Sharon Stone vs. China

Normally, I wouldn't be upset with Sharon Stone. She's got a long history of being on PETA's bad side, which usually put her on my good side. While I'm not a fan of wearing fur (it's too hot for my tastes), Sharon Stone truly is - and PETA has been verbal against her and her outfits many times. She even wore a brooch that contained a RAT FOOT, which those animal-rights hippies were severely opposed to.

But alas, nobody is perfect, and Sharon Stone decided to voice her opinion regarding the recent earthquake in China - and is pretty much accusing them of deserving it through karma because of their treatment of Tibet.

First off, I don't think we should ever pay attention to the opinions of actors/actresses. They're paid to look pretty and do/say what they're told through the use of scripts and directors. Just like the notion of a "trophy wife" whose job is to shut up and look pretty, I wouldn't want to trust the opinion of someone who's just supposed to look good - depending on the opinion's relevance. If the person were famous for winning the Nobel Prize in Physics, I'd trust their opinion on physics-related matters; likewise I WOULD trust an actress's opinion on movie-business affairs or getting good representation.

When it comes to earthquakes, politics and international affairs, though? Shut the hell up and look pretty, damn it!

Secondly, if you're Earl Hickey or his brother Randy (AKA "fictional characters on a TV show"), I can understand you attributing things to karma. Unfortunately, you're NOT those people, which means you don't attribute EVERYTHING to karma and pick and choose what is "karma" and what isn't based on your own selfish opinions. I know for a fact that China experienced major earthquakes in 1976, 1975, 1974, 1970, 1969, 1933, 1932, 1927 and 1556 was one of their worst if you're judging by the death toll.

Which is more likely? That some supernatural force judged a country and magically caused this wrath to befall them - or that China is part of the Pacific Rim and is located on top of numerous fault lines where earthquakes naturally occur over time and it occurred again a few weeks ago?

Thirdly, if you were really crazy enough to take the "China is bad and deserved it" approach, why would you choose this earthquake to be the pinnacle point of karmic justice? I mean, China's been repressing Tibet for quite some time. Wouldn't you really want to attribute this disaster to the more recent and more-widely-publicized LEAD PAINT and TAINTED PRODUCT fiascos? I'm just saying, if you're going to argue that being mean to other people yields a natural disaster, it's hard to back that up with further evidence. I don't recall any natural disasters occurring during Hitler-era Germany or even in genocide-filled African/Middle-Eastern countries (unless you consider "living in those countries" as disaster enough, in which case I'm sure there were many countries in those regions NOT performing genocide).

Far worse things have been committed to deserve karmic punishment. I've also never heard of GOOD karma befalling countries, whether they deserved it or not.

So what was China's response to this accusation of being quake-worthy in the eyes of karma?

The founder of one of China's biggest cinema chains said that his company will no longer show Sharon Stone's movies.

While I'm not entirely sure that I agree that this is really much of a retaliation in the first place, it's a symbolic gesture that at least is backed up by an idea that I CAN agree with:

Ng See-Yuen, founder of the UME Cineplex chain and the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, called Stone's comments "inappropriate," adding that actors should not bring personal politics to comments about a natural disaster that has left five million Chinese homeless, according to the Reporter.

That's kind of what I've been saying all along, but with an added oomph at the end. Actors aren't supposed to be spouting their opinions about things - especially about things that have had such a devastating effect on mostly-innocent people. You can keep your own opinions about China's governmental policies regarding the Tibet region and people, but saying that some 2-year-old Chinese girl deserved to have her home and worldly possessions destroyed by a natural disaster because she happens to live in a country with a not-perfect record of civil rights?

That is certainly "inappropriate" and it's absurd to even mention it in the first place.

Actors and actresses should just shut up and look pretty because that's what we pay them to do.

Do you agree with Ng that Sharon's comment was inappropriate? Do you agree with Sharon that Ng's people randomly deserved a natural disaster because their government does some naughty things? Or do you just agree with me that you should trust an entertainer's political statements as much as the advice of a blind optometrist?

(The article mentioned here) Read more!

