“被国培养","为国争光"是奴役制体育的精髓 Slave Athletes Serving Master

“被国培养","为国争光"是奴役制体育的精髓 Slave Athletes Serving Master

每日一语：

奴役制体育的精髓是抹杀体育家个体的兴趣，天才，努力与尊严。 在今天的中国，道德的、纯粹的体育精神与竞技被奴役政治与腐败文化彻底地污染。 体育家的自尊与个体爱好荡然无存。 每一个运动员也要承担他吸食体育精神毒品而对自身造成伤害的个体责任。 --- 陈凯

Slave athletic culture in China is centered around one thing -- completely denying/destroying each/every athlete's personal interests, talent, effort and self-respect/dignity. Today, China's sports and athletics have been thoroughly corrupted by the slave culture and politics. The cancer has already spread to every cell of Chinese society. Each individual athlete should also bear the responsibility of buying into such a slave culture and addicting to such cultural narcotics. --- Kai Chen

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Dear Visitors:

I watched HBO sports special "Real Sports" by Bryant Gumbel last night. Chinese sports machine by the government and the state of the Chinese athletes is one of the topics.

When Mr. Gumbel interviewed the former Chinese woman weightlifter in Shenyang whose husband (another Chinese weightlifter) died at age 33, she could not even tell the truth to the reporter for fear of repression from the Chinese authority. Fear permeates everything in China, even after one is harmed, he/she is still controlled by such a emotion. What a pity!

This former woman athlete only signed with resignation: "What is the use? My husband is already gone." From this expression you can sense what is on a Chinese person's mind is never any of the values (truth, justice, liberty and dignity). It is all about physical survival. No wonder the Chinese National Anthem only regards human beings as "Flesh and Blood". Each human life in China is nothing but just another physical existence consisted of nothing but cells and chemicals. "Meaning" is an alien concept in a slave culture.

The Chinese people/athletes' mindset has been heavily penetrated by the cultural narcotics produced the Chinese despotic authority. They constantly need and demand more potent "designer narcotics" in order to numb their senses and mind, in order to forget the painful past, in order to survive physically.... So the Chinese regime constantly provides such narcotics, knowing that satisfying the need of the addicts is more important to the regime's own survival. Such is the truth and reality in China today.

I now paste the following article from the Times Magazine. In this article some Chinese persons with the drugged mindset claim that today China's athletes' plight is due to the economic development. What a perverted view! I know personally such plight has never been changed and the conditions of the athletes have never been improved. They are only the toilet paper (or some chewed up gums) to be abandoned after they are used up. Nothing else.

I remember some days ago some "angry youths" came to me and accused me of betraying China. "China reared you and now you turn against her. You are a traitor." They claimed. I often wonder whether they knew anything at all about what they were saying. Who/what the fuck is China??!! How can China raise me or rear me??!! Only God created me with athletic talent and China only hijacked my love and talent to oppress me and legitimize itself. China only held my love for basketball and my family/friends as hostages against me. China has committed countless unspeakable crimes against me and many like me. Not only will I not thank China, I will do everything in my power to expose China's evil and crimes against humanity, against individuals like me. I will do everything in my power to vanquish China/Chinese regime. I do indeed have that moral obligation and I intend to fulfill that obligation. I owe nothing to China. I owe everything to myself and God, period.

I will stop here for you to read the below article.

Best. Kai Chen 陈凯

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China's Disposable Athletes

Tuesday, Jul. 17, 2007 By JODI XU/BEIJING

When Zou Chunlan left school to become a professional athlete, her recruiting coach assured the 13-year-old that the nation's huge sports bureaucracy would look after her for the rest of her life. All she had to worry about was winning. For a decade, Zou followed his advice, winning the 48-kg national weightlifting title in 1990 when she was 19 years old and pocketing four other national championships. But when she retired in 1993, Zou discovered that the coach's side of the bargain wasn't going to be met. After three years of menial jobs in the women's weightlifting team's kitchen, she was asked to leave.

With her little education and total ignorance of the real world, Zou had little choice but to turn to physical labor. After stints carrying sacks on a construction site and selling lamb kebabs in the street, she ended up as a masseuse in a public bathhouse earning $60 a month. Her fate isn't unusual. A weightlifting coach explained to the Beijing News that Zou wasn't the only retired weightlifter struggling with the real world. "Zou's national medals are worthless. There are world champions who end up jobless after retirement."

The system that is so good at churning out Olympic medalists seems to be even better at producing poverty-stricken retired athletes. Last year, China's national news agency Xinhua reported that almost half of 6,000 professional athletes retiring from competition each year end up jobless or without further schooling plans. Among them, the winner of the 1999 Beijing International Marathon Ai Dongmei, 26, who announced last year that she had no choice but to sell off her medals so that she could feed her family. Former Asian weightlifting champion Cai Li died of pneumonia at age 33 after he couldn't afford to pay his medical bills. Liu Fei, a seven-time national champion and world champion in acrobatic gymnastics, struggles to live on the $20 she earned monthly from tutoring gymnastics.

According to the China Sports Daily, nearly 80% of China's 300,000 retired athletes are struggling with joblessness, injury or poverty. Many athletes suffer from sports injuries and health problems caused by their training. Zou came out of the system with her own appalling legacy. She says the pills she was required to take made her grow a beard and develop a prominent Adam's apple and a deep voice. "My coach told me it was a nutrition booster. I trusted him," Zou says. The steroids also made her infertile. Now, she must shave every couple of days.

The root of Zou's troubles, like so many things in China today, can be traced back to the country's wholesale adoption of capitalism. Market forces were unleashed on what was once a sports system that cared for its athletes from cradle to grave, leaving Zou and tens of thousands of others out in the cold when they had passed their athletic peak and could no longer win attention and profits for their sports associations. In 2003, the changes were reinforced by a new law that shifted most responsibility for employment after retirement to the athletes themselves. "This group of athletes is the legacy of China's economic development," Liu Mingyu, deputy director of Liaoning Provincial Sports Bureau told the Beijing News. "I feel for them, but there is nothing we can do to help all of them." The 2003 law stipulates that "a lump sum compensation is to be given to those athletes who choose to find jobs on their own." But that amount is usually not big enough to help an athlete with injuries and without an education.

