World Series puts Fox in front Saturday night
Neftali Feliz of the Texas Rangers reacts after the final out Saturday night in Game 3 of the World Series. Photo credit: Eric Gay/AP Photo
Fox did win the Saturday ratings race with the World Series. But the early ratings suggest the audience for Game 3 wasn’t special.
The Texas Rangers beat the San Francisco Giants, who have a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven contest. Game 4 is tonight on Fox.
ABC placed second with college football. But these early ratings for live sport events often reflect just a portion of the full viewership.
The early numbers show Fox averaging 9.2 million viewers to ABC’s 6.5 million in prime time. CBS averaged 5.7 million to NBC’s 3.1 million. Fox just edged ABC in the 18-to-49 age group.
CBS offered two hours of “48 Hours Mystery.” The first hour delivered 5.4 million viewers; the second climbed to 6.8 million.
Doris Day talks! And how does she sound? Terrific
Doris Day in 1989. Photo credit: Kevin Winter
Doris Day is my choice for the most underrated performer in show-business history. She just never gets her due as a remarkable singer and actress. And then there’s box office: She set the standard for actresses.
So I’m thrilled to pass along the tip that WNYC musical host Jonathan Schwartz recently interviewed the Hollywood legend, who is 88. Schwartz talks to Day with the respect and admiration that millions of fans hold for her. And she responds with down-to-earth charm and wit.
How did she become an actress? “I have no idea,” she says. “No one taught me anything.”
Her approach to acting: She listened. She sounds remarkably chipper, although she acknowledges she recently had a serious case of bronchitis.
In the interview, Day impersonates director Michael Curtiz, who gave her her start in the 1948 film “Romance on the High Seas.” She explains that she likes to record quickly so the performance is fresh. She loves “It’s Magic” and “Secret Love” of her recordings. She expresses her affection for Frank Sinatra.
She has a real solid outlook: “Everything fell into place in my life.”
But the best news of all: She sounds terrific. Could the Oscar and Kennedy Center folk please take note? This too-often-unsung star deserves the big honors.
Casey Anthony: Judge Belvin Perry plays accountant sternly
Casey Anthony had a more subdued look in court today. Photo credit: Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel
Chief Judge Belvin Perry meant business today during a status hearing in the Casey Anthony case. The judge’s determined style was the focus of television coverage this evening.
Standout clip: ” I am not gonna write an open check. I’m just not,” Perry told defense attorneys.
Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee. The defense has spent more than $300,000 on the case — $40,000 was tax money – but is seeking more for indigent client Anthony. (WFTV-Ch. 9 decorated its report with $300,000 in big type.) Anthony is scheduled to go on trial in May.
“He [Perry] was really setting a tone, and it was a hard line,” WESH-Ch. 2’s Bob Kealing reported. “In many cases, the judge would demand to know what the defense team had done with money he already budgeted and what they would do with any more he might give them.”
Kealing said that defense attorneys Jose Baez and Cheney Mason were not commenting after court today.
WFTV-Ch. 9’s Kathi Belich observed, “The judge does not seem impressed with how it [the defense] has used some of the tax money so far.”
The defense sought 300 additional hours for its private investigator, but Perry OK’d just 60 hours.
“The judge got conflicting answers about how many authorized hours of work already have been done as the defense asks for more,” Belich said.
WOFL-Ch. 35’s Shannon Butler weighed in: “Perry is a judge, but it also seems he’s a pretty good accountant.”
In another oft-played clip, Perry told Baez, “Taxpayers’ funds do not allow you to go on fishing expeditions. It must be for a particularized need, not in drilling hoping that you’ll find oil.”
The stations noted that the defense had lost its third bid to seal Anthony’s jail records, such as commissary purchases and the visitors log.
Anthony’s look also drew scrutiny. WOFL anchor Bob Frier highlighted the “hair slicked back.” Kealing said that “Anthony herself came to court looking as if she had been crying.” And Belich noted that Anthony wasn’t in shackles.
Orlando defense attorney Diana Tennis, who offers analysis for WOFL, theorized that the defense is “telling her [Anthony] to draw as little attention to herself as possible. Don’t do the long, pretty hair. Don’t do the makeup. Don’t make expressions. Don’t look around. Be as invisible as possible, so there are as few clips out there on the Internet of her as possible.”
