My Soldier

Last month, I wrote about a wrenching Washington Post article about the appalling lack of basic supplies for American troops in Iraq and the tragic consequences. In addition to this lengthy feature article, the journalist and the father she profiled participated in an online chat at the Post. Brian Hart, the father of a soldier who died after being shot riding in an unarmored Humvee, emphasized that American soldiers still needed support, and not just slapping a yellow "Support the troops!" magnet on your SUV bumper either. He recommended several blogs that gave information on how you really could support the troops.

Anyone who knows me or who has followed my blog for any length of time knows that I am utterly opposed to the Iraq war, that I think it is an appalling waste of lives, American and Iraqi, and quite possibly the biggest strategic blunder in the history of American foreign policy. It is a moral travesty, one of many committed by an Administration whose corruption and lust for power seem to have no limits.

But I was touched by this father's plea. I started exploring the blogs he mentioned. In some ways, it was a disturbing trip. This was just a day or so after the two kidnapped US soldiers had been found, tortured and killed, their bodies booby-trapped with explosives. The front-page poster on one of the blogs, a woman (a soldier's wife? a soldier's mother? I don't know), began her post, "Now can we kill them?" or words along those lines. The level of violent anger, of hatred she expressed was so white-hot that I couldn't get through the post. I wanted to respond, to say something about how sorry I was, but didn't she get it yet? That sentiments like hers were a big part of what was fueling this wretched situation? Now, in light of revelations that those soldiers' horrific deaths may have been to avenge the rape and murder of an Iraqi teen and her family, it's all too easy to discern the pattern, the vicious cycle of hatred, barbarism and revenge.

But. And yet. The soldiers who are fighting this war are fighting in my name as an American, whether I want them to or not. They are frequently living in miserable conditions, under constant threat, in a war with no boundaries, no battle-lines, no clear-cut enemies and few certain friends.

So I found a website called Soldiers' Angels, where you can "adopt" a soldier who may not have a good support system at home and could use letters and care packages and the like.

I signed up. Committed to writing a letter a week and sending a care package every month or so. Shortly after filling out the forms, I received an email back from the organization with a message from "my" soldier. I won't tell you his name or where he is; we are supposed to keep that information private. But here's a part of what he wrote:

I don’t really need much but we don’t really have a lot of food and hygiene products. I have lost almost 30 pounds because of not eating that much. We have mre's but you can only take so much before you get sick of eating them."

The heat, he added, is almost unbearable.

I got a letter out right away and the first care package two days later. Of course it's hard to know what the reality is of a situation that I can't verify. I could be getting a line of b.s., who knows? But I assume he's telling the truth. And I wonder, how can the wealthiest country in the world have soldiers in a war zone who do not have enough to eat? We are not talking about the days of trench warfare here, with people cut off from supply lines and having to live out of cans because there's no way to get them other food. Particularly when KBR and friends have constructed permanent bases, small towns with Pizza Huts and ice cream stands and taco bars, how is it that guys elsewhere are only getting MREs?

I may never know. I'm told not to expect to hear back from my soldier. I may, I may not.

It was an odd feeling, packing up a box of stuff for a guy I've never met and know virtually nothing about. I sent a tub of cookies, packages of beef jerkey and trail mix, some sunscreen, toothpaste, dried fruit, paperbacks, a Sudoko book. I've got another half-full bag for the next package. I mean, how can you not want to send food to a guy who's lost thirty pounds, who's trying to survive getting shot at in 140 degree heat?

Writing letters to a person you don't know is odd as well. The organization asks that you keep the letters positive, "light" - the last thing these guys need is bad news from someone who is supposed to help support them. I would never write about my own feelings regarding this war. He doesn't need to hear that from me, I figure. But I'm not going to indulge in a bunch of "hero" rhetoric either. I can't. I just can't. Instead I talk about, well, pretty trivial stuff. The weather. The San Diego Padres winning season. Stuff like that. I wish him and his buddies well, and tell him I'll be writing again soon.

I went to mail my second card the other day. There's a post office station in a sundries store close to where I work. It's run by Korean ladies. The older one is generally pretty brusque; the younger, sort of softer and shy. She doesn't speak much English. The younger woman was there the day I went to mail the letter. I had to buy a book of stamps too, and I figured, I'd just use one of those. But the clerk, seeing that this was going overseas, to a military post office box, selected a stamp for me. A Purple Heart stamp.

Seeing this, I just wanted to cry. Thinking about this young man, a stranger, over there, the appalling, horrific waste of it all, it fills me with despair.

Tomorrow or Tuesday, I will buy a couple of things for the second care package, to supplement the crackers and beef jerky and trailmix I already have. Some razors and deodorant, maybe, and toothbrushes. And another tub of cookies. The troops really like cookies, I'm told.

Hao Wu article in Wall Street Journal

Journalist Geoffrey Fowler has written an in-depth report on Hao's situation, linking it with the larger issues of artistic freedom and the phenomena I like to call "the invisible line" — the line between what is acceptable and what is not, that you won't see until you accidently cross it:

Mr. Wu's story illustrates how blurry the boundaries of personal freedom have become in China. In surprising ways, China today is far more liberal than it was in the years following the 1989 student protests in Tiananmen Square. In an old Beijing munitions factory that's now full of galleries, artists sell sculptures lampooning Mao Zedong and depicting Tiananmen Square covered with plastic army figures. The country has its own feed of MTV, encourages students to travel overseas and allows a small but growing group of human rights lawyers to practice within its legal system.

