Here are some interesting news stories about China.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6729641.stm



The following news story is a reminder of how China hasn't made much progress in terms of human rights.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6733045.stm


This is a sad but important news story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6711415.stm

Canada isn't perfect, especially with Stephen Harper as Prime Minister, but it's much better than a lot of other countries.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060707iran.htm

My brother Malcolm got some good news this week when he found out that doctors were 95% sure that they got all of the cancer when he had surgery on his colon in May. He needs to have ultrasound tests every six months to make sure that there is no cancer left to spread. I was very relieved to hear the news but, as he also said, it would be better to hear that it was 100% sure. Of course, that rarely happens in life, especially with things such as cancer.

Here's a great poem that I found on the NPR (National Public Radio) website for "The Writer's Almanac".

"The Junior High School Band Concert"

by David Wagoner, from Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems.
© University of Illinois Press, 1999. Reprinted with permission.


The Junior High School Band Concert


When our semi-conductor
Raised his baton, we sat there
Gaping at Marche Militaire,
Our mouth-opening number.

It seemed faintly familiar
(We'd rehearsed it all that winter),
But we attacked in such a blur,
No army anywhere
On its stomach or all fours
Could have squeezed though our cross fire.

I played cornet, seventh chair
Out of seven, my embouchure
A glorified Bronx cheer
Through that three-keyed keyhole stopper
And neighborhood window slammer
Where mildew fought for air
At every exhausted corner,
My fingering still unsure
After scaling it for a year
Except on the spit-valve lever.

Each straight-faced mother and father
Rested his moral fiber
Against our traps and slurs
And the inadvertent whickers
Paradiddled by our snares,
And when the brass bulled forth
A blare fit to horn over
Jericho two bars sooner
Than Joshua's harsh measures,
They still had the nerve to stare.

By the last lost chord, our director
Looked older and soberer.

No doubt, in mind's ear
Some band somewhere
In some Music of some Sphere
Was striking a note as pure
As the wishes of Franz Schubert,
But meanwhile here we were:
A lesson in everything minor,
Decomposing our first composer.

I visited Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1987, two years before the horrible event that happened there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6719415.stm