Athletes now in training, however, may benefit from a new regulation currently being considered in the country's sports bureau. It would bar recruitment of professional athletes until after they graduate high school. Some joint programs between sports teams and university departments have also been under discussion so that athletes are able to attend classes in university during training.

Since her plight became public, things have taken a turn for the better for Zou. With the help of the All China Women's Federation, she opened a laundry shop six months ago in her hometown, Changchun, capital of Jilin Province. She no longer has to work as a masseuse at a bath house. But she is still struggling. Unable to read and unfamiliar with computers, she says she can hardly manage to add up her accounts. "I gave my youth to sport," she told TIME over the phone, in a voice thick with emotion, "but in return, I was thrown out like garbage with no knowledge, no skill and a barren womb."

陈凯：为保政权、脸面中共不在乎人命 In China Everything is for Face/Regime

陈凯：为保政权、脸面中共不在乎人命 In China Everything is for Face/Regime

陈凯：为保政权、脸面中共不在乎人命

【大纪元6月16日讯】(大纪元记者刘菲洛杉矶报导)

在近10万人遇难的512四川大地震过去一个月之际，原中国国家篮球队队员、“奥运自由衫跑步运动”的发起人陈凯14日在洛杉矶针对2008年北京奥运前夕中国所发生的一系列事件接受了本报记者的电话采访。

记者：请问您对最近发生的四川大地震有何想法？

陈：这当然是跟中国的腐败和建筑质量有相当大的关系。中共一直是不把人民当回事儿的。最近我在自己的论坛里发表了一篇文章，我说中国的社会是一个颠倒的社会，本末倒置的社会。林肯讲过“a government of the people, by the people for the people”──就是说一个政府应该是基于人民而受制于人民的，它要为人民服务。可是中国整个是颠倒过来的，在中国人民是基于政府的，受制于政府，同时是为政府服务的。所以你可以看到在任何的事件中，在中国这样一个道德腐败的社会里面，他们所首先想到的并不是人的生命，而是如何维持这个政权和政府的合法性，如何维持这个政治和所谓的群体“荣耀”。

包括奥运会也是，西藏死多少人没有关系，天安门广场死多少人没有关系，法轮功死多少人没有关系，都没有关系，但是这个脸面要保住。这说明这个社会本身的道德已经沦丧到了极点，在这个社会中生活，我觉得一件很悲哀的事情就是没有人把人当作人看。在这一点上，我觉得每一个中国人都应该反省。每一个中国人、不只是在官方掌有政权的人，他们有罪行，他们要负相当的责任。但是下面的人，基层的人包括最低层能够容忍这些邪恶的、看到周围的人在受苦受难而不发一言的人，尽管他们可以用恐惧找藉口。

记者：和刚刚发生的日本大地震相比，四川大地震中死了那么多人，有中国政府事先知情不报；地震后发生72小时黄金时间内救援不利却不让外国救援队进入中国；震中7000个校舍倒塌而无一政府大楼倒塌……种种原因，可是温家宝到灾区视察所表现出的温情一面立刻又让中国人觉得中共政府还是很关心人民的。

陈：这就是我讲的一种非人的文化，只强调政府和政权的合法性。中国的政府为什么现在对外界的反应那么“过敏”，包括奥运火炬也好，包括镇压西藏僧侣也好，因为这个政权本身知道自己不是合法的，就拚命用世界上的所有事件，包括奥运会、包括三峡这种政治工程、包括飞船上天、甚至包括地震这样的灾难，都会被它用来让外界承认它的合法性。

它知道这个政权本身没有任何合法性，它不是一个选举出来的政府。这个政权，我把它叫党政，跟本就不是一个国家。因为国家有政府功能，在中国这个政府功能从来都是受制于党的，不管军队、法庭、警察和所有的机构、部门全是受制于党的。

党就是中南海那几个党魁，那几个罪犯分子，他们有最后拍板的权力。这就说明中国根本就不是一个正常国家，可以说不算一个国家，在西方学政治的知道有一个名词教“party state”，党政。它只是一个党政而不是一个国家，因为它没有政府职能。所以在这个基点上，用不着把中国和美国进行比较，中国和美国之间没有任何比较只有对照。

记者：然而还是有不少人拿美国政府在卡特里娜飓风中的表现来和中国政府此次在地震中断改表现做比较。

陈：这是一种道德的混乱，两个政府根本没有可比性。美国是一个合法的道德政府。很多地方做得不够，但是它是人选出来的，它有合法的基点，它宪法里有道德的精神：生命、自由和对幸福的追求。你可以对合法的政府提出置疑，你可以提出它哪里不符合人权，哪里做的不好，都可以，因为它是一个受制于人民的政府。

而中国正相反。中国政府所作所为全都不是为了人的，而是为了巩固它自己、延长它自己的寿命，巩固官方的既得利益者的利益。甚至中国新富起来的这些人，也都是在腐败的共产党党政的官僚关系里发财，也就是说中国90%的百万富翁是中国高层官僚的后代。

这种现象在真正的资本主义社会是没有的，包括英国工业革命的时候，当新的中产阶级产生的时候，它会要求政治的变革。而中国这些新富产生的时候，它根本就反对任何变革，因为他们是在这种腐败的政体里发财的，会努力维护这个腐败政体的利益。这正是和西方的资本主义革命所产生的现象相反。

所以在这方面我们千万不要把中国和任何西方国家做比较。这是一个不合法、黑社会罪犯集团，所有决定都是秘密做出的，没有任何公开和透明。在这一点，所有人都要看清中共的性质。它是一个党政不是一个国家。你跟这种政府提出人权或对人的生命的尊重有如于虎谋皮。这个政府就是建立在对人的生命自由尊严的践踏之上，它不会对人的生命有任何重视。所以我认为只有打碎中共党政的专制政体之后才有可能有新的希望。中共党政倒台以后事情不一定马上就变好，但是中共党政不倒台事情会越来越坏。

