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I was shopping for DVDs the other day, and I was surprised to see Steven Marshall’s “low-budget, hi-impact verite thriller for the political set, This Revolution” on the shelf. There was Rasario Dawson’s face staring the same blank expression I’ve seen so many times in the right-hand column of this very website. I was surprised because the DVD selection of foreign films in my city is pretty small.

I’m currently living on the edge of the Taklimakan desert in what some people refer to as Chinese Turkestan. To the North, in the capital city of Urumqi, I imagine the DVD selections rival that of Ubernot’s cosmopolitan neighborhood in Nanjing, and you might expect to find a verite political thriller there. That is, if you weren’t used to shopping for videos in China, where pretty much anything that could be construed as controversial isn’t openly displayed.

I was actually, at the time, doing yet another search for two films that I long ago gave up finding, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I’ve never seen films like those for sale here, even during my short trips to the big cities. Incidentally, this province that I’m in, called Xinjiang, borders Kazakhstan.

Anyway, I’d already found four DVDs to buy and I was eyeing a box set of BBC nature documentaries, when I came across This Revolution. I read the little synopsis on the back, which reminded me of Lappe’s comic book, and I thought nah, if that film is half as vapid as that woman’s expression, then it’s got to be a bore. Then I thought, well it’s only 10 yuan, so I’ll give it a look.

Ten yuan is roughly a dollar and thirty cents. I checked out the GNN price when I got home, 22 bucks and it’s out of stock! What is that ad doing there I wondered, if it’s out of stock. No matter, I’d gotten a 94 percent discount on the price. But what if it was a poor quality pirated version? I’ve bought a number of those, where the audio or video quality is so bad, that it’s not worth viewing, even if you like the film. Fortunately, it was fine.

This version came with Chinese subtitles, but no Chinese dubbing. The cardboard cover was half English and half Hanzi characters. ‘Geming’ is Chinese for ‘revolution’. The first thing that I’ve got to say about this DVD is that the cover design is abominably bad.

There is no scene in the movie in which Rosario Dawson looks like she does on the cover. Specifically, her hair is completely different, and she hardly looks like the character she plays. In the background a helicopter points search lights into the street. There were no scenes with helicopters, and all of the outdoor shots with police were taken during the daytime.

That said, I thought the film was quite good. Many times, it has the awkward air of a low-budget independent film, but the overall effect is of a strong, interesting film. The synopsis on the back uses the phrase “superbly acted, emotionally-charged thriller”. With respect to Rosario Dawson, that’s accurate. She injects a sense of charm and humanity that really makes the story come to life. She also looks great, so why her appearance was changed for the cover is unclear. I thought her last big scene was not as good as it could have been, but the blame there , I think, lies with the director.

I have never seen Medium Cool, on which the film was patterned. So technically I guess, I’m not qualified to review This Revolution. I am familiar with other works of cinema verite, so I do appreciate what this film was trying to do, and I think it succeeds on many levels. I didn’t like the attempts to make this a beautiful movie with the shots of swirling pigeons, but I did like that this film was very ambitious.

It works. It’s good. See it. You’ll be glad you did.

I also noticed two interesting parallels between This Revolution and this GNN website. The crux of the movie’s plot is that dissidents are being lured by television cameras to express their views, when in actuality they are primarily being videotaped in order to monitor and eliminate their leaders. That’s basically the same accusation that some members have made against GNN in calling it a CIA psyop.

The other parallel is the treatment of 9/11 truth activists. The movie gives an activist 60 seconds to fully state his case, which he does to some extent, and then his views are dismissed. That’s similar to what happens here when Anthony and others claim that the case for WTC7 being demolished by explosives (‘bombs’) has been convincingly refuted.

I don’t really have anything to say about these observations, other than I’m now more curious to check out other GNN produced media when I get back to the states, and I’m glad I came across a copy of This Revolution here this close to Central Asia.

Fellow Gorillas, I accept your commendation of my work here with great humility and some astonishment. I had no idea of the extent to which my writing was revered and cherished. When Anthony and Stephen skyped me the other day to tell me the news, I thought for a moment it must be some sort of practical joke, so I transcribed and saved the ensuing dialogue.

tingbudong: Top Guerrilla Newsman in China?!! Are you guys yanking my chain?

stephen: No ting, this is on the level. You’re the official Silverback in the Middle Kingdom now.

anthony: Word ting, you’re a legend with the kids and one of the prime forces driving GNN’s growth. It’s the least we could do.

tingbudong: Wow! I had no idea. I mean I’ve just posted a few blogs and headlines.

anthony: It’s not the quantity, it’s the quality ting. You’re last blog about the 2006 China Open, for example, was phenomenal.