Tennis predicted the money spent in the death-penalty case could exceed $1 million. “This is a special case. It’s a special penalty that’s being sought,” Tennis said. “Even though Judge Perry had some tough talk today, I think the reality is he’s going to continue to give to the point that’s he not worried about the appellate court saying she was denied due process.”
Anthony attorney Ann Finnell did talk to reporters after court. She and Perry had a robust discussion about her budget for the death-penalty phase.
“I think he’s got a responsibility to mind the store,” Finnell said of Perry.
Sarah Palin talks to ‘Fox News Sunday’; Tom Brokaw on ‘Meet the Press’
Sarah Palin was in Orlando last weekend. Photo credit: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel
Sarah Palin has told “Entertainment Tonight” that she would run for president in 2012 “if there’s nobody else to do it.”
What does that mean? She will have a chance to expand on the comments this weekend on “Fox News Sunday.” It airs at 9 a.m. Sunday on WOFL-Ch. 35.
Palin was talking to “Entertainment Tonight” to promote “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” which will debut Nov. 14 on TLC. Palin, who also works for Fox News Channel, may have a chance to promote that show on “Fox News Sunday,” too.
Another guest will be Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. The panel will be regulars Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams.
Elsewhere Sunday:
***ABC’s “This Week” welcomes Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. The program starts at 11 a.m. on WFTV-Ch. 9. The panel will be George Will, Cokie Roberts, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey.
***CBS’ “Face the Nation” will feature Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; and Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa. The program starts at 10:30 a.m. on WKMG-Ch. 6.
***NBC’s “Meet the Press” will feature two party leaders, Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Haley Barbour, governor of Mississippi. The program starts at 9 a.m. on WESH-Ch. 2. The panel discussion features NBC News’ Tom Brokaw, Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin, NPR’s Michele Norris, National Journal’s Charlie Cook and NBC News’ Chuck Todd.
Why I Support Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize
By Wang Chaohua
1. The Nobel Peace Prize
What does a Nobel Peace Prize stand for politically? We probably can’t take the written words of Alfred Nobel himself and of the awarding committee at face value. In the past century, the prize has stirred up numerous controversies. For example, a war-mongering, coup-conspiring politician like Henry Kissinger was chosen to be honored, leaving the rest of the world with jaws dropped and the winner himself reluctant to revisit the moment in public. After all, the prize was decided and awarded by a committee of five retired politicians. In addition, no matter how politically balanced each of the actual committee members might be, there could hardly be universal consensus in today’s world as to which candidate is more worthy than the others, and on what grounds. Controversy is almost an integral part of the peace prize.
Yet, bolstered by its sister prizes in other fields — fields of natural sciences in particular — as well as following historical trends towards social justice, democracy, and multi-ethnic, multi-cultural co-existence for “peace,” the Nobel Peace Prize has indeed built up a certain international reputation for itself by awarding the prize, for example, to Martin Luther King, Jr. of the U.S. in 1964, the International Labor Organization in 1969, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar in 1991, Rigoberta Menchú Tum of Guatemala in 1992, and Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he set up in Bangladesh in 2006. Not surprisingly, the prize’s influence has grown, with matching expectations around the globe. Some activists overlooked by mainstream Western media have tried to draw attention to their causes by lobbying for the prize for one of their own. Likewise, both George W. Bush and Tony Blair were nominated right after they launched the second Iraqi War in 2003; if either had won, it could have indicated an international consensus on the war’s legitimacy. The prize’s symbolic meaning matters to those who oppose the committee’s decision no less than to those who congratulate the chosen laureate(s).
This year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident I know personally from the heady days of the Tiananmen protest of spring 1989. When the news of his winning the prize came through on October 8, it was an exciting and moving moment for me. It is true that we have not seen each other for more than twenty years, though we did maintain some contact before he was arrested in late 2008. He was sentenced to eleven years in prison a year later.