Pelosi and the Lama

So apparently the situation between Tibet and China has gotten to the point that we're sending our annoying politicians NEAR the area to TALK about things - and not speaking FOR the United States but just out of personal opinion.

Yea, we must not really care that much. I mean, it's Nancy Pelosi. Maybe they just needed her out of the House for a while.

I really don't understand the long long history between China and Tibet - I'm one of those dopey Americans who can pretty much sum his knowledge up as "there's a lot of people with signs that say 'FREE TIBET' on them so it's either not free yet and they want it to be free or it's a very strange advertising campaign."

C'mon down to Crazy Wu's Elephant Emporium! We got Asian ones, we got African ones, we got a whole lotta pachyderms and they're ripe for the pickin' - and if you act now, we'll throw in Tibet absolutely free! That's right, we're just givin' away FREE TIBET because I'm CRAAAAAZY WU!

Okay, all joking aside, the Tibetans are claiming now that the death toll of Tibetans is now at 99. Of course, China says the death toll of Tibetans is still at 0, but the death toll of innocent Han Chinese in Tibet is now at 13. Honestly, unless Giraldo is there with his journalism team, I don't think the numbers will ever be real. And even if they were real, we're talking less than a hundred.

Maybe I'm just the product of a horrible generation who paid attention in history class and tried keeping up with the news and would always hear about millions of people being killed, or at least tens of thousands. I mean it's not like I'm unaffected by anything unless it's at WWII level with 60,000,000 deaths (the deadliest war). But China's had a reputation for massacre before and they never got away with less than 50,000 and upwards of a 1,000,000 on some of them. Hell, in Darfur it's been at least 400,000 and even when the Hutu government of Burundi started the slaughter of Tutsis they killed like 50,000.

(Okay, I admit that I needed Wikipedia for those last ones.)

And we're talking about possibly 99 people in Tibet who have been killed. We should ALL be so lucky that the death toll amid governmental conflicts as such should be this low ALL the time! True, if there's ever going to be a resolution to this conflict, the death count will undoubtedly rise. Well, if there's ever going to be a resolution to this conflict that means the ceasing of FREE TIBET signs, I mean.

Few people seem to understand that another resolution is Tibet accepting things and understanding that it is owned by China.

This whole thing used to be so commonplace at a time in history. Forces rode in, conquered a land, and quelled the rebellions until the people understood their place and got used to it and carried on. There's a new jerk in charge and some things may be different and you may get some ethnic changes to the neighborhood, but you still get up and go to work and continue your little existance as a tiny cog in the grand scheme of the universe.

Back to Pelosi. (And yes, I get very little joy out of saying that.)

"As a freedom-loving people, if we don't speak out about the Chinese oppression, then we have lost our right to speak on human rights," Pelosi told reporters. She made the comments during a meeting with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, noting that she was voicing her personal opinion and not U.S. government policy.

You know, if you're a leader in the U.S. government and you start blathering political agendas like "Chinese oppression" in the midst of a political struggle - there's no f*cking way that anyone is going to believe you're not trying to be officially political.

And this whole generic term "freedom" is kind of misinterpreted a lot. It's NOT a general idea. Freedom only works one way. If I want to do something to you and you don't want me to do something to you, what does freedom say about it? Do I get the freedom to do as I please? Do you get the freedom to stop me? Isn't freedom tantamount to anarchy in some ways?

Or am I overthinking things?

Lastly, I want to take one more jab at Pelosi. Because it's fun.

Pelosi told the crowd at the temple in Dharamsala that it must be karma that brought her to India at such a difficult time.

To quote "The Princess Bride" actor Andre the Giant: "I do not think that means what you think it means." "Karma" is about the balance of nature and that good things eventually come to those who deserve it and likewise for bad things. I don't really know what the Dalai Lama did to deserve a visit from Nancy Pelosi, but if I were a decent non-violent person who has been exiled and am having my people possibly being killed by our oppressors and someone told me that karma was in effect? I'd be pretty damned pissed off.

Wouldn't you?

The article about Pelosi and the Lama




I promise I'll try to make the next post less political. Or at least not about Tibet. Read more!