"The sculptures were meant to be provocative: 'Miss Mao' shows Mao as a topless woman with distorted, babyish features..."

"... while 'the execution of Christ' depicted a firing squad of life-size Mao statues aiming rifles at Jesus. But Gao denies they were defamatory.... Gao is accused of breaking a law that wasn’t even enacted until nearly a decade after these artworks were first exhibited. In 2018, China criminalized acts that 'distort, smear, desecrate' or otherwise 'damage the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs.'... Gao, who is a Christian, maintains that his artwork was not intended to defame Mao but rather to explore, through cartoonish depictions of a symbolic figure, the concepts of original sin and repentance.... For [his wife] Zhao, who was not married to Gao when he made the statues, it makes no sense for authorities to claim her leaving with her child would 'endanger state security,' as officials claimed...."

From "Seven-year-old New Yorker stuck in China over father’s political art/Gao Jia, the American-born son of a well-known Chinese dissident artist, has missed first grade because his parents have been stopped from leaving China" (WaPo).

"Even Mao Zedong displayed a mischievous, almost grandfatherly warmth in private. Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger were both startled..."

"... during their historic 1972 visit to China: Mao joked with them, played with words and made them feel at ease — a deliberate mask concealing one of history’s most devastating authoritarian records. Private interactions, no matter how pleasant, should never influence how we weigh any leader’s record. Matthews softened his judgment of Castro after their personal encounter, helping shape American perceptions of the Cuban revolution — perceptions that soon collided with reality. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain trusted Adolf Hitler’s private assurances during their meetings, describing Hitler afterward as a man with whom he could 'do business' — just before Europe descended into war."

Writes León Krauze in "Bill Maher went to Washington. He got played. Authoritarians always smile in private — especially to journalists" (WaPo).

"Matthews" = Herbert Matthews, who interviewed Castro in 1957, and wrote in the NYT: "The personality of the man is overpowering. It was easy to see that his men adored him."

"Malcolm Gladwell, the best-selling author, has an office on a quiet street in Hudson, N.Y., where he sits at a desk under a poster of Mao Zedong, the former communist leader of China."

"Why? Maybe to signal how ideas can be dangerous? Nope, no particular reason. There are two other Chinese communist posters on the wall, too. 'I found them online for like $10,' said Mr. Gladwell, 61. 'I just think it’s funny.'"

From "Malcolm Gladwell Holds His Ideas Loosely. He Thinks You Should, Too. As he releases 'Revenge of The Tipping Point,' the best-selling journalist talks about broken windows theory, Joe Rogan and changing his mind" (NYT).

What if he had a Hitler poster and said "I just think it’s funny" and they were really cheap? Before you answer, remember when Jordan Peterson "bought like 400 Soviet paintings on eBay."

"He advised 12 presidents — more than a quarter of those who have held the office — from John F. Kennedy to Joseph R. Biden Jr."

With a scholar’s understanding of diplomatic history, a German-Jewish refugee’s drive to succeed in his adopted land, a deep well of insecurity and a lifelong Bavarian accent that sometimes added an indecipherable element to his pronouncements, he transformed almost every global relationship he touched.... He was the only American to deal with every Chinese leader from Mao to Xi Jinping. In July, at age 100, he met Mr. Xi and other Chinese leaders in Beijing, where he was treated like visiting royalty even as relations with Washington had turned adversarial. He drew the Soviet Union into a dialogue that became known as détente, leading to the first major nuclear arms control treaties between the two nations. With his shuttle diplomacy, he edged Moscow out of its standing as a major power in the Middle East, but failed to broker a broader peace in that region. Over years of meetings in Paris, he negotiated the peace accords that ended the American involvement in the Vietnam War, an achievement for which he shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize...."

Writes David Sanger, in "Henry Kissinger Is Dead at 100; Shaped Nation’s Cold War History/The most powerful secretary of state of the postwar era, he was both celebrated and reviled. His complicated legacy still resonates in relations with China, Russia and the Middle East" (NYT).

With an eye fixed on the great power rivalry, he was often willing to be crudely Machiavellian, especially when dealing with smaller nations that he often regarded as pawns in the greater battle. 

"An industrious vagrant has built a 16-square-foot wooden home on the Manhattan Bridge bike path...."

"The ramshackle shed was pieced together with plywood, two-by-fours and cardboard.... The front door... latches shut with a bike lock....The squatter is a Chinese man in his 50s or 60s who speaks in broken Mandarin. Approached by The Post on Thursday, he rambled on about Mao Zedong and executed acquaintances, according to a translator.... Local progressive City Councilman Christopher Marte [said]... 'We are not going to comment on this story and don’t want to bring more trouble to this man’s life. I know he has been there for over a year....'"

