I just read this beautiful article on Xu Wenli, imprisoned for 16 of the past 22 years because he believed it was his responsibility to fight for human rights in China.

Wenli’s crime was advocating for democracy in China.

He was jailed in 1981 and served 12 years in prison, most in solitary confinement, for publishing a newsletter and organizing a pro-democracy movement. After his release, he continued his political activity. In 1998, he was sentenced to 13 more years in prison for organizing a political party.

Last Christmas, Wenli was granted medical parole and given asylum in the United States. He and his wife came to Rhode Island to live with their daughter.

“It’s like going from hell to heaven,” Wenli, 60, said in Pawtucket, days after his release from prison.

On the one hand, Wenli’s release is celebrated as a victory in the struggle for human rights in China — a country that continues to punish political expression while ignoring the world community’s calls for reform.

But his release also exposes the cynical reality of the human-rights situation in China.

Wenli was released, many people believe, because the Chinese government wants to improve relations with the United States at a time when its economy continues to boom and the country readies to host the 2008 Olympics.

Wenli’s is an amazing story, involving self-sacrifice and a sense of justice that few of us could ever contemplate. And it makes me think about an argument I’ve been trying to come to grips with lately: that human rights in China should not be expected to mirror those of other nations, like the US. Even though they are improving (according to the argument, at least), it’s unrealistic to ever hold them to our own standards.

Is this argument a fair one? Are there no moral absolutes when it comes to human rights?

This is an intriguing argument I want to elaborate on in an upcoming article for another site. The main aspect of the argument I’m hearing is that what constitutes human rights to the people of China is different than what it would be to the people of the US.

And yet, here we have stories of Chinese people who know little of life outside China demanding certain standards of decency. And these are standards that, I believe, are all but universal. Just as man knows he should not kill, he knows he should not repress and imprison without just cause. To contend that it is otherwise in China is, I believe, insulting to the Chinese. And it lets the oppressors off the hook.

More on this later. It is just starting to incubate. (Anyone who can direct me to more source material on this argument, please let me know!)

Anyone who feels self-confessed drug addict Rush Limbaugh should be extended some special compassion and be given a break should first read today’s Newsday article chronicling what Limbaugh himself has had to say about white-collar types in similar situations:

[T]oo many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we’re not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too.”

I wonder if he is singing this same tune today. The article is quite thorough in digging up similar nuggets.

In fairness, the reporter also notes that Rush was an opponent of America’s idiotic “war on drugs.” I guess if you say enough things, one or two of them will end up being right.

[Updated 11:23pm Singapore time]

It isn’t everyday that we get to see a North Korean rock video, let alone one in which Bush is portrayed first as Satan and then as a chimp-monster while the band chants furiously, “Fucking USA!” So I found this clip bizarre, disconcerting and totally surreal. Certainly unique.

(Also from boingboing)

Update: A commenter says it’s from South Korea, and I am sure he is correct.

22 pregnant cows met their maker yesterday when a single bolt of lightning struck the oak tree under which the doomed cows were hanging out.

Florida, the lightning capital of the nation, lived up to its reputation when 20 prized, pregnant cows were killed by a bolt that hit an oak tree they were huddled under at a north Florida farm, police said. Two others were euthanized.

“The hole in the tree was the size of a watermelon,” said Rose Mary Cameron of Clover Leaf Farm. “The ones that were under the tree did not move. They just fell over each other. They were all tangled up.”

She said two others appeared brain dead, “so the manager put them down.”

(Link via boingboing)

China is going to amend its constitution to protect private property rights and acknowledge the equal rights of all of its citizens. On paper, anyway.

The latest proposed amendments are significant in that they will remove some of the last vestiges of a communist society, which does not recognise private ownership of property and places peasants and workers, the proletariat, above all other groups.

It sounds good, and it can only be seen as a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the changes are more a formality than anything else; it doesn’t look like they open any new doors for meamingful change or reform:

While the proposed changes are generally applauded, advocates of democracy and other political reforms are disappointed that nothing is being done to overhaul the creaky and outdated political system itself.

According to Mr Cao Siyuan, an independent consultant pioneering in research in constitutional reforms, the current proposals merely rectify the incongruity between reality as it exists and what the Constitution says it should be.

