Well, the truth comes out. At the RNC today one of GWB's daughters averred that one of their parents' "terms of endearment" for each other is "bushie."

Imagine that. Earlier in the campaign one of the more scabrous anti-Bush slogans ricocheting around the net was "with a president named Bush and a vice president named Dick, is it any wonder the country is getting screwed?"

...which does not surprise me. Although, I must add that, in my observation and experience, life does manage to even the score in most cases. But sometimes, it could use a little help.

Brain Scans Reveal That Revenge Is Sweet
from Scientific American

In Dante's Inferno, the inner circle of hell was reserved for betrayers like Judas and Brutus. But new research indicates that punishing those who break social norms is not merely the province of poets. Scientists have uncovered evidence for an innate satisfaction in human beings for giving people their comeuppance. Dominique J.-F. de Quervain of the University of Zurich and his colleagues set up an experiment to study how a group of male participants responded to acts of selfishness.

As described in today's edition of Science, the researchers devised a game in which one player (A) offered money to an anonymous player (B), knowing that B would actually receive four times the specified amount. Player B then had to choose whether or not to share his windfall equally with player A. If player B was stingy, player A could penalize him.

The scientists tested different scenarios. In some instances A set a fine that B had to pay, but other times A knew his punishment would be merely symbolic and that B would lose no money. While player A was contemplating his revenge, a positron mission tomography (PET) scan determined what parts of his brain were active. The scans showed increased activity in the striatum, a region associated with the processing of rewards, but only when A knew he could hurt B financially. The implication was that real punishment feels good.

To explore the significance of this emotion, the researchers sometimes charged A for his revenge. They found that the level of striatum activity positively correlated with how much money a participant was willing to pay for the opportunity to retaliate. The anticipation of pleasure apparently affected a player's eagerness to punish. This sort of causal relationship may explain why people are willing to discipline a stranger even when there is no immediate gain in it for them. "Emotions play a proactive as well as reactive role," remarks Brian Knutson of Stanford University who penned an accompanying commentary. He notes that 'passionate' forces may need to be included in economic models because, as this research shows, people show systematic deviations from rationality."

The Chinese Wuxia film Ying Xiong, English title, "Hero," debuted in the U.S. last week to guardedly excellent reviews and high praise.

When it opened in 2002, a Taiwanese friend took my husband and I to see Hero in downtown Xiamen, but he first interpreted the story for us. We saw it with Chinese subtitles in the theatre and I saw it with English subtitles in each of my four classes. This film was so popular with my students in Xiamen University last year that I had them write and perform plays on its themes, an assignment they executed with inspiring creativity and zeal.

The film's signature visual device is a historical tale told from several perspectives, each with a different chromatic motif. One team in each class was assigned the blue section, another the red, another the white, another the green, and another the king's court, which was the beginning and the end. Without native interpretation I would still have misconstrued the story in all its incarnations and the underlying message of self-sacrifice and Wuxia, "martial arts chivalry." I saw the film five times and watched 20 student plays about it. I enjoyed it the first time and I have come to feel embedded with Hero's aesthetic, passion and Chinese esteem.

Wuxia 武俠 is not only a Chinese film and literary genre, it is a resonant cultural ethic. So it is understandable why American film critics might miss the points that are important to Chinese, but enjoy the film nonetheless for its cinematic virtuosity. Hero is a contemporary cultural Rorschach test, a film that reveals both authentic and outsider cultural biases of its growing number of commentators, as they debate the message while praising the medium.

Here are some excerpts from New York Times' official review

Hidden Truths in the Court of a King Who Would Be EmperorBy MANOHLA DARGIS

In "Hero," an ambitious period epic about the birth of the first Chinese empire, warriors fly through the air like birds of prey, their swords cutting through enemies and lovers alike. Set during the third century B.C., the story of an assassination plot against a powerful king unfolds with such dazzling bursts of color and blurs of furious action it might be easy to miss the nationalistic message tucked amid the visual enchantments.

[snip--]

Dargis then goes on to inadvertently reveal that she didn't watch the movie carefully enough.