Yes, Liu Xiaobo was serving his prison term when his win was announced in Oslo. He is only the second in the peace prize’s history to be named a winner while in prison. The first was Carl von Ossietzky of Germany, who was given the prize in 1935-36 while being held in a Nazi concentration camp. A more recent comparable case would be Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, who has virtually been under house-arrest for more than two decades. To many Chinese, as to the Chinese government, the symbolic significance of the award can hardly be exaggerated.
To be sure, Liu Xiaobo is no pacifist as Aung San Suu Kyi was. I have had significant disagreements with him in regard to war and peace around the world in the past, especially on matters concerning the U.S. But that was not the point in awarding Liu the peace prize. His prize touches on a different raw nerve for the Chinese government and, we may say, for the world at large. It raises the question of whether peace and prosperity must be grounded on equal civil participation by members of the society, instead of on the basis of coercive stability with the State presiding over an obedient population.
2. Liu Xiaobo and Charter 08
On Christmas Day 2009, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to eleven years in prison for “inciting subversion,” based on six of his hundreds of articles on the internet and his role in drafting Charter 08, a political manifesto modeled after Charter 77, a famous document by Czech dissidents resisting communist rule. Liu went around collecting the initial 303 signatures on Charter 08, before being taken away by police hours before releasing it to the public (planned for the 60th anniversary of World Human Rights Day on December 10, 2008).
I signed my name on the charter a few weeks later. It was already circulating on the Internet, especially on Chinese websites outside China. To be honest, I had my reservations concerning certain formulations in the text, but I did not hesitate to join. It was a decision based on careful consideration about possible political options inside China, under the CCP’s iron-fisted control over political power.
Many people would question this phrase of “iron-fisted control over political power.” They would list numerous examples to show how much more relaxed political control is today than it was in previous decades in China. My response to this kind of argument is to look into how many “political” resources are available to the public. Once focusing on publicly accessible resources in politics, I believe you’ll find the iron-fist is everywhere, blocking the paths of individual citizens in their efforts to become proper, modern, political citizens of a “People’s Republic.”
Most importantly, this control begins at monopolizing political discourse. The Beijing Olympics could be regarded as the “most important political mission” of 2008, and so too the Shanghai World Expo and the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010. But it is the authorities alone who could define such missions for not only themselves but also everyone under their rule. It would be impossible for anyone else to appropriate the political discourse for positions challenging power-holders. Of course, advisory, suggestive proposals, or even warning statements can be tolerated, so long as the authorities retain their power to hand down a final say on the suggested proposal; or, in the case of sounding out alarms, to grant an audience to the author(s).
The Party’s monopolization of political discourse had its weakest moment in the 1980s. It regained control in today’s China with the assistance of ruthless repression of organized dissent. In addition to the bloody suppression of the Tiananmen protest in 1989, the Beijing government sentenced a group of young intellectuals organizing a democratic party in the early 1990s to up to twenty years in prison (e.g. He Depu and Zha Jianguo); a reading group of young faculty members were given prison terms ranging from five to ten years (e.g. Yang Zili and Xu Wei); and another attempt to legally register a China Democracy Party in 1998 met with no less harsh terms of imprisonment.
Talk with activists in China — be they environmental, gender, AIDS, or poverty-prevention NGOs — and you will hear that “we don’t want to go into politics,” or “we are not political.” Once I watched in Los Angeles an impressive documentary about forced immigration in southwest China. When it came to discussion time, the director was visibly frustrated by the audience’s questions and eventually brought them to a stop by firmly declaring that his documentary has no political implications whatsoever. I have my sympathy with those who want to do good things for Chinese society and the Chinese people. At the same time, I feel sad that things have come to this point, where the most intelligent, sensitive minds in China are internalizing the fear of becoming “too political” for the authorities to stomach.
What makes Charter 08 different is the nature of its demands and the approach it takes towards supporters. This document does not budge from demanding political rights for citizens — it is NOT a document focusing on human rights in China alone. On the other hand, by asking for constitutional reform, it avoids the suggestion of an imminent revolution to overthrow the CCP’s rule. This should have defused the government’s accusation of “subversion” (see below). It asks supporters to sign on the basis of independent, individual consent — you grant your consent to the document and that’s it. There would be no more organizational activities based on this.
Some people may not agree completely with the charter’s formulation (like me); and they may decline to sign it on these grounds (unlike me). My signing is a political decision based on assessment of the entire situation, not merely on the text itself. One key factor for me is that the charter cannot be seen freely, let alone debated, inside China. And another, no less important factor is this is the least I can still do to demand political participation for ordinary Chinese people — no organization of whatever sort, just the individual, the citizen her- or himself. Unfortunately, the Party could not allow this minimal demand of civil rights outside its control.
3. Liu Xiaobo and the Tiananmen Mothers
But there might be more that led to Liu’s long imprisonment and I believe it is his intrinsic connection to the June 4th Massacre of 1989. In all the noisy reactions to the Nobel Peace Prize since October 8, Liu’s own response speaks volumes to this connection. According to his wife, who was allowed to see him on October 9, he was weeping emotionally to the news, saying that the prize is essentially for the victims of June 4th. His reaction was by no means accidental.
By the time Liu was handed his sentence last December, Charter 08 had gathered thousands of signatures. Except Liu, none of the other initial 303 signatories was tried for it, not even Zhang Zuhua, who was a co-drafter and was arrested at the same time as Liu but released soon afterwards. Liu’s six articles listed by the prosecutors are indeed harsh in tone in their critique of the Chinese government. However, out of almost a thousand articles penned by the prolific author and published overseas or online (as he is not allowed to publish anything inside China), the six are certainly taken out of context by the court. Even if the six texts are to stand alone, the trial was by all measures a prosecution of ideas.
I need to say a few more words about the trial here. A key twist, which the court emphasized at the trial and the Chinese propaganda machine is now repeating again in response to the peace prize, is this: on the one hand, Charter 08 was never formally charged as a crime-carrying text; on the other hand, even if the six texts were to be prosecuted word by word, Liu never went out to collect signatures for these six texts. Charging Liu on the ground of “collecting signatures” for a supposedly innocent text would lead us back to the question of monopolizing political participation and political discourse that I have discussed above. Moreover, Liu Xiaobo was not the most radical activist writing either online or abroad. In fact, he is often criticized by fellow democracy-fighters for his milder position on constitutional reform (as mentioned above) or his softer approach towards the authorities (e.g. “I have no enemies,” the title of his written final defense at his trial).
What does make Liu Xiaobo stand out among many, I believe, is his unique connection to the Tiananmen Mothers, a group composed of those who lost their loved ones in the bloody oppression of 1989.
As a literary critic in the 1980s, Liu Xiaobo cut an image of a rousing “black horse” against China’s establishment. From then to now, he has grown from youthful rebellion to obliging humility. What brought about this reincarnation are mainly two forces — his loving wife, on the one hand, and Professor Ding Zilin, the leading figure of the Tiananmen Mothers group, on the other.
Liu Xiaobo was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in spring 1989, when he decided to cut short his program and rush back to Beijing from New York to join his students in the rising popular protest on Tiananmen Square. Arrested afterwards, he thought for awhile that it was mainly the student leadership who led the masses to the tragic end, and so sometimes cooperated with the authorities. When he was released in the early 1990s, he learned the death of Professor Ding Zilin’s son, 17-year-old Jiang Jie-lian, on that tragic night. However, when he went to see Ding and her husband, intending to express his condolences, Ding refused to meet him, angered by his harsh words about the protesters and cooperation with the government. Agonizing self-examinations followed for Liu, fortunately helped by meeting his future wife, the immensely loving and sympathetic Liu Xia. Later, Professor Ding would recollect that it was largely thanks to Liu Xia that the two families eventually became trusting friends in their joined effort to continuously demand rights and justice in China.
That was in 1995. In the past fifteen years, Liu has taken it as his utmost duty to safeguard the memories of Tiananmen and, in particular, of the June 4th victims. Every year before the anniversary of June 4th, he would write commemorative poems or essays to remind the world that the event should never be forgotten.
As early as 2002, Liu Xiaobo put forward the idea to nominate the Tiananmen Mothers group for the Nobel Peace Prize. Though unable to leave China, he worked hard on this proposal through his contacts abroad, especially when he was elected Chairman of the Independent Chinese Pen Center. His friends tell stories about how he was asking for help to nominate the Tiananmen Mothers group once again only days before he was taken away by police in December 2008.