tingbudong: Really?! You know it didn’t actually get any votes or comments.

stephen: Oh, that was because of Shogo. You remember him, right?

tingbudong: Yes, he was, uh …

anthony: He was banned.

tingbudong: Right.

anthony: I banned him. Someone’s got to decide who gets banned and that’s me. I’m the banner.

tingbudong: But, how did he …. uh. What did Shogo do that?

stephen: Shogo was working for free. That was the upside, but the downside was that he intentionally screwed up the voting on certain blogs. You actually received a record number of 5’s for your last blog. They just never displayed.

tingbudong: Damn! and I thought the few network friends that I have never even read it.

anthony: The Few Network Friends?!! Ting, more users include you in their Network of Friends than any other member!

tingbudong: What?! I never noticed that.

stephen: Shogo prevented that from displaying as well. We think he must of been jealous of you for some reason. Maybe, he resented the insightful analysis you offered about GNN programming issues.

tingbudong: Well, I just wrote what I thought was true.

anthony: Exactly ting! And that’s why we’re making you the Top China Guerrilla. You tell it like it is.

tingbudong: Gosh, I don’t know what to say. I mean I think of the other guerrilla network members here in China, jbrun for instance. He writes about more important things than me.

stephen: He hasn’t written as much about Chinese Television.

anthony: What’s more important than television ting?

tingbudong: Nothing, I guess. But how about those members that post headlines about China?

anthony: Those guys? They don’t actually live in China.

tingbudong: Well, there’s lot08 and junrau

stephen: lot is kind of loopy, don’t you think?

anthony: Don’t say ‘loopy’ stephen.

tingbudong: And memnoch01 has got to be way more popular than me.

stephen: Yea, actually we created the Top Guerilla in China award expressly for mem, but then he moved back to Canada.

anthony: I almost banned him for that, but I didn’t.

tingbudong: Well, I wasn’t going to mention not_uberche , you know cause of the whole banning thing. But really isn’t he the Top Guerrilla Newsman in this country?

stephen: Actually, we have received positive identification of not_uberche being a Thai She-man from none other than memnoch, so we couldn’t give him the award either.

tingbudong: Really? I knew he was having some sort of operation down there, but… Wow! Well, what is the award? Is the Ford Foundation sponsoring some sort of stipend or grant?

anthony: No, it’s a T-shirt.

tingbudong: A T-shirt, huh? With special printing and …

stephen: It’s a GNN T-shirt. It’s got our URL printed on the front and back and you wear it around China. Kapiche?

tingbudong: Sure, I mean that’s great, a T-shirt.

anthony: It’s a marketing thing ting. We’re sitting around brainstorming the other day and I said there are a fucking billion and a half people in China, and how many T-shirts have we sold over there? None!

stephen: Why haven’t you ever bought a T-shirt ting?

tingbudong: Well, you know I was always planning on it. But the whole issue of removing the photo of the girl with the breasts and the guy’s picture now with the T-shirt with no breasts, that was maybe traumatic and …

stephen: Whatever, we’re sending you a T-shirt. Wear it.

anthony: Congratulations ting. You da man!

tingbudong: Hey, thanks, you too.

And so my participation here at GNN moves on to a whole new level. I now bask in the warm admiration and respect of my fellow guerrillas and on top of all that, I’m getting a free T-shirt. GNN, I love you!

Tennis is my favorite sport. I’ve played in four of China’s provinces, and it’s one of the few things that I watch on Chinese television. Tennis is gaining in popularity in China. New courts are being built all the time. I remember incredulously watching middle-aged women slowly carrying and placing cement covers for a runoff drain between courts that were two months behind their scheduled completion at my last university.

But at the time at least I could watch the first China Open on my big complementary TV back in 2004. I remember Safin playing great tennis in what was somewhat of a comeback for him defeating Nalbandian and then Youzhny in the final. The same Youzhny who upset Nadal in this year’s U.S. Open.

The first tennis match I watched in China was the 2003 French Open. Ferrero played what seemed to me a flawless tournament. Because of the time difference of seven hours between France and China, many of the games were delayed. Also, by leaving the TV on all night, I learned an important fact about foreign sports broadcasts in China; the best events often appear around 3:00 A.M.

By the time Wimbledon started my TV was pretty much on 24/7 and tuned to CCTV5 with the mute on. When I visited Shanghai that summer, I discovered they had many more television options there. But I’ve always lived in small towns in China where I’ve been dependent on the CCTV system. My current cable options don’t even offer the one English channel in this system, CCTV9, so I have all the more reason to leave CCTV5 on whenever I’m home.