The story takes off with the title character, a nameless warrior played by the appealing martial-arts film star Jet Li, en route to the kingdom of Qin, whose ruler hopes to unite the warring Chinese states into an empire. Once ensconced under heavy guard and the scrutiny of the Qin king (Chen Dao Ming), "Nameless" relates how he vanquished the king's most feared enemies, Sky (Donnie Yen), Snow (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) and the most powerful warrior of all, Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu-wai).

Buzzer #1. The title character isn't a nameless warrior, his name is Nameless.

When the king rejects the account, Nameless spins a second, a third and finally a fourth version, changes in perspective that Mr. Zhang and his excellent production team signal with startling shifts of color ...

[snip]

Buzzer #2. When the King of Qin rejects the account, the next episode is his own opinion of what probably happened.

Watching Hero absent the well-known (in China and only in China) cultural history of these events and making do with the subtitles, these turns of tales might be easily missed as this Chinese author of a reader-review (Which the N.Y. Times carries with its professional reviews) notes:

Reviewer: moojujuwannan
Hero, which is about the first emperor of China is a very nationalistic movie. It has great scenery visual combined with matrix (not nearly as stupid) style fighting that is not CGI but real. The story line is very simple but you can get lost if you miss a line or two. Every Chinese person knows the ending of the this movie, but for those that are [sic] not, I feel the ending would give you a more honorable impression about the culture of China than you already have. (link to the original)

Nationalism, in mainland China is still considered honorable, as it accounts for the singular longevity of the Chinese nation and culture. But what is virtuous among the mainlanders can be a canard for offlanders. This Hong Kong reader-reviewer expresses quite a different sentiment, indeed.

Reviewer: yauvee
Yes, Hero, by Zhang Yimou, was a splendid visual spectacle. It was a very compelling movie, which to me, made its central message all the more chilling.

As a resident of Hong Kong, I am made, with every passing day, the degree to which the People's Republic of China is held together by a heady mix of nationalism and economic success. The country's leadership, lacking the traditional legitimacy bestowed by democracy, maintain a comfortable grip on the country by delivering prosperity to the people, but also by encouraging an ethos of nationalism and of being Chung-guo, or "the country at the center of the world." Its national discourse, such as it is, is a populist nationalism that is uncomfortably close to 1930s style Italian fascism and to other such forms of government long discredited in the West.

Which, to me, made the central message of the movie unacceptable: that all people and individuals, regardless of any sense of justice or fairness, must be subjugated for the good of the state. The loyalty of all of its subjects must be expressed toward the emperor, regardless of whether that loyalty is deserved.
(link to the original)

An American reader-reviewer's objections are from a filmgoer who evidently doesn't realize the difference between Wuxia and other popular Asian martial art films. The fantasy element is a characteristic feature of Wuxia films. I heard this same criticism from another American who said the fantistical renderings of the martial arts ruined the movie for him.

Where is Bruce, August 28, 2004
Reviewer: tjd149
It seems that big budget visually stunning martial arts movies want us to believe lately that man can fly. While Hero has many wonderful scenes, an original story line and an unusual ending, the illusion of flight is not one of them and takes away so much from what could have been a great movie.

Choreographed in the vein of Flying Tiger, Hidden Dragon we witness people leaping into fanciful flight both to fight and move long distances. This appears to be the next tired step after the B grade television series that had the combatants leap straight up into trees and onto building roofs.

You have to wonder if Jet Li or the other actors have ever seen a good martial arts movie such as Enter the Dragon. The story line was believable because the actors never appeared as something more than human even with their extraordinary martial arts skills. People bleed, people got up slowly after being knocked down and people acted, well, human. Instead we are treated to flips at the end of a kick without appearance of injury and battle scenes lasting what appears to be several minutes of unaided flight.

In Hero, like CTHD before it, we see people take flight, run along walls sideways and perform as mere puppets on strings. It would have been a really good movie if the combatants had acted like they were real people instead of cartoon characters in a Roadrunner scene. Where are you Bruce Lee? (link to the original)

Chinese filmgoers couldn't imagine an objection to the flying fighter syndrome. I believe this is because their culture holds Wuxia as a venerable and noble ethic, so the extrapolation made possible by crafty camera work and CGI expresses the symbolism of mythic invincibility. More to the point, supernatural powers in the performance of martial arts is a legitimate and popular tradition of Wuxia films.

I hope Hero has a record-breaking run. I have no illusions that it will illuminate the cultural gap, but it will offer a cross-cultural entertainment experience that will eclipse economic globalism in its penetration and multilateral good will.

