The Great Firewall of China

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/5048583/China-says-Tibet-torture-video-is-a-fake-as-it-blocks-YouTube.html

China says Tibet torture video is 'a fake' as it blocks YouTube

China has closed the video-sharing website Youtube to internet users on the mainland in a move that may be linked to videos on the site allegedly showing police brutality in Tibet.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

Last Updated: 10:30AM GMT 27 Mar 2009

A video that appeared to show Chinese police beating handcuffed and prostrate Tibetan monks was posted twice on YouTube on March 20 and has been viewed over 3,500 times:

"We do not know the reason for the blockage," said Scott Rubin, a spokesman for Google, the owners of YouTube. He said the network in China began to slow on Monday and was eventually halted altogether on Tuesday.

In Beijing, the foreign ministry denied any knowledge of a YouTube ban, and said China was not afraid of the internet. "Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the internet. In fact it is just the opposite," said a spokesman. "We encourage the active use of the internet but also manage it according to the law," he added.

But commentators suggested that censors had acted against YouTube because of sensitivity over Tibet.

The video showed Chinese police kicking and beating apparently defenceless Tibetan protesters, along with graphic images of a Tibetan identified as Tendar, who died from wounds allegedly inflicted by police during riots in Lhasa last March.

The Dharamsala- based Tibetan government-in-exile, which released the rare video footage, said the treatment of the Tibetans violated international norms and amounted to torture.

But Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, issued a rebuttal to the video, saying that the footage had been pieced together from different sources. The agency added that the person shown in the video was not in fact Tendar and that the wounds shown were fake.

An unnamed official said: "Tendar died from a disease at home awaiting court trial. The image of an injured person in the video is not that of Tendar and the wounds were fake."

China has accused Tibet of circulating the video in order to gain international sympathy. However, Beijing has also been courting public opinion. A study by David Bandurski, at the Hong Kong Media Project, showed that Chinese newspapers had published at least 3,087 articles praising China's rule in Tibet over March.

Security in China's Tibetan areas has been tightened in recent weeks because of sensitive anniversaries this month. March 14 marked the one-year anniversary of anti-government riots in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, while March 17 marked the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's flight into exile after Chinese troops crushed a Tibetan uprising. Access to YouTube was patchy earlier this month, around the anniversary date itself.

China has a long history of internet censorship and is thought to have the most advanced internet surveillance systems in the world. A “Great Firewall” blocks content that is deemed unsuitable by censors while police scour the web to “harmonise” signs of dissent. Chinese web sites usually self-censor and sites including Google, Yahoo! Microsoft and Skype all block terms they believe the government would want them to censor.

In 2007, the city of Xiamen banned anonymous blog postings after text messages and blogs were used to coordinate protests against a planned chemical plant.

Last year, a report from the Pew Internet project in China showed that the majority of Chinese Internet users welcomed the idea of controls over content and believed it was natural that the government would censor the web.

Shame Is Fleeting (New York Times op/ed)

An excellent op/ed piece from this week's New York Times: http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/shame-is-fleeting/?emc=eta1

April 22, 2009, 10:00 pm

Shame Is Fleeting

by Timothy Egan

Barely one year ago, when New York Governor Eliot Spitzer made that cringe-inducing appearance with his wife after being named in a prostitution scandal, a friend of mine with keen radar about such things had an instant reaction: “We’ll never see him again.”

But here he is on the latest cover of Newsweek. Not only are we seeing plenty of him, after a round of television appearances as well, but it appears that Spitzer is blazing a new road to redemption — a shortcut, at that. Polls show him more popular than the current governor of New York, which isn’t saying much.

Of late, moralists, ministers, politicians and celebrities of varying degrees of self-regard have been felled by scandal only to rise after doing minimal time in the desert of ill-repute.

Whether this is a good thing is almost beside the point. Spitzer is trying one way back, a contemporary three-step: accept responsibility, show remorse, go away — for a while, at least. Still, he sounds strangely disconnected when he says in Newsweek, “We succumb to temptations that we know are wrong and foolish when we do it and then in hindsight we say, ‘How could I have?’”

In appealing to the “we,” he’s playing the weasel card.

At the other end is Rod Blagojevich. He skipped every step and wants the redemption right away, complete with television show, book deal and lollypop.

At the least, the public expects some groveling. Some admissions. Some contrition. And then, it helps if the disgraced is committed to a larger cause. In Spitzer’s case, reminding people that he tried to prosecute the bad guys who destroyed the global economy goes a long way toward making people forget that he was Client Number Nine, and those sad, hollow eyes of his wife during that haunting appearance.

Every month or so, the volcano in the village square chokes down a new offering. How long till it’s revealed that the amateur singer of the moment, the transcendent-voiced and plain-faced Susan Boyle, doesn’t actually live alone with her cat, and has in fact been kissed?

Shame, thy names are many, and they are most often coupled with hypocrisy. Newt Gingrich (infidelity-affair with young congressional aide while denouncing Bill Clinton after his affair with young intern). Alex Rodriguez (lying about steroids while holding himself up as a role model to kids). Jesse Jackson (fathering a child out of wedlock while moralizing on subjects great and small). Bill Bennett (gambling problems while lecturing on the decline of personal responsibility). Britney Spears (a mess, enough to fill the entire entertainment category).

