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<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_047fa90e-691e-41c3-8134-515c398dfc52"><font color="black" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><b>Sent you 18 and 19, too. Since I will only be doing the daily column till the end of the month, you are going to get Monday to Friday until the 29th.</b></font></div>
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<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_047fa90e-691e-41c3-8134-515c398dfc52"><font color="black" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><b>The usual caveat: curious, you are welcome; not, meet you at the bend!</b></font></div>
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<font color="black" size="2" face="arial"><b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: large;">Quakes and fire,
drought and water</b><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">When mapping the consequences of quakes and droughts, floods
and fires, the human cost has become a must.
When we promote the perspective of viewing everyone as individuals
rather than just a numerical entry in a group, the value of an individual
becomes paramount. This runs counter to
the virtue long held in social groups that one's life laid down for a race or
an ethnic bunch is more heroic than just the mere expenditure of the same sometimes
on behalf of another.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">I happen to think that an individual is not filled full
save in the company of and in collaboration with peers but that is a choice
rather than the moral imperative of an ethical ought-ness. Likewise, in mapping out the human cost,
whether it is the personnel-inflicted conflagrations in Gaza, Iraq, and
Ukraine, it is helpful to imagine not an abstract number but snuffed lives or living
casualties often pictured short of limbs.
They have a face, and definitely, a name.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Increasingly, in covering disasters on TV, the human factor
is often covered if only because a broadcast watcher can readily identify with
a person rather than an abstract number.
Admittedly, we get irritated when the newscaster injects through the
tone of his/her voice what ze feels as an emotional response to an event rather
than the content of the news through pictures and sounds that establish emotive
content itself. But that's what
distinguishes professional broadcast journalism from its dime-a-dozen cousins
that relies on tugging at our sentiments.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Quakes that drew fire visited Yunnan Province last week
where a shudder that otherwise would only get a shrug of the shoulder managed
to dislodge rocks and caused landslide of uncharacteristic proportions that the
area in Ladian is still reeling from the rocks that was not confined to the
cradle. We do not mean to make light of
the disaster. Chinese workers are still
trying to create water drainage for a river that has since become a lake, threatening
residents downriver should the water level rise some more as rain has yet to
abate from the headwaters.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The landslides were bad enough. The flooding added to the destruction of
crops, penned animals, and homes.
Neighboring province to Yunnan, Guizhou of the Yi minority tribes that
might be cousins to our Philippine mountain folks got the brunt of the
unceasing rain and caused flooding where ladies used to walk down the lanes
with parasols. Guangxi where Guillin
with her famous kartz and Lijiang that rafts down to tourist town Yangzhou
nestled in lighted hills at night (quite a spectacle), and Hainan with her
tropical shores had not been spared the fierce treatment of typhoons.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Drought hit the foothills of California and Colorado, as
well as Canada's Northwest territories that lit up fires for our satellites to
picture. We all heard of that explosion
out of Kunshan in Jiangxi (that's west of Shanghai for the
geography-challenged) from a factory manufacturing aluminum wheel caps for
General Motors.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">From the northeast to the northwest, all we got were dry
winds this season. <i>Qui Tian </i>(autumn) kicked in August 11 and though dusk to dawn might
feel a little cooler, the days are still summer warm. The aridity has been exceptional this year,
making the <i>sigua </i>(watermelon) an
abundant and desired commodity in every street corner, from Urmuqi of Xinjiang
to Dandong of Liaoning. It has the added
attraction of being an aphrodisiac!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">We had a 30-minute drench in Shenyang the other day, with
the full compliment of accompanying thunder and lightning playing loud orchestral
percussion, plus a downpour that lashed and peppered car roofs. One can tell the plastic touch is in the
drainage as something clogged up the system again; one of the streets at my
back in a fairly elevated area of the city was flooded from the accumulated
rain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The environmental disasters that have been visited upon
China since it became the manufacturing factory of the world are considerable. The cheapening of American consumer goods has
also occurred as the timeframe for programmed obsolescence got shorter, and
price became the gauge for commodities rather than quality. Only the one percent of the US population
shop from quality shops; the rest of us go for the bargain, the discount, and
the sale.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">We pointed recently on the reality of trash and how China is
no longer Los Angeles and Brooklyn's trash bins. Worldwide, we have polluted our planet, so
there is no point belaboring the point, nor pointing fingers on who is to blame. No one has pristine hands!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">What China, however, is doing in its China Dream that has
become the organizing principle of its internal and external affairs (can't
help point to Obama's foreign policy description of "Don't do stupid
stuff" as inadequate, according to Madame Hillary), is to shift from
producing products "Made in China" to ones that it designs so it can
be labeled as "Created in China".
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<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Cambria;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:">The rhetoric is ahead of the reality but Zhongguo
has the time!</span> <br>
<br>
<div style="clear:both"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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