"Although the Dalai Lama reassured me that he intends to live well past 100, speculation about succession is already rife."

"In what may be the world's only example of an atheist state extending its jurisdiction into the spirit world, Beijing has declared that any attempted reincarnation must 'comply with Chinese laws.' For his part, the Dalai Lama intends to be reincarnated, if at all, outside Chinese rule. He believes that in the long run his program of Tibetan autonomy under Chinese suzerainty can work, in part because sympathetic Han Chinese Buddhists will prod future, presumably more democratic Chinese governments to treat Tibet with greater sensitivity. In the meantime, the Tibetan national movement's goal of autonomy and its adherence to nonviolence despite Chinese provocation enables the Tibetan government-in-exile to function around the world and -- where Chinese pressure is not too severe -- to enjoy quasidiplomatic standing...."

From "A Visit With the Dalai Lama/He vows that Chinese law won’t govern the conditions of his reincarnation." (Wall Street Journal).

The NYT reports on a Tibetan businessman who was sentenced, in China, to 5 years in prison for interviews that he gave to the NYT.

"Tibetan Activist Who Promoted His Native Language Is Sentenced to Prison":

The businessman, Tashi Wangchuk... was arrested in early 2016, two months after he was featured in a New York Times video and article about Tibetan language education. He stood trial in January this year, charged with “inciting separatism” for comments he had made to The Times....

The Chinese Communist Party for decades maintained policies intended to keep ethnic minorities, especially Tibetans and Uighurs, under political control while giving them some space to preserve their own languages and cultures. But under Xi Jinping, the staunch Communist Party leader who came to power in 2012, China has adopted more assimilationist policies, designed to absorb these minorities into the fold of one Chinese nation.

At his trial in January, Mr. Tashi, speaking in Chinese, rejected the idea that his efforts to rejuvenate the Tibetan language were a crime. He has said that he does not advocate independence for Tibet, but wants the rights for ethnic minorities that are promised by Chinese law, including the right to use their own language....

Here's the NYT video from 2016:



Tashi, in the video: “In politics, it’s said that if one nation wants to eliminate another nation, first they need to eliminate their spoken and written language.... In effect, there is a systematic slaughter of our culture.”

Beautiful squalor — in the name of a religion seen from a distance.

Is there something morally wrong with the NYT's photographic presentation of the nuns of Yarchen Gar? The America eye luxuriates in the exotic, subtle color...

The homes are patchworks of boards and thin metal sheets, with the occasional piece of plastic tarp covering a part of the roof or walls. Narrow lanes wind among them. Depending on the wind, the air can be thick with the smell of undrained sewage....

This "gar" — a Buddhist monastic encampment  — has grown up since 1985 from nothing. 10,000 human beings live like this. We're told Chinese officials are dismantling another gar, an even larger one. The text doesn't tell us to love the gars and hate the Chinese officials, but I feel that's what I'm being told, and I don't like this manipulation or the tendency of Americans to romanticize things like this, seen from afar.

A gar from afar.

The Dalai Lama wants to be the last Dalai Lama.

"We had a Dalai Lama for almost five centuries. The 14th Dalai Lama now is very popular. Let us then finish with a popular Dalai Lama.... If a weak Dalai Lama comes along, then it will just disgrace the Dalai Lama."

If he is the Dalai Lama because he's the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama, wouldn't the next Dalai Lama be him? Far be it from me to interpret his religion's dogma, but it's interesting to speculate about what he has in mind, as he worries about a weak Dalai Lama coming next.

Is he concerned that he himself, in his next incarnation, will be different in some ways and less successful? Does he think he'll be around but those who are looking for him will find someone else? Does he doubt the precepts about reincarnation? Does he believe that he will be reincarnated and that he will be properly located but not want to live his next life in the same kind of leadership role? He says:

"I hope and pray that I may return to this world as long as sentient beings' suffering remains. I mean not in the same body, but with the same spirit and the same soul."

That isn't even saying that he believes in reincarnation, only that he wants it (for the sake of others). He's good at putting words together in a way that can be calmly absorbed by a wide range of people. As he himself said: he's "very popular."