Yet Chinese authorities have also moved aggressively in recent years to censor the Internet, suppress political protests and stifle the press. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists counts 34 Chinese journalists behind bars at present, including 16 Internet writers. Over the past year, the government has closed or tightened control over several newspapers, Internet blogs and publications that have made a name for themselves writing about corruption and other sensitive topics. Last Friday, the official Xinhua news agency announced that China would further tighten controls on blogs and search engines to "purify the environment" by blocking "illegal and unhealthy information."

The government's reluctance to spell out precisely what is and isn't forbidden has created a gray area. Most Chinese censor themselves amid the uncertainty and vague intimidation. Elite artists, writers and filmmakers who push the boundaries do so with scant legal security.

The irony with Hao's case, as has been often remarked, is that Hao did not consider his work political and believed that with time, the Chinese government would continue to evolve into a more democratic, representative system, counseling patience as opposed to confrontation.

Friends say Mr. Wu felt he was protected by his own journalistic standards. "He really believed that because he himself was being objective about all of this, that he wasn't doing any harm. He wasn't supporting any particular group that China has a problem with -- he was just filming their views," says a Western friend who has known Mr. Wu since the filmmaker arrived in Beijing.

Hao even joked about this on his blog, writing:

I'll gel my hair and wear my Banana Republic sports jacket every time I go filming. And I'll tell the cops I'm from the "foreign media". That should get them to show some respect. :)

Free Hao Wu has more excerpts from the article posted, should this link stop working. Free Hao Wu also reminds us about what we can do for Hao — write your elected representatives, sign the petition and put up a blog badge if you haven't already. With the publication of this article, it strikes me that now would be a very good time to renew the letter-writing campaign. I plan on doing so and including a copy of this very fine piece.

Kudos to Geoffrey Fowler for doing such a thorough job and to the WSJ for publishing it on their front page.

technorati tags: freehaowu

Cleaning out my closet

Damn, I have a lot of T-shirts. Some cool ones too. A psychedelic Che, another celebrating the revolutionary women of Nicaragua. A stretched-out, cheap tee depicting John Paul II in his Pope-mobile, with the caption, "Welcome, Holy Father!" Souvenirs from political events. "The Congressional Black Caucus Speaks for Me!" from post-election 2000. A Shadow Convention shirt. A couple of Jerry Brown items. Ancient rock n' roll T-shirts: "The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads," from a live show at UCLA in 1978. Various "X" and "Clash" tour shirts.

And baseball. I have an entire drawer full of San Diego Padres T-shirts (plus one from the minor league Lansing Lug-nuts). Some Charger shirts as well, one of which I'm wearing right now, a reprint of a Union-Tribune photo of Natrone Means after the winning game which sent the Chargers to the Superbowl.

I do this closet thing every now and again when I buy new clothes. It's like, buy something new, toss something old.

But there are things in my closet I never wear that I still won't throw away. Weird, funky vintage clothing. A red Tiki patterned blazer. An "Arctic" Hawaiian style shirt, with igloos and polar bears. Stuff I used to wear, before I had a corporate job and a corporate title. Stuff I'd wear to gigs, back in the band days.

Not that I've exactly gone corporate. My version of corporate tends to be Patagonia, you know, clothes you can sleep in on airplanes. I work in a creative industry, and I could still wear Converse hi-tops if I wanted to. But still...

I miss the days when I could throw on a funky T-shirt and a weird jacket over it, put on some baggie shorts and Converse high-tops. Back when I was playing music and writing and everything I did to earn money was just a day job. Just a way to pay bills until...

Until, you know, the Fame Fairy came and tapped her magic wand on my shoulder.

Okay, I was never completely naive. I didn't want to live on somebody's couch and eat Ramen, right? And I hate being bored. Hate boring jobs. So out of a combination of practicality and necessity, I worked my way up. To the exhaulted mid-level management position in which I find myself today.

Sometimes I wonder if that was due to a failure of imagination as well...a series of compromises. Not really "going for it."

But who knows? I make room in my closet for my Patagonia shirts. And switch Converse for Crocs, not like that's much of a trade-off. I live from tax refund to fall bonus. Plot vacations that I can't exactly afford but crave to satisfy the latent adrenaline junky in my head. Look at my 401K every once in a while and wonder, how much pension will I get? Could I keep this job until I'm eligible for early retirement? Will that make my head explode, or will I get there before I know it?

Two weeks ago, I typed "The End" on my latest book. Today, I really finished it, at least for now, after going through the whole draft and cleaning up a lot of little things, tweaking a sentence here and there. The first three chapters are off with an editor I "met" when I submitted a book to her two years ago. Ultimately, they didn't buy that one, but she left the door open to future projects. We'll see how this one goes over. I'm not exactly optimistic. What I wrote is really on the edge of the genre handled by this particular editor. But we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm exercising as much as I can, trying to lose this stupid gut I've acquired in recent years (too many hours, sitting on my butt, staring at a computer). I'm thinking about what to write next. This latest book came out of an immense well of rage that's been filling up in me over the last six years. You can guess what that might be about. I still have plenty of rage left (is it 2009 yet?). But I don't know if I want to tap it again for my next project. I'm tired of drinking from that well.

Today, I'm going to take a walk to Costco. It's about two miles from here, and I don't feel like driving. The weather's too perfect. I'll drop off some photo negatives to get reproduced, and maybe buy a bottle of wine if I see anything interesting. Whatever I get has to fit into a small backpack, in any case.

And I think I'll put on one of those old T-shirts. One I don't wear to work.

Hao Wu, Four Months Later...

