10tonfunk

exactly like the title says. and while a picture may be worth a 1000 words, i’m not sure that the year end/2010 predictions issue of  Caijing this picture came from is worth the 35 RMB i anted up for it at 7-11 in a weak, under-caffeinated haze.

内容已经在标题说好了。可能按照俗语的说法一张图片值得一千词但是我觉得这张图片来自的财经杂志年底版并不值得35元（在7-11还没喝咖啡特别瞌睡的时候买的）！

** 前句话写的特别差，如果有建议怎么该请告诉我！一直到我的汉语水平进步很多我要用更短更简单的话。

现在有一些特别好的”bridge”博客把中文的博客翻译成英文: ChinaGeeks, Veggie Discourse, chinaSMACK, ChinaHush, 等等. 这个对不能读汉语或读汉语特别满的人(之一我)有很大的好处. 通过这个博客和写的博客的人的努力我们可以更好理解中国和一些中国的现象. 这些博客的帖子部分常常有很热闹(而有时候很傻)的谈论. 有点儿遗憾的就是这个交流都是英文的所以交通都是单向的. 我希望我们外国人更努力地试试用中文跟我们中国网友联系.

我写这个文章(post怎么说?)的主要的原因是为了请求你们的推荐. 我一直再找好看的博客和别的中文的媒体. 我天天听英文的播客(podcast?), 我想听中文的但是我还没找好挺合适的. 又没有中文播客有人讨论新闻和热话题?

情把你的博客和podcast的建议写在下面或者发给我 (fred at 10tonfunk.com). 我特别喜欢的是关于时事包括政治, 社会, 等, 但是对几乎所有的话题有兴趣. 你也可以推荐你自己的博客.

谢谢你么的合作 ^__^

(中文肯定有问题, 有很大的错误的话请告诉我!)

English summary: There are a lot of awesome bridge blogs out there (click the links above) which are great for those of us who either can’t read Chinese or read really slowly. They’re great for helping non-Chinese readers understand better certain aspects of China/Chinese life which wouldn’t be accessible to them otherwise. There’s also some very good discussion in the comments. Often times there’s also some extremely douchey (how to translate?) “discussion”/debate as well. In both cases it’s almost always in English, which means that there’s not as much communication between the English and Chinese blogospheres as there could be. I think it would be a good thing if we foreigners were more active in the Chinese language blogosphere.

So I’m asking for recommendations: what Chinese language blogs do you like/suggest I read? Feel free to recommend your own blog. Also, are there good Chinese language podcasts out there? I’ve been searching around a bit but without much success for podcasts that discuss news and current affairs/cultural issues. If you’ve got Chinese language recs please post them below or send them to me at fred at 10tonfunk.com.

I’ll never know if it’s counted or not but technically speaking I have actually voted and I did actually vote for Jorak. Despite not agreeing with most of their policies.

I’m always saying people should vote on issues and not gut and I completely voted on gut – Obama seems ridiculously calm and I think we could use that. But his policies – from healthcare, to Afghanistan, to nuclear energy, to FISA, to drilling, to Biden’s votes in 05 on the bankruptcy acts which got us where we are now… just don’t do it for me and I would have rather voted for Nader.

I know people find that ridiculous and worthy of derision but when are people going to stop back to the same abusive parties. I don’t believe in the patient approach either. Sure, after 10 years in office Obama is going become more liberal and implement the plans he wanted to but had to do step by step. Bullshit.

It happens now – when Republican approval ratings are ankle-high, or it doesn’t happen at all. Every time I hear Obama I am completely unimpressed by his umming and uhhing and his responses and then I hear someone like Nader on who won the debates – “wall street won the debate, nuclear companies won the debate, the military industrial complex won the debate” – whom I agree with. It would be great if lefties would be willing to push Obama and others but they’re not, are they? Always like, let’s vote him in and then…. Once he’s in he doesn’t ever have to listen to any of us again.

I grew up feeling – it was just a feeling, but still – that the so-called 3 legged stool of the Democratic party was abortion rights, gun control, anti-death penalty. In one week Obama came out FOR the death penalty for child rapists (when Illinois more than anywhere has had trouble with the death penalty not being supported by a fair legal system), for some 2nd Amendment gun bullshit, and his stance on abortion while decent is not without qualification either. Obama really at heart is a moderate – which he makes clear in his book – and while I appreciate the moderate mentality when it comes to NOT taking action (i.e. nuking Iran), I don’t like it when it does (getting the fuck out of Afghanistan, putting some hurt on Wall Street CEOs, shooting down the offshore drilling bullshit or FISA).

I haven’t heard anyone say anything about police brutality or about Troy Davis being executed this week.

This next bit comes from the great Democracy Now and Ezekiel Edwards from the Innocence Project:

“Well, just for a little bit of background, since the Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Newfeld, 223 people have been exonerated through post-conviction DNA testing. We’ve looked back at those cases and found that in 75 percent of them, mistaken eyewitness identification was a leading contributing factor.

Troy Davis’s case was based almost entirely on identification evidence. As you said earlier, of the seven witnesses who came to court—well, the nine witnesses, but five of whom were eyewitnesses—seven were eyewitnesses; five have recanted their testimony. Seven of the nine total witnesses have recanted their testimony. ”

Dude gives further reason why eyewitness testimony and the whole thing is just fucked. So does a woman from Amnesty International.

We are spending millions of dollars to kill another black man who we have pretty reasonable doubt is not in fact guilt. Great.

We are spending more on healthcare and education pretty much anyone – per person – and getting decidedly substandard returns on the investment.

