‘Dancing With the Stars’: Ralph Macchio inspires by rebounding
Mark Ballas suffered an injury but still performed with Chelsea Kane tonight on 'Dancing With the Stars.' Photo credit: Rick Rowell/ABC
“Dancing With the Stars” offered Guilty Pleasures Night. But the judges were feeling no guilt about handing out high scores: It was Generosity Night. The most memorable moment belonged not to the highest scorer, but to ”Karate Kid” star Ralph Macchio, who demonstrated moves that you want from a movie hero.
Here’s how the night unfolded:
Kirstie Alley struggled in practice on the samba. Maksim Chmerkovskiy had to push her, then comfort her, but she announced she wanted 9 scores from the judges. She moved well on the entertaining dance, she shook her hips impressively, and she didn’t suffer any flubs, such as losing her shoe.
She wowed the judges. Judge Len Goodman said Alley had fulfilled her potential, and Carrie Ann Inaba said she was back. “Your wiggly bum sent shock waves through the air waves,” Bruno Tonioli raved. Score: 26, with 8 from Inaba.
Wrestler Chris Jericho had trouble with the timing on the tango. He and Cheryl Burke performed a polite tango set to “Don’t Stop Believing.” Sad to say, the dance lacked heat. Tonioli said it was an off night for Jericho, and Inaba said the pressure had gotten to Jericho. Goodman praised the technique but said the dance needed intensity. Score: 22 points, with 8 from Goodman. They were pretty high numbers for harsh criticism.
Rapper wanted to show he was a romantic on a waltz set to “My Heart Will Go On” from “Titanic.” He was very serious, but the dance was pretty and partner Chelsie Hightower enjoyed herself. The judges were swept away, sort of like Kate Winslet in the movie. “Magical,” Inaba ruled. “For a young man, you dance with great maturity,” Goodman raved. “You achieved a new level of poise,” Tonioli gushed. Score: 28, with Inaba giving the first 10 this season.
Mark Ballas pushed Chelsea “Disney kid” Kane to be more competitive. She kept pace with him on a demanding quickstep set to “Walking on Sunshine.” It was the best dance of the night up to that point, and Ballas showed no signs of a twisted ankle in dress rehearsal. “Full on and great fun,” Goodman said. “You have so much zest,” Tonioli said. Inaba saw more magic, which suggested another 10 was coming. Score: 28 points, with 10 from Inaba.
Kendra Wilkinson had her most memorable moment on the show, and it had nothing to do with dancing. “You’re going to shake everything God gave you,” Louis Van Amstel told her. “Well, my boobs aren’t what God gave me,” she replied.
She shook everything God and man gave her — it was her best dance so far. She concluded it by shaking everything on the judges’ table. “That was a guilty pleasure, my dear,” Inaba said. “You fulfilled one of my guilty pleasures,” birthday boy Goodman said. Tonioli called it the “Revenge of the Stripper: Part I: The Attack of the Killer Boobs.” Yes, he said that. Host Tom Bergeron took that as the cue to show a frisky Tonioli years ago in an Elton John music video. The video fit Guilty Pleasures Night. Score: 25, with 9 from Tonioli.
Hines Ward made the Viennese waltz look easy, and he had no trouble showing a romantic style. ”You’re second to none,” Goodman said. “You couldn’t be more fluid,” Tonioli said. But Inaba saw trouble at the start because Hines was thinking too much. Score: 27 points — making him second to Kane and Romeo.
“Karate Kid” star Ralph Macchio was determined to rebound from last week’s low scores. He had to display a sexy style on the paso doble, and he incorporated moves from “The Karate Kid.” Unfortunately, Smirnoff tripped over his long coat, which threw off the routine for a bit, but they came back. The judges praised Macchio’s professionalism and recovery. Goodman congratulated him for pulling up Smirnoff and getting on with the dance. Tonioli liked Macchio’s “virile intensity.” Score: 24 points. Smirnoff saluted Macchio for getting her through the dance.
The show opened with Hanson singing “MmmBop,” and the group will return for a special at 8 p.m. Tuesday on WFTV-Channel 9. The cast of “Rock of Ages” will perform, too. In fact, ABC will offer two live hours of “Dancing” on Tuesday. New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys and ”American Idol” castoff Pia Toscano will perform in the results show at 9.