Also quoted in the article is Ganden Thurman, Executive Director of Tibet House US, who analyzes the statement in political terms. He thinks the Dalai Lama really is trying to move the Tibetan people away from the ancient autocracy and into a modern approach to government by the people, which could improve their relations with China.

And let me quote Christopher Hitchens, from "God Is Not Great" p. 345:

The Dalai Lama... is entirely and easily recognizable to a secularist. In exactly the same way as a medieval princeling, he makes the claim not just that Tibet should be independent of Chinese hegemony — a “perfectly good” demand, if I may render it into everyday English — but that he himself is a hereditary king appointed by heaven itself. How convenient!

Christopher Hitchens died on December 15, 2011. What if there's a 2-year-old reincarnation of Hitchens toddling around somewhere on the face of the earth? Would we ever notice and, if we did, what would we do? What would we say to him (or her)? I think the lag time between death and rebirth is supposed to be up to 49 days, so if you have a child born between December 15, 2011 and February 2, 2012, you might be living with old Hitch, reborn. How would you like that? One thing seems obvious to me: You wouldn't want to know. You wouldn't even want to think about your child in those terms. And if you did, you wouldn't want to convey those thoughts to the child.

So it makes fine sense to me — from a religious/moral/philosophical perspective — for the Dalai Lama to say, essentially, please stop looking for me. Let me live my next life beginning, unburdened, as a child. But, as Thurman says and as Christopher Hitchens would have said, it's almost certainly political. (Or maybe Hitchens wouldn't have said "almost.")

"Outside, I watched a farmer plow his field with yaks. The sky was a deep blue and there was a full moon."

"I'm on Mars, I thought for the umpteenth time. But Michael Jackson's 'Heal the World' was wafting over the speakers. No I realized, this was weirder than Mars. I searched for an off button. Surely, we, the four of us inside this small compartment, could agree that Michael Jackson's 'Heal the World' was unacceptable music for a journey over the Tibetan Plateau. I finally found the off button and switched it off, raising my eyebrows, expecting to be praised for this quick communal resolution to an irritation. The man across from me turned it back on. Oh, my friend, I thought. We are going to have issues. And so to the sound of 'Beat It' we rumbled across Tibet."

J. Maarten Troost, "Lost on Planet China: One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation."

"We thought we were poking fun at ourselves, but clearly the execution was off and the joke didn’t come through."

"I personally take responsibility; although we worked with a professional ad agency, in the end, it was my decision to run the ads."

Groupon founder Andrew Mason takes responsibility for America's lack of a sense of humor and Christopher Guest can go search for a better place to ply his comic genius.

The Chicago Tribune, Groupon's hometown paper, quoted a New Yorker who said he felt like he'd been "punched in the face" when he saw the Tibet ad.

Ah! The power of comedy! How horrible to actually feel punched by a punchline.

AND: Here's the Tibet ad. Watch it before it disappears:



AND: I know I'm being played. Mason's statement is a well-done strategy to make the video viral in a new way. Notice that he doesn't really apologize. There's a sop to the people who were offended, but a cue to people who want to think we have a sense of humor to give it a cult following. We're the special people who get it and who respect Christopher Guest and laugh at the oversensitive twits, etc. etc. I know!

ALSO: At the Althouse Super Bowl party, we got the joke in real time.

"The Dalai Lama's so-called 'middle way' is a naked expression of 'Tibet independence' aimed at nakedly spreading..."

"... the despicable plot of opposing the tide of history."

That's AP translation of an editorial that appeared in the Chinese Tibet Daily. Strange the way "naked" appears twice. Not strange, but chilling is the notion that history has a tide and it's despicable to oppose it.

From a story in the NYT about the decision by a Tibetan exiles -- convening in Dharamsala, India -- not to seek independence from China but to continue with the Dalai Lama's "middle way."

ADDED: Want to swim naked in the tide of history?

