“多难兴邦”

看 CCTV-4 的新闻联播节目，不知一次听到“多难兴邦”这个词汇，不知怎么，听得心里面很不舒服。说这种话的人立场似乎是在统治者那边，对于百姓而言，平平安安才是真的。灾难对于人性是一种检验，然而没有人希望靠灾难来给人性的坚强和民族的团结加注脚。尤其是共产党政府说这句话，让我觉得他们的心与受灾百姓的距离。他们身居庙堂高位，行事之间总是把形而上放在首位，这是所有政府都有的问题，而共产党的这种倾向比别人尤甚。

四川地震与“六四”十九周年

四川地震已经三个多星期了，“抗震救灾”早已经从救人转入对灾民的安置状态。都江堰等一些地方开始有一些因学校教学楼倒塌而死亡的学生家长开始聚集，手举着死去儿女的照片在政府楼前抗议。纽约时报的 Nicholas D. Kristof 在他的《Earthquake and Hope》一文中还说看到中国有希望变得更加开放和自信。然而时隔不久，中国政府却又回到以前那种自闭状态里，开始用对付上访者的办法来对付这些家长，同时又开始对国外记者的采访加以限制。本来中国政府的行为和形象在此次地震后受到民间自发的救灾活动的影响开始有所向开放转变，但是稍遇挑战，马上就表现出自闭症状，看来距离真正自信还远。

今年是八九“六四”十九周年，多数人的心都还在地震上，这一天不觉之间就悄悄地过去了。然而我们不应该忘记这一天。共产党也不应该忘记这一天。共产党结的这个结，到哪一天共产党能够解开了，那也就表明中国有了立于世界文明之林的自信。

Experiencing AT&T High Speed Internet Services

I have been an AT&T high speed Internet (ADSL) customer for a number of years. Back in 2000, I was excited when Comcast, the only cable TV company in town after a number of years of consolidation in that industry, started to provide residential high speed Internet services. I was a cable TV customer then, so it was natural for me to take their offer immediately when it became available in our subdivision, then a relatively new development of some 200+ houses. The next year, Ameritech, then the mid-west baby Bell, pulled DSL near our subdivision and started to advertise their ADSL service for $14.95 a month or something like that. Cable Internet was something like $39.95 so it only took one call from an Ameritech salesman to convince me to switch. Over the years, Ameritech became SBC, which became AT&T -- which by the way says a lot about the value of the AT&T brand. The original 768/128Kbps ADSL service has evolved a number of offerings going all the way up to 6/1.5Mbps, comparable to cable's advertised data rates. I have stayed, in fact, upgraded my subscription along with that evolution.

Over the years, I have always wondered about, and posted the question to AT&T sales people, why they do not offer voice over IP phone service. I guess it is only a rhetorical question as I do understand the implication of that to the existing business structure in AT&T. AT&T has the resources to play catchup or buy up an upstart to offer VoIP. Anyways, when I learned that AT&T started to offer ADSL service without attached phone service, I decided to switch again.

I called up AT&T customer service, inquired about the high speed Internet service without home phone service attached. They told me to call the AT&T high speed Internet service and to ask for Dry Loop service. So I did. The lady on the phone was very nice. She gave me a 10-digit account number and told me that my phone service would be stopped in about a week or so, and the Internet service might also be interrupted for up to 24 hours. I was a little surprised that it would take that long for such a simple change which should take a computer probably 5 seconds to complete. But then again, I was not too surprised either given my past experiences with the phone service giant.

That was more than a week ago. Yesterday, my home phone service went away but the ADSL link stayed up. I was again a little surprised. I thought may be I was lucky.

But it happened today. Lynn called me at work and told me about an error message saying that there was a problem with my AT&T high speed Internet connection.

I called AT&T DSL tech support, gave the lady my 10-digit account number. She asked back if I was Mr. so and so. I was confused but said no, I was not. After a short conversation she realized that my account number was wrong and she has no way to pull up my information on her computer. She had to transfer me to another department to get the account information sorted out. A gentleman picked up my case and we started trying to figure out what was wrong with the 10-digit account number. He had to pull another person from another department in to help with the mystery. When we finally dug up my information form AT&T's database, my account number was nothing like the 10-digit given to me and written down a week ago. The AT&T gentleman told me that there was a problem on my line and AT&T would have to dispatch some one to my house on Sunday.

Came home in the evening, I tried to get online and up on the browser came this error 102 message saying something like AT&T has found a problem with your high speed Internet connection. I realize that the error actually means that my DSL link does not have a problem. There is obviously something missing in the setup of my DSL line that AT&T is blocking my outbound IP traffic. That AT&T should be able to fix over the phone.