记者：现在它对媒体又开始缩紧了。

陈：它根本就是根据自己的党政利益去决定，而跟人民的生命、自由和幸福没有任何关系。比如胡佳的事情，把他抓起来是为了党政利益，将来就是放了的话也是党政利益，它让西方媒体进入四川是为了党政利益，现在把西方媒体赶出四川也是为了党政利益。

记者：法轮功学员在这个时候更加紧了促人们三退。

陈：法轮功学员对中共没有抱幻想，我在这方面跟他们是完全一致的。我知道中共这个东西不是可以救的，只有让它死亡，从新开始，就如癌症细胞是不能变成良性细胞的，只有把它切除。所以中国人千万不要报有这种幻想：共产党变好了。共产党从来就没有变好过。它的性质一直是这样的。60年前它是用棍棒把人打死，89年它用坦克把人轧死，使用的工具变了，但它的性质没有变。

中国人的生命、自由和尊严从来就没有得到宪法认可，中国的宪法第一章第一条首先是要确定中国共产党的领导，这在历史上没有先例，这样的宪法只能是一部伪宪法，拿出来骗世界的人、骗中国的人，甚至骗他们自己。

所以不要对中共的性质有任何怀疑，这样一种邪恶的政权，造成了7千多万中国人的死亡，却没有半点忏悔和交代，反而千方百计把人的嘴封上，把这些从历史书上抹杀掉，把所有的学生，小学生、中学生、大学生，全部洗脑，让他们忘记共产党所犯下的滔天罪行。这样的政权你怎么能期待它有任何的改变？一定要从历史舞台上被清除以后才有希望。

记者：但是还是有很多人受中共洗脑迷惑很深，如最近亲共人士在纽约和洛杉矶攻击法轮功学员。

陈：我估计这是中共领事馆被授意组织这样的活动。它是利用奥运会所产生的这种所谓爱国情绪、民族主义情绪，来造成对这些敢于说出真相的人的人身攻击。我认为这是中共在垂死之前的表现。

奥运会前世界对中共火炬的反应已经让它看出来世界在逐渐擦亮他们的眼睛。当它的性质被暴露在世人面前的时候，它的寿命已经到头了。它的寿命之所以能延长是因为世人还没有聚焦到中共党政这个性质上面。而奥运会本身能把中共党政的性质从新暴露在世界人民面前，当它的性质被彻底暴露并被聚焦的时候，它感到自己末日的到来，所以就拚命地反击。这也是一个邪恶的非法政权的正常反应。它一定会在这时候反击说实话的、揭露真相的人们。真相对中共党政是最大的威胁。

记者：现在尽管发生了这么多事情，中共的奥运火炬6月18日又要进入西藏传递了。

陈：有这么一句话：善总能战胜恶，因为善只有一个敌人，就是邪恶。而邪恶却有两个敌人，一个是善，一个是邪恶本身，因为邪恶的社会本身会有重大的内耗。

邪恶社会它在这么大灾难面前，镇压西藏僧侣这么大的暴行面前，又继续搞火炬，其实就是为自己撑腰为自己脸上抹光。然而这种恶行更加在世人面前暴露了这是一个非人的社会。

前两天在洛杉矶时报体育版有一篇评论：问为什么西方社会对在中国举行奥运没有提出任何疑问，尤其是在天安门事件、镇压西藏和目前的大地震以后为什么还要在中国搞奥运。可以看出，西方国家的人们开始不光质问中共党政的合法性，同时开始质问让中共主办奥运这个决定，质问自己在和中共打交道的时候做了什么样错误的决定。这是良心的表现，逐渐这些都会表现出来。在奥运期间我们可以期待有相当一部份有良知的人会对中共这个党政、对国际奥委会让中共举办奥运这个决定来表达他们的声音。

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中国邪恶党政的过敏高压手段来自其自知的非法性质 Illegitimacy is Basis for Chinese Regime's Over-Sensitivity and Repression

中国邪恶党政的过敏高压手段来自其自知的非法性质 Illegitimacy is Basis for Chinese Regime's Over-Sensitivity and Repression

每日一语：

只要中国非法党政存在一天，中国社会的病态心理与邪恶政治就会存在一天。 这是因为一个非法罪犯政治集团的首要考虑与反应是用一切邪恶手段（威吓，利诱，祈怜，欺骗，混淆，蒙蔽、、、）去抹杀否认其罪恶并维持其强权。 与美国社会与政治（政府是基于人民的，受制于人民的与服务于人民的）正相反，中国党政的基点只有一个方向：人民是基于政府（非法党政）的，受制于政府（非法党政）的与服务于政府（非法党政）的。 中国的人们一定要清楚这一点：中美之间并没有比较。 中美之间只有对照。 --- 陈凯

As long as the illegitimate Chinese party-state lasts one day, its pathological psyche and evil policies will perpetuate. This is because an illegitimate regime's first and foremost consideration regarding anything is to utilize all vicious means possible (threat, corruption, pity, deception, confusion...)to perpetuate the existence of its own power and control over the population. Opposite of what America was built upon (a government of the people, by the people and for the people), the Chinese party-state is fixed upon only one direction: a people of the government, by the government and for the government. There is no comparison between China and America. There is only contrast. --- Kai Chen

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Dear Visitors:

The very nature of the Chinese party-state determines the very nature of policies of the Chinese government -- an illegitimate regime doing everything possible to maintain and perpetuate an immoral/amoral society. Over-sensitivity toward outside and extreme repressive measures toward inside are only the result of such illegitimacy. Thus resolving the central issue of illegitimacy of the Chinese government is essential to resolving all the pathological symptoms in the Chinese society.

Legitimacy of a government must satisfy two aspects - Procedual Legitimacy and Moral Legitimacy. A government must be based on the consent of the governed to be legitimate (Free election is a must). A government must be based on the absolute moral code - Truth, Justice, Liberty and Human Dignity to be legitimate (Humanity by God is a must).