Mao Zedong loved to swim. In his youth, he advocated swimming as a way of strengthening the bodies of Chinese citizens... But especially after 1955, when he was in his early 60s and at the height of his political power as leader of the Chinese People's Republic, swimming became a central part of his life. He swam so often in the large pool constructed for the top party leaders in their closely guarded compound that the others eventually left him as the pool's sole user. He swam in the often stormy ocean off the north China coast, when the Communist Party leadership gathered there for its annual conferences. And, despite the pleadings of his security guards and his physician, he swam in the heavily polluted rivers of south China, drifting miles downstream with the current, head back, stomach in the air, hands and legs barely moving, unfazed by the globs of human waste gliding gently past. "Maybe you're afraid of sinking," he would chide his companions if they began to panic in the water. "Don't think about it. If you don't think about it, you won't sink. If you do, you will."

Althouse meets Skeptoid, on the new Bloggingheads.

I love the Skeptoid podcast, and it was a big thrill to talk to Brian Dunning.

Topics:

Lost cosmonauts and shortwave-radio spies (04:01)
Why do we believe conspiracy theories? (06:13)
Debunking subliminal sexual imagery in ads (09:02)
Quack remedies’ tenacious hold on the infirm (12:48)
The real-world consequences of our irrational beliefs (10:10)
What does “Free Tibet” really mean? (04:45)

I'll have some clips in a few minutes, including the context of the "smack in the face" clip I blogged here.

ADDED: Here's the part where we talk about why people believe in conspiracies, miracles, and extra-terrestrial and supernatural beings:



(Hey, it looks like I'm wearing an earpiece!)

AND: Here's the context for my "smack in the face" line, in which I also talk about the irrational things educated, intelligent people think. (Remember my asking you for some input?)

Double rally on the Wisconsin Capitol steps: Free Tibet + Pro-China.

At the top end of the steps, there were amplified speakers denouncing China to a crowd waving the Tibet flag. At the lower end of the steps, there was a silent crowd waving the Chinese flag, the Olympic flag, and the American flag.







There were some Free Tibet protesters at the lower end too. One man in particular shouted his criticisms at the pro-Chinese flag bearers. The pro-Chinese group was extremely well-focused on being quiet and polite. I'll post a couple videos, but unfortunately, I botched a recording that showed the pro-Tibet man yelling and two Chinese students turning to talk to me very politely trying to explain why the criticism was not fair.

The first video surveys the scene:



The second video shows a man on the "Free Tibet" side shouting "Freedom of speech! Freedom of Religion!"

Tibet rally in Union Square.

Nearby, the buttons for sale were miscellaneous:



ADDED: Click here to enlarge the buttons picture. The empty row at the left seems to have been filled with Obama buttons. There are lots of Clinton buttons left. Lots of Che too.

"Explornography."

John Tierney uses that word -- which I can't remember having seen before -- in his NYT op-ed today. Is that just a Tierney word, a coinage he's pushing? I see The Atlantic had a piece back in 1998, in its "Wordwatch" column that tracks new words and usages:

explornography noun,a consuming fascination with famous and, especially, dangerous explorations -- for example, Richard Byrd's expeditions to Antarctica -- that may include a desire to retrace such trips in person: "We had been seduced by an odd modern phenomenon, the glorification of exploration at a time when the entire planet has been mapped. The Age of Exploration has been succeeded by the Age of Explornography" (New York Times Magazine).

BACKGROUND: Soft-core explornographers are content to experience super-dangerous adventure travel vicariously, a thrill easily had through books and films. Hard-core explornographers -- a group whose number has been rising sharply in recent years -- spend vast sums on gear, guides, training, and whatever else is needed to undertake such expeditions themselves. These explornographers are, typically, outdoorsy amateurs, many of whom live and work in urban settings. A good proportion are women, and the average age of hard-core explornographers of both sexes is about fifty.

But a little more reseach shows that quote in The Atlantic was written by John Tierney, back in the July 26, 1998 issue of the NYT Magazine, in an article called "Going Where A Lot of Other Dudes With Really Great Equipment Have Gone Before." That's his quote in The Atlantic definition. In the NYT Magazine, he went on:

Like pornography, explornography provides vicarious thrills -- the titillation of exploring without the risk of actually having to venture into terra incognita. In its classic hard-core form, explornography is the depiction of genuine voyages of discovery, trips to uncharted regions where there was no way to summon help when disaster struck. Today's audiences are going back to the old texts, and there has been a recent rash of books and movies about Peary and Dr. Frederick Cook, Richard Evelyn Byrd, Lewis and Clark, Stanley and Livingstone and Heinrich Harrer (the explorer portrayed by Brad Pitt in "Seven Years in Tibet"). Connoisseurs have been especially gratified by the revival of Ernest Shackleton, the explorer who never reached his goals but always produced splendid stories. Like many explornography addicts, I first got hooked on "Endurance," Alfred Lansing's book about the 1914 Shackleton expedition, which was marooned in the Antarctic. Originally published in 1959, "Endurance" resurfaced this year on best-seller lists; Tristar is about to make a big-budget film of the adventure.