Richard of Peking Duck reminds us that it's been three months since the Free Hao Wu blog was established to call attention to imprisoned blogger and film maker Hao Wu - and four months since his detention. Richard remarks:

...not unsurprisingly it's (blog activity) been slowing down as interest wanes and resignation reigns. Watching the inactive site day after day got me thinking: Was it a good idea to draw all this attention to Hao Wu, or would silence have been a more strategic approach?

Watching the activity dwindle on the Free Hao Wu blog, both from commenters and more sadly, from Hao's sister, Nina, who literally put herself in the hospital working for her brother's freedom, has been a profoundly depressing experience. Disheartening as well were some of the troll comments on the blog - hateful, manipulative, nasty stuff, mocking even the impulse to care about Hao and his family.

Worst is the sense of helplessness, that there is nothing any of us can do, that our efforts don't matter. But pondering Richard's question, "was it a good idea to draw all this attention to Hao Wu?" I have to think that it was. At least the Chinese government knows that people are aware of Hao's situation, and that he is not forgotten.

Salon's "How the World Works"

China Law Blog beat me to it, but I've been meaning to mention Salon's Andrew Leonard, and his "How the World Works" column on globalization for some time now. Leonard studied Chinese and lived in Taiwan a while, and many of his pieces focus on China. This latest is a great example of Leonard's succinct yet informative style:

A comprehensive reform of China's labor laws is on its way to the Chinese People's Congress. It is not yet complete, but if enacted into anything close to its current form -- and enforced -- the bill would substantially increase worker's rights in China. For starters, under the new "Labor Contract Law" workers would be harder to fire and, if laid off, would receive greater severance pay. Safety and workplace inspections would be bolstered. Employers would be forced to consult with trade unions over proposed job cuts. Overtime pay would be increased, and a shorter work week enforced.

Such a law would be great news not just for China's laborers, but for workers everywhere. It could stand as an example to other developing nations. It could signal to the developed world that the global economy is not an inevitable race to the bottom. It would be a clear sign of progress for China.

So how did the Times (of London) present the news?

The headline: "Foreign investors may quit if China tightens up labor law."

Go read the rest; it's short and well-worth it.

Oh, and consider this a second plug for China Law Blog as well, which I find consistently informative.

Supporting the Troops

Still a little too fried to come up with much in the way of posts, but I'd like to point you to an article that will break your heart and raise your blood-pressure. Via Larry Johnson at No Quarter comes this lengthy piece in the Washington Post that lays out in agonizing detail how the war planners failed American soldiers by issuing inadequate and faulty equipment. This goes so far beyond improperly armored Humvees that it reaches a level of gross incompetence and negligence that can only be called criminal. I will quote just one incident that occurred in the course of an attack on unarmored Humvees - it is beyond horrific:

As the Humvee hurtled forward, Sams fell out the left side opening where a door should have been. As he tumbled, his armored vest snagged on the front left wheel well. He was dragged, still conscious, 25 yards, until the driverless Humvee struck the berm, then rolled backward, pinning Sams's left arm beneath the wheel...

...Sams tried to pull his arm free. It wouldn't budge. He swung his legs around, placed both feet in the wheel well and pushed, trying to lift the 1 1/4-ton vehicle off his arm. No go. Sams rolled on to his side and stretched out his legs, testing to see if he could reach one foot inside the Humvee and hit the gas. "Stuff you basically know you can't do," Sams recalls. "I was trying to save my arm."

Desperate, Sams called out in the dark that his arm was pinned and he needed someone to drive the Humvee off him. A lone figure appeared around the back of the Humvee. It was too dark for Sams to make out who it was. Maybe an insurgent, in which case he was dead. Sams watched the large silent figure lurch around the truck, struggle to climb in the driver's side opening, fail and fall down. Again, the figure tried to climb into the Humvee, and again he fell. Four times he tried and fell, Sams recalls. On the fifth attempt, the figure climbed into the driver's seat and reversed the Humvee off Sams's arm. Then the man collapsed and tumbled out of the Humvee onto the dirt field.

Sams tried to stand to go to his rescuer but fell forward; that's when he realized he had broken his ankle. He fell close enough to his rescuer to recognize him at last. It was Bernstein: Super Dave. "I asked him where he was hit," Sams recalls. "He said, 'My leg.'" Sams, who had taken a 2 1/2-day course in basic combat first aid, patted Bernstein's left leg until he felt dampness. "I found his entrance and exit wound," Sams says. "My fingers went in as I was patting him up." The insurgents' machine-gun fire had easily pierced the thin skin of their unarmored vehicle and struck Bernstein above the left knee...

...Sams went back to kneel beside his lieutenant. "My pants legs were instantly covered, drenched in blood," Sams says. The bullet had severed Bernstein's femoral artery. The lieutenant was going to bleed to death if they didn't tie a tourniquet around his leg fast. But they hadn't been issued tourniquets.

Eight months earlier, a committee of military medical experts had urged the Pentagon to give every soldier in the war a tourniquet. Bleeding to death from an arm or leg wound is the most common cause of preventable death in combat, the Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care reported. Quick access to a cheap, simple modern tourniquet could save many lives, military doctors had concluded. Yet it would be two more years before the U.S. Central Command, which runs combat operations in Iraq, adopted a policy saying all soldiers in combat should carry a tourniquet. Even then, the policy was moot because the Army didn't widely distribute tourniquets for several more months. An investigation by the Baltimore Sun spurred that distribution and documented one reason for the delay: Military procurement specialists were studying what kind of pouch to carry the new first aid kits with tourniquets in.