Beijing Olympics, Three-Gorges Dam, Space travel, earthquake relief, military spending..., everything the Chinese regime does is to make sure that others (UN,IOC, other governments) recognize the existence (therefore the legitimacy in the criminal party-state's mind) of its evil government. Everything the party-state/regime does is to fortify the facade of a society that is void of morality and human conscience. Worse, now the Chinese zombies start to set out to devour the conscience of the world with their money, their power, their deception, their confusion, their nihilism... They set up shops (Confucian Institutes, Chinese language schools, Chinese student associations, Overseas Chinese associations...) to spread their version of what the world should be.

The world, the West must wake up to this immanent Chinese threat - a threat that says a government by the guns and violence is an acceptable form of governance, that says the evil regime is not evil, only different. The world must wake up from its own stupor of moral confusion, instigated mostly by the left from the West that says there is no clash of good/evil but only "clash of civilizations". The world must wake up to a new round of "cold war" between the Oriental Nihilism/Despotism and Western Democracies.

The Chinese people must wake up from their thousands of years of stupor of moral nihilism/confusion. They must realize the historical fact that no country (from Roman Empire to Nazi Germany to USSR)in the world will maintain itself only by the power of guns and violence(along with cultural narcotics to make moral-corruption addicts). A country, in order to last, must first establish its moral foundation based on human conscience - God. China's future must be based on the notion that a nation must NOT be above God, must NOT pretend to be God, but UNDER God. America is the first nation with a constitution based on the moral compass:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED (not born)equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights, among these are LIFE, LIBERTY and PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS."

America is the first country established with meaning based on a moral code. The future Chinese society must do the same - base itself on the eternal and universal human values of TRUTH, JUSTICE, LIBERTY AND DIGNITY (真理，正义，自由，尊严）. China's future will never be rested upon China's past which is based only on power and mysticism. The Chinese people must wake up from their thousands of years of stupor of despotism and come back to humanity and human freedom. China must be a legitimate nation under God and the fundamental moral principles if the Chinese will ever earn respect from themselves and the world.

Take care. Kai Chen 陈凯

子女不是父母财产，人不是国家政府财产 Children Are Not Parents' Property, Human Beings Are Not Governments' Property

Bow and Arrow
弓与箭

Translation by Kai Chen 陈凯 翻译 www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you they belong not to you.

你的后代并不是你的财产。
他们是生命对自身渴望的表达。
他们被你生养但并不从你那儿来，
虽然他们在你身边但他们并不属于你。

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

你可以将爱给他们但你不可以将思想灌注给他们，
这是因为他们有独立的头脑。
你可以拥抱他们的身体但你不能占有他们的灵魂，
这是因为他们的灵魂属于未来，那未来超出你的能力与梦境。

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bow from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrow may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He Loves also the bow that is stable.

你可以试着去模仿他们，但不要让他们来模仿你，
这是因为生命不走回头路，也不会徘徊在昨天。
你是一把弓，你的后代是这弓上射出的生命之箭。
弓手（上苍）将目光瞄向那无尽宇宙中的靶环，
他将弓拉满，那箭如流星。
让你在弓手的伟力中感到欣慰；
因为那弓手不光热爱那离弦的箭，他也热爱那坚实的弓。
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Kai Chen on Freedom 陈凯论自由


























子女不是父母财产，人不是国家政府财产 Children Are Not Parents' Property, Human Beings Are Not Governments' Property

每日一语：

中国的人们要成为自由人，首先要消除政府是父母、人们是子民的奴役文化心态。 人绝不是任何国家政府的产物和财产。 中国的家庭要达到正常健康的心态，首先要消除子女是父母的财产的病态心理。 每一个人生命的真实意义既不是国家政府给予的，也不是家庭父母给予的。 每一个人生命的真实意义只有他与上苍明了。 --- 陈凯

If people in China want to be free beings, first of all they must rid off the corrupt cultural complex of parental government/infantile people. Human beings must never be properties of a country or a government. It is same for the Chinese families. If you want to have a normal healthy family, first of all you must rid off your traditional despotic/pathological notion that children are nothing but properties of parents. The meaning of a person's life is never given by a country or a government, nor is it given by his or her parents. The meaning of a person's life can only be understood by him/her and the Almighty. --- Kai Chen

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Dear Visitors:

Having graduated from Yale University in History of Medicine/Science, my daughter Alex (陈影）applied to join the Peace Corps to serve in a developing country for two years. I am immensely proud of her. This is her own decision to test herself and find the true meaning of her life.

Yesterday we received the assignment for Alex from the Peace Corps. She will be serving in the remote area in Zambia, Africa. Indeed this is a very tough assignment for one's own safety is put on the line, not just one's endurance of a sub-standard living. My wife was a little emotional having learned about the assignment, worrying about Alex's health and safety. But this is her decision and we as parents must respect her free will. Indeed dangers and risks are looming large for Alex in the next two years. But I trust her to triumph over all the adversities in her future. She will come out as a more intelligent, more compassionate, tougher and wiser human being. One must test oneself to find what one is made of and why one is born into this world.

In Alex's basketball career, she had already endured many unexpected adversities such as injuries and other man-made obstacles. She has triumphed over them all. I trust her to do the same in the coming adventure in Africa. I love her so much and take pride in her excellent character. She is indeed Kai Chen's daughter. She is indeed a free human being. She is indeed American.

May God bless Alex and all free and brave souls on earth. Best. Kai Chen 陈凯
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GIRL BASKETBALL, FAMILY, LIFE 女子篮球，家庭，与生命的价值

-A TRUE AND CONTINUING SAGA OF A RETIRED CHINESE NATIONAL TEAM BASKETBALL PLAYER AND HIS AMERICAN DREAM-

By Kai Chen, 1-07-2003

DEDICATED TO MY DAUGHTER ALEX

“The way one approaches the game is the way one approaches life”

Prelude

I had always thought of her as just another player, with ordinary talent and a big heart and the love of basketball. I remembered that when she just started to get into this game, I even tried to discourage her. “It’s a brutal game.” stating my own experience as a former basketball player for the Chinese National Team. “Are you sure you really want to get into this?” The only answer I got was the sound of dribbling the ball. Sure I got a basketball stand in the backyard the moment she started running. But how did I know she had flat feet, no speed and jumping ability and an awkward swing of arms when she runs? I knew she was going to be tall since I am 6’7” and my wife Susan is 5’11”. But being tall does not mean she can play the game. Everybody knows that.

