How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?
Reuters points out the difficulties in Taiwan Pop Culture Invades China:

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Lu Jing, a 21-year-old stowaway from China, paid 20,000 yuan (US$2,400) and hid for three days in a flimsy Taiwan-bound fishing boat before being caught by the island's coast guard in March.

Reuters Photo

But Lu, from the southeastern city of Fuzhou, was no defector from communist rule to freewheeling democratic Taiwan.

She told astonished Taiwan interrogators that she wanted to steal into the island to get a glimpse of F4 (Flower Four), a Taiwan boy band that has swept fans in China -- and indeed much of the rest of the Chinese-speaking world -- off their feet.

China's cultural Czars had pulled "Meteor Garden," a hit soap opera featuring the band's four tall and handsome heart throbs, off the air, fearing that the decadent lifestyle portrayed in the drama would corrupt the minds of the masses.

Taiwan pop culture has permeated China since the world's most populous nation opened up in the late 1970s. But China's cultural mandarins remain on guard against what they call "peaceful evolution" -- the gradual undermining of communism by Western cultural, commercial and ideological values.

"Orthodox Communist Party leaders see pop culture as a kind of threat," said Hou Dejian, a Taiwan composer-singer who was welcomed by China with open arms when he defected in 1983.

"Pop culture is their number one enemy," said Hou, whom China deported for taking part in a hunger strike days before the Chinese army crushed the 1989 student-led demonstrations for democracy centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

"They are convinced there was a direct relationship between pop culture and the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe," Hou, now 45, added.

Despite the ban, millions in China have seen "Meteor Garden," adapted from the Japanese comic book "Hana Yori Dango" -- meaning Boys Prettier than Flowers -- about friendship and love.

And I thought pop culture was just responsible for the impending collapse of Western Civilization. Official Meteor Garden web site:

Sic 'em
Since we have to put up with trial lawyers, we might as well point them in a useful direction. The Staten Island Advance reports that 1,000 kin of Island WTC dead could join lawsuit, lawyer says :

The news that lawyers for survivors of Sept. 11 victims are poised to sue the alleged Saudi financiers of Osama bin Laden has sparked renewed interest in the case among potential Staten Island plaintiffs, according to a member of the legal team.

"The phones haven't stopped ringing here all day," said West Brighton attorney John D'Amato yesterday.

Headed by a partner from the South Carolina firm Ness Motley, the legal team has announced that within the next few weeks it will file a federal suit seeking billions of dollars in reparations for Sept. 11 victims' relatives from wealthy Saudi citizens, banks, corporations and charities with ties to bin Laden.

Forget the daisycutters, we're talking the ultimate weapon here!

Hey, Why Not?
The leftist Inter Press Service lets us know what's roiling the waters with: Group Faults Libya's Nomination to Head U.N. Commission:

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 8 (IPS) - A leading human rights organization has appealed to African nations to reverse their decision to nominate Libya as the next chairman of the Geneva-based U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

"Countries with dreadful rights records should never be in charge of chairing the Commission on Human Rights," Rory Mungoven, global advocacy director for New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), said Thursday.

"Libya's long record of human rights abuses clearly does not merit such a reward," he added.

But a spokesman for the Libyan Mission to the United Nations refuted the charges made by HRW. "They are entitled to their opinion," he told IPS.

"Ours is an open society. We have nothing to hide and we are not in violation of human rights," he added.

Moreover, he said, Libya's nomination had been endorsed at the highest levels of government - at a summit meeting of more than 50 African leaders in Durban, South Africa last month.

Wow! What an endorsement! Actually, if the UN had strict standards, not many of the members could be on any committee.

Hugo's Knickers Are in a Twist (Again)
The reason is U.S. Launches Office in Venezuela

What's in a name? Everything, it turns out, when the U.S. government launches an "Office of Transition Initiatives" in Venezuela. The Venezuelan government fears "transition" means ousting their president.

U.S. diplomats say the two-year program, to begin this fall, will promote democracy and stability in Venezuela, a top U.S. oil supplier shaken by an April coup, which briefly removed leftist President Hugo Chavez from power.

But Chavez, his top ministers, ruling party lawmakers and the press seized upon the name. "Transition" is a "code word" for those openly looking to topple Chavez, Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton complained this week.

Wait 'til Hugo finds out about "early retirement".

Poor Baby
South Africa's News24 amuses with 'Arafat is living in squalor' :

United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa, who visited Israel and Palestine this week and met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, has expressed horror at the condition in which he found Arafat living in his compound.

Holomisa went to Israel to study agricultural projects aimed at helping poor and rural communities.

He told City Press the conditions in which he found Arafat at his bombed-out compound are horrific .

"Arafat is basically living in squalor. It is pathetic that a leader of his calibre is forced to sleep on the floor in his office," said Holomisa. "I was surprised that a leader of a nation could find himself living under such conditions."

He's lucky he found himself living.

That Sounds Effective
The United Nations warms hearts with Deploring upsurge in Middle East violence, UNESCO chief urges dialogue among youth

Deploring the heavy civilian toll caused by the recent upsurge of violence in the Middle East, the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has urged dialogue among young people in order to foster reconciliation.

