Intelligent Being

The conservative American flourishes.  

The American Interest was published in September 2005, a monthly championed by leading conservative intellectuals, including Francis Fukuyama, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samuel Huntington.

In its statement of purpose, it manifests its threefold agenda:

The first purpose is to analyze America’s conduct on the global stage and the forces that shape it–not just its strategic aspects, but also its economic, cultural and historical dimensions. The second aim is to examine what American policy should be. And it claims its pages are open to the world.

Though it claims it will not represent any single point of view, who would buy that?

It doesn’t point out which corporation or investor is behind it, if any.

Some TV & Radio moderators and news anchors in China would one day find them out of job, simply because they speak Chinese with an accent the boss dislike. No Taiwanese and Hongkong accent in any TV programmes, says a new decree from the TV watchdog.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television recently ruled moderators and news anchors must not speak with gang tai (Hongkong & Taiwanese) accent. Those who break the Pact should be punished, or just be fired.

They should not use any foreign words in their speach. (Is Bye-bye also banned on the screen?)

The regulator believe the Gang Tai accent is of low quality, which is heard often in some popular entertainment programmes, and is harmuful to the govenment’s civilization cause.

Since Bram Stoker’s epic work Dracula was first published in1897, people in the west have never stopped talking about this masterpiece of Gothic horror through books and films.

Dracula has transcended generation, language and culture to become one of the most popular novels ever written.

Count Dracula, a tragic, night-dwelling specter who feeds upon the blood of the living, and whose diabolical passions prey upon the innocent, the helpless, and the beautiful. But Dracula also stands as a bleak allegorical saga of an eternally cursed being whose nocturnal atrocities reflect the dark underside of the supremely moralistic age in which it was originally written — and the corrupt desires that continue to plague the modern human condition.

Nowdays, studies on Dracula are easily accessible on the web site. But it is still a myth to me how come this horror story of Vampire becomes a widely studied issue.

I wrote this article in August.

A national election is going white-heat. The whole country is divided far beyong into blue and red, but purple, yellow.

For the very first time, people across China are ready to VOTE now— for the best girl singer– through text messages.

A like of America Idol, Super-girl Voice Competition held by Hunan TV  is the most successful entermainment show in China in terms of viewer rate and revenue from ads and text message, through which anyone can vote for his/her favorite singer in this show and thus has generated millions RMB every week.

Like any election in a democracy, bitter campaigning for a singer, mass press coverage, as well as conspiracy theory are prevailing.

Web sites are set up for some singers by their supporters. Fans clubs are founded in many cities.
Zhang Liangying, from Chengdu of Sichuang, is now in the spotlight of disputes as it was rumoured that she is to be out of the game after tonight’s competition because she refused to be a contracted singer under an Hunan TV agent firm.

However, she is backed by thousands and millions viewers who claimed to be the well-educated people aged from 20 to 40. She is reported the China’s Queen of Soul Music. An English-majored college student, she performs American singer Carey’s songs so well that some high profile guys in the sports TV said she should sing at 2008 Beijing Olympic Game.

An online survey is being conducted to see how many supporters of Ms Zhang are from the emerging middle class.

Bloggers are also widely involved in this demoractic entertaiment. Anti, a widely read blogger, waged a campaign from his blog aiming to defend traditional Chinese men’s value on beautiful girls, arguing why those boyz-looking girls are so popular now. He blamed the ultra-feminism.
Tune in Hunan TV. Get your mobile phone ready. VOTE tonight.

It’s  the ony chance that you can vote nationally in China.

From The Economist

CHINA is trying to digest the implications of a popular vote involving millions of people across the country. Never mind that the ballots were cast for contestants in a televised singing competition, and that only those with the means to send text messages by mobile phone could take part. A front-page headline last week in the state-run Beijing Today put the question with astonishing frankness: “Is Super Girl a a Force for Democracy?”

In a country conspicuously lacking in democratic choice, this rare opportunity to vote and make a difference—even if only to the outcome of the “Mengniu Sour Yoghurt Super Voice Girl” competition—has inspired a remarkable debate. The discussion has been fuelled by huge public enthusiasm for the show, a programme similar to “American Idol” and its predecessor “Pop Idol” in Britain. It was broadcast by a satellite television station in Hunan province and relayed nationwide on cable networks. The organisers say some 400m people watched the final on August 27th—nearly a third of the population. Around 8m text message votes were cast.

“Super Girl”, as the show is commonly known, appealed mainly because of its racy format (at least until the authorities began insisting on more downbeat folksy songs) and the pleasure that many enjoy from watching amateur singers embarrass themselves. Rebellious young women apparently identified with the self-confident and boyish-looking winner, Li Yuchun. Groups of fans campaigned in the streets.

Some of China’s more daring newspapers have seized on the chance to put “Super Girl” in a political context. An article widely carried on state media websites said the contest had caused Chinese intellectuals to “fantasise about arrangements for democratic elections and notice the awakening of democratic consciousness among the younger generation.” But the China Daily loyally expressed scepticism, asking, “How come an imitation of a democratic system ends up selecting the singer who has the least ability to carry a tune?” That, of course, is democracy.

Today marks four years of America’s war on terror. But terrorism still prevails, and more than ever. Terrorists have staged spectacular attacks, killing thousands, in Tunisia, Bali, Mombasa, Riyadh, Istanbul, Casablanca, Jakarta, Madrid, Sharm el Sheik and London.

Mark Danner, a professor of journalism and politics at the University of California at Berkeley, writes on the New York Time to examine Americans’ performance in this global war on terror.

This is the third blog I created over the past two plus years. The previous two, on blogger and blog-city respectively, are now blocked in China. But nothing can stop blogging and the flow of information and mind.

I was @ july.blog-city.com