I arrived at the gym a little early, as usual. But this day I was unusually distressed. I was concerned about the pain she had complained in her left knee. She had an ACL reconstructive surgery last year on that knee. So far she had felt fine. And she had performed quite well in the last three tournaments this season. Not only did she not show signs of rustiness, she had some of her best games ever. I was excited and even ecstatic about her recovery, till two days ago she told me about the pain. A teammate inadvertently ran into her during a routine practice. Her left knee had swollen up and there was some fluid in it. She was just about to put things together after she first had the injury in her sophomore year. Now just when she was about to blossom into herself in her junior season, now just when she was about to taste her own fruit of hard work, she had to…. I did not even want to spell out the fear, the uncertainty, the helplessness.

She was working on a stationary bicycle when I walked in. After she was done, she picked up a ball to shoot at one end of the court while the school varsity was practicing at the other end. I walked over to rebound and feed her the ball as I had done thousands of times.

“How do you feel?” I felt compelled by my own urge to know. “Shaky.” She answered without looking at me. “When I tighten my muscles, there is a pain inside.” Her voice became a little unsteady. I approached her, squatted to examine her knee. I reached and touched her leg. The surgical scars were still red and shiny. I stood up. I could see a little moist sparkled in her eyes. There was a little helplessness. Yet she was quiet with that typical determined look on her face. I suddenly realized that this couple of days I was preparing something to say to her in my head, a speech I never thought I would come up with this early.

“Alex,” I reached out my hands to hold her shoulder. “I know that I am your harshest critic. Yet there is something that needs to be said….”

Suddenly I was choked with emotions. I could not continue. I found that one of my hands was still holding her, but the other hand was covering my own mouth. Tears started to trickle down my cheeks. Then both of my hands held her tightly in my arms. Time stood still.

Here in the Marlborough School gym, under the glaring lights, I was holding my daughter in my arms, I was embracing her fully in my heart, as I murmured words into her ears: “I love you so much, so much, Alex…. You make me feel so proud to be your father. So proud….” I could taste my own tears with my feverish kisses on her forehead. “I love you, too, Dad.” was all I heard through her sobs. I realized at that moment that my tears were not tears of sadness and disappointment, but tears of happiness and deliverance. I realized that not only she knew how much she had achieved since she started playing this game, she knew what lay ahead and she was ready to face the challenge. I realized that she had such a flare of confidence that no matter what happens in her future, she will be OK. And I realized that no matter what happens in the future in our family, we will be OK. For a few moments, I was immersed in her grace and dignity. I felt the serenity coming back to me after some unspeakable distress. I realized words could not express what I felt: Life is being lived.

As I stood there watching her 6’1” beautiful frame, I whispered her name to myself as I thought. “You have shown me who you are. You have proven to yourself that you are worthy of this game. You are a winner in life.” I smiled and felt like joking as I extracted myself from the moment: “After all, you got my genes.” She laughed and her face radiated like a summer morning glory. What a beautiful sight.

洛杉矶时报评论质疑北京奥运 Priorities are misplaced as China readies for Games

Bill Dwyre (LA Times Sports Columnist):

洛杉矶时报评论质疑北京奥运 Priorities are misplaced as China readies for Games

Resources that will be used to put country in international spotlight in August would be better spent on helping victims of massive earthquake. But no one is questioning letting the Games go on.

June 10, 2008

This will be a conflicted column, one of those with more questions than answers, more wishful thinking than reality.

The topic is China, and the question is why nobody, in light of recent developments, is questioning going ahead with the Beijing Olympics.

We are two months from the start, in the same country where 70,000 people died in a 7.9 earthquake May 12 and the lives of 200 times that many have been uprooted and changed forever. The best estimate is that 15 million people have lost their homes.

And we don't even seem to ponder the disconnect between these Olympics and those people in ongoing misery?

I understand the geography. The Sichuan province is nearly 1,000 miles from Beijing. I also understand flesh and blood, and that should have nothing to do with geography.

Are not the life-and-death needs of one's people a higher priority than the entertainment needs of a sports-doting world, or the international image-building desires of a government?

The resources that will be used to put China in the international spotlight for 17 days in August -- to a world that still mostly envisions this country as a man standing in front of a row of tanks in Tiananmen Square -- will be massive. Could they not be better used on food, shelter and medical supplies?

Are we too far down the line that we can't turn back in an emergency? Because a lot has been spent, does that mean that we have to spend a lot more? Can we scale this down from extravaganza to a big track meet? Does this mean that, if NBC buys it, we have to come?

Blaming television, of course, is somewhat unfair, but it always feels good.

A more constructive approach might be to ponder our priorities, especially as they have to do with sports. We seem to need major athletic competitions and showcases for our validation. The Lakers do that to us in Los Angeles. The Olympics do that to us, a hundredfold, as a country.

It pits our high jumpers and team-handballers and rowers and all the rest against the world's. If we win, it seems to validate our way of life, much like we feel a need right now to make Tinseltown better than Beantown.

The Olympics happens on the biggest stage. Most of us will succumb to that little teardrop in the corner of our eye when our gymnast from Des Moines stands on the top of the platform and they play the national anthem.

This is good and healthy. It is also overdone, now that world corporations have taken over the Olympics and turned simple warm-and-fuzzy into market-driven, brand-building warm-and-fuzzy.

Still, it is largely harmless until a larger issue emerges, such as a killer earthquake that cries out for use of every available penny.

Part of my feelings stem from the lessons of Hurricane Katrina.

In January, I went to New Orleans to write about a national college football championship game. The day before, I took a tour of some of the hurricane-damaged areas. It had been 29 months. Like most of us, it had been long gone from my mind. It had happened, I had read and watched in horror from afar, then assumed it would all be taken care of.