That left Sams, in October 2003, in much the same position as a soldier on a Revolutionary War battlefield: trying to improvise a tourniquet with a length of cloth and a stick. Only Sams couldn't find a stick in the Iraqi field.

"I was looking for anything hard," Sams recalls. He and Williams found a fuel-can nozzle in the Humvee. Sams wrapped a fresh field dressing around Bernstein's leg and used the gas nozzle to try to twist the dressing tightly enough to staunch the arterial bleed. As Sams twisted, the strings on the field dressing broke.

Desperate, Sams cut the strap off an M4 rifle and tried again. The strap didn't break, but it was too short. It kept coming untwisted, Sams says. So he tied a dressing on top of his improvised tourniquet to keep it in place. Bernstein still had a pulse, but he'd stopped moaning, Sams says.

Sams didn't have time to feel relieved when he finally spied his platoon leader and a few other soldiers -- a scouting party from the convoy -- walking toward their crash site. He checked the lieutenant's neck and could no longer find a pulse, he says. He tried to perform CPR, but with his wounded arm couldn't apply much pressure. He let one of the newly arrived soldiers take over. Sams leaned against the Humvee, exhausted, and watched a sad succession of privates and officers pound Bernstein's chest long past knowing their efforts were futile. Roughly an hour after the attack on the convoy, a Blackhawk helicopter arrived to evacuate Bernstein and Sams, according to interviews and records.

Sams, now a long-haul truck driver, never regained the feeling in his left arm. Bernstein, one of West Point's finest, a genuine hero educated for military brilliance at a cost of more than $400,000 to taxpayers, died without a $20 tourniquet.

Hua Guofeng for the '00's

I'm not generally a big Nicholas Kristof fan, but his latest column, on the failings of Hu Jintao and the hollow nature of China's justice system, is well-worth a read. Richard of Peking Duck has the column here. Kristof's conclusion?

Ultimately, Mr. Hu's efforts to create stability by clamping down just risk more instability. Most Chinese don't want upheavals, but they are fed up with corruption and lies, with being blocked from Google and Wikipedia, with having to waste time studying political drivel like Mr. Hu's "Eight Honorables and Eight Shames" campaign. Wags call it "Hu shuo ba dao," a clever pun that translates as "utter nonsense."

Indeed, Mr. Hu's crackdown has been singularly ineffective, annoying people more than scaring them. Many Communist Party officials worry that crackdowns just anger and alienate the public; that is why some have talked of allowing people to let off steam through greater freedom of the press and more elections. In one province, a poll found that 85 percent of officials themselves wanted to speed up political reform.

But Mr. Hu seems paralyzed, altogether the weakest Chinese leader since Hua Guofeng in the 1970's. The result? Brace yourself for turbulence ahead in China.

It's quite an accomplishment of the negative sort to be compared to Hua Guofeng.

One Chapter Left

And then I hope to recover my blogging brain...

Genghis the Accountant

From the AP:

Tom Robinson had long wondered about his family tree. He never suspected its roots might lie in the Mongolian steppe.

The Florida accountant knew that his great, great-grandfather had come to the United States from England — but beyond that his research drew a blank. So he turned to the burgeoning field of "bioarchaeology," having his DNA tested to see what it revealed about his origins.

He was in for a surprise. According to a British geneticist who pioneered the research, Robinson appears to be a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, the Mongol warrior who conquered vast tracts of Asia and Europe in the 13th century.

Well, that ought to be good for a few rounds of koumiss.

A Few Trip Reflections

All good (mild) manic phases must come to an end (dammit!), so I am back to sleeping a normal amount and not getting nearly as much done as I try to wrap up this book. Call it post-vacation let-down. I'm particularly susceptible when I have a vacation with as much variety and stimulation as this one. I went to my old haunt, Beijing, then on to Xiamen and Shanghai. For whatever reason, I found Beijing a little overwhelming this trip - the traffic, the huge, faceless buildings. I did have the pleasure of staying with a very dear friend of mine and getting to visit with her and her family. But I was happy to leave Beijing for Xiamen. I'd heard so many wonderful things about it.

I'm pleased to report that Xiamen is as good as advertised. It's a small (for China) city, built around a harbor, a beautiful setting. Formerly known as "Amoy" in the West, Xiamen was one of China's treaty ports. The old part of town is replete with traditional European and Chinese architecture - I'm told that the local government is more progressive than most and has a policy of historic preservation and sensible growth. From what I saw, I believe it. Old Xiamen is truly charming. It's one of the few urban environments I've been to in China where I would go to relax - I think you could spend a couple of weeks there, just hanging out, taking walks, eating all the great seafood...

After that I was concerned that Shanghai would be a disappointment. I'd been there once before, in 1993, but I was too busy scraping my jaw off the ground from all the changes in China since my stay in 1979/80 to really take in much about what the city was like. And I really wasn't in the mood for another frenetic, mega-city.

"Frenetic mega-city" was certainly my first impression of Shanghai from the train station. This might have had something to do with the fact that I was coming off a 26 hour train ride, on an older train whose crew was among the "no smoking" scofflaws - though no one in our compartment smoked, I had a sore throat and stuffed up head from what was circulating through the over-active air conditioner.

Or it might have had to do with Shanghai's being a frenetic mega-city! It's no wonder that filmmaker Michael Winterbottom chose to make a science fiction movie there.

But Shanghai was far more pleasant than I would have expected at first glance. Once you get into the neighborhoods, you'll find that many areas are built to human scale, fun to walk in, full of character. I'd never considered that I might want to live in Shanghai before, but I'm open to the possibility now. Shanghai Slim, one of my e-friends from Peking Duck, certainly provided an example of how to live in that city the right way.