Which celebrity leaves? Jericho is probably the goner. What do you think?
Oprah Winfrey offers Michael Douglas interview on Tuesday
Michael Douglas attended the Broadway opening of 'High,' starrring Kathleen Turner, last week. Photo credit: Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Oprah Winfrey wraps up her daytime talk show Wednesday, May 25. But she is determined to make every show before that day a big deal.
She chats with Oscar winner Michael Douglas on Tuesday. The Winfrey P.R. machine calls it “a no-holds-barred interview,” and he talks about his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and her revelation that she is suffering bipolar disorder.
Douglas tells Winfrey, “It takes a lot of courage to seek help and I am proud of Catherine for doing something positive about her situation.”
Douglas also discusses his battle against throat cancer.
On today’s show, Winfrey’s producers talk frankly about putting the show together and the male employees tell what it’s like to work at Harpo Productions. The show also recaps memorable moments for the audience, and Winfrey’s folks add that today’s show features “the moment Oprah’s always wanted you to see.”
What could that be?
“The Oprah Winfrey Show” airs at 4 p.m. weekdays on WFTV-Channel 9.
Casey Anthony: Will it be a challenge to find a jury?
Caylee Anthony: The public started worrying about her in July 2008.
I try to take breaks from the Casey Anthony case, but it follows me.
It followed me to the barbershop in Orlando yesterday. When a report came on NBC’s “Today,” I listened to a barber and his customer marvel that the case was receiving more coverage. “On national television?” one man asked in surprise.
Well, yes, and more is coming with jury selection starting May 9. The “48 Hours Mystery” last weekend on CBS was a start, and you’ll hear increased coverage on HLN (home of Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell), on “In Session,” on other cable news channels, on national morning programs and on national news magazines.
Viewers in the Orlando TV market have heard Anthony stories for nearly — think about this — three years. The Sentinel published its first story — “Where Is Caylee Marie?” — on July 17, 2008. It began: “She’s 3 feet tall, loves her teddy bear and hosts tea parties with her stuffed pig and Elmo doll at a toddler’s picnic table.”
The men in the barbershop were used to hearing local news reports about Casey Anthony, who is charged with first-degree murder in her daughter’s death. But the men were incredulous at the national attention, and that makes me think there won’t be a problem finding a jury for this case.
We discuss it in Orlando. It’s a recurring topic on local newscasts, where legal strategies are discussed. It’s a big deal on the blogs. But for millions of other people in Florida, the Anthony case hasn’t registered as major news, and that should make it easy to find a jury. What do you think?
‘Doctor Who’ visits America, Richard Nixon
“Doctor Who” starts a new season at 9 tonight on BBC America.
Isn’t that enough incentive to tune in? If not, here are more lures: The two-part season opener shifts to America and features a visit to the White House, where Richard Nixon asks for help. The script also plops the Doctor (Matt Smith), Amy (Karen Gillan), Rory (Arthur Darvill) and River Song (Alex Kingston) in Utah.
Executive producer Steven Moffat offers this season preview: “Oh, there’s a big story being told this year, and major mysteries from the very off. As ever, in this show, the stories all stand alone, and every episode is a perfect jumping-on point for a new viewer. But at the same time the over-arching plot will be a bigger player this year. More than hints and whispers — we’re barely 10 minutes into episode one before our heroes face a dilemma that they’ll be staring at months from now. And there will be no easy answers.”
There are 13 episodes this season, and one will come from “Coraline” writer Neil Gaiman.
Facebook and the People in the Iron House: ?????
By James A. Millward
“Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others,” Adam Conner, a Facebook lobbyist, told the [Wall Street] Journal. “We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we’re allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven’t experienced it before,” he said.
“Right now we’re studying and learning about China but have made no decisions about if, or how, we will approach it,” said Debbie Frost, Facebook’s director of international communications.”
So this is what Facebook’s lobbyists and international communications folks are saying openly about how they are planning to enter the Chinese market. This article has been much cross-linked, and the sentiments of the lobbyist may be publicly decried. But then there will be the inevitable responses: ”why should FB care about democracy? They’re a business, after all, and responsible only to their shareholders (as yet not public, though FB has made private offerings to select investors). Why should Facebook be any different than Bob Dylan? You gotta serve somebody, you must accept censorship to get into the Chinese market. It’s the cost of doing business; we respect their local ways.”
But what about racism, or at least chauvinistic culturalism? Should we care if FB embraces that? Whether it’s “Asian Values” advocates, hard-nosed business “realists,” or gradual evolutionists within or outside of China, the argument that certain people, in certain places, aren’t quite ready to speak or think for themselves based on unfiltered information is a tyranny of low expectations. If an American food critic said Chinese people aren’t ready to appreciate, say, good wine, or a foreign film critic said Chinese have lousy cinematic taste, or a Western academic said Chinese don’t really understand what real scholarship or good writing is—they would be pilloried on-line, and Chinese students would track them down and stake out their house. Yet it’s become increasingly routine to hear, both in China and abroad, that Chinese people are okay with a dumbed-down internet since China is strong, China’s economic rise has been remarkable, and in any case you can still play games, shop and read about celebrities on the Chinese intranet. In other words, the Global Times (China’s hyper-nationalistic, pro-government tabloid) is good enough for China, and it’s fine for international media companies to adhere to the standards of the Global Times to get access behind the great firewall.
Lu Xun (in ?? Call to Arms) cared about the people in the iron house:
“Imagine an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep inside who will soon die of suffocation. But you know since they will die in their sleep, they will not feel the pain of death. Now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers, making those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do you think you are doing them a good turn?”
“But if a few awake, you can’t say there is no hope of destroying the iron house.”
Lu Xun lived in different times, and these lines are admittedly too dramatic for the present. But the issue is the same. Does one let them sleep? Is “friending” China a plus, better than nothing, even if the proposed FB-PRC is monitoring the “friend”ship? Would Lu Xun care, today, if he lived outside China or were among the few who have a passport and a VPN connection that allows the savvy and affluent in China to span the firewall? Do I want to keep wasting time on Facebook, or link up with my friends in China using Facebook, when I know that they would not be able to read all my FB posts? Would units at our universities (for example the Asian Studies Program at Georgetown, where I teach) which increasingly use FB as an announcement board, still want to do so knowing that FB itself would censor our announcements of talks that Chinese censors disapproved of?
The WSJ piece mentions that some members of Congress are critical of Facebook for not signing the Global Network Initiative or participating in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s panel on “global Internet freedom.” But it will not be helpful for any branch of the US government to bludgeon or shame Facebook into compliance. Facebook shouldn’t be lockstep with US policy any more than it should be handmaiden to PRC censors. And I wouldn’t even say that Facebook should be fighting for human rights in China or anywhere, since it won’t be FB but domestic Chinese internet and other media that gradually erodes or overwhelms the controls. Rather, Facebook should simply remember its stated principles: in Mark Zuckerberg’s words, that Facebook was intended “to help people understand the world around them” (David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect, p. 143), or that “our main goal at Facebook is to help make the world more open and transparent.” By “blocking content in some countries, but not in others,” does Facebook now want to add a caveat that unlike everyone else, Chinese people should only be vouchsafed translucent understanding of part of the world around them?
Sun Yat-sen wrote a century ago that the Chinese people would need a period of “political tutelage” before they would be ready for democracy. It’s not Facebook’s job to fight for Chinese internet freedoms or human rights. But it’s not Facebook’s job to help the PRC government further extend that “tutelage,” either. Let’s not patronize the Chinese people by accepting the argument that some kind of stripped-down, partially-gated, government-monitored Facebook (or any other media) is good enough for them. I (and, I hope, the other 499,999,999 global FB users) want to be friends with Chinese, not just “friend” them.
James A. Millward is Professor of Intersocietal History at the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University and author of, most recently, Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang (Columbia University Press, 2007).
Casey Anthony: Jose Baez interview set for ‘In Session’
Defense attorneys Jose Baez, left, and Cheney Mason confer during an April 8 hearing. Photo credit: Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel
Jose Baez, Casey Anthony’s defense attorney, has taped an interview with Ryan Smith that will run on “In Session” next week.
Look for the interview at 11 a.m. Thursday and Friday, an “In Session” spokeswoman said.