It hadn't been. Not even close.

The game that next night felt meaningless. It mostly proved that our priorities, in times of human need, are misplaced. Gobs of money were spent to showcase what we already knew, that the Big Ten was slow and overmatched again.

How much better might those gobs of money been spent, were it on Katrina relief?

The Olympics have been disrupted for political reasons -- examples are Jimmy Carter's 1980 boycott and Moscow's 1984 retort. But mostly we resist any departures from our sports-must-go-on mind-set. A president is assassinated and some push for sports to continue under some psychobabble rationalization that we need them as part of our healing.

Postponing or scaling down an Olympics is pie in the sky. I know that. Money drives the world, and lots of money has already been sunk into this. My only surprise is that a postponement or cancellation hasn't even made it into the conversation.

I also know another response to this -- and a reasonable one -- is that not holding the Olympics in China would be a further disaster to a country whose national psyche has already been hit with this huge earthquake.

Indeed, perhaps the spirit of a great and successful Beijing Olympics will, indeed, boost the spirits of Chinese people everywhere. Except possibly in the Sichuan province, where word of it may have to arrive by carrier pigeon because the electricity could still be problematic.

In two months, I will go to Beijing with The Times team. I will write about runners and jumpers and winners and losers, people who have trained hard, built their lives around these moments, and in many cases, overcome adversity.

I will also ponder how people are surviving in earthquake country, a place of real adversity.

On Aug. 8, they will hold a ceremony in a huge stadium, athletes from countries all over the world will march, somebody will light a torch over the stadium and somebody in a $5,000 suit will say, "Let the Games begin."

At that moment, billions of dollars will be in play.

The final question in this conflicted column then is: How much rice and drywall would that buy?

Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.

哈维尔 - 一个深知自由价值的英雄 Havel - A Hero the World Needs the Most

Vaclav Havel - Former Czech Republic President
Ronald Reagan - Former American President









哈维尔 - 一个深知自由价值的英雄 Havel - A Hero the World Needs the Most

每日一语：

作为每一个曾生活在专制下的人，他一定要反省与忏悔他自身曾对专制的沉默，纵容，协助与容忍。 如果他想真正地赢得自由，他一定要从道德的虚无与混乱中自拔出来走入道德清晰的生活。 --- 陈凯

Having lived through despotism and tyranny, a person has to reflect on his own silence, acquiescence, assistance and tolerance of the evil regime of which he is inescapably a part. He has to repent in order to progress. He has to pull himself out of the morass of moral nihilism and moral confusion in order to win freedom for himself. --- Kai Chen

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Dear Visitors:

Yesterday my wife and I visited Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley. Throughout the visit I couldn't help feeling deeply moved by a great spirit of optimism and a bright outlook toward the future by our former president.

Reagan had been living in America all his life and not been subjected to tyranny, but he understood the value of freedom. I have to attribute that understanding to his deep faith in God. Because of that deep faith, Ronald Reagan was never morally confused or shaky about what America stood for. This is much more than I can say today about many who live in America, some of whom are in high positions of American government. They have lost that essential spirit of freedom and optimism toward future. They even want to change what America is about to suit others' appetite and liking, as though there were no God, as though there were only others' pleasure toward which America has to cater.

America is great precisely because America is the only country in the world professed to be UNDER GOD, never under men. America is great precisely because American people are armed with guns and the Bible. America is great precisely because America is consisted of many who understand the horror, the misery and evil of tyranny, who treasure paying a necessary price for that invaluable universal goal -- Freedom.

Havel is such a hero who had lived through tyranny and understood the value of freedom. He, along with Ronald Reagan, is my hero. I now paste this article about Havel below for you to read and enjoy.

Have faith in God and treasure Freedom forever. Kai Chen

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哈维尔 - 一个深知自由价值的英雄 Havel - A Hero the World Needs the Most

Why We Need More Leaders Like Vaclav Havel

The courageous playwright who destroyed Communism in Czechoslovakia could teach us much about the need to defend Western freedoms against totalitarian Islam.

June 6, 2008 - by Bruce Bawer

No one could have blamed Havel, in the flush of victory, for feeling less than charitable toward the Communists. But he refused to wreak vengeance, rejected calls to outlaw the Communist Party, and strove to transcend old hatreds; he asked that all Czechs and Slovaks work together to repair the damage Communism had caused — damage to everything from the nation’s infrastructure to its very soul — and to build a new, free society of which everyone could be proud. In “Power and the Powerless” he had imagined the modern world surpassing not only totalitarianism but also Western democracy in its present form and attaining a “post-democracy” even more fully dedicated to individual liberty; in reality, it became difficult enough to take the wreck that was post-Communist Czechoslovakia — a country whose economy was a basket case, whose rivers were sewers, and whose people had been rendered ill-equipped by decades of fear and oppression to make the most of living in freedom — and turn it into a modern democracy with a functioning market economy. Yet Havel and others, to their everlasting credit, managed within a reasonably short time to achieve just this.

In his first New Year’s address to Czechoslovakia, Havel noted that during the Communist era the country’s leaders had filled their New Year’s addresses with glowing words about “how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were.” Havel noted that in fact Czechoslovakia’s economy was a joke (”Entire branches of industry are producing goods that are of no interest to anyone”), that it had “the most contaminated environment in Europe” (at the time, the country’s name was synonymous in many people’s minds with waterways polluted beyond belief), and that, worst of all,

we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. … We had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helped to perpetuate it. … None of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-creators.

Yes, co-creators. It was necessary, he insisted, that Czechs and Slovaks refuse to see themselves as victims — for only thus would they realize it was up to them to change their lot. It would do no good to spend their time blaming their former Communist masters for their troubles.