After that, I returned for one final day in Beijing. This was one of the highlights of my trip - in spite of the fact that I managed to sprain both my ankles that morning (which did contribute to the day's memorability, I suppose). I went with a driver I've known for a number of years around to various artists' communities, to see the art and get a sense of what these places are like. The most interesting stop was Suojiacun. I'd read about Suojiacun in an LA TIMES article earlier this year. It had been a thriving community of artists from all around the world, living and working together, until the government declared the occupation illegal and demolished a section of the studios.

The article and the people I talked to had different explanations for this. The settlement didn't have the right permits, my driver said, and that's how the government deals with such things, by just destroying them. According to the article, the artists had tried to deal with the permits and had thought they had reached an acceptable agreement. My guess is that as happens so frequently in China, one faction (or individual) in the government might have agreed, but someone else with more power felt otherwise.

Oddly enough, an official-looking placard still informs you at the compound gate that you are entering "Suojiacun International Artists Encampment."

When I visited, nearly all of the artists had left. Many had gone to another abandoned factory space, some further out into the countryside in the hopes that they could find a place where they could live and work as a community without government interference. But as one artist I met put it, "the government doesn't like it when too many people live together" - meaning, they fear the political potential of an intellectual, artistic community. And it's true that a lot of Chinese art has a political implication. Not necessarily because it is directly political, but because it is honest, portraying what is going on in today's China, personal, depicting the struggles of individuals and the artists themselves in a society where rapid change and tradition don't so much collide as they do reflect each other in an endless hall of mirrors. Alienation, satire, brute realism abound in the best of what I saw...well, the stuff I liked the best, anyway. I'm so far from being an expert that I hesitate to even state an opinion.

There were so many other highlights: the taxi driver who lectured me on my unmarried state and the problems with contemporary society, the wonderful blogging community I finally got to meet in person, traveling with my buddy Richard, the delicious jiaozi and great conversation I shared with my friend Susan...overall, the opportunity to improve my Chinese, to talk to people and hear about their lives in their own words...and as always, the intrinsic excitement of being in China, of watching the changes there occur before my eyes.

I hope for the best for China. There is so much potential there, such a rich cultural heritage, so much energy and drive to create a better future. I can only imagine what might be created, when people like Hao Wu and the artists I met are free to express themselves and contribute to the political process.

I hope for the best.

Back home...

I'm back. I had an amazing trip. There are so many things I'd like to talk about right now that I can't talk about anything. Impressions, experiences - and a couple of fine articles about China. Oh, and Al Gore's new movie.

But since I've been home, I've been single-mindedly trying to get my book finished. I'm nearly there. I'm going to take advantage of this latent obsessive/compulsive impulse and see how much I can get done. Sleep? Bah! Who needs it?

More soon.

On Vacation

I'll be gone until May 25 or thereabouts. I'll try to post from the road but it's dubious - the Great Firewall doesn't like Blogger. But if I have time, I'll email someone on this side of the pond to post for me...

"In about 30 years, the forest will be gone"

Photograph by L.X. Gollin

After the positive news reported below, this story in the NY Times feels like a punch in the gut:

For as long as anyone can remember, Anyie Apoui and his people have lived among the majestic trees and churning rivers in an untouched corner of Borneo, catching fish and wild game, cultivating rice and making do without roads. But all that is about to change.

The Indonesian government has signed a deal with China that will level much of the remaining tropical forests in an area so vital it is sometimes called the lungs of Southeast Asia.

For China, the deal is a double bounty: the wood from the forest will provide flooring and furniture for its ever-expanding middle class, and in its place will grow vast plantations for palm oil, an increasingly popular ingredient in detergents, soaps and lipstick.

The forest-to-palm-oil deal, one of an array of projects that China said it would develop in Indonesia as part of a $7 billion investment spree last year, illustrates the increasingly symbiotic relationship between China's need for a wide variety of raw materials, and its Asian neighbors' readiness to provide them, often at enormous environmental cost.

Since this article is about to disappear behind the NYT's subscription wall, I'll quote at length:

From Indonesia to Malaysia to Myanmar, many of the once plentiful forests of Southeast Asia are already gone, stripped legally or illegally, including in the low-lying lands here in Kalimantan, on the Indonesian side of Borneo. Only about half of Borneo's original forests remain.

Those forests that do remain, like the magnificent stands here in Mr. Anyie's part of the highlands, are ever pressed, ever prized and ever more valuable, particularly as China's economy continues its surge.

Over all, Indonesia says it expects China to invest $30 billion in the next decade, a big infusion of capital that contrasts with the declining investment by American companies here and in the region.

Much of that Chinese investment is aimed at the extractive industries and infrastructure like refineries, railroads and toll roads to help speed the flow of Indonesia's plentiful coal, oil, gas, timber and palm oil to China's ports.

In one of the latest deals, on April 19, Indonesia announced that China had placed a $1 billion rush order for a million cubic yards of a prized reddish-brown hardwood, called merbau, to be used in construction of its sports facilities for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Merbau wood, mostly prevalent in Papua's virgin forests, has been illegally logged and shipped to China since the late 1990's, stripping large swathes of forest in the Indonesian province on the western side of the island of New Guinea.

The decision to award a $1 billion concession to China will "increase the deforestation of Papua," a place of extraordinary biodiversity, said Elfian Effendy, executive director of Greenomics, an Indonesian environmental watchdog. "It's not sustainable."

The plan for palm oil plantations on Borneo was signed during a visit by the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to Beijing last July.