And we’re paying the people who royally fucked the duck on the economy to go get pedicures. HERE: God what a shithole. I wouldn’t set my perfectly pedicured foot in there even if someone paid me 700 billion dollars to do so.

Obviously we need change, and obviously – at least to me – we need it to be drastic. I hope the change I voted for is gonna come, soon, and it’s gonna be epic.

Ps. Why didn’t I vote for Nader (again – I voted for him in 2000)? Because, frankly, he doesn’t have a chance this year to even make the 5% which would get him (I believe) into the next set of debates, 4 years later. And because living abroad I’ve met so many people from around the world who feel so passionately about Obama and the change he promises that I hope that this vote (which I really do hope gets counted) is for them as well. And lastly, because if McCain or Palin gets to pick as many as 3 Supreme Court Justices than we are totally and completely fucked. I’m not patiently waiting for 20+ years for Roe v Wade to get REinstated. Or for a standard day at the office to look like this.

读 中文的朋友: 这个还是一篇文章关于我们美国大选. 最近我投票了. 即使我我他们大部分的政策不同意我还选了奥巴马和拜登. 其实我感觉有点儿尴尬. 为什么呢? 因为我常常说我们头票的时候应该根据政策没有候选人的性格投票. 但是我选了奥巴马因为我觉得他的性格很放松, 选了他因为我觉得她是个聪明而很老大的人.

我自己跟喜欢纳德但是他赢不了. 最多的到百分之三的投票. 最多. 所以因为麦克恩和佩林都特别糟糕, 而且我有很多国外朋友喜欢奥巴马, 我选择他.

我喜欢奥巴马因为看起来他是个又很有耐心, 又很中庸的人. 但是因为这个原因我也不喜欢她. 读我来说有的情况需要耐心 – 伊朗, 俄罗斯. 但是有的情况我们需要马上行动. 教育阿, 经济阿, 阿富汗阿. 我们来不及. 等太长时间的结果太厉害.

奥巴马的运动口号是’变化’. 美国真需要变化. 即使我们付很多钱为了健康保险和学校系统我们的水平还很低. 比别的发达的国家低得多. 现在的经济危机当然算特别大的问题, 而且得到纳税人的钱那个经纪公司CEO做什么呢? 他们去玩而了.

我们也有个死刑问题, 这个星期一个人被州府杀死了. 但是对他的说居并不好. 一个独立组织发现我们在美国用死刑杀死200多人清白的人. 糟糕. 这个不是算人权问题吗?

所以, 如果奥巴马赢了 – 我真希望她赢了, 他不太完美但是比麦克恩和佩林好的多! – 他给我们他保证给我们的变化. 我也希望她来得很居变的变化. 目前是个真超凡的时代, 我们需要超凡的领导而超凡的变化才能使美国回到正确的位置, 提高人民的生活水平.

forget getting out of the country, get the fuck off the planet. now all that richard branson space tourism craziness is starting to make sense.

Stephanie sent me this amazing (in the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah pillar of salt awesome sense) Rolling Stone article by Tim Dickinson about John McCain

Summary: do NOT let this man get elected.

Expanded summary:

“In its broad strokes, McCain’s life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers’ powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives’ evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.”

WHO’S EXCITED???

McCain crashed not one, not two, but three planes. Cheated on his first wife who’d had a horrible car accident and married the cookie-recipe-stealing, pathological-liar-by-her-own-admission, ultra-creepy Cindy “honey this Bangladeshi baby I’m holding in my arms for the press conference is our daughter now and we can make up a bullshit story about how Mother Theresa gave it to us” McCain (read the New Yorker article on Cindy) 6 weeks later.

of course McCain has plenty of lovable rogue moments !combined with! working with friends from both sides of the aisle for the double the fun:

“his volcanic temper has repeatedly led to explosive altercations with colleagues and constituents alike. In 1992, McCain got into a heated exchange with Sen. Chuck Grassley over the fate of missing American servicemen in Vietnam. “Are you calling me stupid?” Grassley demanded. “No, I’m calling you a fucking jerk!” yelled McCain. Sen. Bob Kerrey later told reporters that he feared McCain was “going to head-butt Grassley and drive the cartilage in his nose into his brain.” The two were separated before they came to blows. Several years later, during another debate over servicemen missing in action, an elderly mother of an MIA soldier rolled up to McCain in her wheelchair to speak to him about her son’s case. According to witnesses, McCain grew enraged, raising his hand as if to strike her before pushing her wheelchair away.”

Keep in mind this is Bob “when i was in Vietnam me and my men committed a war crime by exterminating an entire unarmed village of women and children” Kerrey so he’s probably not overstating this.

and his sensitive moments where he admits his shortcomings:

“McCain, who has admitted that “the issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” relies on Gramm to guide him.” That’s Phil “you whiny fucking babies / i destroyed our economy” Gramm.

It’s a rough and brutal read but, like Salt n Pepa said, very fucking necessary.

中 国朋友,上面的文章太难翻译了. 为什么呢? 一来语言特别口语, 二来转语名词很多, 三来这个文章关于美国的选大. 如果你不是美国人你不能理解. 为什么呢? 因为我们的政治系统和美国人关于政府的想法不能客观地了解因为完全没有逻辑. 如果你是比较聪明, 有常识的人, 你不能了解到为什么: 我们选了小布什, 不只是选了一次—选了他两次; 我们去攻击伊拉克; 我们受理麦克恩的副总统选择–莎拉·帕林–如果麦克恩去世的话能成为我们的总统的前景. 太糟糕了. 还有兴趣的话去看这个文章