In 1993, Czechoslovakia split peacefully into two countries, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, with Havel becoming president of the latter. He stepped down in 2003, but continued to fight oppression. (He was admirably outspoken, for example, in his criticism of Fidel Castro, whom many other European leaders adored.) He has also talked about Communism’s psychic legacy, which, though in the main profoundly negative, as it stunted its subjects both morally and spiritually, also had a positive side: for it taught people like him to cherish the freedom they didn’t have. And after they had won it, they knew they must never take it for granted. To stand up for freedom — not only theirs but that of others — was for them a profoundly felt moral obligation. It was worth their vigilance, their sacrifice. In the West, Havel knew, this kind of awareness and commitment were largely absent: “Naturally, all of us continue to pay lip service to democracy, human rights, the order of nature, and responsibility for the world,” he wrote, “but apparently only insofar as it does not require any sacrifice.” The West, he worried, had “lost its ability to sacrifice” — a point also made by Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn in a 1978 commencement address at Harvard. “A decline in courage,” Solzhenitsyn told the graduates on that day three decades ago,

may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. … Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course, there are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.

When one examines the responses of many in the West to the challenge of Islam, it’s hard not to feel that Havel and Solzhenitsyn were absolutely right. Living a lie, once ubiquitous behind the Iron Curtain, is now widespread in the West owing to a profound fear of Islam. Every Western journalist who writes that Islam is a religion of peace, who chides terrorists for hijacking a peaceful religion, and who celebrates Muhammed as a messenger of ecumenical harmony — all the time knowing that these are lies — is doing the equivalent of the greengrocer putting a sign in his window to avoid trouble. For most of us in the West today, life is extraordinarily easy compared with life in a dictatorship — and it’s precisely for this reason that jihadists are making inroads upon our freedoms with so little effort. “The only genuine values,” Havel has written, “are those for which one is capable, if necessary, of sacrificing something.” By this measure, how many people in the West today are truly dedicated to liberty? Today, in the Western world, if a group of Muslims starts bullying non-Muslims and seeking to limit their freedoms, most of the latter will not raise a peep in protest — instead, they’ll criticize those who resist. For those accustomed to the comfort of life in the West — a life that’s free of the perils of totalitarian societies and that rarely requires courage — standing up to bullies doesn’t come naturally. It’s scary to confront jihadist gangsters, and far easier to join the mob of people shaking their fingers at the few who dare to confront them. It’s also easy — and self-flattering, and immoral, and irresponsible — to pretend that you’re living in a totalitarian society when in fact you’re free. Those who say that America has become a totalitarian state either don’t have the slightest understanding of totalitarianism or are cowards playing at being heroes.

A dissident hero under Communism, Havel became in the post-Cold War world an international symbol of the triumph of individual conscience over the forces of tyranny. He traveled the world, won prizes, addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Meanwhile, back home in Prague, he suffered the fate of all politicians. Though in his first years as president he was almost universally admired, even revered, over the years he was increasingly criticized on a variety of fronts. He was attacked both for being too informal and for putting on airs; for being too conciliatory with the Communist ex-rulers and for being too hard on them; for being too enthusiastic about the free market and too hostile to it. As a dissident, Havel had stood for principle; as a politician he was obliged to make compromises. Keane, who writes respectfully about Havel the dissident, snipes tirelessly at Havel the post-revolution politician, apparently cataloging every last gripe that anybody in Czechoslovakia might have had about him. Keane even goes so far as to describe Havel’s life as a tragedy — the noble crusader who bested the powers of evil ending up just another politician at a desk. This interpretation, however, is obscene; it smacks of Communist-style utopianism. For a person living under totalitarian terror, the greatest dream is simply to be able to lead a normal life. Havel’s triumph is that he and his countrymen liberated themselves into a world in which they were no longer forced to live in terror, a world in which they didn’t put their lives on the line with every action they took and every word they spoke. Havel himself considers his life story inspiring, as well he should — for it shows, as he has said,

that an apparently hopeless cause can have a happy ending. That story may seem somewhat like a fairy tale, somewhat kitschy; you can laugh at it, but at the same time it wouldn’t be entirely right to laugh at it. It’s good when people admire such an outcome. It speaks well of their understanding of values.

Indeed. The person who can’t be moved by Havel’s triumph has no appreciation for his own freedom and can’t imagine what it would mean to lose it.

How familiar are people in the West with Havel and his accomplishments? When he arrived at Columbia University in late 2006 to spend a few weeks on campus delivering lectures and taking part in panel discussions, few of the undergraduates could have picked him out in a lineup. Gregory Mosher, director of the university’s Arts Initiative program, admitted to the New York Times, “They had no idea who he is. … [They] thought he was a hockey player.” Yet is it possible that any of these Ivy Leaguers — supposedly among the best and brightest of their generation — had not heard of those fabled First Amendment heroines, the Dixie Chicks? How many of them not only knew the name of Che Guevara, that bloodthirsty Stalinist, but also thought he was cool (and had t-shirts to prove it)? When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed up a year later to give his address at Columbia, was there a single undergraduate on Morningside Heights who didn’t know who he was? In a time when freedom in the West is seriously threatened by Islamism and its Western allies and appeasers, it’s imperative that young people cherish their freedom, that they sincerely honor the memory of the men and women who fought and died for it, that they recognize the forces in the world today that threaten it, and that they be prepared to make an effort — and, yes, even make sacrifices — to preserve that freedom for future generations. In order for them to be able to do this, it is vital that they have before them the rare and remarkable example of individuals such as Vaclav Havel.

真相对中国是最大威胁 China tightens media limits

地震母亲与天安门母亲 Earthquake Mothers and Tiananmen Mothers

Youtube Songs to commemorate Tiananmen Massacre:

Quote from someone on 热血汉奸:

我今天为6.4纪念日所能做的就是,将以下歌曲不停的放给几位19岁的学生听,让他们 记住64先烈!遗憾啊现在大陆匪共已培养出了一批批物欲横流的共粪禽红卫兵,与文 明民主与自由作对.....

一首可歌可泣悲壮之歌 Links to Songs to Commemorate Tiananmen Massacre - 19th Anniversary

http://youtube.com/watch?v=viKGP39DWzM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NQd-GudnobU&feature=related
http://www.youmaker.com/video/sv?id=709cb45b82284a41a3a8737fe5386e79001

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真相对中国是最大威胁 China tightens media limits

China tightens media limits loosened after Sichuan earthquake（reprint)

Ng Han Guan / Associated Press

A Chinese man rides a bicycle between piles of rubble from the May 12 earthquake. Coverage of the quake’s aftermath in Sichuan province has shifted from heroic rescues to corruption and construction, and China wants to rein in coverage.
Beijing forbids stories about shoddy school construction in the state media. It also employs Western tactics to spin coverage.