Under pressure from environmental groups, the Indonesian environment and forestry ministries have come out against the plan. The coordinating minister for economic affairs, who goes by the single name Boediono, said in April that he was still weighing the pros and cons of executing the entire plan...

...Indonesia's environmentalists, and some economists, say chopping down as much as 4.4 million acres of the last straight-stemmed, slow-growing towering dipterocarp trees on Borneo would gravely threaten this region's rare ecosystem for plants, animals and people.

Maps for the project have aroused fears that it would encroach into the forest in Kayan Mentarang National Park, where the intoxicating mix of high altitude and equatorial humidity breeds an exceptional diversity of species, second only to Papua's, biologists say.

The area is the source of 14 of the 20 major rivers on Borneo, and the destruction of the forests would threaten water supplies to coastal towns, said Stuart Chapman, a director at the World Wildlife Fund in Indonesia...

...A three-day stay at a research station deep inside the forest told what is at stake for the ecosystem, first documented by Charles Darwin's colleague, Alfred Russel Wallace, in an account in the late 1850's called "The Malay Archipelago."

Wild mango trees, tropical oaks, pale-trunked myrtles, sago palms, rattan trees and pandanas with shiny leaves like long prongs crowded the hills that rise almost vertically above the river.

Exceedingly tall and elegant dipterocarps towered over all, their green canopies filtering shards of occasional sunlight. Underfoot, tiny dew-encrusted green mosses, still damp in the afternoon, clung to rocks, and miniature versions of African violets poked their mauve flowers just above the ground.

Wildlife abounds, said Stephan Wulffraat, 39, a Dutch conservation biologist and the director of the research station run by the World Wildlife Fund. The forest is home to seven species of leaf monkeys, he said, and at high noon, a crashing sound high in the trees announced a group's arrival. A red-coated deer made a fleeting appearance and dashed off.

On the gloomy forest floor, Mr. Wulffraat, who fends off leeches by tucking his pant legs into knee-length football socks, has set more than a dozen camera traps to photograph wild creatures too shy to appear.

Three years ago, an animal the size of a large cat with a bushy tail with a reddish fur sauntered by the camera. Mr. Wulffraat, a seven-year veteran of the forest, said that the animal resembled a civet, but he added that he and other experts believed that it was an entirely new species.

The discovery of a species of mammal like a civet is unusual, but dozens of new species of trees, mosses and herbs, butterflies, frogs, fresh water prawns and snakes have all been found since the station opened in 1991, he said. "This field station has more frogs and snake species around than in all of Europe," Mr. Wulffraat said.

I was alerted to this story by a good friend of mine who did her dissertation work in this part of Borneo. She writes:

I talked to Pak (Mr.) Anye, the village spokesman featured in the article, countless times over the course of my stay there. He said to me - I don't know who to believe any more. Everybody says they are on our side: WWF, miners, loggers, the government. Maybe we should just bring back head hunting and respond to outsider threats that way...

I have to hope it's not too late to stop this. Certainly Chinese environmentalists understand better than most the impact of these sorts of development projects. Maybe they can help.

Green Snippets

Some interesting environmental news related to China.

First, activist Yu Xiaogang, founder of the environmental group, Green Watershed, is one of this year's recipients of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, which he accepted at a ceremony in San Francisco. It is one of the continuing paradoxes of modern China, where political competition is relentlessly stifled, that an environmental activist who organizes local communities that are impacted by the seemingly endless hydroelectric projects on China's rivers is able to do work which directly empowers people to participate in decisions that affect their lives. Go read the interview with Yu at Grist Magazine. Here's an excerpt:

Q: I understand that the watershed project inspired many local residents to speak publicly about their experiences. How did you encourage them to break their tradition of silence?

A: For about six years, we have had several kinds of workshops in Lashi Lake, and all of them are very participatory. So the local people have practiced this approach, and gradually they know that they can speak for their own interests, and change their lives themselves. For instance, one of the local people participated in a United Nations hydropower meeting in Beijing, where he could freely dialogue with hydropower CEOs and the decision-makers in the Chinese central government. He could talk with these leaders to protect his interests and his community's interests.

Q: What kind of opposition did you encounter as you developed the project?

A: There were many challenges -- there are still many rumors about me, about my organization, about the management of the project. There are some rumors that the organization is illegal, and that any people who participate in it should be careful. Many people think I have a secret agenda.

Any activity that involves organizing people outside of the CCP's auspices involves a certain degree of risk. Kudos and congratulations to Yu Xiaogang. China's future depends on people like him.

Several British papers have reported on a Green city to be built near Shanghai. The most comprehensive article is in the Independent:

Soaring demand for energy and heavy dependence on coal, China is often depicted as the world's environmental bogeyman. Yet Dongtan, a ground-breaking eco-city to be built near Shanghai, is already setting new standards in sustainable urban planning and inspiring decision-makers worldwide - including London's mayor, Ken Livingstone.

Dongtan will be built just 3km from a bird sanctuary whose varied residents include the endangered black-faced spoonbill (just one thousand of these large, white wading birds are estimated to remain in the wild). And its location, in protected wetlands on Chongming Island at the mouth of the Yangtze river, doesn't exactly sound like a good starting point for an environmentally sustainable city with a population of half a million.

But Dongtan's designers insist that it's a blueprint for how cities could support, rather than destroy, the environment. For its two major goals are to generate zero carbon emissions and cut average energy demands by two thirds via a unique city layout, energy infrastructure and building design.