Got a match? I want to light my sneakers.

Makes Sense ... If You Live In Wonderland
The AP let us know that Mexico unveils new council for Mexicans living in the United States:

President Vicente Fox inaugurated a new outreach council Tuesday that will represent the 20 million Mexicans living in the United States and replace a popular presidential office for migrant affairs that his government dissolved last month.

In a ceremony at the presidential residence Los Pines, Fox said the new Council for Mexicans Abroad will allow "more facets of the federal government to devote more attention" to the needs of Mexicans living and working in America.

"We are reinforcing our close relationship with our co-nationals outside the country," Fox said. "We are taking a strong step forward in our efforts to meet their demands and defend their human rights."

No mention of bus tickets.

Religion of Peace Alert
AFP is reporting: Four dead after grenade attack on Pakistan Christian hospital

A grenade attack on a hospital chapel near the Pakistani capital left at least four dead and 26 wounded, the second time within days a Christian target has been hit.

Two Pakistani nurses and a paramedic were among the dead, while one of the attackers was found dead at the scene, hospital workers and witnesses said on Friday.

The assailants hurled grenades as staff were emerging from a church service around 7:45 am (0145 GMT) at the Christian Hospital in Taxila, an ancient Buddhist town 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Islamabad.

"They were coming out of a church service when they were attacked," Marwad Shah, police chief in the nearby city of Rawalpindi, told AFP.

It takes a really cowardly thug to throw grenades at people coming out of a worship service. It takes a really stupid one to get blown up doing it.

Country Living
Bill Croke has a cautionary tale for city slickers considering moving to the country. Some of it is rather specific to the West where you don't ever buy land without finding out about the water and mineral rights. But most of the rest can be applied anywhere in rural America. With just a little bit of greening of the city folks.

University of North Carolina Summer Reading Update
On Thursday night, the News and Observer web site came up with: Book author, Muslim group, react to committee's vote on Quran textbook as all the usual suspects weighed in. First the author, Michael Sells:

Islam is mischaracterized as a religion of violence in contrast to peaceful Christianity by opponents who cite verses in the Quran that demand slaying the unfaithful, Sells said. Most Muslims interpret those verses in the context of early war between Muhammad's followers and their opponents.

Muslims "no more expect to apply them to their contemporary non-Muslim friends and neighbors than most Christians and Jews consider themselves commanded by God, like the Biblical Joshua, to exterminate the infidels," said Sells, a professor of comparative religions at Haverford College in suburban Philadelphia.

I guess the prof hasn't been keeping up with current events. Then the whiners at CAIR had a shot:

Meanwhile, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations pointed to the North Carolina dispute as evidence of "the rising level of anti-Muslim rhetoric in America."

"The level of anti-Muslim rhetoric from commentators, religious leaders, and now elected officials, is getting out of hand and is poisoning the minds of many ordinary Americans," the group said in a prepared statement. "Only a strong statement from President Bush will put these people on notice that anti-Muslim bigotry will not be accepted in our society."

It must be bigotry to notice that violent Islamic thugs want to kill you and your fellow citizens.

Then today's News and Observer finally came up with some of the legislative details plus an amplified whine in Study limit may risk certification :

The House Appropriations Committee overwhelmingly approved a measure Wednesday barring the university from spending public funds for the Quran reading program "unless all other known religions are offered in an equal or incremental way." The measure, sponsored by Rep. Larry Justus, a Henderson County Republican, said it was "not intended to interfere with academic freedom, but to ensure that all religions are taught in a non-discriminatory fashion."

"The point is, you shouldn't be confronted with this as a mandate of government," Rep. Martin Nesbitt Jr., a Buncombe County Democrat, said Thursday. "What if I forced all of the children in the state to read the Bible?"

Real legislative genius! Hit 'em with one of their own favorite whines. Speaking of which, some new moans were registered:

"I don't think the state can question the right of scholars to make those pedagogical decisions," said Warren A. Nord, a UNC-CH scholar who studies how religion is taught in U.S. schools. Nord, director of the UNC-CH Program in the Humanities and Human Values, said he doubted the measure could withstand constitutional scrutiny.

...

Retired UNC president William C. Friday compared the House measure to the Speaker Ban Law, enacted by the legislature in 1963 to bar communists from speaking on state campuses. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools criticized that measure as a threat to academic freedom, and it considered revoking the accreditation of North Carolina's state-supported universities.

Friday and others persuaded SACS in 1965 to renew the accreditations, but the ban lingered as a divisive issue in Chapel Hill and across the state. In 1968, ruling on a challenge filed by Chapel Hill student leaders, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Speaker Ban Law unconstitutional.

"I understand the depth of feelings in the current debate," Friday said Thursday. But he said he hoped the legislature would remove the House reading ban before adopting the budget, "because the university would suffer greatly from another lengthy, costly battle over accreditation that would surely ensue."

Sorry gents, but you've been foxed. The NC legislature merely ensured that state funds would not be used to favor one religion over another when UNC management forgot their responsiblities (politely put). No one was told what to teach. No point of view was banned. Bzzzt - game over.