But the old stories are not enough to satisfy demand. The explornography industry needs fresh material to fill magazines like Outside and Men's Journal, to make programs for the Discovery Channel and the Outdoor Life Network, to sell outdoor gear and adventure-travel packages. Today's soft-core explornographers, like pornographers who shoot erotic scenes in which no sex actually takes place, have the skills and technology -- minicams, satellite linkups, Web pages -- to wring drama from voyages of nondiscovery. Mount Everest, which has been climbed hundreds of times, is a bigger media star than ever. The new film about Everest is setting box-office records at IMAX theaters; Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" has spent more than a year on best-seller lists.

Today's Tierney column is about the "Marsonauts" who are engaged in an earth-based simulation of Mars travel:

They live in a round "habitation module" that's 27 feet in diameter, sized to fit atop existing rockets, with a lab on one floor and the crew quarters above it.

The Marsonauts are sticklers for staying "in sim," simulating every inconvenience they can imagine on Mars. No venturing outside the Hab without at least half an hour of preparation: putting on a spacesuit and helmet, wiring a radio, and going through five minutes of decompression in the airlock. No removing a glove to dig for a fossil. No food or bathroom breaks in the field -- ["a huge meteor crater" on "a desolate island in the Canadian high Arctic"].

They have their own jargon ("HabCom, EVA11 is ready to begin its egress de-co") and their own bureaucracy. Reports are filed nightly to Mission Support and the Remote Science Team, a group of researchers on three continents who are referred to as "the scientists back on Earth." There's even a Martian tricolor - a red, green and blue flag flapping above the Hab to symbolize their plans to "terraform" Mars into a green planet with liquid water and a breathable atmosphere.

I know this all sounds silly. I arrived sympathetic to the Marsonauts' cause, but ready to write a wryly detached column on an amusing bunch of zealots. Their fantasy sounded like a futurist version of explornography: the simulation of exploration by people trekking through terra cognita on adventure vacations.

But the Marsonauts are really figuring out how to explore the unknown, how to look for life in a place worth risking lives to reach. By the second day here, I was caught up in the sim, too. As we returned to our home on the edge of the crater, the white Hab up on the rocky brown ridge looked like a spaceship on Mars, and the sight was a bigger thrill than anything that's lifted off from Cape Canaveral in a long time.

Meanwhile, in real life, we're left watching the space shuttle missions, where nothing new is being explored. The current news of the Discovery mission is all about the potential for another accident, the strangely extreme damage that a bit of falling foam debris can cause. And Tierney's point is, if we really are going to risk lives and go into space, we ought to get out where we can find something new. I'm sure I'm not discovering anything new in seeing the irony of calling the shuttle "Discovery."

Take me back to Madison.

By popular request, here's a look back into Madison, especially for all you readers who come here for a window into your past.

What does our beloved hill look like today, in late September? Are the kids lying on the ground amid "Free Tibet" signs? Yes, they are:



Are people debating about politics down on the mall? Yes, they are:



Can I still buy food for an al fresco lunch? Yes, more than ever:



Hey, is that Loose Juice? Is Loose Juice still there after all these years? Yes, it is:



Is that poster store still there? Yeah, come on in:



How about that eyeglasses store with the doll displays in the window? Sure, look:



Hey, give me a closeup on that Bucky thing! Okay:



How about the original State Street coffeehouse, Steep & Brew? It's here and has a nice sidewalk café now (and that's Gino's right next to it):



Do they still have Pipefitter? Yes, here it is:



And here are two closeups:





Maybe this obscure State Street doorstep reminds you of another aspect of your sojourn through Madison:



Well, just stop into Sunshine Daydream and buy some souvenirs of your psychedelic past: