to ashes; blame China Freedom of guns kills our own brothers; blame China Why can’t we sanction all Chinese? Blame China. Why can’t we sanction all dog fleas? Blame China. Why can’t I have peace? Blame China. Why can’t I eat cheese? Blame China. Now finally I can sleep, because I can blame China. Any New Yorkers know the answer to the crossword clue?
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Adventure of the Green Shoelace7/11/2021 Originally posted on Quora
The following is a true story. Decades ago, I left Hong Kong for the first time to attend university in Canada. I was eighteen. I was a freshman at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. At that time, I had the habit of running at the tracks every night with my best friend. I had a rather odd pair of running shoes that I brought over from Hong Kong. They were green, and had green shoelaces. I would say green shoelaces were rather unique at the time. One evening, after running 400 or 800 meters with my best friend, we returned to Whidden Hall (student residence which inspired Animal House) to discover that I had lost the shoelace on one of my running shoes. Since I didn’t believe that I could find another green shoelace in the whole of North America, my friend and I went back to the tracks to look for the shoelace. It was in vain. I even combed the tracks again and went to the school Lost and Found the next day but there was no green shoelace. As time went by, I simply forgot about the green shoelace. It was insignificant and I had other more pressing matters to attend to. By the end of school year, I started looking for summer jobs. Eventually, I found a job working as a bar server in the Men’s lounge of the Dundas Valley Golf and Curling Club, a private club for the privileged. In order to be near work, I looked for a summer rental in the small town of Dundas which was not far from the university. I found a perfect rental of a second floor of a house with private entrance. The owners lived downstairs. They were an old couple who immigrated from Austria. The old man’s name was Manzl, and my name was Man. We hit it off immediately and the deal was done. The house was perfectly located in a quiet back street and only minutes away from the club by bicycle. One day, the old couple told me that they would be away for a week to visit their daughter in Vancouver. They said that I could watch TV downstairs and if I needed tools for anything, I could find their toolbox in the garage. Before this, I was never invited into their living space. My best friend got a summer job at Cambridge which was not too far from Hamilton. During weekends, he would come to visit me. He would usually wait for me to get off work at my place, and then we would finish a bottle of vodka. Those were the days. On this particular weekend while the Manzls were away, my friend rode his bicycle to the club. Dundas Golf and Curling Club sits on a bit of a hill, and we have to go downhill to get back to town. Being young and fearless—some may say reckless—and accustomed to riding the bicycle on this route everyday, I just rolled downhill with my arms stretched sideways like the wings of a plane. It was a Sunday and there was no car in sight. My friend on the other hand came from a well-to-do family and learned to treasure his life. He went down more carefully behind me with his hands securely controlling the brakes. As my bike flew into town and through stop signs where no cars would ever appear, my friend shouted behind me to warn me about the stop signs. I foolishly turned around to ask what he was saying. But since my hands were not on the handle, the bicycle swerved and hit the only electric pole within a mile. I jumped off without hurting myself, but the cross bar of the bicycle was bent. To make a long story less long, I went to the garage to look for tools. When I opened the toolbox, I found my lost green shoelace inside. I would later learn that Mr. Manzl had worked at the university as a part-time gardener, and he found my shoelace at the tracks. Having survived the Second World War, he did not like to throw out anything. So he kept it in his toolbox just in case it might come in handy. For me to meet my shoelace again, I’d have to find a job in Manzl’s town, rent his home, he and his wife had to go away, he would for some reason tell me to use his toolbox, my friend would have to visit me at the club and yell at me about the stop sign, I would have to foolishly turn around, my bicycle would have to hit that single pole, and viola, I find the green shoelace. The odds are astronomical, but a series of events conspired to help me find my green shoelace. And my best friend was right there as my witness. This tale amazes everyone who hears it. Aftermath: I showed Mr. Manzl my green shoes with the missing shoelace. He was also amazed by the coincidence, and gladly returned the shoelace to me. I don’t remember wearing those shoes very much though, I think green shoes went out of style. Mr. Manzl by the way fought during the Second World War. He showed me pictures of him as a soldier of the Third Reich. As for the incredible Animal House experience of Whidden Hall, that's another story for another post. Comments Charlotte Neumann: It’s a nice story - but any statistician could tell you this is not the way to look at an event. My response: “If a man speaks in the middle of a forest, and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?” — George Carlin. Ashok Lulla: But what happened to the bike? Did you manage to fix it? Did Mr. Manzl take it kindly that his bike had a ‘crash’? My response: It was my bike. I found my green shoelace but I paid with my bike. I junked it. Life’s not perfect. At least I got a good story to tell at dinner parties, and now to share with Quora readers. Samina Naz: I hope you have not lost the other shoe lace by that time. Sabrina Couture: Amazing! |