Virginia Breeze

We have a free and open press here in America. We can criticize our government and the people who run it.  We can change things if we get together and vote for change.  There is an election coming up in November and it may result in some major policy changes both in this country and abroad.

It’s just the way we do things and have done them for hundreds of years.  Probably we don’t do them as much as our ancesters in this country did them.  There was a time when citizens ran around the White House after an election and got their foot prints all over the upholstery.

The dawn of a new populist era was vividly clear on Inauguration Day. Jackson opened the White House to his backers, and hundreds of them pushed and shouted their way through the building in search of conviviality as they celebrated their hero’s victory. Many were rough men in muddy boots who climbed on the chairs and devoured the food and drink provided by uniformed waiters. Women, children, farmers, laborers, ambassadors, members of Congress—a stream of humanity took over the place for the day.

They were in a celebratory mood.  Andrew Jackson had won the election.

But we don’t mind saying what we think.   And nobody is going to come around and arrest us for saying it.  We might have to answer a few questions if we threaten to kill someone.  But for the most part we are free to say whatever.

Here is what someone has to say about my poem.

“You stupid American! You think the air in Beijing will pollute your lungs? Then why do your American team still come to the Olypics?
You said you feel sorry about your Tibetan friends? Then why don’t give your money directly to them. Do you really care about them? Are you really friends of them?
You brainless American! Have you ever been to Beijing or Tibet? Do you have any evidence to prove what you said?”

-Anonymous

Dear Anonymous

I remember what happened in 1988 when a group of citizens decided to protest their government’s policies in China.  And I am wondering when communism will finally be sent to the dust bin of history.  We should all have the freedom to vote for our leaders and say what we need to say.

And I respectfully disagree with what you have to say about “proof” and my intelligence.  I have not been to the moon.  But I feel pretty certain that I could not breathe there without a tank of air.  If this makes me stupid then you must be very perceptive.

Thanks for responding.  Please come back and don’t be afraid to use your name. No one here is going to persecute you for saying what’s on your mind.

David

http://davidnotes.com/2008/08/13/woman-gymnasts-olympic-competition/

Last night I was glued to the tube watching Frontline and their documentary about life in China. It is not reality tv. It is harsh reality television.

It is “Thank God I don’t live there” television. I was walking around today thinking about the young woman who had to fight off her parents and her community to avoid an arranged marriage. And finally managed to do it.

The alternative? She has a job working in the city in some sort of high tech factory. And she works eleven hours per day seven days per week. Her task is to put four wires into a receptacle six hundred times per hour. That is ten times per minute for eleven hours. Over and over again.

Maybe she gets a half hour for lunch.

But the good news is that she meets someone she genuinely likes and they fall in love. So she has some happiness in her life. And she is a cute little thing. I feel like sending her a wedding present.

She will probably insert millions of wires into receptacles before she is done.

AAggghhhhhhhh.

Anyway. Moving on. There are many interesting characters that we discover. There is a young guy with a winning smile and a very attractive shirt who plans to tailor shirts for individuals and sell them on the internet. And the next time we see him he has ten women working on sewing machines and boxes of shirts ready to go. Amazing!

He becomes a Christian and seems totally satisfied. There’s no girlfriend in the picture so he doesn’t have to worry about supporting a family. It’s just him and dear old mom.

Smart guy!

Most of them are not so lucky. Loneliness takes its toll. But everything revolves around money. Relationships suffer. It’s a hard life. I couldn’t handle it. I would have to take a slow boat to the United States. And that option is available to some of them. But the parents exert an amazing influence on them and they stay.

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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/youngchina/

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Susan Sharon Stone has a problem. She said something about the recent earthquake being the result of bad karma. Because the Chinese have done so much damage to Tibet. And now about a billion people are mad at her. But maybe Tibet is doing some damage to China.

Using an extraordinary weapon that can cause massive earthquakes and is invisible.

That’s pretty cool I say. I would worry about it being used against us someday unless we can figure out how to ID it so we can send a cruise missile to MEET IT.