I’ve tried to make sense of the CCTV5 schedule, but it’s not as user friendly as CCTV9 schedule. Note that the “Sports Scene” program on CCTV9 is just a 15 minute highlights report. My Chinese friends have always been equally unhelpful. A great many of my male students have been big NBA fans. They soon learned of my very limited interest in basketball. Soccer is also hugely popular here. Sometimes CCTV5 will display a schedule that gives me a little notice about something coming up, like World Cup games, but never anything for tennis.

I was also greatly disappointed to learn that CCTV5 almost never buys the rights to broadcast either the U.S. or the Australian Open. This year they only broadcast a few of the French Open matches. When Wimbledon began, I was horrified to see CCTV5 was rebroadcasting the least important of the French Open matches. Then the World Cup pretty much took over the channel.

Rebroadcasting sports events is quite common on CCTV5. Some World Cup soccer games were probably shown a dozen times. A doubles women’s Wimbledon match was squeezed in the rotation for the sake of Zi Yan and Jie Zheng, who went on to win the Doubles Crown. However, CCTV5 didn’t even broadcast their final or any other Wimbeldon matches. I was shocked and dismayed to have missed Federer defeating Nadal.

I had told everyone that Federer would beat him at the French Open. Like Federer I use a one handed backhand, and an opponent back in the states once referred to one of my shots as Federesque. It was.

This August I wasn’t even turning the TV on. Non-stop Soccer, Volleyball, and formula one racing had left me numb. When a colleague asked me if I had caught Agassi’s first round match at the U.S. Open, I groaned and explained that CCTV5 never broadcasts the U.S. Open. But maybe this year would be different.

When I turned on the set, I saw an early round Hewitt match. This was going to be a treat and Agassi was scheduled to play Baghdatis next, the runner up of the Australian Open. But somehow, with my own work schedule, I never caught anymore games. Remember that most of them were aired from 3:00 to 7:00 A.M. Then rain delayed some matches and CCTV5 completely bailed on the U.S. Open. I sat through the Women’s Fast Pitch Softball Championship waiting for more U.S. Open matches that never appeared.

Then promos for the 2006 China Open started to appear. My mood brightened. My own game was also in fine form. I spent a lot of time this summer working on my forehand hitting against a wall by our campus courts. Opponents whom I hadn’t seen all summer were coming back and I was winning most all of my matches.

The China Open would also be shown at a reasonable hour. No waking up at 4:00 A.M. to see if a match was in progress. The promos showed Safin, Nadal, and Nalbandian among others. The first match I watched was Ancic vs. Feliciano Lopez. It was good, but Lopez looked like a Nadal wanna-be with his pantaloon getup, and Ancic looked like the teenager he is. I checked the brackets at CBS Sportsline to see who Safin and Nadal would be playing. They weren’t listed. WTF! The promos were only showing them because they had played in the past two China Opens. I didn’t recognize hardly anyone’s name, except Baghdatis.

I haven’t seen much televised tennis living in China, but I do read a little about it online and I knew Baghdatis had a great year. He was the runner up in the Australian Open against Federer and lost in the Wimbledon semi-finals to Nadal. I got to see him play for the first time against a Taiwanese player named Wang. My most pleasant playing experiences were actually in Taiwan, were clay courts are common and I easily made friends with players at public courts in Tainan. So, I was rooting for Wang, and he almost won.

I also recognized a Thai player, Srichaphan, in his first round match against Schuettler. I’d actually seen him play on CCTV5 some time in the past. I can’t remember which tournament, but I was impressed with his play then, and he easily disposed of Schuettler.

When Ancic played the Korean Lee in the semi-finals, I was rooting for Lee. I usually root against Koreans due to a bad experience I had there, but I was wanting Lee to kick this kid’s butt. First, he just looks too young and lanky to follow Safin and Nadal as the third China Open champion. Second, he was always making the sign of the cross when he won. With all the shit going on in the world, I figure Jesus should let people know he has more important concerns than helping this kid win the China Open. Lee took the first set, but then faded.

Baghdatis also kisses what looks like a cross when he wins, but for some reason that didn’t bother me. The highlight of the tournament was his semi-final match with Srichaphan. Baghdatis got off to a great start taking the first set 6-2. But Srichaphan is a very strong, hard-hitting player. He found his groove in the second set and unleashed some incredibly powerful shots to take the second set 6-3. His father, who is also his coach, was shown clapping after some big points, looking like some serene Thai Buddha.

Both players showed power and finesse, but Baghdatis definitely had the softer touch. His drop shots played a key role and a diving half volley winner had the crowd on their feet, gasping at every close shot. This was undoubtedly world class tennis, and I was watching it live as Baghdatis closed out the final set 7-5.

