Chinese Govt's Brutal Crackdown on Falun Gong Continues

- Police detaining a Falun Gong protester in Beijing, on Oct 1, 2000. Photo by Chien-min Chung/Associated Press.

It has been a decade since the Chinese government began repressing the Falun Gong practitioners.

'In the past year, as many as 8,000 practitioners have been detained, according to experts on human rights, and at least 100 have died in custody. Among them were Yu Zhou, 42, a popular Beijing musician, and Cao Changling, the 77-year-old vice director of a paper plant in Wuhan, whose bruised body was returned to his family by the police last summer just as China was reveling in the glory of the Olympic Games.

In recent months, scores of practitioners have been given long prison terms, including Zhang Xingwu, a retired physics professor from Shandong Province who last week was sentenced to seven years after the police found Falun Gong literature in his apartment, according to family members.

The continued crackdown highlights the difficulty of eradicating a movement whose adherents stubbornly cling to their beliefs, but it also provides a window into the psyche of an authoritarian government that, despite its far-reaching power, remains deeply insecure.

From the outset, the group, which at its peak claimed to have millions of followers around China, insisted that it wanted only legal recognition, not political power. But the country’s top leaders were alarmed by the group’s ability to attract a devoted following from so many citizens.'

Falun Gong remains a toxic subject in China. Few academics will speak about it on the record, and the Internet is scoured clean of information that might be construed as sympathetic to Falun Gong.

For the Falun Gong devotees who practice in secret, the only glimmer of hope has come from a small but growing number of lawyers who have dared to take on their cases. Even if the legal efforts have mostly come to naught, until recently Falun Gong detainees were denied even the right to a lawyer.

Last week, Jiang Yu, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, reiterated the government’s long-held stance that Falun Gong warrants suppression because it emphasizes meditation and the paranormal over modern medicine. “The Falun Gong cult violates human rights by controlling people’s minds,” he said in response to a reporter’s query.

Among experts based outside the country, there is broad consensus that the government’s efforts have not done much to advance its own interests, at least internationally, where it has been dogged by allegations that it uses torture to crush believers into submission.

‘The excesses and the savagery have really lowered the quality of the government and harmed its reputation abroad,” said Jerome Cohen, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on Chinese law. “They’re paying a high price for the cruelty to these people.”

According to Falun Gong followers and Chinese lawyers who take on their cases, that cruelty continues unabated.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/world/asia/28china.html?th&emc=th

What Happened to the Assault Weapon Ban?

It seems the NRA is getting in the way of it, and they're also opposing other reasonable gun control policies. The NRA is known to be one of the most powerful lobbies in America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27Carter.html?th&emc=th

This NYT op-ed was written by the one and only Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States of America and 2002 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

While most Americans believe in the right to own weapons, most also believe in "modest restraints like background checks, mandatory registration and brief waiting periods before purchase." Most Americans also favor a ban on assault weapons.

Some statistics on gun violence; "In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 30,000 people died from firearms, accounting for nearly 20 percent of all injury deaths. In 2005, every nine hours a child or teenager in the United States was killed in a firearm-related accident or suicide."

The NRA is the main foe in this battle to secure an assault weapons ban. The NRA is even "defending criminals’ access to assault weapons and use of ammunition that can penetrate protective clothing worn by police officers on duty."

By the way, don't fuck with J. Carter. As he says, "I have used weapons since I was big enough to carry one, and now own two handguns, four shotguns and three rifles, two with scopes."

Internet in Some Developing Countries Not Profitable

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/technology/start-ups/27global.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Certain internet companies, particularly ones that require large amounts of data transfer and thus bandwidth, including many of the most popular online sites such as Youtube, Facebook, and Myspace, are having trouble finding a balance between profit and idealism. Ideally, most of them agree they would like to have their websites be accessed by all the people around the world, but in reality, developing countries eat up a lot of bandwith and generate very little revenue (I assume because they aren't clicking on ads, which I never do, for that matter, do you?). Some companies, such as Veoh, a video sharing site, have gone so far as to restrict access to their sites in Latin America, Africa, and the Eastern Europe, while others offer 'lite' versions such as Profile Lite (for Myspace) in India.

'This intractable contradiction has become a serious drag on the bottom lines of photo-sharing sites, social networks and video distributors like YouTube. It is also threatening the fervent idealism of Internet entrepreneurs, who hoped to unite the world in a single online village but are increasingly finding that the economics of that vision just do not work.