So I called up AT&T DSL tech support line again since the error message said they were available 24x7. After fighting with the nice female computer voice for a while, I finally got through to a gentleman. His name was Kevin. He spoke with a slight Indian accent.

Kevin started very nicely, talking to me like he was talking to a 300-year old man who never touched a computer in his life. After I told him about the error message, he started asking me questions. It was all the usual stuff, did I have a MAC or a PC, what operating system was I running, how did I connect to the Internet, etc. Then he asked if I had a router. I did but I was not going to get into that kind of complicated situation. So I decided to lie. I told him that I did not have a router. It had to be something simple that had nothing to do with the router.

Kevin told me to open the Control Panel. That suggested that he had enough technical details to troubleshoot the problem. So I played along. He asked what I had in Network Connections. I told him that I had a Local Network Connection and nothing else. Kevin said "Aha!" excitedly. He started telling to Add a New Connection. I was going to play along but I had to put a PC running Windows on the modem. That took a minute or two and Kevin grew impatient with my slow response to his instructions. Finally I got the PC ready. Kevin told me to connected to an IP address, use attyahooreg@sbcglobal.net in there as the user id and my 10-digit account number as the password. It dawned on me that it was a registration process. After that was done, I got to choose my user id and password. My ADSL service was restored. Kevin was quite excited that my problem was resolved and asked me repeatedly if I was completely satisfied with his service. Honestly, I was quite satisfied. However, this whole issue was caused by this simple registration process that no one at AT&T told me about. AT&T ADSL service apparently was able to connect me to their web server to display an elaborate error message, which means that they could probably told me to register my account then and there. Then again, this registration process makes sense to a new AT&T ADSL customer. For an existing customer making a change in the service, this whole process could have easily been taken care of by a computer.

Presidential Election Primaries Coming to End

The 2008 presidential election primary season is coming to its end today. It looks like Barack Obama is going to win the Democratic Party nomination. It's too bad for Hillary Clinton. She was so far ahead of the rest of the Democrats in the beginning. I guess she didn't have an adequate plan to deal with Obama's win ever since Iowa.

However, to me, this extended primary season, at least on the Democrat's side, is a good thing. There are reports of the candidates visiting Montana on NPR today. To think of it, since Montana has always had its Democratic primaries in the end of the season, its choices have not been counted as much. Is that a good thing? Not to me, at least. So I really don't get all those cries for an early ending of the contest. Maybe people in Montana don't care who gets the nomination. But permanently exclude the later primary states from the nomination process can hardly be called democratic.

With all Obama's change slogans, I still don't know if he has the real ability to get things done when he gets elected. There has been op-ed articles in the News on the similarities between Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter. I admire the 39^th president of the United States as a person. But today's world demands more than good qualities from a president, especially after Bush leaving this country in such bad shape.

There is also a danger of putting ideology before getting things done. My wish is that people in this country will get universal health insurance coverage during the next four years. Withdrawing from Iraq should not be the first priority of all, even thought that is an extremely important issue.

Tibet (9)

Many of you Chinese think Americans are innocent and simple minded. I must say that those of you who think so are in fact ignorant or misinformed. Reading this article titled «China represses rights of Tibetans while exploiting Olympics», you have to admire how easily an American simplifies a matter like Tibet that has confounded all you Chinese for that many hundreds of years. Especially the current Chinese government. How naive! They think they could change lives in Tibet by pouring money in there.

All you Chinese should step down from your high horse of pride, unload the burden of your thousands years of history, and embrace the wisdom of Americans. Learn from the way the natives who used to roam this continent have been dealt with: Kill them off! Or at least keep them in their own corners so that no one hears a peep from them. Keep them impoverished. Trying to improve their living? You dumb Chinese are only creating trouble for yourselves!

Learn to build a democratic society! Learn the sophistication of manipulation. Look at the Chinese government and compare them with the sophisticated American politicians. You Chinese are so primitive that you are the ones should be treated as barbarians. Why use guns when you could manage with some paper printed black on one side and green on the other? Why keep the world out? Trying to hide something? Why? Fear that you can not manage a few journalists? Then shell them to death! Why jail someone when you could simply make a scene and then put him to sleep permanently? Afraid that the world would be outraged? Rest assured! The world does not have the attention span to stay outraged. Besides, how hard could it be to say "sorry, mistake"?

See, all you Chinese? See how simple everything could have been?

Tibet (8)

I read both Nicholas Kristof's Thursday column and Sunday column on Tibet. He is probably as close as one can get for an American journalist that actually goes out to Tibet and try to understand the situation. However, his reporting leaves a lot to be desired, even not to tell the complete truth but for the sake of his readers' sanity.