Precisely because of Liu’s connection to Professor Ding, when the news of Liu’s Nobel Peace Prize came, she as well as Liu Xia were put under virtual house-arrest by the police. Many celebrating friends were taken away for interrogations, and Professor Ding and her ailing husband were also under police control in their hometown in the south, unable to move freely and without normal communications with the outside world. If the prize has symbolic significance, in Liu Xiaobo’s case it cannot be separated from his insistence on remembering this not-so-remote page in modern China’s history, the Tiananmen protest and the June 4th victims.
Since the announcement of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, there have been celebrations and congratulations around the world. Sadly for those inside China, their celebrations attracted swarms of police and caused Liu’s supporters to lose their freedoms as ordinary citizens of the People’s Republic. It makes Liu Xiaobo’s prize all the more important in its symbolic meaning, to most Chinese people and to the world — What is peace if a government can roll its tanks over peaceful civilian protesters at will, in the name of maintaining stability? What is peace if a victim of the government’s wrongdoing has no way to seek redress, yet could easily invite greater police harassment merely for doing so? What is peace if a citizen has no free access to political discourse, let alone political participation, in a country where social conflicts are suppressed by coercive forces?
Because of all the above, I support Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Wang Chaohua received a PhD in modern Chinese language and culture from UCLA and is editor of One China, Many Paths (Verso, 2003). She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History at Academica Sinica.
‘NCIS’ outpaces ‘Dancing With the Stars’ as Orlando’s favorite
Robert Wagner, left, returns to "NCIS" on Nov. 9. The CBS drama stars Mark Harmon right. Photo credit: Michael Yarish/CBS
We have a new favorite series in Central Florida.
“NCIS” with Mark Harmon averaged 306,900 viewers during the October ratings period. The CBS drama overtook longtime favorite “Dancing with the Stars.” The Monday edition of the ABC dance contest averaged 294,100 viewers during October.
Here are our other favorites:
3. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 231,200
4. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 216,600
5. “Dancing With the Stars” Tuesday, ABC, 204,700
6. “CSI,” CBS, 195,300
7. “Undercover Boss,” CBS, 179,100
8. “Desperate Housewives,” ABC, 173,600
9. “The Mentalist,” CBS, 171,300
10. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 168,600
And here are the favorite shows of the 25-to-54 age group in Orlando:
1. “Dancing With the Stars” Monday
2. “Modern Family,” ABC
3. “NCIS”
4. “Undercover Boss”
5. “Cougar Town,” ABC
6. “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC
7. “The Amazing Race,” CBS
8. “Two and a Half Men,” CBS
9. “60 Minutes”
10. “Desperate Housewives”
Here, There, and Everywhere: Upcoming Events
If you have a bit of free time, check out one of these China-related talks around the world this week and next:
• Tomorrow (October 28), Jeff Wasserstrom will be speaking at Pomona College on the topic of “Shanghai in the World — and the World in Shanghai: 1850-2010.”
• Jonathan Watts, Asia Environment Correspondent for the Guardian, is doing a tour in support of the American release of his book, When a Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will Save Mankind — Or Destroy It. Here’s where Watts will be in the next week:
At the University of Southern California Monday, November 1, sponsored by the US-China Institute
At UC Irvine Tuesday, November 2, in conversation with Ken Pomeranz as the latest speaker in the China Lecture Series produced by China Beat and the UCI Humanities Collective (talk co-sponsored by Orange Goes Green, the Department of History, and the UCI Environment Institute)
At Berkeley on Wednesday, November 3, discussing “Why Japan and the World Are Concerned about China’s Environmental Crisis”
In Seattle on Thursday, November 4, at the University of Washington (tickets required, purchased either in advance or at the door)
• The Huntington Library in Pasadena, CA, will be hosting a conference November 5-6 exploring “Pacific Spaces: Comparisons and Connections Across the Pacific Ocean in Early Modern and Modern Times” (register by October 29).