Karma is an interesting concept and I try not to mess around with it. I worry about stepping on bugs if I see them before I step on them. If I just hear the crunch I am not too worried. It’s the intention part that can mess you up.

Sharon says this:

“I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else,” Stone said in Cannes, according to footage widely available on YouTube.

If she is talking about the government then I have to agree with her. But I don’t think they were tossed about by the earthquake. Unfortunately.

The Karma weapon perhaps needs some fine tuning. It’s range finder is off by a few thousand miles.

And then she says:

“I’ve been concerned about how should we deal with the Olympics, because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine,” she said.

Don’t you wish you could say that? I do.

Be nice to the Dalai Lama who is a good friend of mine. Because I don’t like my friends having their countries taken over by communist governments. And if they do I might get upset.

And I might not be nice to you even though I believe we should all be nice to each other.

I wish I could call up Mr. Lama and have a nice chat with him. I have seen him on television and he seems to be very good natured. Maybe he talks with God. Maybe he is God. I don’t know. But it would be nice to talk with him and get a feeling for who he might be.

Do you think he controls the Karma weapon? Because somebody has to pull the trigger.

If he does maybe he should practice a bit more. Or go to an eye doctor for a checkup. Maybe he could put a bullseye up on his wall and type BEIJING in the center.

Isn’t that where they are having the Olympics? Is Sharon Stone going to be there when it opens?

Lord this could get complicated.

“Sharon Stone was bounced up in the air and came down on her head the other day when a 4.5 earthquake hit the Olympic Village just prior to the Opening Ceremonies.”

Practice, practice. Someday it will be a useful weapon. Maybe. But it still has a long way to go.

A friend of mine was out photographing the moon’s eclipse last night and that got me thinking. Who owns the moon? I remember reading history books in high school that told about European explorers coming to the new world and making claims centuries ago. Spain owned this. Portugal owned that. England and France fought over land each wanted to own. No one paid too much attention to the folks who were already here and had been here for centuries. Or, at least, their ancestors had been here. And don’t forget about Big Foot and his friends. Their ancestors were here before there were any men. Although very shy they often left footprints about two feet long in the woods. They were hinting. We are here! Don’t assume you own anything!

So when Ron said he was going to take pictures of the moon I wondered if, maybe, we owned a piece of the moon. Because an American astronaut was there awhile ago and planted a flag. Do all Americans own the moon? Or do we own the parts where our stuff is? Do piles of junk we left there mark our territory?

I heard recently that the government of China wants to map the moon. And I wondered if maybe they were trying to make a statement. Like Big Foot was trying to make a statement. Because it is likely they plan to go to the moon when they are able and probably don’t want to ask anybody if it’s alright to land there. I also wonder if they plan to name all the roads up there after their own guys. If they do that does it mean they own the moon?

There are a lot of questions about space. The space station belongs to a lot of nations. Everyone contributed something and it’s a group effort. Is the plan to do the same thing when earthlings start going back to the moon? In other words is mankind going to start doing things differently? Or is it going to be business as usual? Will we see guys with ray guns bouncing fifty feet in the air while they try to see who is shooting at them from a crater? I saw a pretty good movie about guys with swords fighting each other up around the tops of trees not long ago. I think it got an Academy Award. Maybe somebody is already training for moon combat.

And don’t forget about Big Foot. No I don’t mean he’s up there on the moon trying to stay out of the line of fire. He’s down here. But his cousin the green tinted Big Foot with the ability to jump over mountains is up there.

They have questions. We have questions. And nobody ever offers any answers. The next really big piece of real estate is right up there and sometimes it seems so close you could touch it. So I have a question for my candidate this election season.

Who owns the moon? It should be entertaining trying to get an answer to that one.

http://davidnotes.com/2007/08/26/tales-from-the-library-men-are-from-mars-and-women-believe-it/

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More Writing

http://davidnotes.com/2007/09/08/im-up-to-the-top-four-hundred-k-blogs-now/

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