The NY Post reports.

"Ai Weiwei recounts how his father naively argued with Mao that literature and art cannot be 'a gramophone or a loudspeaker for politics' but must instead find 'expression in their truthfulness.'"

"Unfortunately he had no way of knowing that Mao was just then readying a major political 'rectification campaign (整风运动)' against 'incorrect thought (错误思想)' that would make self-expression among Communist intelligentsia as taboo in the arts as in politics. In fact, Mao’s 1942 treatise, The Yan’an Forums on Literature and Art, which formed the basis for this movement, has guided the party’s quest for ideological unity ever since its publication. Under its shadow, writes Ai Weiwei, 'everyone sank into an ideological swamp of "criticism" and "self-criticism"' in which the bourgeois tendencies of his father’s art marked him indelibly as being politically unreliable.... Then, like half a million other intellectuals, he was 'sent down (下放)' to the Great Northern Wilderness (北大荒)....

But if you go wearing pictures of Chairman Mao.... you are going to make it with Portland people anyhow.

 Look at the skirt!

"Dear Democrats... Stop fretting and second-guessing... The great blues artist Muddy Waters put it best: 'You can't spend what you ain't got. You can't lose what you ain't never had.'"

Writes Eugene Robinson in "Democrats Have Nothing to Lose -- but a Majority (Or Two) to Win" (Real Clear Politics).

The appropriation of Muddy Waters for Democratic Party politics is irksome. That song came out in 1964. Lyrics here. Waters sang about losing "a pretty little girl," his "money in the bank," and his "sweet little home," then consoles himself with the line "You can't lose what you ain't never had."



When I heard the first verse, about the girl, I thought he was admitting that he never "had" the girl and he was looking at the bright side: At least he didn't lose her. But when I got to the money and home verses, it's clear that he had those things, so he must have had and lost the girl too, and the meaning of "You can't lose what you ain't never had" must be something like: 1. At least I once had these things (which can be reworded "Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all" or, more mundanely, It's better to be a has-been than a never-was), or 2. What I thought was good wasn't even good, because it only set me up to feel the pain of losing (basically, the opposite of #1).

In Robinson's use of the song, the man, with his elemental personal needs (love, money, and shelter), is replaced by a conglomerate, a party, and its drive for political power. The man lost what he had and is comparing his predicament to that of a person who never had anything. But in Robinson's deployment of the line, the political party ought to feel motivated by the idea that it has nothing now and therefore has nothing to lose. He says, "Democrats, who have so little to defend, can and should play offense with abandon."

Now, it seems less Muddy Waters and more football. The best defense is a good offense. Ah, there's a Wikipedia article on the subject. And it's not as football-based as I'd thought:

George Washington wrote in 1799: "…make them believe, that offensive operations, often times, is the surest, if not the only (in some cases) means of defence".

Mao Zedong opined that "the only real defense is active defense", meaning defense for the purpose of counter-attacking and taking the offensive. Often success rests on destroying the enemy's ability to attack. This principle is paralleled in the writings of Machiavelli and Sun Tzu.

Some martial arts emphasise attack over defense. Wing chun, for example, is a style of kung fu which uses the maxim: "The hand which strikes also blocks."

During World War I, Germany planned to attack France so as to quickly knock it out of the war, thereby reducing the Entente's numerical superiority and to free up German troops to head east and defeat Russia.

That has so little to do with what Muddy Waters was singing the blues about, but is it what Robinson is trying to explain? The column is padded out with the usual things — Trump is awful and the Democrats need to get out the vote. Then Robinson offers the advice "Don't be dour and doubtful, Democrats. Be joyous and determined," which seems more "Happy Days Are Here Again" than Muddy Waters singing the blues.

In his penultimate sentence, Robinson tries to drag the Waters line in again: "Stop worrying about losing what you 'ain't got' and focus on winning elections district by district, state by state." But in the song it's not "ain't got" — despite those quotes — it's "ain't never had." That it's "ain't never had"  doesn't seem to matter to Robinson. I suppose that's because he's a politics guy, and the meaning of words and the value of art don't count for much.

Robinson has one more sentence: "Don't let Republicans bluff you into folding. You're playing a very good hand." Now, the metaphor is poker, and now, the Democrats have got something, "a very good hand." How utterly tedious.

But I presume it's tedious for Robinson too. He's been writing in newspapers for 42 years. I looked up his Wikipedia page. He began his professional career writing about the Patty Hearst trial.

