10 Feb 17
“… and the devil will drag you under, by the sharp lapel on your checkered coat”
From “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” from the Broadway musical “Guys and Dolls.” The 1955 movie version starred Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons.
More on China, from a friend who just returned:
“China was once a high-profile, highly sought-after, ‘exotic’ posting. Everyone wanted to go there!
It is now a ‘hardship post,’ where people have to be paid a significant premium, and most still refuse to go, even for short periods.
The largest forced human migration in the history of the world has gone unnoticed by liberal snowflakes in our clueless American media (what a surprise!), as literally hundreds of millions of rural Chinese have been herded into sprawling, hastily-organized ‘urban centers.’ Many of these ‘cities’ now top ten million in population, and didn’t even exist twenty years ago!
In the process, the national water table has collapsed. The air is dirt!
And, communication technology is making it progressively more difficult for the Chinese government to isolate its people, and its poisonous air, from the rest of the world.
Their classic Faustian Bargain:
‘You let us rule, and we will let you get rich’
is unraveling!”
Comment: Other friends and colleagues with connections in China tell me that the government there, grudgingly acknowledging their decades-old mistake, is belatedly making an effort to reverse the intolerable air-pollution situation. I hope they’re right, but scant progress has been made so far, and the water situation is utterly catastrophic, with no solution in sight!
“The sure way to lose happiness is to want it at the expense of everything else.”
Bette Davis
/John