Yet in terms of protecting civil rights and limiting the power of officials, there is little progress, he told The Straits Times. Similarly, he said, the political leadership has also not addressed the many calls for greater administrative transparency and free dissemination of information.

These have become important concerns following the Chinese government’s initial mishandling of the Sars outbreak earlier this year.

Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. The corrupt officials remain protected, and the poor people being thrown out of their homes uncompensated to make way for shiny new malls and high-rises will not be anymore protected than they were before. Let’s hope that all these baby steps eventually result in change that really means something.

Cheerleader Bush is donning his pom-poms and launching a massive public relations campaign to convince us how swell things are in Iraq:

In the face of growing doubts about postwar Iraq, Bush is leading a new public-relations offensive to highlight positive developments.

Thursday, in the speech to troops, Bush was emphasizing signs of progress in Iraq, what Bush calls “the central front in the war on terrorism,” and what the events mean for “the safety and security of the American people,” White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.

He warmed up Wednesday night with a speech at a fund-raiser in Washington sponsored by the Republican National Convention.

“Since the liberation of Iraq, our investigators have found evidence of a clandestine network of biological laboratories, the advance design work on prohibited long-range missiles, elaborate campaign to hide these illegal programs,” Bush said.

“Design work”?? I remember Powell at the UN crying out that war was necessary right away because Saddam refused to disarm. He said Saddam had WMDs. He didn’t say we were going to war because Saddam had design work.

As to how great things are going in Iraq: I hated the Saddam regime and wondered at time, albeit hesitantly, whether the invasion might be justified purely on humanitarian grounds. I sure got rid of that attitude quickly. Now I can only laugh at Bush’s feeble attempts to turn chicken shit into chicken salad.

I’m sure there are a lot of good things happening in Iraq and that many Iraqis still welcome us. But with the daily picking off and bombing of our soldiers, with the refusal of most of our allies to support us, and with ever-growing demands for our money and men, you don’t have to be a genius to know that things are not on track over there.

As a PR person myself, I can safely say Bush is now practicing what we call crisis management, which is something of a misnomer. He cannot manage the crisis, as it has taken on a life of its own. What he can try to do is manage the perception of the crisis, and based on this article he’s doing a pretty poor job.

First rule in crisis management is acknowledging the problem and being up-front about it (you know, the way the Chinese have been with AIDS and SARS). Denying the problem, trying to paint it as something it isn’t, and trying to prop things up with false expectations — those are the ingredients for implosion and ultimately a total loss of credibility. Again, China’s handling of SARS is a classic example.

So I hope W knows what he’s doing.

I read a story like this and I feel an odd combination of anger, bewilderment and embarrassment (for being from a country in which such inanities can happen):

Two teens, both asthma sufferers, are together when one commits a henious crime:

Ferguson said she forgot to bring her medication to their school, Caney Creek High School, on Sept. 24. When she had trouble breathing, she went to the nurse’s office.

Out of concern, Kivi let her use his inhaler.

“I was trying to save her life. I didn’t want her to die on me right there because the nurse’s office (doesn’t) have breathing machines,” Kivi said.

“It made a big difference. It did save my life. It was a Good Samaritan act,” Ferguson said.

But the school nurse said it was a violation of the district’s no-tolerance drug policy, and reported Kivi to the campus police.

The next day, he was arrested and accused of delivering a dangerous drug. Kivi was also suspended from school for three days. He could face expulsion and sent to juvenile detention on juvenile drug charges.

Can’t a country as great as America get its priorities straight and get shit like this out of our clogged legal system? Is this what we really want to pay our police and our courts to do?

I recently posted an ad that North Korea ran in a local newspaper in which the country refers to itself as a “utopia.”

That may be. But that description doesn’t mesh with this wrenching, agonized article about life in the real North Korea, and what happens to those who in desperation try to flee. Horrifying. And definitely a reminder of how we should be more thankful for the things we take for granted. (Like food.)

NK is definitely a charter member of the Axis of Evil, perhaps even a candidate for Honorary Lifetime Membership.

(Link via Adam)

If this is true, if this guy really is going to win, the neocons will go utterly apoplectic. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

(Via CalPundit)

UPDATE: Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

I just noticed I somehow ended up on the blogroll of super-blogger Eschaton (aka Atrios) and I am brimming with self-importance.

Seriously, his is my favorite of the “lefty” blogs and I am just surprised that I’d be on his radar screen. What a feeling!