Every one of them has made a comeback, and seems free to carry on without someone mentioning the asterisk. The Reverend Jackson, who said he needed to “take some time off to revive my spirit and reconnect with my family,” was back in an hour or so. Ditto Gingrich, who blamed “periods of weakness,” and has now joined Rush Limbaugh among the fallen faces that represent the Republican Party’s image to the world.

Those still doing time in the stocks, like former Senator Larry “I Am Not Gay” Craig, failed to follow the first couple of steps taken by Spitzer. John Edwards is also stuck, after trying to lessen his lies about an affair by claiming that he cheated only while his wife’s cancer was in remission.

Then there are people who had nowhere to fall from. Dick Morris, despised by nearly everyone he came in contact with while working for the Clinton White House, resigned from the campaign after reports of cavorting with prostitutes.

Of course, he’s now found a home as a public scold on Fox, along with Karl Rove. They must have a gym just off the green room for practicing moral flexibility.

Some people should never be allowed a second act. O.J. Simpson, for one. The jury that let him get away with it because of some fancy race-baiting by his defense attorneys, for another.

For most, a lifetime of shunning is not necessary. It was instructive to read the account of Charles Van Doren in The New Yorker not long ago. He was the handsome young college professor caught up in a cheating scandal in a 1950s-era television game show, “Twenty One,” and the subject of a Robert Redford film, “Quiz Show.”

After his fall, he resigned from his job at Columbia and disappeared — for what seemed like a lifetime. Hey, all he ever did was agree to be a fake on television. Van Doren now seems so sincere, so self-aware, so likeable. Or maybe it’s the years between his transgression and the modern follies that put him in a new light.

“It’s been hard to get away,” he wrote, “partly because the man who cheated on ‘Twenty One’ is still a part of me.”

In a similar vein, Spitzer has tried to live with the duality. He has said, “I have no one to blame but myself,” repeatedly, which negates some of the weasel language. Still, that may not be enough. At the end of the online version of the Newsweek story, a reader commented: “This guy just needs to stay in exile.”

I’m not so sure. Which is worse: giving him early parole from shame, or making him wander in a Van Doren wilderness?

PHIL SPECTOR

SHAMEometer rating out of 100:
95

Who:

Legendary music producer who created the Wall of Sound, starting with hits by girl groups in the pre-Beatles sixties (including The Ronettes, whose lead singer he married, and The Crystals). Later, he shaped pop anthems by The Righteous Brothers ("You've Lost That Loving Feeling") and Tina Turner ("River Deep Mountain High"). After a slump, Spector returned to form in the early-seventies producing ex-Beatles John (Imagine) and George (All Things Must Pass), but angered fans by helming Leonard Cohen's Death of A Ladies Man (1977) and The Ramones' End of The Century (1980).

Long a paranoid, violent recluse who rarely gave interviews and stopped producing music years ago, Spector returned to the public spotlight on April 13 this week when the former Tycoon of Teen (coined by Tom Wolfe) was found guilty in the second-degree murder of Hollywood actress and restaurant hostess Lana Clarkson. Spector will be sentenced to serve at least 18 years in prison on May 29.

Left: Phil Spector's mugshot; Right, his victim Lana Clarkson

Shamelessness:

"Mad genius" doesn't begin to describe Phil Spector. Though his music is widely acclaimed and influential (Brian Wilson for one), Spector's legacy is forever tarnished by his violent outbursts, rampant paranoia, and alcohol and drug abuse over the decades. He's pulled guns on everyone from John Lennon to The Ramones, and emotionally and physically abused his ex-wife Ronnie Spector of the famed girl band, The Ronettes. Lana Turner was simply the latest in a long line of victims Spector has terrorized in his life, and never once offering a drop of remorse.

Why is he like this? Clues lie in Mick Brown's acclaimed biography, Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector which recount Spector's dark childhood in the postwar Bronx growing u[ in a lower-middle class Jewish family that apparently suffered from in-breeding and depression. Spector's father killed himself when the boy was eight, and Spector suffered from an overbearing mother all his life. There was little love in the Spector household. Music became an escape for Phil Spector who possessed golden ears. Despite success and wealth, Spector became paranoid and would seclude himself in his L.A. mansion after his first peak in the sixties. Brown's biography and accounts by others consistently paint a portrait of a musical genius but a damaged human being, likely scarred by his father's suicide and unable to show compassion towards others. Basically, Spector has no conscience.

The Tycoon of Teen

Mitigating Factor...or not:

Do the actions of an artist diminish his art? That's the question that music fans have been wrestling with since Spector was arresting for Clarkson's murder in February 2003, and ever more so since his conviction this week. Can you listen to "Be My Baby" ever again?

The answer is Yes. Just because a man or woman creates beautiful music doesn't mean they are saints in real life. Public relation machines create an image that fans devour and rarely question. We expect too much from our musical heroes. Just look at Miles Davis who used to hit his women or Charlie Parker who didn't give a damn about anybody when he wanted to score heroin. Brian Jones, the original guitarist of The Rolling Stones looked angelic but acted like the devil, a "nasty piece of work," as the Brits say. Should we burn their records and CDs?

No, but it won't be the same listening to "Da Doo Ron Ron," because it's so closely associated with Spector and his Wagnerian Wall of Sound.

More reading:

Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector by Mick Brown