• Beginning Sunday, November 7 (and continuing on the next two Sundays after that), Capital M in Beijing will be featuring “Capital Conversations,” a northern version of the “Cosmopolitan Conversations” that M on the Bund initiated over the summer. Here’s the schedule of speakers and topics:
November 7: “China in the 80s: How Far Have We Come?” with Zhang Lijia and Geoff Raby
November 14: “Values in China,” with Gady Epstein, Ian Johnson, and Evan Osnos
November 21: “The Chinese Internet,” with Jeremy Goldkorn, Kaiser Kuo, and Mary Kay Magistad
Casey Anthony: Jail answers defense on release of records
Casey Anthony confers with attorney Jose Baez after a July court hearing. Photo credit: Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel
What does the Orange County Jail have to say about Casey Anthony’s attorneys trying to get her jail records sealed?
Television stations quickly summed up the latest in the case tonight.
WESH-Ch. 2 anchor Martha Sugalski said: “Her defense team cites a new court ruling that banned a South Florida newspaper from getting access to inmates’ recorded personal phone calls. In their response, attorneys for the Orange County Jail argued that ruling does not apply to other public jail records like visitor logs and commissary records that by law they’re required to release.”
WFTV-Ch. 9 anchor Martie Salt said: “The county runs the jail and says a new appeals court ruling only applies to recorded personal calls of inmates, not the other records, like her jail account. She [Anthony] will be in court when Chief Judge Belvin Perry takes up the issue this Friday.”
WFTV also noted that Anthony’s attorneys spent today questioning Detective Yuri Melich, the lead Orange County investigator in the case, and will talk to the son of former meter reader Roy Kronk on Thursday. “The son claims Roy Kronk appeared to have inside information,” Salt said.
Kronk found the remains of Caylee Anthony. Casey Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee.
A Tale of Three Mega-Events
By Jeffrey Wasserstrom
What can we learn, about either the People’s Republic of China or India and about what makes the two countries similar to and different from one another, by placing recent mega-events in these two young nation-states side by side? As a China specialist who watched the Beijing Olympics from afar with great interest in 2008, spent a month in Shanghai last summer while it played host to the 2010 World Expo, and is now nearing the end of his first stay in India, which took place in an autumn week that began right after the Commonwealth Games had concluded, I’ve been ruminating on this question a lot lately. Here are several things that strike me as worth considering, after a week in Delhi that has included participation in an academic workshop and public events devoted to themes of urban change.* In some cases, my comments bring up issues that have received a lot of attention in mainstream media coverage of the mega-events; in other instances, I push in directions that the press has not tended to go. In all cases, I am drawing upon not just my own reflections, but also on private and public conversations I have had during my brief time in Delhi, especially discussion at a stimulating October 19 Delhi Urban Platform event, which was held at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and gave me the opportunity to share a stage with Ravi Sundarum (an urban theorist and media studies scholars who is one of the initiators of the inspiring SARAI network) and former CSDS director Ashis Nandy (the globally famous and provocative political thinker).
1. Politics and the Public Sphere. A common theme in commentaries about mega-events, as well as other topics, is that discussions of Chinese and Indian politics should begin with drawing contrasts between China’s hyper-efficient authoritarian model and India’s unruly democratic one. There are certainly important differences to note in this regard. And there is no question that focusing on mega-events can draw our attention to those disparities, as well as to similarities beneath the surface of this general divide: e.g., in each setting, grand spectacles and other urban transformations are often accompanied by corrupt deals between officials and developers that disadvantage the ordinary people who get displaced to make way for new stadiums or shopping malls. At least equally interesting, though, is the way that a focus on mega-events suggests the need to break free of the tendency to take a democracy=elections approach to politics (something particularly strong perhaps in the U.S.), and think instead of a democracy=free-flowing public debate approach.
Here, again, corruption provides a way in. The question of who exactly will profit most from how new luxury dwellings in the Commonwealth Village are parceled out has been the subject of a lively discussion in the Indian press throughout my time in Delhi (and is also discussed in this piece by political scientist Mita Sengupta). But though there are definitely comparable issues to debate where the Shanghai Expo is concerned, there was not a similar sort of airing of concerns in the Chinese press last summer nor can we expect one after the event ends October 31. Similarly, satirical commentary about the Games has been taking place in the open in Delhi (including via a lively public display of politically pointed postcards and CWG-mocking buttons at SARAI), whereas in China, it has been confined to Chinese-language Internet sites and the writings of foreigners (the wittiest Expo criticism in English coming via Access Asia weekly updates, which among other things feature a countdown clock ticking off the time until a giant sigh of relief can be breathed about the event finally being over).
