free egypt

Greetings,

I ruled for 30 years. The military said, It's time to go, Everyone from Cairo to Greenland has had enough of your senile stalling.

I said, Wait, I need another 30 years. No they said, You have 30 seconds, The Egyptian people have spoken with one voice, You have 30 seconds.

I cried, stamping my feet like a spoiled child. I don't want to go. I don't want to go.

Someone handed me a microphone and a scrap of parchment from the Dead See. They said, Take the paper. Look into the camera and read the script. I trembled with fear and anxiety. I took the parchment. I looked into a blinking red eye. I read the script.

My finally free fantastic fellow citizens. I would like to thank the Academy for this opportunity and all the rich memories. It's been a long strange trip. I wish you all the best realizing your freedom from tyranny, repression and idiots like me. My family and I will now take our immense wealth and retire to our resort villa. We will remember you when we eat caviar off gold plates. Farewell my love.

The red light went off. The paper fluttered from my arthritic fingers. Fireworks and ectoblastic jubilated pandemonium erupted throughout Egypt. Slaves loaded our camels. I led my family across the burning desert toward sand castles in the harsh light of reality.

What a glorious day papa, said my child, one of 80 million, I feel free. 

Metta.

Tarek Bouazizi

Greetings,

Tarek Bouazizi, 26, finally had enough of the endless cycle of bribery, threats, and corruption. He sold vegetables on the streets in the small town of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia where the unemployment rate was 30%.

He loved poetry. He supported his mother, uncles, and five brothers and sisters at home.

He set himself on fire. He died. Tunisians grabbed their chance at freedom. The dictator of 23 years ran away. Middle Eastern and North African despots and autocratic dictators went into denial mode.

Oh no, we're next, they cried. Yemen, Libya, and Egypt gave the police and military more money to protect their intractable insatiable greed to maintain power and control. They decreased the price of food to temporarily appease hungry people.  

Protect us in our castles and mansions. Protect us from educated individuals demanding human rights, equality and an end to the charade, to our reign of economic terror. Protect us from desperate citizens setting themselves on fire. Protect us from the aftermath.

You have to sacrifice the peel to enjoy the fruit.

Metta.

Read more, NYT.

Mr. Liu dreams

Greetings,

Inside my solitary confinement cell 300 light years from freedom I was dreaming about fantasy baseball playoff games, international human rights and my wife when the starving destitute guards showed up.

It was dark. The bases were loaded in the top of the 9th.

1.6 million fans were standing, screaming and waving red star flags. It was a full count. The micro-managers in the Forbidden City were tearing their hair out. They'd exhausted their bullpens, bloody fountain pens and bullshit. 

A guard scratched on the iron bars. Let's go, he said, We're moving you out. Orders from the Noble Leadership. It's dynamite. Everyone's afraid for your safety. We need to get you to a safe undisclosed secret location.

They shackled me to Charter 08 and dragged me down a long and winding labyrinth. It smelled like yesterday's pig slop.

A white rabbit carrying a pocket watch ran past us. I'm late, I'm late, for a very impotent date. Farewell cruel world!

They put a bag over my head. I couldn't breathe. They stuffed me into a vehicle. They drove forever and a day. Years later we reached Oslo, Norway. I heard a familiar language.

They stopped, opened the door and threw me out. Don't come back! they screamed.

I hit the bricks. I rolled. I tumbled. A child found me. They removed my hood. I blinked, blinded by clear light. Another child cut off my chains. They led me to a castle. My wife was there. All my friends from human rights organizations, writers, artists and supporters were there.

I was free.

Metta.

gateless Gate

Greetings,

I love the new gate at our Beijing community of Chinese migrants. It keeps us in and the rich people out.

It's clean, efficient and durable. It's really fancy. I imagine it cost someone in the Housing Community Control big money. Local officials call it "sealed management." 

''Closing up the village benefits everyone,'' read one banner put up when the first, permanent gated village was introduced in April.

Metta.

NYT
 

 

798

Greetings,

Living in a huge art museum we can never escape art. Where does the artificial end and the real begin?

798 is a district in Beijing where artists collaborate and present their vision, similar to the Left Bank or Greenwich Village.

798...

Wu Yuren, an artist who led a public protest over land thieves was recently arrested. “You don’t realize how arcane this system is until you have to deal with it,” Ms. Patterson, his wife said. “It’s a nightmare.”

NYT

Metta.