Much bandwidth and ink has been expended on the Swift Boat flaps but all points have probably been made and it's still probably not an influential, even though it has been a revealing issue. We need campaign attention to current matters and to lay the Vietnam war to rest. We have wars of our own; idealogical wars and bloody mortal battlefields of the 21st Century.

Arianna Huffington, as usual, has a concise final word on the subject, except unfortunately, it's not likely to be final.

The 2004 election is nothing less than a referendum on the soul of our country - a political event with unprecedented significance for our lives and the lives of our children. The Kerry campaign cannot allow it to devolve into a debate over whether John Kerry bled enough to warrant a Purple Heart.

http://www.ariannaonline.com/blog/

The quirks of Chinese crime never fail to astound me. Such a creative people.

'Sorcerer' Kills 10, Sells Bodies for Cremation

Thu Aug 26, 9:11 AM ET Oddly Enough - Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have detained a "sorcerer" who killed 10 people and sold their bodies to bereaved families to cremate in the place of loved ones who were secretly buried, police and a state-run newspaper reported Thursday. The 34-year-old man, surnamed Lin, strangled or poisoned the 10 villagers at his home, next to a temple, in the southern province of Guangdong, the Beijing Morning Post said.

Chinese tradition, especially in rural villages, holds that burial brings peace to the dead and tombs are placed according to the laws of geomancy. But in a country of 1.3 billion people, the seemingly haphazard siting of graves wastes scarce farmland. Since 1978, when China launched its reform drive, all levels of government have recommended cremation to save land.

"This region cremates its dead, but local people prefer to be buried in the ground. People bought the bodies to be cremated in place of their relatives," a police official told Reuters Thursday.

Lin, whom the newspaper called a sorcerer locals consulted to communicate with spirits, sold the bodies for 1,000 to 8,000 yuan ($120 to $966) each, the newspaper quoted local police as saying.

Police caught Lin plying his trade in corpses in mid-August in the city of Shantou, it said.

Chinese newspapers, unrestrained by the contempt of court laws of the West, often quote police confirming guilt or a confession before a defendant has been charged or the case has gone to court.

Communist China considers itself free of mass violence. Its sensationalist but still self-censoring media tend to play down cases of serial murderers. A Beijing taxi driver was executed in June for killing seven people, including four prostitutes. Last year, China executed one of its worst serial killers in history, a man who murdered 67 people and raped two dozen women in a four-year spree.

Mongolian horseman steals trekker's bike
From AFP
August 17, 2004

A BRITON cycling to China has appealed for a new set of wheels after his custom-made bicycle was stolen in Mongolia over the weekend by a thief on horseback.

"Before going to sleep on Saturday night I had locked my bicycle to my tent" in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator, said Edward Genochio, 27, from Devon in southwest England.

"The next thing I knew, I was woken up by the sounds of galloping hooves and ripping canvas," he was quoted as saying by Britain's Press Association news agency.

"This being Mongolia, rather than cutting the lock, the thief had tied the bike to his horse with a rope before charging off and tearing my tent in two."

read the rest here

Forbes World's 100 Most Powerful Women

Condoleezza Rice was #1, however, since Wu's tenure is likely to be longer than Rice's, I'd pick her as #1, using the Forbes criteria. And I'd wager, and dearly hope that Teresa Heinz Kerry will place high on the list soon.

Wu Yi

Vice Premier, former Vice Mayor of Beijing
Age: 65
Country: China

As the highest-ranking female member of China's Politburo, and a vice premier and minister of health, Wu Yi (pronounced: "Woo Yee") is the most powerful woman in China. Known as "China's Iron Lady," Wu Yi, 65, a former vice mayor of Beijing, is a rising star in China's Communist Party. Proud, elegant, intelligent, Wu Yi impressed her party's leaders when she deftly helped hammer out five trade agreements with Russia in 1999 and oversaw delicate negotiations for China's accession to the World Trade Organization. Surprisingly, Wu Yi never envisioned a life in politics. "In my youth, I never developed a desire to enter politics. My biggest wish was to become a great entrepreneur," she once said.