The young chinese fellow who interviewed Baghdatis after the match was much more comfortable speaking Mandarin than English. He made the typical Chinese beginner mistake of saying the exciting play had kept the fans “interesting” all through the match. No real communication problem there, but then he tried a more in depth question, after giving a verbose overview of the match, asking “so are you the one they provide?”. Baghdatis didn’t know what the hell this kid was saying, and fortunately the guy had enough sense to move on to asking him about the upcoming final, but never mentioning that it would either be Lee or Ancic.

I ended up missing the final, since I wasn’t sure exactly what time it would be played and only saw highlights of it. Ancic finally got his butt kicked and the China Open finished with another world class champion. I also saw highlights of the Croatian Ancic winning the men’s doubles with his Indian partner Bhupathi. The women started their tournament this week and four of them are Chinese. Maybe, after a Chinese player wins a major tournament, tennis will get the respect it deserves on CCTV5.

Molly Ivins wrote an interesting column recently about drafting Bill Moyers as the Democratic candidate for Presidency of the United States of America. I think it’s a great idea. I’ve been a Bill Moyers fan for a long time, but more importantly I believe he is one of the few people who has the experience and skills to lead Americans to face the immense challenges ahead of us.

Moyers for President in 2008!

AUSTIN, Texas — Dear desperate Democrats,

Here’s what we do. We run Bill Moyers for president. I am serious as a stroke about this. It’s simple, cheap and effective, and it will move the entire spectrum of political discussion in this country. Moyers is the only public figure who can take the entire discussion and shove it toward moral clarity just by being there.

The poor man who is currently our president has reached such a point of befuddlement that he thinks stem cell research is the same as taking human lives, but that 40,000 dead Iraqi civilians are progress toward democracy.

Bill Moyers has been grappling with how to fit moral issues to political issues ever since he left Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and went to work for Lyndon Johnson in the teeth of the Vietnam War. Moyers worked for years in television, seriously addressing the most difficult issues of our day. He has studied all different kinds of religions and different approaches to spirituality. He’s no Holy Joe, but he is a serious man. He opens minds — he doesn’t scare people. He includes people in, not out. And he sees through the dark search for a temporary political advantage to the clear ground of the Founders. He listens and he respects others.

Do I think Bill Moyers can win the presidency? No, that seems like a very long shot to me. The nomination? No, that seems like a very long shot to me.

Then why run him? Think, imagine, if seven or eight other Democratic candidates, all beautifully coiffed and triangulated and carefully coached to say nothing that will offend anyone, stand on stage with Bill Moyers in front of cameras for a national debate … what would happen? Bill Moyers would win, would walk away with it, just because he doesn’t triangulate or calculate or trim or try to straddle the issues. Bill Moyers doesn’t have to endorse a constitutional amendment against flag burning or whatever wedge issue du jour Republicans have come up with. He is not afraid of being called “unpatriotic.” And besides, he is a wise and a kind man who knows how to talk on TV.

It won’t take much money — file for him in a couple of early primaries and just get him into the debates. Think about the potential Democratic candidates. Every single one of them needs SPINE, needs political courage. What Moyers can do is not only show them what it looks like and indeed what it is, but also how people respond to it. I’m damned if I want to go through another presidential primary with everyone trying to figure out who has the best chance to win instead of who’s right. I want to vote for somebody who’s good and brave and who should win.

One time in the Johnson years, LBJ called on Moyers to say the blessing at a dinner. “SPEAK UP, Bill,” Lyndon roared. “I can’t hear you.” Moyers replied, “I wasn’t speaking to you, sir.” That’s the point of a run by Moyers: He doesn’t change to whom he is speaking just because some president is yelling at him.

To let Moyers know what you think of this idea, write him at PO Box 309, Bernardsville, NJ, 07924.

My jaw dropped when I read this article

“By MARK HALPERIN

July 13, 2006 – George W. Bush took office intending to have a presidency focused on domestic policy. Instead, in his sixth year in the White House, Bush finds himself dealing with one international crisis after another … for all these reasons, Bush has had to turn his time and energy away from his original agenda of a robust domestic agenda towards one with a national security focus.”

This is same Mark Halperin who was accused of directing his subordinates at ABC News to treat Bush unfairly during the 2004 election.

Does anyone believe at this point in time that George W. Bush’s original Haliburton-sponsored agenda was focused on domestic policy? This story appears to be the sort of public relations propaganda that the administration has paid over a billion dollars for the mainstream media to spread. I wonder how much Halperin was paid or by what other means he was pressured to write this. Given the fact that this sort of nonsense is never publicly questioned, I wonder how absurd the news of the future is going to become.