LairdKeir

Consider teaching Western kids here in a fascist state that spends much of its GDP keeping its people stupid. Its constitution claims, "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration." The regime lies to its people as it did to the IOC when it got the Games. You can teach American crimes in Korea but would be hard-pressed to find material about the countless palaces, temples, monuments, and lives destroyed by the Chinese themselves. Teaching about the Great Leap Forward, where in 3 years the equivalent of Canada's population was wiped out through stupidity is practically impossible. In the history taught here, people's lives are not worthy enough to be remembered (especially if peasants) unless rabid blood-crazed foreigners were responsible.

Living in this year's Olympic host country that continues to torture, occupy Tibet, threaten democratic Taiwan, attack human rights activists, use a ludicrous and completely corrupt legal system, gaols more journalists than any other on earth, uses a gulag system for mass "Re-education Through Labour" and blocks any site that might warn its people about the next SARS or bird flu outbreak (including my own), all of which appear to abide by the IOC's 'Olympic Charter,' is it any wonder why my seniors excel in exams testing their understanding of the rise of Hitler?
www.lairdkeir.spaces.live.com posted 06/22/2008 at 01:19:53

Meanwhile suddenly everywhere I go here in Beijing, there are huge nationalistic billboards showing military scenes, or officers from the three branches of the military. I teach history here and the parallels with Mussolini's Italy are striking; this is the regime we awarded the Olympics to? At least when Berlin hosted them in 1936 they had been awarded before Hitler took power.
www.lairdkeir.spaces.live.com posted 06/12/2008 at 06:12:10

Ummm... Drudge just provides headlines. You click on one and you have the entire article to read. The NYTimes selects the news it feels is worthy. Everyone does it. And you know what to expect when you log into Drudge, just as you know how this site's bias will display itself. I would be far more in sympathy with HP than Drudge, but Drudge very often surprises (I've never been surprised when coming here) and offers a broader range of issues and interests.
www.lairdkeir.spaces.live.com posted 06/13/2008 at 08:55:58