The Top Ten

1. Condoleezza Rice
2. Wu Yi
3. Sonia Ghandi
4. Laura Bush
5. Hillary Rodham Clinton
6. Sandra Day O'Conor
7. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
8. Megawati Sukarnoputri
9. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
10. Carleton 'Carly' S. Fiorina

By Elizabeth Macdonald and Chana R. Schoenberger
"I don't mind how much my ministers talk," baroness Margaret Thatcher once said, "as long as they do what I say." The former British prime minister long ago defied the conventional wisdom that women can gain power only by studiously working behind the scenes to forge consensus. That's why she and 99 other leaders in politics, business and social causes have made it to the first FORBES ranking of the world's most powerful women.

How do you measure relative power? Realistically, it's hard to quantify the differences between, say, a chief executive and a Supreme Court justice. They wield power in vastly different ways.

But we attempted the impossible--comparing the incommensurable--by creating a power scorecard. For each candidate we came up with a numerical weight defined by her title and résumé; the size of the economic sphere in which she wields power (a foundation is measured by its endowment, a country by its GDP); and the number of global media mentions. We threw in some subjective adjustments--more weight to a current head of state than a former one, for instance. Finally, we sought the advice of the pros who study women at Catalyst, a nonprofit research group in New York, and Laura Liswood, secretary general of the Council of Women World Leaders, who helped vet candidates.

Is this approach arbitrary? Sure. But it turned up lots of surprising names often overlooked. That includes women who have broken through the glass ceiling, such as Christine Lagarde (No. 76), a Frenchwoman who runs the law firm Baker & McKenzie. We also got reacquainted with famous do-gooders, like Queen Rania of Jordan (No. 13) and Carol Bellamy (No. 95), head of Unicef. Corporate leaders caught our eye, too, like Ho Ching (No. 24), the most powerful woman executive in Singapore.

As if they were new eyes, new avatars beckoning. If what is known wounds and mars, out in the heavens is the vast shifting ocean of what is to be learned, of the vision beyond darkness and the true reach of the small imperfect grasp of humankind.

Cassini Spies Two Moons Around Saturn

Sat Aug 21,10:35 AM ET Science - AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spied two new little moons around satellite-rich Saturn, the space agency said. Saturn's tally of known moons now stands at 33. [does this blow astrology out of the water, I hope? Ed.]

The images were taken by Cassini on June 1 from 10 million miles out, as it approached the ringed planet. The spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn on June 30.

The two newly spotted, faint moons are about 2 miles and 2.5 miles across, and 120,000 miles and 131,000 miles respectively from Saturn's center. That's considerably smaller than the moons with 12 mile diameters previously discovered in Saturn's orbit.

They are located between the orbits of moons Mimas and Enceladus, a surprise to scientists who thought such tiny satellites would have been shattered long ago in collisions with comets.

Researchers say they will be on the lookout for even more Saturn moons, and will seek close-ups of the ones just found.

"Hopefully, we haven't seen the last of them," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini's imaging team leader in Boulder,

Saturn with two dark storms rolling through its southern hemisphere Somewhere out there.

There's Nothing Wrong With My Eyes
from Alternet
By Sandy Kobrin, Women's eNews. Posted August 17, 2004.

Some young Asian-American women are rejecting the eyelid surgery that is commonplace among their peers.

Alyssa Lai grew up thinking she was pretty but noticeably different from most of the blonde, blue-eyed girls native to her San Jose, California, neighborhood.

This fact was not lost on her mother, father and grandmother, who had emigrated from China. Five years ago they offered to get her plastic surgery, specifically, blepharoplasty, for her 14th birthday. Commonly known as "Asian eyelid surgery," the procedure entails stitching a permanent crease into the eyelid.

Her parents told her that when her eyes were rounder and more Caucasian-like, her eyes would look even "prettier."

After quite a bit of soul searching, Lai opted to decline the surgery. The pain of the surgery, which can be intense for a few days to over a week, was only a small part of her decision to keep the eyes she was born with.

"To be beautiful you don't have to look beautiful in a Caucasian sense," she said.

With eyelid surgery the fastest-growing type of plastic surgery in the Asian community in California and across the country, numerous other young women are facing the same decision. Approximately 75 percent of all Koreans and 50 percent of all other Asians are born without the double eyelid crease.

At the cost of about $2,000, a rapidly growing number of young girls both in Asia and the United States are opting to have the crease surgically added.