"I don't want a Nixonian ending for Trump. He was pardoned by Ford and allowed to go to retirement. I want Trump prosecuted to whatever extent the law allows..."

"... both as punishment and by way of warning to others who would run for election, not to serve the country but to serve themselves."

That is the top-rated comment (by far) on a WaPo column by Joe Scarborough, "Trump is hurtling toward a Nixonian ending."

The commenter's name is "prairie fire," which can refer to several things, one of which is has to do with the Weather Underground:

The leading members of the Weather Underground (Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Celia Sojourn) collaborated on ideas and published a manifesto: Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism. The name came from a quote by Mao Zedong, "a single spark can set a prairie fire."....

The manifesto's influence initiated the formation of the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee in several American cities. Hundreds of above-ground activists helped further the new political vision of the Weather Underground. Essentially, after the 1969 failure of the Days of Rage to involve thousands of youth in massive street fighting, Weather renounced most of the Left and decided to operate as an isolated underground group. Prairie Fire urged people to never "dissociate mass struggle from revolutionary violence"....

According to Bill Ayers in the late 1970s, the Weatherman group further split into two factions — the May 19th Communist Organization and the Prairie Fire Collective — with Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers in the latter. The Prairie Fire Collective favored coming out of hiding and establishing an above-ground revolutionary mass movement....

That reminds me: Mitt Romney is predicting that Donald Trump will be "solidly" reelected in 2020:

"I think that not just because of the strong economy and the fact that people are going to see increasingly rising wages," Romney said, "but I think it's also true because I think our Democrat friends are likely to nominate someone who is really out of the mainstream of American thought and will make it easier for a president who's presiding over a growing economy."

Some people love Trump and some people hate Trump. Both help Trump. I wonder how many people are hoping the economy goes bad, that it would be worth it to get Trump. Meanwhile the lukewarm among us are hoping the Democrats keep calm, stick to the middle, and give us a blandly normal candidate.

And I should say it again: I think if Nixon were having his troubles within the present-day framework of new media, he wouldn't have to resign and the impeachment route would also fail.

"No need for ironing, neat, stain resistant, and with a common touch... This has made the jacket a favorite informal attire for Chinese officialdom."

"The jacket has been loved by generations of leaders, because it is versatile and easygoing... The jacket look is lively and exudes vigor."

Quotes from Chinese media about the "Xi jacket" — the navy-blue, zippered windbreaker worn by President Xi Jinping of China, from a NYT article titled "China’s Leader Wears Many Hats, but Only One Jacket."

And here's a quote from an Australian professor, Louise Edwards, who, we're told, "has studied the political symbolism of clothes in China":

“It is sufficiently distinct from the worker ant conformity of the Mao suit but still invokes the same spirit as the Mao suit: frugality, practicality, proximity to the people.... He wears the windbreaker when he wants to show he is down to work.”

The jacket’s message, she said, is, “Running the country is my job, I labor at it, I am a political worker.”

In the summer, Xi just wears "a long-sleeved white shirt and dark trousers." According to the NYT, in what I would have thought as too potentially racist-seeming to print: "When accompanying officials follow suit, as they often do, they call to mind a rookery of emperor penguins."

A poor rural province in China spent $465,000 erecting a 120-foot golden statue of Mao, but when the internet saw the photographs and made fun of it...

... a demolition team came and demolished the whole thing in one day.

A person answering the telephone at the Tongxu County government offices said he did not know anything about the demolition. He referred a caller to the county propaganda department, where the telephone went unanswered. Another person answering the telephone at the local Sunying township also said he had not heard of the demolition.

According to villagers and reports on online chat sites, the statue was the idea of a local businessman, Sun Qingxin, the head of Lixing Group, a conglomerate that owns food-processing facilities, hospitals and schools, as well as makes machinery. Mr. Sun paid for it, they said...

“He is crazy about Mao,” said a villager who identified himself as Mr. Wang, a potato farmer. “His factory is full of Maos.”...

[A] woman named Ms. Yang, 75, said several villagers cried when it was knocked down. “Mao was our leader and ate bitterness for us,” she said.

ADDED: Perhaps the idea was to have one of these very large roadside attractions that bring visitors to various out-of-the-way places. Me, I'm pretty averse to traveling and am not easily suckered into going a long distance to see some big damned thing you're supposed to feel you ought to see, but I could spend years doing day trips in Wisconsin to all the places listed as "Wisconsin Attractions and Oddities."

One of them is the recently removed Ozzy the Octopus that was a few blocks from our house. Ozzy killed no one, ate bitterness for no one, but he did preside over a car wash.