Anyway, I find this comment highly offensive:

#2. May 15th, 2008 12:46 am

I could not help but think, maybe the recent earthquake in China is nothing else but karma for the brutal way China has and continues to treat Tibet.

Maybe, for once godless China ought to at least stop and listen to the laws of karma. The days of Mao and the gang of four is way are long over, China should open its eyes and free Tibet. It’s also doubtful if it’s going to be a superpower, what with all the substandard Walmart products it produces; besides, maybe what happened is nature’s way of saying 1 billion plus Chinese in this world are more than enough.

— Posted by M del Rosario

That is some cold-blooded karma!

My response to that piece of crap probably is not going to show up any time soon. So I repeat myself here:

I am a Chinese and I am an atheist. I have always respected and always will respect other people and their religions. But that commenter and his/her cold-blooded karma can go to hell as much as I care.

笔记

在医院这样的环境里工作有一点特别，就是经常看到受病痛磨难的人。到不是我有幸灾乐祸的心理，而是这样的情形时常能够让人意识到自己的处境的优越，鼓励人尽心尽力。

有时候为人做一点小事所得到的回报远大于所付出的努力。今天就有一位在医院八楼住院的病人求助，希望能够在他自己病房里面无线上网。估计又是一位癌症患者，身体免疫系统遭受化疗严重破坏，护士说他不能出自己的病房，否则可能意外感染。我把医院客人专用的无线局域网接到病人的病房门外。护士回电子邮件说病人高兴的不可言喻。

有时候却也会一点小事没有做好而招来同事的不满。有一天一位发了一单“紧急问题”，但是单子上没有任何地点、设备的细节，只是说问题紧急。给用户的电话也没有人接，留言也没有回应。几天之后我才又想起这个单子，回送给直接与用户打交道的那组，得到的回答是我把这个单子耽搁了太长时间，她无法去找所需要的细节了。医院里面网络上的事情有缓急轻重之分，然而不提供任何细节的问题让人解决起来增加困难的程度，甚至于让人无从下手，这应该是每个人都明白的道理，轮不到我来解释。

昨天从 NPR 广播里听到四川地震的消息，好生担心。不光是有朋友在那边，就只死伤人数过万这一条就使人震惊。而且死伤的数字随这通讯于交通的逐渐恢复只会继续增加。

这段时间广播里面一直听到缅甸的军方政府拒绝接受西方的援助。我能明白这些人担心什么，却替那受灾的几十万百姓不平，真正受这种政策所害的只有他们。所幸中国已经不再是那种闭关锁国的状态了，至少中国政府公开表示欢迎援助，这与 76 年唐山地震之后的情形大不相同。

"Nationalism"

Natasha Yefimov of the New York Times selected some comments on Nicholas Kristof's blog entry «Grace Wang and Chinese Nationalism», my comments included. (无忌 thinks there’s an intentional distortion of truth in the Western media coverage.)

Nationalism has been used to describe Chinese a lot lately. So it was interesting to read «The Color of Loyalty» in the latest issue of the Time. In this viewpoint article by Michael Eric Dyson, a sociology professor at Georgetown University, I read for the first time that Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's former pastor, "surrendered his student deferment in 1961, voluntarily joined the Marines and, after a two-year stint, volunteered to become a Navy corpsman. He excelled and became valedictorian, later a cardiopulmonary technician and eventually a member of the President's medical team. Wright cared for Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery, earning three White House letters of commendation."

In the case of Grace Wang, I have not gone reading much on Chinese websites to see what have been posted. I believe there are probably death threats to her and her family -- there are shameless people in China just like anywhere else in the world. But I seriously doubt that any of those posters, many likely anonymous, has the guts to act on the threat. I have, just for the heck of it, gone on YouTube to read a couple of pages of the comments on some Jeremiah Wright videos posted there. I don't want to repeat any of the trash I have read. It suffice to say there are threats there as well.

In the same issue of Time, there is also an article by Simon Elegant from Beijing. The author also writes on Time's China Blog. In the article, Mr. Elegant painted the nationalism of China so imminently dangerous, I couldn't help but wonder, why has he not pulled his family out of there yet? His resentment of Chinese shows clearly in his writings. It is hard to fathom why he lives there. After all, the salary he is paid does not possibly make it worthwhile living among "goons and thugs" (Mr. Jack Cafferty of CNN) and risking his life.

A comment on the Grace Wang incident from Yoshi, who sees a victim complex may have some truth to it, even though it may have come from a Japanese. It is probably much easier to see a victim complex from a victimizer's stand point than the other way around. But I have a hard time accepting the argument that the Chinese should just "put their past behind them" when much of Japan to this day does not even acknowledge what had happened in Nanjing 72 years ago. I for one, would not likely to forget the "Eight-Nation Alliance", as I am reminded of it every time I go to the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Rethinking "Human Rights"

First thing first, the guy in this image I saw earlier today stole my idea. Now it's out there, I can only say, if some one starts a fund for the cause, I will donate 1 cent a day.

