Bao Bao and Obama's FreeRider Bao Bao (literally,baby) panda at the National Zoo gets attention as the native to forests of westernChina entertain the crowds. I saw thenative environment of the bearcat on a trek to the Garze Autonomous Region ofSichuan a year ago. I aborted when therains poured on mountain roads hand chiseled on ravined mountain cliffs fromraging waters eons before, making travel around more than what I bargained for. After seeing the mammals in a Chengduresearch station, I took the sweltering heat of the Sichuan plains in Chongqing,upstream from the three-gorges dam. The panda is an endangered specie, cuddly in its behaviorbefore crowds but having encountered the creature at very close quarters, I amnot sure I want to be in the same pen with it in spite of its reputed disarmingdemeanor even if I do not exactly taste like bamboo! (A non-sequituraside: a Shanghai nurse called me baobao once!) For its appealing behavior, the panda, like other endangeredspecies in Mother Nature's kingdom, rides freely on the beneficence of parksand recreation budgets, and allocations from international preserves and researchstations. Undisturbed and left to itsown devices, the Panda will survive. Unhappily, there is no such secluded place in the planet anymore. It is in that context that I received Obama's jokingreference to China as a free rider when interviewed by NYTimes' PaulKlugman. Though Obama's joke, explainedlightly as occasioned by a glance to his office in-tray piling up crisis afteranother, asking, "Why can't China handle some of these things?" hisuse of the free rider image might be a little overextended metaphor. A historical sweep of geocentric proclivities: the Ptolemaiccosmology had the earth at the center of the universe before Copernicus suggestedotherwise. All roads led to Rome for theCaesars until Constantine moved the Imperium to Byzantium. The Prophet's followers occupied Mecca beforethe Ottoman's revived Constantine's hangout and called it Istanbul turningcathedrals into mosques. Pope AlexanderVI kept the Roman Church in the game granting Portugal permission to own theEast, and Spain, the west. In the East, the eunuch Zhongguo navigator Zhanghe launchedan armada that dwarfed anything Columbus and Magellan later knew, but the Mingdynasty turned inward and rubbed out the Admiral's gains out of official record(they were burned), strengthened the social glue in the lands between the tworivers (the Huanghe and the Yangtze), and connected the walls in its northernborders so the barbarians would be kept at bay. It did not but that didn't stop the rule of the Middle Kingdom. It acted as the center of civilization underthe mandate of heaven expecting obeisance from the rest of the world, rudelyviolated by the Europeans, the US' westward ho, and Japan's Meiji mid-1800s. The wisdom of Kung Fu Tzu held an informal hegemony amongthe Hans, extended to Rìbĕn (Japan), Goryo (Korea), Yuenan (Vietnam) that went politically independent while the SouthernHan, Zang, Uyghur, Mongols and Manchus stayed within the Kingdom, the lattertwo from north of the Great Wall getting assimilated rather than imposing "foreign"ways. The British Empire discovered the power of the internalcombustion engine and the politics of oil was birthed, with the industrial Ruhrand modernizing Riben/Nippon in Manchukuo competing for the privilege of imperialprominence, resulting in two devastating World Wars with the Americans, their demonstratednuclear military might over Hiroshima/Nagasaki, eventually becoming theguardians to the spigot. A new world beyond oil emerged out of the blue (the Russianssent a sputnik and a dog beyond the biosphere) when JFK's determination to senda man to the moon was accomplished within a decade. The new earth came dramatically to me in theearthrise picture of 1968 when my sense of social fealty and personal integritywas formed, and I choose to be on all counts earthbound, not beholden to a loyaltyto a single nation, race, or religion. Weekend New Year 2014 I spent in Hong Kong where the OccupyCentral gathered to disrupt Victoria Island's center, not unlike their well-offcousins in the land of Siam. HK's anti-Occupyhas since taken to the streets, and Thailand just started the command andcontrol of the Generals. Ferguson MOerupted when a young black man was shot to death by a white cop, for disrespectfullyspeaking out-of-bounds. The metaphor I grew up in was to be a "son of God"on behalf of all in servanthood as shown by Jesus the Nazarene. US exceptionalism uses the simile in aprivileged position, "a light on a hill", to regulate and rule itover others. There is no escape from the inevitability of life'sinterrelatedness to life. Albert Einsteinnoticed that the fall of a leaf reverberates across the universe. The baobao pandas are no free riders. Theyentertain for their meals! China, likewise, works hard for its fried noodles. Gambei! j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031@aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!