On April 5, Baez complained to “In Session” about inaccurate local reporting about a nothing story. A Michigan inmate filed a hand-written “motion” wrongly suggesting that Anthony wanted to drop Baez from the case.
On April 16, Baez talked about the Anthony case on CBS’ “48 Hours Mystery.”
Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee. The trial will start next month.
In other Anthony news, WESH-Channel 2 reported that Zenaida Gonzalez’s lawyers have filed a list of expert witnesses they will use in their defamation suit against Anthony. Gonzalez says her reputation was ruined when Anthony linked her to Caylee’s disappearance. The civil trial will come after the murder trial.
‘American Idol’: Who was sent home?
Lauren Alaina performs on Wednesday's 'American Idol.' Photo credit: Michael Becker/Fox
More than 52 million votes were cast for the top seven singers this week on “American Idol.” It was a big vote, but was it a good vote?
Judge Jennifer Lopez said she hoped the ejected hopeful wouldn’t be a female, because only two remain.
SPOILER ALERT: The bottom three were Jacob Lusk, Stefano Langone and Haley Reinhart. But Ryan Seacrest quickly revealed that Haley was safe.
The person out was Stefano.
He had been a wild-card pick who went a long way, and he delivered one of his best perfomances this week. “It started my career, man, and that’s something you can’t put a price on that,” Stefano said of “Idol.”
He said farewell by singing Stevie Wonder’s “Lately” passionately. James Durbin, his good pal, seemed distraught by the vote. The other finalists surrounded Stefano as the show ended.
Randy Jackson and Jennifer Lopez gave encouragement to Stefano and Jacob before the results were announced. Steven Tyler said none of the contestants should be standing waiting for ejection. “They all sing their butts off,” Tyler said. “And remember 50 million people 20 times have watched you guys. There’s a lot of love out there that’s going to be coming your way real soon.”
The hour show was packed with music. Katy Perry headlined a splashy production number of “E.T.” that featured Kanye West, lasers and dancers dressed as extraterrestrials.
“American Idol” champ David Cook, looking mighty handsome, performed “The Last Goodbye” and brought his mom along to meet Steven Tyler. It was a charming moment.
Lauren Alaina, Haley, Jacob and Stefano formed a quartet on Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister.” Casey Abrams, Scotty McCreery and James Durbin were a trio on Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.”
The top six will sing Carole King’s music at 8 p.m. Wednesday on WOFL-Channel 35. Bruno Mars will be on the results show.
When Things Go Wrong: Village Elections as a Process Creating Contention
By Kerry Brown
At the heart of the big story of Chinese rural democracy is the many millions of smaller stories of those who have been touched by this immense process. Before looking at village elections, therefore, here is one single story, of one man, who tried to stand in a village election, and of what happened to him. It is concrete experiences of engaging in the whole process of rural democracy like this that give village democracy its tremendous significance and interest. This section is based on papers obtained in Beijing in August 2009.
Mr Wang Jinsheng is 55, a native of a rural area of the impoverished western province of Shanxi. Shanxi may well be the home of the Terracotta Warriors, near to the main city of Xian, and boasts a splendid history dating back thousands of years, culminating in its time as the capital of what was then China during the mighty Tang dynasty from the seventh to the tenth centuries. But it now lives as a place with its best days behind it. While the rest of China hurtles ahead, towards some kind of über-modernity, Shanxi suffers from a degraded environment, lack of infrastructure, a state owned enterprise sector dominated by heavy industry, and, in some of the more isolated areas, deep and entrenched poverty. Even so, those in its mining sector, because of China’s burgeoning energy needs and reliance on coal, which the region is well endowed with, have in the last few years made a killing. A poor province therefore has some of the wealthiest individuals in the country.
Mr Wang is one of these, albeit on a small scale. According to a local newspaper report, Mr Wang had been a ‘common mechanic’ before taking the opportunity to set up his own business in the 1980s, at the start of the great economic liberalisation process. He is now an energy and mining company president, but someone who has not forgotten his poor background, and who decided, fatefully, to put himself forward in his local village election. It was a decision that was to change his life. His case is typical of many of those new elites, especially business people, who are starting to want something more than the right just to make a lot of money.
Mr Wang had been highly supportive of charities and educational projects in the village in which he chose to stand. According to a reporter from the Xinhua news agency, the official news outlet of the Chinese government, he ‘had never forgotten his fellow villagers.’ At the end of every year, he had donated foodstuffs, and given everyone over 60 years old, the disabled, and the poor, 100 Chinese yuan (US$16.4). ‘Mr Wang, a rich man who does not consider himself rich, wants to let everyone grow rich with him.’
He had, however, started to harbour ambitions in a more political direction. A great part of this had been due to the current Village Committee leader, Mr Zhao. Mr Zhao had, according to testimony put together by Mr Wang after the events that subsequently unfolded, used his position to abuse the one significant power that now still remains in elected village committee heads – that of being able to disburse land and to approve building and commercial projects.
From 2000 to 2008, Mr Zhao had allowed, and been personally involved in, a number of construction projects. This was expressly against the national and local regulations which have forbade the conversion of agricultural land for residential or commercial use. With only 7% of its land arable, and with a massive population to support, it had become a national priority to preserve what agriculturally usable land is left. But rapid, and massive, urbanisation, and the huge boom in the price of housing, has been too great a temptation and in many places, building sites continue to encroach relentlessly onto rice fields and growing plots. ‘The land’ as Mr Wang’s main deposition to the authorities states at its start, ‘is a farmer’s destiny. If they lose their land, they lose the basic means of materially making a living.’
In 2006, Mr Zhao with a local construction company, had signed a contract with a 50 year lease, worth 1 million yuan (approximately US$100,000). Five years earlier, he had been the middleman in a development through the construction of a driving school centre, again on a 50 year lease, selling parts of the site for commercial property. The same year, on what had been till then agricultural land, he had allowed a hospital a 50 years lease to build shops, a factory, and other commercial property. In 2004, 12.4 mu (a mu is equivalent to about 0.66 hectares) had been transferred to some associates to be used for, among other things, an entertainment centre. An hotel had been built on other land at a cost of over 1 million yuan. In all, over the seven year period, 120 mu (about 85 hectares) had been used illegally. The net result had been to make many people in the village poor, with only 200 yuan (US$29.3) a year compensation. ‘80% of the villages’ Wang’s deposition states, ‘have no growing land.’ While Zhao’s relatives, and associates, had grown rich, natives of the area where he had been elected to represent had become increasingly more impoverished.
For this reason, Wang, as a businessman, had decided to stand against Zhao in the elections for village committee head scheduled for December 2008 as a non party candidate. As part of Wang’s election campaign, he had prepared a ‘notice’ issued to all residents eligible to vote in the village. ‘I am Wang Jinsheng,’ it states, ‘the President of Jinxing Company, originally a factory head… I have come to take part in the competition for the head of the Village Committee.’ His appeal continues: ‘If this village needs me, I will work for the villagers. If the villagers want me, I will sort things out realistically for them. If everyone wants me, I will openly speak to people. I have promised myself, I will be honest to people, I will work hard, and I will be self-disciplined.’ Part of Wang’s appeal was that he was not just another cadre, but a businessman who had made his own way for 20 years. It was on the basis of this that he had felt it legitimate to stand.
The chronology of what followed in December 2008 is a classic example of how elections have become the arena for play offs of power between new and old forces at the most basic level of governance in modern China. Wang had made his intentions clear about standing for the Village Committee position in November. On the 26th November, however, a notice had been posted by the local election committee, stating that there were two ‘strict rules’ which had to be adhered to by all those who intended to be candidates. One was that they had to be Communist Party members. The other was that they could not be more that 48 years old. In fact, national and local laws allow all those between the ages of 18 and 60, regardless of gender, ethnicity, party membership, or status, to stand in village elections. Such a regulation put out by a local government was purely because ‘the locals do not understand the real regulations, and were cheated.’ Part of Wang’s motives in his campaign therefore were to ensure that people knew that the regulations issued by the local committee were simply not true.
