Something that I find intriguing, amusing and a bit frustrating is the current situation of music and music ownership. Ok, here's the situation: it is easier to download music from the internet for free than it is to walk into a store and buy it. So you are the record companies. What are you gonna do? You've got a competitor that provides the same product as you, but has a better delivery system, wider selection, better image, and its free! Are the record companies fucked or what? Well, what you do is criminalize the competition. That's obvious. But actually implementing the criminal remedy is a logistical nightmare and public relations disaster. Plus you want to throw loads of people who should be your best customers in jail. But the catch is that only a small fraction of music buyers obtain their music in this fashion. Admittedly, a far larger percentage of their most valuable demographic, young tech savvy people with disposable income do, but still, it shouldn't effect their bottom line in drastic fashion. If the people running record companies weren't such ridiculous moralists and hidebound idiots, they could easily turn the situation to their advantage. More on this topic later.

Ah. July 4th passes almost without incident and our dangerous personal levels of nationalism can recede to non-toxic levels. Which reminds me of our beloved fellow English speakers newest slang term for us: "Septs." While this is supposedly rhyming slang---Yanks--->Septic Tanks--->septs---in the form of "nuclear sub" for "pub" as in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels--"I 'ad a drink in the nuclear sub," I suspect it is also a play on our September fiasco. Cute. Oh well, it's easy to criticize the driver. Especially when they seem to think that the recovery from a crash involves buying new cars and racing them.

Happy 4th of July is what we have to say today. I read an excellent article on anti-Americanism on the Guardian website today. Even though the article is nominally about why it is important to question and against the reflexive smear of being "anti-American," in fact it is a great analysis of those who really are anti-American. Or as we at emotes.blogspot.com like to call them "little whiny playa-hating beatches." But the point that criticism of the United States doesn't equate with anti-Americanism is a good one. Afterall, I criticize the United States and I is one! The article can be found here http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,748891,00.html and a letter I sent to the author, Hugo Young, is below.

Mr. Young,

Thank you for your excellent 4th of July column. I am an American living in Taipei and, yes, The Guardian is required reading. I think it puts all of the American papers, including the New York Times to shame. I am Left in terms of American politics, perhaps a bit left of Tony Blair in terms of British politics. I am also a Floridian and a disenfranchised voter who believes that the choice of the American people does not sit in the White House. I'm also an American patriot who firmly believes that despite its flaws, the United States is one of the greatest countries in the history of the world. And, I think only a fool or cretin could deny that.

That's the brief I bring. I found your column to express perfectly the tension that I feel in being an American at this time. I despise the current Administration, find their policies loathsome, consider attacking Iraq to be a criminal folly, wish that our nation was a better world citizen, wish our Middle East policy was more equitable. But I recoil when I see the palpable hatred not of not only our nation's misdeeds but also of our country entire. Distinctions are important and there's none more important than the one between state and people. I once started to explain to a German person that I considered Germany during World War II to be an evil nation. Whereupon his Canadian date jumped in, sputtering "You can't possibly say that a whole nation is evil." My reply was that the German nation, its state apparatus was evil, but of course the entire country, the people weren't entirely evil. I suppose some of the finer points get lost when you start tossing the word "evil" around.

The other component in anti-Americanism that we Americans find offensive is the denial of history and the denial of our positive accomplishments. So many conversations I find myself get mired in at the early stages because the foreigner will not accept some fairly basic facts about the United States. For example, I might like to say, its a shame that the United States didn't follow its pattern of spectacular generosity (i.e. the Marshall Plan) and its restraint (i.e. post World War II the United States was in a position of unprecedented power but instead of conquering the world instead rebuilt Europe with the aforementioned act of incredible generosity) and instead got involved in the sick saga of Vietnam. I would be quite happy to talk at length about the Vietnam War and all of the horrible and barbaric things that the United States did and how it squandered its reservoir of good will in the world, etc., etc., but I never get a chance. Why? Because foreigners seem intent on promoting some vision of original sin in which the United States was never a benevolent nation, but always was out to screw over the world. I'm sorry, that will never get you any points here. When in history has a conquering power acted as benevolently as the United States did towards Japan and Germany? Or they will deny that the United States is the most powerful and important country in the world. This is not necessarily a good thing, as a resident of Taiwan I anticipate with some trepidation the day that China might assume that role, but who but a demented "player-hater" could deny the cardinal importance of the United States? The logic is disjointed as well. In your Guardian pages, Kingsley Amis's kid wrote that the United States was responsible for the deaths of a million children a year in Iraq. Is the United States that powerful? Can we influence events within another country to that degree? Are the citizens and the government of that country so powerless? Clearly, the United States is only omnipotent in its ability to do evil.

An evolutionary psychologist was asked about Bill Clinton's sexual proclivities. He said, "In evolutionary psychology terms, considering the status that Bill Clinton enjoys, it's not so extraordinary that the President has had the occasional dalliance. What's extraordinary is that he doesn't have a large harem." Similarly, it's not extraordinary that the United States has committed the occasional atrocity or behaved in a way inconsistent with its stated ideals. What's extraordinary is that it hasn't ruled the world with an iron fist.

To your other point, acceptable criticism of the United States. I completely agree. Criticism of the United States is legitimate and essential. Ill-informed, excessive, or hateful criticism does a disservice less to Americans, who dismiss it as the ranting of pathetic underachieving foreigners, than to the issues with which they are ostensibly concerned. Martin Luther King, Jr. demanded that civil rights workers clear their minds of all extraneous issues before starting their work. It couldn't be because they wanted to prove something to their parents, or they were out for glory, or due to hatred. Eyes on the Prize.

You are correct, being labeled anti-American due to principled objection to United States policy is a smear. One must be doubly careful therefore not to open oneself to such charges through wholesale misuse of the "ethnic monoliths," which, you so accurately note, are a curse at every level of humanity.

I think you could write another column detailing the rules of discourse that legitimate, non-American bashing commentary could take. Congratulations on a principled and aware column.
Happy July the Fourth
yours,
Bart Motes
P.S. I am going to reprint this on my weblog, with a link to your article.

I found out today that some Taiwanese tv commentators call Ronaldo "The Alien." No word on exactly why they do this. But I'm sure there's a good, non-racist reason. Ronaldinho made news in Taiwan for visiting a Brazilian-Taiwanese boy who was the center of an Elian Gonzalez like custody fight. (See, Taiwan really is just like Cuba-Miami.) The kid's mother, Brazilian, died and the kid's father, a Taiwanese shipping captain, brought him back to Taiwan, obstensibly to visit the homeland and see the relatives. The kid's eight or so. Anyway, wouldn't ya know, the father pops it too. What to do, what to do. Both sets of relatives want the kid, and the situation isn't as clearcut as Elian, since (1) no communism/competing political systems, (2) both sets of relatives are equally distant. The Taiwanese relatives say that they want to honor the father's wish for the kid to be brought up in the Chinese culture, blah, blah, blah. Which is fair enough, but is lesson #1 of Chinese heritage that you don't have to pay attention to the wishes of non-Chinese people, even if they are your in-laws? Nice. Well, possession is 9/10ths of the law. Ronaldinho gave the kid a jersey and a pat on the head.

I know the prurient interest will be in my date, so lets just say that it was near a library, there was an honor guard, it was the middle of the day, and the drinks were Coca-Cola and green tea. So no excitement, but good practice speaking Mandarin. And it was nice to have someone rubbish my Mandarin instead of praising it fulsomely as is the Chinese wont. This woman speaks VERY PROPER Mandarin. Not quite the "er"s at every opportunity of the Beijing speakers, but no dropped "h"s and other linguistic no-nos that the average Taiwanese speaker indulges in either. So, maybe not a sexy sexy connection but a very useful one. A big shout-out to my darling, brilliant, and talented sister, Alice. She's going to be a Junior at the elite Smith College, which is, they note, "Not a girls school with no men, but a Women's College with no boys." She's universally beloved there as elsewhere, of course. I believe she's going to England for this Junior Year Abroad thingy-poo. Speaking of which, Alice, did you get the X-MAS Poo episode of South Park with the Chinese subtitles? I think the Smith Mandarin Program or students thereof might appreciate that. South Park in Taiwan is kind of interesting. For the kids, they usually dub things, since they can't read all the Chinese characters they might have to to properly understand things. What they did with South Park, since the humor is so cultural and temporal, is that they rewrote everything using Taiwanese cultural references. So, for example, according to the China Post, there was an episode in which one of the characters lost his dog. When he finds him, he exclaims "Oh, I thought you had become hot pot fodder." (That's the China Post's translation, I don't think the use of the word fodder is ever excused, Mr. George Lucas. Re: Star Wars: Return of the Jedi---"You're bantha fodder.") Taiwanese hot pot culture will have to wait for another post, but as you might guess, an awful lot of things go into these pots. Apparently, some parents think that it is TOO GOOD and TOO SAVVY. Proof-positive of a successful cross-cultural transfer. I think that post was sufficentially tangent-rich. What do you think? Don't want to falsely advertise. As the lawyer in the Simpsons says "Mr. Simpson, this is the clearest false-advertising case I've seen since the suit I filed against The Never-Ending Story!" L8R