But if you're more of a bucket-list-y world traveler, here are some colossi you could feel you need to visit, such as the "Statue of Unity," honoring India’s first deputy prime minister, which will be somewhere you probably wouldn't even have considered going. It will be 597 feet tall, out-talling the Spring Temple Buddha, heretofore the tallest statue in the world, which gets a good lot of people to go to Zhaocun township, which is somewhere in China. Also at that last link is the Peter the Great Statue at the confluence of the Moskva River and the Vodootvodny Canal in Moscow. I recognize it only because I recently flipped through a slideshow of the ugliest statues in the world.

The history of the word "politicize" — from 1968 to 2015.

May 1968: "S.D.S. is out to politicize the campus."

September 1973:  "It was not simply a matter of increasing numbers, but of the highly politicized manner in which additional blacks found their way into Harvard — overcoming nearly a century of racial and sociological barriers to a sizable presence at Harvard. Militancy and political threats perpetrated by Negro students in 1968-70 paved the way for major alterations in Harvard's recruiting and admissions policies. This resulted in a fivefold increase in black enrollment, but the politization surrounding this development plagued virtually all aspects of black-white relationships, dividing blacks and whites in to mutually exclusive communities." From "The black experience at Harvard," by Martin Kilson.

August 1976: Back when Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer, was getting the Democratic nomination: "Planters [Peanuts] has been the focus of recent efforts to politicize peanuts, such as the recent Democratic National Convention to 'borrow' its Mr. Peanut mascot. 'Mr. Peanut is an apolitical figure'..."

January 1979: Pope John Paul II in Mexico City: "You know that liberation theology is a true theology... But perhaps it is also a false theology, because if one starts to politicize theology, apply doctrines of political systems, ways of analysis which are not Christian, then this is no longer theology."

September 1980: "On the Lower East Side in the late 60's, his aim was to politicize the hippies, not to make the larger world an adjunct to the counterculture." From a review of a new book by Abbie Hoffman.

December 1986: "In 1966, Mao turned to radical Shanghai students to trigger the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long upheaval intended to politicize every facet of Chinese life."
 
November 1992: Hugh Hefner is quoted: "I think the real question is why, after a sexual revolution began in the 50's, did the women's movement seize upon an anti-sexual theme.... A significant part of the hurtful side of feminism is failing to understand how a hurtful childhood can shape you, and instead trying to politicize all behavior. There's really no benefit to viewing sex as the enemy. The sex act is some of the best of what we are, as family, and as a civilization. The notion that sex and violence are connected like law and order is untrue. They are polar opposites. One is hurting; one is hugging."

January 1994: "Do you ever wonder if it was a mistake to politicize the private lives of politicians? Bill Clinton was rumored to have a Gary Hart-ish sexual life, yet he's turned out to be quite supportive of women's rights." From a Q&A with 3 female reporters.

May 1996: When Democratic Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts said that the Defense of Marriage bill was motivated by politics, he was accused of a "desperate attempt to politicize what is not a political issue."

September 1999: After shootings in a Fort Worth church, Texas Governor George W. Bush signed legislation permitting guns in churches, Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore started asking ''How can we allow guns in churches?'," and a Bush spokesman said: "Americans are tired of politicians trying to politicize every tragedy.'' 

December 1999: "Our political leaders must be judged on how they treat everyone, including the least fortunate. We must ask ourselves: do we solve problems or simply push them away, politicize them and criminalize them?'' said Hillary Clinton, about homeless people, whom Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani was having arrested for sleeping on the streets.

April 2000: "Holding congressional hearings now would only further politicize this tragedy [of Elian Gonzalez], further inflame the passions, and do nothing to resolve the future of the child.... We should not allow this situation to degenerate further into which political party can benefit the most. Americans have made it clear that they do not want to see this issue politicized," wrote Republican Senator Chuck Hagel.

October 2004: "There have been faith-based efforts in America for years and years. There hasn't always been an effort to politicize it," said presidential candidate John Kerry speaking to a group of black pastors.

February 2012: "I think there’s been a chord struck over this issue, this issue of political organizations who are trying to politicize women’s reproductive health," said Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.

October 2015: President Obama, after another mass shooting: "Somebody somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue. Well, this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic."

Effectively keeping an eye on "effectively."

I'm noticing a weaselish use of the word "effectively." It came up twice in 2 days in NYT items that I happened to find myself blogging. Today, I saw David Brooks writing that "Colorado and Washington... have gone into the business of effectively encouraging drug use." It's like: They're not, but they are. And yesterday, I noticed this: "Mao Zedong... effectively eradicated" prostitution. The previous sentence says that he made "the rehabilitation of prostitutes, whom the Communists saw as victims of capitalist exploitation, a priority," but that didn't stop commenters from suspecting that Mao "effectively eradicated" prostitution by actually eradicating the women. What strange work that word is doing!