But unlike their peers in Asia where blepharoplasty is the No. 1 cosmetic procedure young Asian-American women who consider the surgery are more likely to grapple with the idea that the procedure will also alter their ethnic identities, according to Dr. Charles Lee, a plastic surgeon in Los Angles who specializes in blepharoplasty.

read the rest

I personally cannot understand any parents offering a 14 year-old plastic surgery for her birthday.

This from boingboing, with the comment, "It was inevitable":

Phonecam pics accepted as court evidence in China

Beijing Haidian People's Court yesterday held a session in a case that involves Mr. Wu Mingming, a furniture manufacturer, who had bilked two students' parents of about RMB180000 by pretending he was a secretary of an Education Minister in China. One of the students submitted a photo taken with a mobile phone as evidence. The photo is a small one, but it shows one of the parents handing money to the defendant, Mr. Wu. The parent said he took the photo because Mr. Wu refused to give him an invoice, and he was afraid he would be cheated.

So far, no judgment has been made in the case. This is the first documented time that mobile phone photos have been submitted as evidence in a court in Beijing.

Source identified as China Tech News.

These concentricities of irony baffle and awe me. I just live for them. It makes futility seem approachable. I read another story moments ago about how a head of a relics protection department at a former Chinese imperial palace has been sentenced to death for stealing the artifacts he was meant to protect. He was found guilty of stealing hundreds of relics which he replaced with fakes and sold (knockoffs in China are fairly easy to find, but this is pretty extreme).

Ai-yah. We appropriate what we should protect and the penalty is death...whether we do or not.

Nudist Colony Fails to Take Off

Wed Aug 11,11:06 AM ET Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo!

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese eager to bare all in public will have to wait to disrobe after local outrage shelved the opening of the country's first nudist colony.

Originally scheduled to open to the public at a woodland park in China's eastern Zhejiang province on Thursday, that plan was put on hold after it sparked a furor among prudish locals, Wang Xiaoting, a spokeswoman for the park, said on Monday.

The move would have broken new ground in a country where sex is seldom discussed in public. "It's caused a lot of debate," said Wang by telephone from the park near the town of Lin'an on Monday. "Many of the local people say it's disgusting and don't want it."

The park hit on the idea after a group of eight bold female university students stripped and went for a dip in the park's river, but were discovered by security guards, Wang said. Park officials saw the opportunity after their blushes faded.

"I don't know why they did it here," she said, laughing. "I suppose it could be a good business opportunity for us though."

The planned nudist area lies along a river in a valley 50 miles from the eastern city of Hangzhou.

"We do still want to do it, once related regulations are sorted out. I would say there are as many people who support the scheme as oppose it," she said.

This from The Australian, quoting "state media."
500 million Chinese 'have never brushed their teeth'
From AFP
August 01, 2004

SHANGHAI: At least 80 per cent of Chinese adults have dental problems and 57 per cent of rural Chinese - or 500 million people - have never brushed their teeth, state media reported.

Experts from the National Leading Group for Dental Disease Prevention -- which launched a nationwide dental health campaign -- found that only 0.22 per cent of China's adult population have good dental health, the Xinhua news agency said.

Statistics from a recent survey in Beijing also show that dental problems are a major threat to the health of elderly Chinese, as one fifth of senior citizens have never seen a dentist in their life, Xinhua said.

Over 60 per cent of the people surveyed regarded loosing teeth tooth as only natural.

Meanwhile, less than two per cent of Chinese adults go for routine checkups and teeth cleaning, Feng Xiping, who heads the committee for the study of epidemic dental diseases under the National Leading Group, announced in Shanghai Friday.
The group's nationwide dental health care campaign will provide free dental checkups for 120,000 citizens in 12 large and medium-sized cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The campaign was launched in June and will last for three months.

Tip of the hat to The Spoof for this one. Read the story there.

I am really sorry for my ostensible absence. I have been having massive technical problems with Blogger for over a month, which have prevented updating Crackpot Chronicles. They've been very attentive with tech support and are as baffled as I am as to what the problem is.

I'm not sure if being able to post this message means they have cleared up permanantly or if this is just a fluke.

Comments are working, and if I can't post, I'll reply to comments. Thanks for visiting and hopefully things will work from now on.