This is one of the most badly needed vacations I’ve ever enjoyed, and I can’t see posting much until I’m back in Taipei next Thursday. There goes the site traffic.

While I’m here, can I make one brief observation? You don’t really realize just how obese so many Americans are until you come back from living in Asia, where obesity is far more rare. When you’re back, you are simply blown away by the sheer number of fat people – and I don’t mean pleasantly plump, but rather the type who can barely fit into a revolving door. I mean the kind of fat that hangs off the chair and kills the ants on the floor. I sympathize with the difficulties of weight loss and don’t mean to make light of their plight. I’m just amazed at how prevalent obesity is here, and how different it is in Asia. (And I know it’s getting worse in China, but it’s still nowhere near the level here in America. No comparison.) Why has America become the Land of the Fat?

Every day, in every way, I feel more and more ashamed of being an American.

In a surprising reversal, the United States voted with Iran and other anti-gay countries at the United Nations to deny observer status to two gay rights groups at the world body, RAW STORY has learned.

The UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations of the United Nations Economic and Social Council voted January 23, 10-5 with three abstentions to deny the International Lesbian and Gay Association of Brussels and the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians of Denmark consultive status at the UN.

Such status, which is enjoyed by over 3,000 NGOs around the world, allows access to UN proceedings, presence at conferences, and the right to propose agenda items.
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ILGA operates in 90 countries, including the U.S., to reduce discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, and respond to homophobic attacks.

The group has sought consultive status since 2002, which the U.S then supported.

The resolution to reject was put forth by Iran. Joining them and the U.S. in support of it were Cameroon, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Senegal, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Iran and Zimbabwe in particular are among the world’s most GLBT-oppressive nations in the world….

“This vote was an aggressive assault by the U.S. government on the right of sexual minorities to be heard,” said Scott Long of Human Rights Watch. “It’s astonishing the U.S. would align itself with Sudan, China, Iran and Zimbabwe in a coalition of the homophobic.”

…Outraged, the Persian Lesbian and Gay Organization has sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanding a reversal of the U.S. position. The letter is signed by Arsham Parsi, the group’s secretary of human rights affairs, Aryan Varjavandi, who is the group’s secretary general, and four other officers, all living in exile having fled Iran.

“After the atrocity terrorist attack on the U.S. in September 2001, the Iranian youth were the only youth group in the Middle East to walk with candles and show their support for the U.S. and their solidarity with the U.S. people,” says the letter, adding, “Your action in ECOSOC was like a slap in our face and caused a great disappointment indeed.”

I’ll keep criticizing other countries for oppressive tactics and discrimination. But I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t call to light my own government’s sins. Why would we do this? Why would we single out and ban gay groups? Why lead America backwards instead of forward? Sadly, the answer is too simple: Because this is the Age of Bush, where we talk big about freedom while feverishly pulling strings to curtail it.

Update: More evidence of Bush’s War on Freedom.

I think Hu’s and Wen’s outreach to the nation’s rural poor is a good thing, and further proof of their growing concern with the potentially explosive crisis of rural unrest in China. Too bad it seems to bear some of the hallmarks of my own president’s staged “townhall” meetings with the people.

First came thousands of police and troops to guard the roads, then hundreds of officials to monitor residents, and finally the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to share Lunar New Year celebrations with ordinary citizens.

At a time when the Chinese government is worried by rising social unrest, Wen and other national leaders this week embarked on annual pilgrimages to workers and farmers in poorer regions.

Wen toured rural Heze and neighbouring Jining in Shandong province in coastal northern China, highlighting his promise to improve farmers’ healthcare, schools and incomes in the country’s next five-year development plan.

“When the village prospers, rural life improves. When people prosper, they become more unified — that’s how a society becomes harmonious,” he told residents of Guozhuang Village near Heze, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

But even as Wen promoted his commitment to improve the lives of rural residents, the massive security and controlled encounters with locals during his tour were a reminder of the divide many Chinese say separates them from their rulers.

“Because society is so unequal these days, it can’t be really stable. It’s good for leaders to visit ordinary people, but they also need to act on their words otherwise, protests and petitions will keep growing,” said Zhou Mengxin, a long-time protester in Heze who is familiar with many local grievances.