So angry had Wang been, in fact, that on the 30th November he had set up a meeting with 17 other villagers to discuss how to respond to this issuing of new, irregular rules. On the 1st December, Wang had gone to the local village committee offices to discuss things with Zhao. ‘When Zhao left the room,’ Wang writes, ‘I flipped over a note he had left on the office table. On this he had written “If Wang Jinsheng really wants to stand and be a leader, then let the police, the law, and the local public security bureau collect information and evidence about him, and think of a way of detaining him.”’ After seeing this, Wang had said, ‘I do nothing illegal, I am disciplined, and abide by the law, so what can I be got for?’
The next day, with these 17, Wang had set off to report the matter to the next level of government, at the township close by. But the encounter proved to be unpleasant. ‘Are you Wang Jinsheng?’, a township official called Hou had started, ‘I wanted to find you anyway. That notice you put around yesterday was illegal.’ Wang had replied, ‘Mr Hou, I didn’t put up anything illegal, it was a notice about my election promises.’ This had angered Hou, who slammed his hand on the table. ‘I say it was illegal, so it’s illegal. I am warning you, you need to have responsibility for the illegal things you are doing.’ When Wang tried to intercede, Hou continued, ‘I’m telling you. You are not to take part in the election. You have to withdraw. Even if you get a thousand votes, you’re not going to be the candidate. And even if Zhao gets one vote, he is still going to succeed.’ ‘I want to take part in the election because the local people support me,’ Wang said. ‘You’re not qualified,’ snapped Hou, ‘you’re not a party member and you’re over 48.’ When Wang demanded to see where these two laws were written down, another man with Hou had produced a local book of regulations stating adamantly they were in that. But when Wang asked to see them on the page with his own eyes, Hou had barked at him ‘I can’t waste more of my time talking to you.’ The next day local officials had come to place pressure on Wang’s younger brother, telling him to ask Wang to see reason and withdraw. They even offered inducements in the form of unspecified compensation.
Because Wang had shown no signs of withdrawing from the election, things escalated on the 12th December with a summons to the local procurator, Mr Zhang. ‘Old Wang’, Zhang had said, ‘you’ve been a business person for years. I’ve heard about all the good things you’ve done for villagers. They really support you. But you can’t be the village committee head. You can carry on doing really important, useful things. But not as an elected official. You’re not a Communist Party member, and you’re too old. Withdraw now. It is the best thing to do.’ As they talked, the head of the local Public Security Bureau (PSB) ‘happened to come by and invited me to talk with him at his offices.’ Growing ominously closer to the security agents and their world, Wang maintained his line: ‘I can’t withdraw from the competition. Villagers have great expectations towards me. If I withdraw now, what will they think? How will they look at me?’ The PSB boss put it crisply: ‘Don’t you get it? Mr Zhao is the right man for this job. You’re not competing with Mr Zhao. You’re competing with the local government. The local district government belongs to the Party. We have to listen to them.’
Taken to another security officer’s room, Wang was presented with a piece of paper, on which was written the accusation that he had ‘destroyed the process of the elections and committed fraud.’ Stunned, Wang asked on what grounds this had been made, and why he should sign something that he did not believe was true. ‘It is because you improperly took 17 villagers to a dinner to gain their votes’, he was told. This was construed as election rigging. Magically, at this point his nemesis Zhao appeared, and told him that ‘this matter is out of both of our hands.’
Already late at night, Wang simply left, tired with the business. On the 13th December, Wang took all the materials he had gathered about the irregular rules, and the property dealings of Zhao, to the provincial government. They simply told him that they would instruct the local township to investigate matters, and get back to him. A meeting held as follow up by the township in the 15th December issued a notice saying that ‘Wang Jinsheng is not an eligible candidate, not because of his qualifications, but because he tried to buy votes by entertaining voters.’
On the 16th December, Wang was detained. The second day he was in the local prison, the first leg of the election was held. Of 1,359 who cast their votes, he received 623, Zhao 531. Because no one received more than a half of the total votes cast, a second leg was held on the 18th December. This time, of 1,367 people, Wang received 724 votes, and Zhao 517. This was despite Wang’s claim that Zhao had invited more than 30 friends and relatives, who he had generously entertained while in the village, to take part in this. Despite the clear mandate, on the 23rd December, Zhao was reappointed as the Village Committee leader. The next day, a group of villages went to protest the vote at the provincial government offices. More than ten of these returned to the local town government the next day, but were promptly detained along with Wang.