By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

June 5, 2008

DUJIANGYAN, CHINA -- China has begun rolling back many of the media and online freedoms that were permitted in the immediate aftermath of last month's earthquake.

Restrictions on foreign and domestic reporters have been tightened in recent days. Web discussion groups have seen postings deleted. Internet filtering has been stepped up.

Blocked Complete coverage of the China earthquakeChina cracks down on earthquake rumors

TV cameras swiftly reach China city but earthquake aid is slow
Amid the tragedy lies opportunity

The propaganda ministry and the State Council, China's Cabinet, have issued directives to state-run news media outlining forbidden topics. Among them: questions about school construction, whether government rescue efforts lagged and whether Beijing knew in advance that the earthquake would happen but failed to warn people. Although the latter issue is scientifically questionable, it has nonetheless transfixed millions of Chinese Internet users.

The tough stance, which has included crackdowns on public protest, reflects in part the changing nature of the story surrounding the magnitude 7.9 temblor that left about 70,000 people dead in Sichuan province, media analysts say.

In the first weeks after the quake, the main narrative was the heroic efforts of rescue workers, the plight of trapped victims and the shock to a nation. The positive story line helped unify the people and helped humanize China's image abroad when it was struggling to recover from criticism of its crackdown in Tibet and surrounding regions.

Now, however, the disaster has entered a more politically complex stage as national and foreign criticism mounts over issues of corruption, embezzlement and the government's response to the large number of schools that collapsed.

Amid the unimaginable human suffering, media analysts said, the government is carefully calculating how much freedom it will allow and what message to convey. As it does, it is embracing sophisticated media management techniques and easing away from the far more heavy-handed methods of the past.

In one apparent bid to chill coverage, the state-run New China News Agency and a prominent TV host have sharply criticized an investigative newspaper that has run stories on local officials saving themselves first and on a provincial education official acknowledging that poor school construction was a factor in the high death rate among children.

The news agency ran a prominent commentary accusing the Southern Weekend paper, based in the southern province of Guangdong, of using "tinted glasses to view China."

Officials are also urging the media to "emphasize positive propaganda" and "uphold unity, stability and encouragement."

Here in Dujiangyan, police briefly detained several journalists Tuesday and hauled away 100 parents who had threatened to file a lawsuit against local officials over poor construction standards at Ju- yuan Middle School, where several hundred students died, the Associated Press reported.

On Wednesday, police and paramilitary blocked access by the news media and local residents to the school, which had crumbled even as most nearby buildings remained standing.

A neighbor surnamed Gong who declined to give his first name, citing fears of government retribution, said that authorities had repeatedly prevented angry parents from gathering at the site. "The government really didn't do enough to rescue them, and the construction quality was very bad," he said.

Beijing has called for an investigation of shoddy construction. It remains to be seen, however, whether it will side with the parents and launch a meaningful anti-corruption inquiry or whitewash the problem and shield wrongdoing.

Ultimately, some analysts said, Beijing is fighting a losing battle in attempting to stifle the media, Web traffic and broader human rights. Reporters and editors in the last several weeks have gotten a taste of covering news under relatively free conditions. That will encourage many to push the limits.

The public, for its part, has gotten a taste of vivid, dramatic reporting that contrasts sharply with much of the traditionally staid fare.

"What's happened is historic," said Ying Chan, journalism school dean at Shantou University in Guangdong. "Life has been transformed. . . . It's like the Vietnam War, which for the first time brought battle live into people's living rooms. They'll rein it in, but you can never go completely back."

Even as it cracks down, however, China is mixing Western public relations techniques into its media approach.

"They've learned spin tactics from America, Europe, U.S. political ads," said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at UC Berkeley. "They've become quite sophisticated."

As part of its so-called main melody strategy, the propaganda ministry is willing to allow more "discordant notes" and critical opinions on the Internet as long as the party line is predominant. It also has become more adept at distraction.

Fanning recent comments by actress Sharon Stone that the May 12 earthquake was the result of "bad karma" linked to its Tibet policy has helped divert attention from the school corruption issue, analysts said.

"They increasingly recognize they can't control everything, and pick and choose," said Rebecca MacKinnon, a journalism professor at the University of Hong Kong. "The government has come to realize, rather than block outside information, you can perhaps just discredit it."

And Beijing is making more use of good-cop, bad-cop tactics. On the issue of Tibet, for instance, some arms of the government decried the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, even as other parts called for negotiations.

It also has granted unprecedented access to the foreign media when it is advantageous. During the initial stages of the earthquake coverage, it allowed foreign reporters to visit rural disaster areas, even at one point ferrying them to sites on a military helicopter -- unheard of in a country where not too long ago many Western reporters were viewed as spies. The subsequent coverage led to a huge inflow of foreign donations and a more human face abroad.

China's propaganda machine also is becoming faster and more effective in responding to lively local media and citizen journalists. Late last month, blogger "Peaceful Heart" wrote that emergency tents were being appropriated by well-connected residents of undamaged neighborhoods in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. As public outrage spread, the government mounted an investigation and launched a campaign against misuse of aid.

The recent tightening of media control is far from uniform, with a foreign reporter able to speak with residents around Juyuan Middle School on Wednesday in the presence of numerous police and paramilitary officers without a problem.

In a nation that often appears monolithic from the outside, the crisis has intensified an internal debate over information policy, analysts say.

Those in the more hard-line propaganda ministry favor tighter control. The somewhat reform-oriented State Council, meanwhile, advocates a more open approach. In something of a milestone, the earthquake crisis led to the first live news conference by top military brass, organized by the State Council.

"The school issue is very sensitive, and they're trying to put a lid on it," UC Berkeley's Xiao said. "But the issue is too big. They can't put it back in the box."