While Wen met farmers and oil well workers in Shandong from January 27 to 29, China’s President Hu Jintao travelled to Yanan in western China’s Shannxi province, the mountainous retreat that Mao Zedong used as a base for spreading revolution across China in the 1940s.

It’s a start, and I never doubted Hu’s and especially Wen’s sincerity in dealing with this mind-numbingly complex and difficult issue. I’m still forced to feel a degree of cynisism, however, because I’ve seen too many false starts. When we start to see some meaningful changes come out of these efforts, like enforced protection of migrant workers’ wages, I’ll be the first to praise Hu and Wen for their efforts.

I think we all know this already, but it’s nice when Xinhua itself makes the announcement.

A survey shows that universities in China are becoming more liberal about homosexuals, official news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday.

The survey was done by Jiang Qiuyu and five of her classmates from Beijing`s China University of Nationalities. They had posted information on homosexual Web sites, held face-to-face interviews and distributed questionnaires around 10 universities in Beijing, including prestigious Qinghua University and Beijing University.

The results, published in local newspaper China Youth Daily, showed that among the 582 online respondents who were gay, nearly 74 percent were men.

Jiang said, ‘We found that university is the place many gay men first identify their sexual orientation.’ She added, ‘People with homosexual tendencies believe campus life is more relaxed than the rest of society,’ Xinhua reported.

Sun Zhongxin, an associate professor of sociology at Fudan University in Shanghai, emphasized that the number of homosexuals on campus is not growing and the campuses are not breeding grounds for homosexuality.

All I want to know is, was Sun Zhongxin’s quote really necessary? I think its defensive nature detracts from the rest of the article. Why the need to reassure readers, as though homosexuality were a dire, spreading threat?

As soon as I heard about the congressional hearings on US Internet companies doing business in China I saw a big red flag (no, not the flag of the PRC – the metaphorical red flag). This was, I assumed, some spotlight-seeking ignoramuses looking for an excuse to hype the “China threat” rhetoric. And that’s what I still think, but even more so.

It’s usually wise to be skeptical when our elected leaders in the U.S. Congress start to proclaim their devotion to democratic ideals like free speech.

This time is no exception. The Congressional Human Rights Caucus is holding a briefing on Wednesday to look at how U.S. Internet companies are complying with Chinese government orders, and a House International Relations subcommittee has a virtually identical session planned for Feb. 15.

“It is astounding that Google, whose corporate philosophy is ‘don’t be evil,’ would enable evil by cooperating with China’s censorship policies just to make a buck,” says Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who heads the subcommittee. “Many Chinese have suffered imprisonment and torture in the service of truth–and now Google is collaborating with their persecutors.”

If Smith and compatriot Rep. Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, were sincere in this paean to free speech, perhaps we could applaud them for a steadfast commitment to principle.

But they’re not. Smith and Lantos voted for a flag-burning amendment that flies in the face of the right to protest, a law to criminalize computer-generated images of nude minors, and the restrictions on election-related speech in the McCain-Feingold lawn that are now causing trouble for bloggers. Both voted for the Patriot Act, even though a federal judge ruled a key portion violates the First Amendment’s free speech rights. Smith also embraced a proposal to restrict the sale of violent material such as video games to anyone under the age of 18.

If we try to reconcile these votes with recent statements, we’re left with the unsettling conclusion that this pair of solons may care a great deal about free speech–but only for the Chinese, not Americans.

Or we can consider a second explanation: that they’d simply like to whip up some anti-China sentiment, and Internet censorship is a convenient excuse to do it.

“It’s really just hatred of China,” says Lew Rockwell, president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala. “People like Christopher Smith, the neo-conservatives, the Christian right that Christopher Smith is affiliated with, were planning a cold war against China before 9/11. They’ve just postponed it.”

So I hope no one gets sucked into this media circus. Google and Microsoft and Yahoo are ignoring the “hearings.” You should, too. (If I suspected a shred of sincerity in Smith’s soapboxing, maybe I’d think otherwise.)