The events and media reporting in the last few weeks got me reading a lot and thinking quite a bit at the same time. Today, a bunch of friends had a dinner party. The gents naturally leaned towards discussion of politics and social issues. It makes me rethink the term Human Rights a bit.

A lot has been discussed. Human rights is often spoken as an absolute term, somewhat like the word God. Yet, like most, if not all, things of the human world, rarely do we see anything that is absolutely this or that. It could be my ignorance. But it seems worth rethinking about human rights itself. There will need to be a lot of research. I think I could get bored and simply let go of what I want to write about.

Listening to the Dalai Lama

I went to the Peter Wege lecture today at the University of Michigan Crisler Arena today. The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was the guest speaker. At first, I was underwhelmed. In the end, he came across to me as a decent human being judging from what he said in the two hours.

It got me thinking, how has this old Tibetan monk, with his incoherent English with no "grammar rules" as he admitted, become such a spiritual figure to so many people? The mystery of Tibetan Buddhism is part of it. His simplified messages about Buddhism and human nature are the other and larger part. His talks present him as a human that a lay person can easily accept, more so than any propaganda from the Chinese leaders or the lies and media spins from the American leaders. At the very least, he obviously has learned the happenings in the modern world. Today, He talked about global warming, overpopulation, over consumption, Christianity, even the poor in Washington D.C.

There were a large number of Chinese protesting outside the arena. I admit being on that side, agreeing the Beijing Olympics should not be taken hostage by any political group, and Tibet should remain an integral part of China. So my thoughts may be considered biased.

Thought one: Media in the west just don't get it. Not to mention the right wing extremists, even NPR does not quite get it. It may be hard to understand how a nation can get so emotional when others threaten to take the moment away from its people. But it is not impossible. One just need to go to the country and observe with an open mind how much effort ordinary people have put into the preparation for the games. Many may disagree with the government about hosting the Olympics. Many would rant and express their strong disagreement because the hardship of hosting the games bring to the people. But all that changes when others try to take the Olympics away from them. That is different. Call it nationalism or whatever, taking something away from a people that they believe (rightfully) is theirs can only meet with resentment. The gentleman in blue shirt was telling someone, "Most of these people (the protesters) don't even know why there are here." He didn't know how wrong he was. Most of the passers-by probably don't care much about right or wrong either in this matter.

Thought two: China needs to open up more. Be tolerant of political dissent. There is really no benefit for the government to shut people up. There is no shame in letting the world know about the problems in the country. When the outside world learn about China, they don't just see the dark side, they will learn the bright side, too. I think that is also part of why China is hosting the Olympics this year.

Thought three: The western media really need to clean up their act. I guess it may be difficult for them to get to Tibet. But has any media outlet made a serious effort to get there? Why would they rather rely on what the Tibetans outside the country told them what happened there? It is obvious to me that Tibet is not important enough for most of them to get the facts right. The person in this picture repeatedly screamed, "Open the door!" There were foreigners in Lhasa at the time of the riots, including jornalists, just not enough of those who can stand on their own to tell what truly happened.

Thought four: The 14th Dalai Lama is a capable and smart politician, maybe even more so than he is a spiritual person. I admire him for that. I think I can understand his frustrations: He is getting old, old enough for him to see death coming. He has been in exile for almost half a century. As a human being, he wants to go home. I believe he also sees reality. I am guessing it's probably those surrounding him that can not let go of the past and dream to go back to Tibet one day to rule over the people like they did in the past. The Dalai Lama talked much about "sustainability" -- although he admitted he could not pronounce that word, -- I don't believe the Tibetan society can sustain the monastery ruling structure. Tibetans may have changed enough that the monks will no longer be able to put much of the population under serfdom/slavery. On one hand, if the Dalai Lama dies in exile, the whole Tibetan exile community will face a huge dilemma. On the other hand, it is in the interest of China to find a political solution to the Tibet Question given the fact that many Tibetans do take the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader.

Last thought: Tibetans are humans. They should be treated as humans with all their good, bad and ugly qualities. I don't buy the claim that any particular ethnicity is born peaceful, cruel, honest or untrustworthy. This person in Tibetan clothing in the center of this picture told me, in fluent English, that he was born in Tibet to a very poor peasant family, that he had been in exile for five years and he learned English in India and here in the US. I don't want to judge him in anyway. But I must say he is a lot smarter than I am. He must be super lucky to have such radiant skin tone after at least 15 years of harsh life in Tibet.