Oh. Brazil won, of course. Poor Oliver Kahn though. But honestly, Germany wouldn't have been there at all without him. CNN had some extremely delusional German guy on saying that Germany should have won "but that's football." One shot on goal and your sad excuse of a team should have won? Please. They were out of their league from the start. Their only chances came from desperate looking set pieces. Turkey would have beat them too. Sorry Arend. I'm so pleased for Ronaldo. Works his ass off for 2 and 1/2 years to come back from knee injuries (and two surgeries), wins the Golden Boot, ties Pele on the goal scoring list, and he's only 25. Erases France 98 except as lead-in to the success story. One or two more world cups to go. He'll go down as one of the alltime greats. You can stop him once or twice but he'll hurt you in the end. Got to go. I have a date. Yeah, boyeeeeeeeee.

Some connection problems earlier. Seem to be resolved. My dear, dear, dear, dear friend Jonathan Young or as we like to call him "Young Jonny" has dropped a line. As the former England manager said "Do I not like that?!" We shared many a good experience in this smoggy and dismal land before he departed back to his sunny and pleasant England. He's a great friend and a fantastic drinking buddy. Our last time out wasn't too much of a good craic though. We went out to visit with a friend from Japan, Geoff, in T'aipei on business. Ah, what a pleasant evening September the 11th was proving to be. Nice meal, good company, a few drinks in the notorious Ziga-Zaga....what! planes crashing into buildings....FUCK....this is not on the schedule at all! We marked the event by getting extremely trashed and watching CNN all night (12 hour difference between here and the States) in Geoff's room at the Hyatt. Well, it turns out that you were right, Geoff, it was the Musselmen. Hope Osama bin Laden gets caught and, following the suggestion of Michael Dare, put into a cage in Central Park for New Yorkers to poke with sticks and urinate on for the rest of his natural life. There's a difficulty in devising a punishment severe enough for the murderer of thousands of innocent people. Deliberately targeted civilians. The attack on the Pentagon seems to have been de-emphazied in the national conciousness, which is a disservice to the brave soldiers who died in that attack, but as the late Scott Shruger pointed out, the Pentagon could be construed as a legitimate military target, unlike the WTC. So its probably sensible from a number of perspectives to emphasize the murder of the civilians in New York. Relativists like to suggest that the civilian deaths resulting from misguided US ordinance are comparable to this. Once we get past the immediate "get a fucking clue" response, this makes me think of Albert Camus's argument against capital punishment. Camus said that some people say that capital punishment is equal to murder, but he argues that this is not the case, for if the two are to be equivalent, the crime would have to involve a criminal who captures his victim, tells him that he will kill him on such and such a date and leaves him to ponder the horror of his impending demise. Of course, what Al doesn't take into account is that since the "victim" in this case is a murderer himself, not a few people would view this as vigilante justice and probably approve. Anyway, the point is that even when things share a certain poetic similarity, the distinctions are important. Sure, its horrible that US ordinance kills innocents, but the fact that it is unintentional does make it relatively less horrible. More on these subjects later. Anyway, rather inappropriate tribute to my good buddy Jonny. Jon! We have to get together again soon so that I can obliterate these negative associations and get back to the more fun ones----like being passed out on the floor after a night of insane drunkedness! Yeah! Oh Jesus, do you remember R. and that large boned Taiwanese professional woman?! Lord have mercy. At least she dealt with him on a refreshingly amateur basis. How about the gangsters at Vacuum Space? And the big black Mercedes Benz? And me almost getting twatted as the drunk bastard took off? Ah those were the days. Miss you, man. Ralph and Geoff too.