2. It’s About Time. Speaking of countdown clocks, when it comes to time keeping, there are some interesting parallels to note between the 2008-2010 Indian and Chinese mega-event experiences. Countdown clocks that hit zero this year were built for the Commonwealth Games and the Shanghai Expo, for example, and Delhi’s sports-themed mega-event, like Beijing’s of 2008, opened with a spectacle that invoked traditions said to stretch back thousands of years—the specific phrase “5,000 years of civilization” was trotted out by the Chinese and Indian press alike—and made use of state-of-the-art technologies of display (to convey a sense of a country with a venerable past and an ability to do things in a world class manner in the present). And yet, there is a big temporal contrast worth noting. In Delhi now, the aftermath of the CWG is a time for reflection, for looking back and assessing and arguing about what transpired, including asking whether the problem-plagued event that just took place demonstrated that India is indeed ready to take its place among the most modern of nations. The fast-forward button and even play button are abandoned in favor of going into rewind and pause modes.
In China, this did not happen in 2008 with the end of the Games, nor will it when the Expo ends October 31. As soon as the Olympics were over, attention turned to things on the horizon, whether the next spectacle Zhang Yimou would stage in his role as state choreographer (the 60th birthday of the People’s Republic scheduled for National Day 2009) or the Shanghai Expo (billed as not just China’s first World’s Fair but also an “Economic Olympics”). And the mega-event relay signaled by the move straight from the end of the Olympics to the build-up to the Expo will not conclude later this month, for though Shanghai’s countdown clocks hit zero in May, the ones in Guangzhou ticking away the seconds until the start of that city’s first (and China’s second) Asian Games are now the focus, and reports of the Asiad torch run vie with reports of Expo attendance records in the Chinese official press. China remains, in other words, a country where the fast forward button is favored (sometimes play is allowed, but rewind and pause are not used much). This at least is the approach taken by the government, which discourages backward-looking reflection—except when it leads to, say, remembrance of humiliations past, as occurs when territorial tensions flare with Japan, or vague invocations of the glories of Confucian thoughts. (In India, too, remembrance of humiliations past is an important theme, of course, and the anxiety generated by critical pre-CWG publicity that drew attention to issues such as low cleanliness standards created anxiety here in part because of their resonance with colonial-era Western disparagements of Indian culture.)
Part of the forward-focused obsession in China now is that it has become a country that is intent to show that it has not just one or two but multiple cities ready to assert claims to world-class status (or at least something close to that). After Guangzhou hosts the Asian Games, for example, a city far to the north of it is making a bid to be seen as much more than just the home of the Terra Cotta warriors. An ad in a Shanghai subway this summer, which was placed right by a video display telling riders how many hundreds of thousands of people had visited the Expo grounds that day, read simply in Chinese: Next Stop Xi’an! This was a reference to the fact that, in 2011, Xi’an will play host to a large international horticultural fair. There has also been talk of Chongqing or Chengdu, a pair of dynamic cities in the western part of China, holding mega-events of their own before long. One way to understand this effort to quickly shift attention from city to city is as an effort to counteract a key weak point of China’s economic boom: namely, the uneven rate at which wealth is flowing to different regions and segments of the population. The government is keen to show that, in the long run, all Chinese will be lifted by the economic tide, not just those in particularly fortunate occupational groups and regions. Making the country one of dispersed mega-events speaks to that goal—though there is a problem here in that crucial parts of the populace being left behind economically are rural dwellers, and mega-events only have very indirect connections to villages.