“I believe in free, open communications,” Dmitry Shapiro, [Veoh]’s chief executive, said. “But these people are so hungry for this content. They sit and they watch and watch and watch. The problem is they are eating up bandwidth, and it’s very difficult to derive revenue from it.”

Internet start-ups that came of age during the Web 2.0 era, roughly from 2004 to the beginning of the recession at the end of 2007, generally subscribed to a widely accepted blueprint: build huge global audiences with a free service, and let advertising pay the bills.

But many of them ran smack into global economic reality. There may be 1.6 billion people in the world with Internet access, but fewer than half of them have incomes high enough to interest major advertisers.

If Web companies “really want to make money, they would shut off all those countries [Latin America, Africa, and parts of the Middle East and Asia]," said Michelangelo Volpi, chief executive of Joost.

“The part of me that wants to change the world says, ‘This is unfair, it shouldn’t be like this,’ ” Mr. Shapiro [of Veoh] said. “On the other hand, from the business side of things, serving videos to the entire world is just not supportable at this time.” '

- an internet cafe(?) in India. photo courtesy of NYT.

BE HAPPY

WISE DOME

DR. J (aka Julius Erving)

Dr. J now + his wife:

How Green is Your Stimulus Package?

http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13432051&fsrc=nwl

"This week HSBC, a big bank, published a report ranking 17 countries by the green elements of their economic-stimulus packages."

Read the full report here; http://globaldashboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/HSBC_Green_New_Deal.pdf

Two US Journalists Jailed in North Korea

'Ms. [Laura] Ling and Ms. [Euna] Lee, reporters for Current TV, a San Francisco-based media venture founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, were arrested by the North Korean military on March 17 on charges of illegally crossing the border from China. They were in China to report the plight of North Korean refugees who fled hunger at home and were living in hiding there.

This was the first reported case in which a U.S. citizen will be indicted and tried in North Korea, South Korean officials said. The North’s criminal code calls for between 5 and 10 years of "education through labor" for people convicted of "hostile acts" against the state.

In a "severe" case, the code allows more than 10 years in labor camp.'

The US government is attempting to secure their release. Current TV does not seem to have made a statement as of yet. Please keep your eyes and ears peeled for updates.

- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/world/asia/01korea.html?th&emc=th

Damu - Spare Time (2008)

Free album from Damu.

"Spare Time breaks us off with crispy, sampled drums and intricately chopped to death samples destined to keep heads nodding and mp3 players rumbling until the next release. More than a mere beat snippet compilation, Spare Time presents full length tracks that showcase masterful low pass filtering and phenomenal breakdowns, many of which occur at the very end of the track. Always one to deliver what a beat head really craves, Damu embraces the essence of Hip-Hop by taking us on a sonic sound trip using only a stripped down Akai MPC 2000 and the honed skill of a master craftsman."
- Courtesy of Crate Kings

RZA early production history interview

One last one while were at it. the ASR-10 appears to be RZA's weapon of choice.

"In 1991-1992, Ensoniq put out the ASR-10, and when they did that, that's when i became a master producer. The whole first 100 wu tang songs were made on the ASR-10."

Damu the Fudgemunk - More Producer Interviews

He says he stayed up for three days when he got his first sampler. At 17. He's 24 now.

Madlib, PB Wolf interviews

+ Oh No and DJ Romes

Too bad I don't speak Norwegian. Great interviews though.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Funk Man (The Stimulus Package)

Single off Del's new free album, Funk Man - The Stimulus Package.

Track is called; "Get it right now"

GET IT RIGHT GET IT NOW GET IT RIGHT NOW

Souls of Mischief - Never No More

Off their dope '93 'til Infinity album. A must have.

First Coverage of Military Casket in 18 Years

Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers was killed in Afghanistan on Saturday via an improvised explosive decvice. He was 30 years old, from Virginia, and is survived by his wife.

Interestingly, the Navy Times reported that "no live filming was allowed" at the event, yet we have the AP video right here. Family permission is required for media coverage.

The Navy Times was supportive of the lift of the ban, calling it "an early watershed in the administration of President Barack Obama, a nod in favor of transparency and away from secrecy favored by prior administrations."

More on the matter here;

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/04/gns_hero_returns_040609w/

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/04/home-to-dover.html

PS - the LA Times plagiarized the Navy Times with this line; "Almost all of the 4,266 casualties in Iraq and the 668 casualties in Afghanistan through the end of March have come through Dover’s mortuary, military officials said earlier this year." Come on LA Times, step it up.

See this past post for more on the media-ban lift; http://curiousspencer.blogspot.com/2009/02/defense-chief-lifts-ban-on-pictures-of.html