"Two years ago we were approached to assess the likely ecological impact of developing a city in an area adjacent to protected wetland," says Alejandro Gutierrez, design leader for Dongtan at Arup Urban Design, London. "Our belief was that there was a wonderful opportunity to build a new city that, through its design and construction, would also address a broader range of concerns, such as air quality, and energy demand."...

...Dongtan will be built on an island that has grown over the past 100 years from silt dumped by the Yangtze. The Chinese government has consistently reclaimed land from the marshlands around it, but the plan is that Dongtan will be the area's last piece of development - so further silt deposits will simply increase the available natural habitat for the birds.

Well, the proximity of the bird sanctuary does give one pause. But the plans for Dongtan sound pretty impressive:

The city itself is being designed around a series of village-style neighbourhoods to make it pedestrian- rather than car-friendly. The alignment of streets will capitalise on the microclimates created by urban development, and the width and aspect of buildings will optimise the benefits of shade and direct sun to ensure efficient energy use. An integrated mix of residential, commercial and industrial areas - common in the West but unusual in China - will ensure people walk to most places they need to reach.

Technology to both generate and save energy will be integrated into buildings and all modes of transport. The emphasis is on making eco-living the norm, rather than trumpeting Dongtan's green credentials with bold - and, potentially, intimidating - statements.

"We don't want to replicate a European city in China, or create an alienating futuristic environment," says urban designer Braulio Morera, who is also working on the Arup team. "We want to reinterpret a Chinese city - and Chinese urban lifestyle - for the 21st century. Bicycles, for example, will be a major feature, as will boats, but the bikes will be powered by renewables, and the boats by hydrogen."

Dongtan's developers are also commited to returning agricultural land around the city to its original wetland state. This will create a buffer zone between the city and the marshes that will cut down the spread of pollutants to areas where the black-faced spoonbills congregate. Farmland around the city will grow food for the residents.

The project has implications far beyond China. For better or worse, cities are the future homes for most of humanity. A project like Dongtan could provide a blueprint for sustainable development around the world. It's a model we desperately need.

Speaking Truthiness to Power

Still finishing my book, but I have to give major props to Stephen Colbert and his performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. What is normally a mild, insider's roast of the President and the powers that be was at Colbert's hands, an evisceration. Colbert stood not more than ten feet from Bush and ripped him to shreds. I'm not one of those who condemns the media wholesale - some people have spoken the truth all along - Paul Krugman and Frank Rich come to mind, among others - but I've never seen anything like this. Here's a taste:

"I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."

It takes real guts and balls of steel to stand up to the second-most powerful man in the world (Cheney couldn't make it) and expose him for the nasty, stupid, vicious Frat-Boy King he is.

UPDATE II - if you liked what Colbert had to say, go and tell him.

ONE MORE UPDATE: the links I originally posted are down and/or wonky. Try the links on the "Thank You Stephen Colbert" page referenced above, or those posted by Stickdog in the comments.

I'm the Writer. That means I get to Write Things.

Yeah, in spite of the fact that there are a lot of interesting China stories to report - and political stories too ("I'm the Decider. That means I get to decide things"), I'm not posting so much. I am on the home stretch of my latest novel. Unlike my other tree-killers, this one looks like it will clock in around 100,000 words. I've got about four chapters left.

I'm heading out of town in about three weeks and would like to get the draft done before I go...we'll see...

Latest Hao Wu Update

This is not exactly good news. But because there has been no word from Hao, because the attempts of his family to handle this quietly and without too much outside publicity have not worked, the campaign to free him is escalating with a letter-writing campaign and a petition to President Hu Jintao for Wu Hao's immediate release. President Hu will be visiting the United States from April 18th through the 21st. Originally the hope was that he would consider releasing Wu Hao as a gesture of good-will in advance of that visit. Obviously this hasn't happened. Whether this is because Hao's detention is especially sensitive or because it simply hasn't been brought to Hu Jintao's attention is impossible to say. But now is the time to try and get some publicity for Hao.

technorati tags: freehaowu

Hao Wu Update

The first time I was in China, back when there was no doubt you were living in a totalitarian state, albeit one that was struggling to come back to life after the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, a friend sent us a special baseball cap to wear. It had the word "Kafka" embroidered in red across the front. We thought that was pretty damn funny at the time.

Unfortunately there's no new news on Hao's situation. His sister, Nina (Wu Na) continues to blog about her efforts to get justice for her brother. The term "Kafkaesque" could have been coined just to describe some of the situations in which she has found herself.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the Beijing Petition Office clutching my last strand of hope. On arriving I was startled by the number of police cars parked at the gate. Were there normally so many police there for protection? Were they afraid of someone causing trouble? The petition office was much noisier than the Public Security Bureau. Most of the people were white-haired elderly women. When I was almost to the front of the line, a few bright-eyed and strapping men, whispering to each other, suddenly appeared in the main hall. Their arrival was clearly incompatible with the atmosphere of the hall. Before I had finished explaining the situation, the petition receptionist told me that the Beijing Public Security Bureau was a specialized organization, and the Beijing city government could not exercise supervision over it. In reply, I told her that my brother lived in Beijing, and was taken away by Beijing police, why couldn’t they exercise supervision over this? The receptionist helplessly answered that the Beijing Public Security Bureau is under the direct jurisdiction of higher authorities. Did this mean that the city government did not even have the right of inquiry regarding its actions? Under duress from me, she gave me a suggestion: report the situation to the Procuratorate [the prosecutor’s office]. The Procuratorate should be able to supervise the Public Security Bureau. It appears that the petition offices of all government organs only serve as windows. None of them can solve real problems. They can’t even accept materials. Looking at the two sparse lines of characters on their petition registration form, and the employee next to it typing at a computer, my heart was overcome with despair. In the end, would this all just become a record in some computer?