David Brooks smoked marijuana long ago — "It was fun" — but he moved on and so should you.

Using marijuana — he observed back then and again now — doesn't get you anywhere, unlike the "higher pleasures" in life that "involve a state of going somewhere, becoming better at something, learning more about something, overcoming difficulty and experiencing a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment." Your life should be a "process" of getting better and better — becoming a "more integrated, coherent and responsible" person, "using the powers of reason, temperance and self-control." Marijuana gums up that process.

"The murky penal system for prostitutes, 'custody and education,' is strikingly similar to re-education through labor."

"Centers run by the Ministry of Public Security hold women for up to two years and often require them to toil in workshops seven days a week for no pay, producing toys, disposable chopsticks and dog diapers, some of which the women say are packaged for export..."

The Chinese government’s approach to prostitution is inconsistent. After the Communist victory in 1949, Mao Zedong made the rehabilitation of prostitutes, whom the Communists saw as victims of capitalist exploitation, a priority. During his first years in power, he effectively eradicated the trade. But the introduction of market overhauls in the early 1980s led to a resurgence in prostitution, and up to six million women were estimated to be working in the sex industry in recent years, according to a United Nations report....

The indignities of incarceration do little to dissuade women who can earn more than $1,000 a month as prostitutes, triple the average income for unskilled laborers in China. Ms. Li, the single mother of two, said she was illiterate and could never make as much money in a conventional job.

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH says:

Seems like two separate policy issues: How to regulate the market activity of prostitution, and forced labor in the penal system.

And  I say:

I know. It seems like the NYT intended to crank the reasoning forward a few steps and then didn't do it. There's a whole communism vs. capitalism theme. Mao "effectively eradicated" prostitution. Now, China, moving into capitalism, has women drawn into sex work because it pays 3x as much as other available work, and then they are imprisoned and used for unpaid labor (and also made to pay the costs of imprisonment), so both of these things have to do with a profit motive. But the article never says that. It begins and ends with "human interest" material about a particular woman folding paper flowers or sewing stuffed animals. Something really unformed about this article! Where are the human-interest details about the prostitutes Mao effectively eradicated?

"A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery."

No, but it might have something to do with gem-encrusted gold statues.

China National Radio says: "When the gold flashes, it captures the intense interest of the public."

"There he was, back in high school, a fresh-faced member of the volleyball team and a student leader in Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution..."

"... ordering teachers to line up in the auditorium, dunce caps on their bowed heads. He stood there, excited and proud, as thousands of students howled abuse at the teachers."

Then, suddenly, a posse stormed the stage and beat them until they crumpled to the floor, blood oozing from their heads. He did not object. He simply fled. “I was too scared,” he recalled recently in one of several interviews at a restaurant near Tiananmen Square, not far from his alma mater, No. 8 Middle School, which catered to the children of the Mao elite. “I couldn’t stop it. I was afraid of being called a counterrevolutionary, of having to wear a dunce’s hat.”

When China got tough on the purveyors of shoddy statuettes of Chairman Mao.

This is a news story from 2010:

... Mao's hometown of Shaoshan sold 124 million yuan (£12.4 million) worth of trinkets last year, of which almost three-quarters were Mao statuettes. But buyers have complained that some Mao statues do not even resemble the founder of modern China and that substandard statues have melted in the heat or chipped easily.

"The new guidelines include a ban on plastic and plaster because plastic deforms and plaster is easy to break," said the head of the Standardisation department at Hunan province's Quality Supervision Bureau, who declined to give his name.

"We will have a team of art and craft experts working with factories to determine the likeness of the statues, based on photographs of Chairman Mao in historic moments, in order to decide which ones are authentically Mao," he added.

If they really cared about standards, they wouldn't revere Mao, but who's buying these things? Tourists?

I ran across that article yesterday while looking for a photograph of the statuette I saw in a house in Madison that was staged for sale.

Real estate is a subtle matter.

Who knows what will warm the heart of the buyer? It depends on the context. When you "stage" your house, what do you leave out and what do you put away? Let's say you had one of these:



Out or in? Assume Madison, Wisconsin.

"There are at least two things wrong with this official Department of Education website quoting Mao Zedong..."

"1. Mao probably meant 'to be insatiable in learning,' not 'satiable.'

"2. WHY ARE YOU QUOTING MAO ZEDONG ON A U.S. GOVERNMENT WEBSITE?"