3. The Audiences for the Spectacle. Mega-events need to be seen as playing to local, national, and global audiences. This has become common wisdom in the era of television broadcasts and the Internet, and an examination of India’s CWG and China’s Olympics-Expo two-step reinforce the validity of the basic notion. It also reveals some ironies hidden within the issue of different sorts of audiences. For example, during the lead-up to the CWG and the Expo, the people most directly affected by preparations were people living in Delhi and in Shanghai. When the events actually took place, though, many Delhi residents who could leave town chose to do so, while many of the people who attended the Expo were not Shanghai locals. A small number of foreigners came to see it, but the vast majority of attendees were neither Shanghainese nor international visitors but Chinese from nearby and not-so-nearby cities and provinces, often but not always residents of urban areas.
A final point about audience worth making is that, with Chinese and Indian mega-events alike, a local vs. national vs. international division of audiences is not enough. For in both cases, it seems, though too little attention has been paid to this in at least the commentaries I have read, there is a crucial subgroup within the “international” category that is a key audience for the “re-branding” goals of mega-events: people with ancestral ties to the country who now live elsewhere. Getting “Overseas Chinese” and “Non-Resident Indians” (to employ commonly used terms for the groups I have in mind) to identify with, travel to, and invest in China and India, respectively, and to think about these countries in new ways seems a major goal of the recent spectacle in Delhi and the pageant that unfolded in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium in 2008, after a torch run that, perhaps not coincidentally, made stops in cities such as San Francisco that are well known for having large Chinatowns. Of course, in the era of videos circulating via the Internet, there are many ways to connect with international populations with ties to specific locales without physically bringing objects like torches into distant city. A full account of the global circulation of the “India Shining” notion (whose obfuscations and Achilles heels Pankaj Mishra has dissected so skillfully) and of what I’ve called elsewhere PRC 2.0 (an imaginary place where Confucius is treated as though he has always been venerated as a national saint rather than being decried at times as a symbol of backwardness, and where fast trains and megamalls as well as red flags and the Great Wall are given places of honor in officially produced documentaries) will need to factor in the complex question of how these visions are aimed at and rejected or accepted by international viewers with historical ties to the giant countries that stand on opposite sides of the Himalayas.
* My trip to Delhi was made possible by an invitation to participate in a thought-provoking and wide-ranging conference that was organized by South Asia specialist Christiane Brosius and China specialist Tina Schilbach, sponsored by Heidelberg University’s “New Urban Imaginaries” project, and held at an Indian branch of the Goethe Institute. I benefited greatly during my time in Delhi from interactions with people involved in that gathering, including the French historian of China Christian Henriot (who like me came to India with memories of visiting the Shanghai Expo in his mind), as well as the impressive people I met at two public events held at CSDS. It seem fitting to note that the globally tinged reflections on a set of globally minded events provided above are ones that this California-based American historian of China would not have had without being involved in a unique set of Delhi activities linked to German and Indian institutions. It also seems appropriate that the comments offered above are being published simultaneously, in slightly different form, here at the Irvine-based China Beat site and at an India-based blog: that of the Delhi Urban Platform.
‘Dancing With the Stars’: And the latest ejectee is …
Cheryl Burke and Rick Fox perform on Monday's "Dancing With the Stars." Photo credit: Adam Larkey/ABC
“Dancing With the Stars” served up a couple of huge surprises early tonight.
SPOILER ALERT: Kurt Warner and Bristol Palin, the two celebrities with the lowest judges’ scores Monday, were safe.
The performers in jeopardy were Jennifer Grey, Kyle Massey and Audrina Patridge. Host Tom Bergeron said they were among the strongest contenders.
Massey learned he was safe. Judge Bruno Tonioli said he was surprised that Patridge was in jeopardy. Len Goodman said it was “ludicrous” that one of the two celebrities was going home.
And the celebrity sent packing tonight was … Patridge, a star of “The Hills.”
Carrie Ann Inaba shook her head in disbelief. “I just know I’ve had such fun,” Patridge said. She saluted professional partner Tony Dovolani and the judges. “It’s been such a fun journey,” Patridge added.
The ABC dance contest continued the rock week theme by enlisting Heart and Kylie Minogue to perform.
Next week, “Dancing” will mark its 200th episode and welcome back more than 50 celebrity dancers. Taylor Swift and Rod Stewart will perform. Former champs Kristi Yamaguchi and Apolo Anton Ohno will serve as competing dance captains to the current performers.