After ten days in prison, Wang was let out on the 26th. ‘In all, it had been 30 days since I had been involved in this election. It had been 30 days of a nightmare.’ ‘I realised’ he went on, ‘that whatever the situation, if you wanted to be the village committee head, it had nothing to do with elections. It was all stitched up beforehand.’ The words of a town official came back to him: ‘Our township government is on the first level of government. It isn’t something that elections in a village can sort out. If we let people take part, then that’s our business. We are the ones who words matter.’
Wang had gathered 700 signatures to support his original candidacy. But even on his own admission, he had been up against a powerful coalition of vested interests, from township officials, to security officers, to other businesses. Six months later, in the middle of 2009, he was pursuing his case at the central government level. But his lawyer admitted that ‘this kind of case is too common. If you don’t push it immediately, then it gets lost in thousands of others like it.’
Wang’s case illustrates well where village elections put the old Party against emerging new figures. Wang had given generously, and contributed a large amount to the earthquake victims in the Yunnan earthquake in early 2008. He had used the local, and national, press in his campaign. In many areas, people like Wang achieve a breakthrough. In others, it ends up with much worse violence. Some parts of Shanxi have not been able to hold elections for over a decade because they end in chaos and out and out fights. For each of China’s more than 600,000 villages, the case is different. What Wang’s story does show is a society where new sources of wealth, and a new classes, are sometimes coming up against the Party, and pushing their demands more assertively. Someone as persistent as Mr Wang won’t be easy to keep down for long. And he is just one of many thousands. Their contribution to China’s future could be more significant than people currently believe.
From Ballot Box China: Grassroots Democracy in the Final Major One-Party State, © Zed Books, 2011. Reprinted with permission.
Kerry Brown is Head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House. He has previously appeared at China Beat offering advice to Barack Obama before the President’s first trip to China in 2009.
WMFE sale: The local people connected to the purchase
Dr. David Uth presided at the memorial service for Caylee Anthony in 2009. Photo credit: Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel
Who is buying Channel 24 from public broadcaster WMFE?
A document filed with the Federal Communications Commission explains the names behind purchaser Community Educators of Orlando Inc.
The president is listed as Marcus Lamb, who is president and CEO of religious broadcaster Daystar Television Network in the Dallas area.
The vice president, secretary and treasurer is Joni Lamb, his wife. The FCC document notes: “She has recorded six music albums. She hosts a daily women’s TV program that in 2004 was voted the TV talk show of the year award.”
And three Central Floridians are listed as directors of Community Educators of Orlando Inc.:
***Dr. David Uth, senior pastor, First Baptist Church of Orlando. The FCC document states: “First Baptist is the largest church in Orlando with over 15,000 members.”
***Steve Strang, founder of Charisma magazine and CEO of Charisma Media in Lake Mary. The FCC document says of him: “For more than three decades he has been a leader nationally and locally in the Christian community. He has also been recognized as an award-winning journalist who has interviewed three presidents and was even recognized by Time magazine in 2005 as one of the nation’s most influential evangelicals.”
***Dr. Don Colbert, who is the medical director of the Divine Health Wellness Center in Orlando. His website says he has treated more than 40,000 patients at the center. He is also the medical contributor for WOFL-Channel 35. The FCC document describes him as “board-certified in family practice and anti-aging medicine. He is a New York Times best-selling author. He has written more than 40 books.”
I have phone calls in to all three and hope to pass along their comments.
China Beat Event: “Nationalism and Religion in Twentieth-Century Asia,” Friday 4/22
China Beat readers in Southern California are invited to join us this Friday at UC Irvine for a dialogue between James Carter of Saint Joseph’s University and UCI’s Vinayak Chaturvedi, who will be discussing the topic of “Nationalism and Religion in Twentieth-Century Asia.” Carter’s new book is Heart of Buddha, Heart of China: The Life of Tanxu, a Twentieth-Century Monk (read an excerpt here); Chaturvedi is author of Peasant Pasts: History and Memory in Western India.
The dialogue will be held from 1:30 to 3:00 in Humanities Gateway 1030 (building #611 on this campus map), and copies of Carter’s book will be available for purchase after the talk. Event co-sponsored by China Beat, the UCI Humanities Collective, Department of History, and the UC World History MRU.