Absurdity, Allegory and China

In for a penny, in for a pound … The first class-action lawsuit in the US state of Mississippi was filed last Friday in federal court in Gulfport, MS naming “Knauf Gips, Knauf Tianjin and Taishan, and possibly other unknown Chinese manufacturers” as defendants. This continues to build into what looks to be the next [...]

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I thought I would give a video slideshow a try, so here is my first attempt, a few of my photos from the OMA / Koolhaas CCTV Headquarters project. The music is from Red Unit, Shanghai, a techno CulRev mix entitled The Ideal of Maoism. The music is Open Source. The voice-over is Zhou Enlai [...]

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I don’t need to remind anyone who has been in China for longer than it takes to clear customs that sloppy and/or false reporting can do a lot of damage. Today I read the blog post of a man in Shanghai, who was “quoted” by AFP concerning the most recent blocking of Youtube here in [...]

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I’ve been trying to get someone from the foreign media to finally start looking into the tainted drywall story I’ve been hammering on since early January, and it looks as if someone is finally seeing it as a potential problem, though obviously no thanks to me. Time’s China Blog just posted the following: Tracking a [...]

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In the last couple of months I have blogged here several times on things not necessarily China. I have not been comfortable doing that, and I’ve had the intention of opening a new blog that would deal with the American political scene. I see what is happening in the US as being both very historic [...]

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Alex Pasternack has a piece on the CCTV fire at Far East Economic Review, entitled Beijing’s Trial By Fire. There is an accompanying soundslides picture presentation, A CCTV Building Burns to a Crisp. Some of the photos from the video were taken by my daughter, Moira, who happens to live within a five-minute walk of [...]

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(This is another post that has more to do with the Absurdity and Allegory than the China. For those here for the China, all I can say is “More later.”) RE: AIG, White House and bonuses. “I didn’t know the iceberg was there!” is an excuse that can be used by snipes and deck apes, [...]

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“One day everyone of those cocksuckers will get caught.” –Frank Zappa Mr Zappa dropped the above quote at a concert in 1988 on the day it was announced that Jimmy “Only the Tip” Swaggart, the preaching Louisianan, was under investigation for consorting with a prostitute. It was part of Zappa’s lead-in to his tune “Stinkfoot” [...]

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(While this may seem well wide of the China topic, it fits squarely in the Absurdity peg. Enjoy the vid at the end of this post. I did.) “Something has gone awry in our country when a financial guy is screaming and throwing pies on television and a comedian is giving really cogent economic analysis.” [...]

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Jon Stewart has been on the hot little partisan tongues of Team NBC over the past week, some of whom have circled like musk ox defending their young from wolves. The “young” in this case is CNBC, the Consumer News and Business Channel, owned and operated by NBC Universal. The pack of wolves is actually [...]

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