For someone who doesn't consider herself a writer, I'm really impressed by Nina's ability to clearly and eloquently express herself in such unbelievably stressful circumstances. It must run in the family.

The only remotely positive thing I can find in this wretched situation is the way that Hao's plight has raised the consciousness of the people around him (and that's not much consolation). Here's Nina's account of an email she received from a friend of Hao's:

“I was your brother’s classmate at the University of Science and Technology. We haven’t been in touch for fourteen years, but I remember your brother’s lively and optimistic personality!

Today, by chance I read on the Internet that he had been arrested. I was shocked. I also finally learned about his lifestyle and thinking these last few years. I am very proud to have that kind of friend.

As a Chinese person, I am also grieved that our country is still unable to guarantee the basic legal rights of its citizens!

Every time the west discusses freedom of speech, I always think they’re being meddlesome. Today I finally have a personal understanding; if a country cannot guarantee the basic rights of its citizens, it concerns each and every one of us!

This is the country of us, the Chinese people. These are our legal rights. We need to strive for them ourselves!

I hope your family can realize that Hao Wu’s arrest, and failure to receive normal trial procedure and legal defense is not an injustice for him alone. Many conscientious, just-minded Chinese people also deeply feel this injustice. We support the efforts of you and your family, and extend our respect!”

Nina's own thoughts at the end of this post are especially poignant:

In fact, before this happened to my brother, I felt that I had it all: family, friends, a job I liked, and a typical Shanghai “little capitalist” life. I felt that I had the ability to control everything. I could choose the lifestyle I wanted; I could choose my circle of friends…in fact this was just what it looked like. It is so easy for someone to lose his or her privileges. An ordinary person can very easily be taken from his or her daily life. It doesn’t require any warning or reason, and of course it doesn’t require the assent of that person. Legal help is also unavailable. Even though the thirty-sixth clause of the Constitution states, “The physical freedom of the citizens of the People’s Republic of China cannot be violated…it is forbidden to detain or use other methods to take away or limit the physical freedom of a citizen; it is forbidden to illegally search the body of a citizen,” my brother has already lost his freedom. The staff of the Procuratorate did not deny that laws were being broken in the current stage, but no organization or person has stopped these illegal phenomena from continuing.

Really, only when your own rights are violated do you realize their importance to you. I am now beginning to pay attention to law, beginning to look for rights I might have. I hope that it isn’t all too late.

At the same time, I know that I already have lost my right to privacy. I know that they know my every movement. Actually, when you act magnanimously, there is nothing to conceal. I haven’t done anything that I’d be ashamed to show others. I will continue to strive for my brother’s early release. It’s just that I don’t know: when all the legal channels have been exhausted, will anything be left?

What a brave woman. I hope that you'll take a moment to visit freehaowu and leave your comments of support. Or if you have a blog, and these words inspire you to post about Hao and Nina, please write about them. It feels like a straw in the wind, but we need to keep their story alive.

technorati tags: freehaowu

Where I'd like to be...

Yelapa Beach
Originally uploaded by Other Lisa.

I was all steamed up to write a rant about the treatment of Jill Carroll by some members of the media and the right-wing blogosphere. I'd gone, accidentally, to a website where the blogger had put up a post insulting Carroll (though he says this was not his intent), and I just went ballistic. I flipped out. Some combination of cumulative outrage and the very real emotion I'd invested in this particular story. I was going to talk about why Carroll's story resonated so much with me - (short version - I relate to a female journalist who took the time to learn the local language and customs to cover the story the right way; what happened to her in Iraq seemed to encapsulate so much of the wretched waste of Bush's war, the death of her intepreter, her being terrorized and threatened with murder even though she tried to do the right thing. And oh yes, the sexism of it - those awful outfits her fundamentalist captors dressed her in for the videos, the howling, vicious nastiness of many right-wing bloggers, and the more subtle character assassination of WaPo's Howard Kurtz, blaming her for the propaganda video she was forced to make at gunpoint...and that's as short a version as I can make).

Anway, I was all set to write a blow-by-blow of my flip-out on this blog, complete with the best of my scathing, shot-gun blast and pretty nasty comments...except then I somehow ended up in an email exchange with the site owner. And though I still think he's totally wrong, connecting issues that shouldn't be connected and politically deluded...well, we had a civil conversation on email. And that takes the steam right out of my anger.

Not about what was done to Jill Carroll. Not about what the right wing has done to this country. But towards this particular person, who took the time to try and articulate his position in a polite way.

Make of this what you will about its relevance to the state of contemporary political discourse and effects of the Blogosphere thereupon...

I'll still disagree, but I'm not going to hate. At least, not right now.

(NOTE: New "Buddha Nature" does not apply to violent religious fundamentalists, the Bush Administration or Bill Napoli. Other restrictions may apply)

Soldier

Soldier
Photograph by Rick Loomis, Los Angeles Times

I want to bring your attention to an excellent series in the Los Angeles Times on how wounded soldiers' lives are being saved and how their lives are changed forever after. The photos are more graphic than has been typical of coverage of this war, and if you still get an actual newspaper delivered to your door, like I do, they've placed fairly disturbing images prominently on the front page (the LAT has been more willing to publish graphic war photographs and to examine how the press and media have dealt with such images than most mainstream media outlets).

Whether you're for the war or against it, this is what war does.

Parts one, two and three, along with additional web-only features, can be found here.