Saturday, December 13, 2014

Top Websites Blocked by Chinese Government

Among the top 10 websites (according to traffic volume recorded by Alexa), 5 are blocked by the Chinese government. Among the top 1000 sites, 169 are blocked, a number raised from 62 (an increase of 172.58%) of last year 2013.

    Top websites:
  1. Google.com (100% in the last 90 days)
  2. Facebook.com (100% in the last 90 days)
  3. Youtube.com (100% in the last 90 days)
  4. Yahoo.com (28% in last 90 days)
  5. Bidu.com
  6. Amazon.com
  7. Wikipedia.com
  8. Taobao.com
  9. Twitter.com (100% in the last 90 days)
  10. QQ.com

Other blocked sites include: blogspot.com, netflix.com, dropbox.com, nytimes.com, vimeo.com, flickr.com, slideshare.net, macys.com, archive.org, wsj.com, bloomberg.com, android.com, pastebin.com, instagram.com, wordpress.com, scribd.com, speedtest.net, tumblr.com, reddit.com, among others.

A complete list of websites blocked by the Chinese government can be found at GreatFire.Org.

Friday, December 12, 2014

Harvard Professor vs. Less Slanty-Eyed Menu

Boston.com reported on an EMail exchange between Harvard Business School Professor Benjamin G. Edelman and Ran Duan an operator of a Boston Chinese restaurant Sichuan Garden.

Professor Edelman ordered a take out from Sichuan Garden. Later he noticed he was charged more than the online menu of the local shop, by $1 for each main course, $4 in total. The restaurant first dismissed the discrepancy as an honest error of lacking resource to updating the online menu being a local Mom and Pop store, then offered to settle by a refund. Professor Edelman then attempted to extort $12 from the restaurant by boasting his personal connections to Boston 'authorities' and misinterpreting a clause 93A in Massachusetts General Law. The Professor then lawyered up his demand to half of the meal, or $26.5.

The email exchanges in its entirety were published by Boston.com, and became viral. Other lawyers and law professors weighed in to point out that what Professor Edelman did bordering between being unethical (threatening criminal/administrative punishment for private civil gain) and criminal (misrepresenting law to an unrepresented party and extortion).

The story made its way to all major news outlets left and right including The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News and as far as Guardian, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Le Monde, Die Welt, and Stern, just name a few, in a matter of hours. Jewish community was upset because Dr. Edelman's "behavior plays into every anti-Semitic stereotype about us -- that's we're greedy, power hungry, self centered, etc." and makes "all of us Jews look bad". At an online Jewish forum, one commenter quickly pointed that Dr. Edelman was "not observant -- he ordered shellfish". The other commenter responded, "thankfully, it is playing out differently, that he makes Harvard professors look bad".

In public, Professor Edelman offered this 'apology' on his personal website:

My Emails with Sichuan Garden

December 10, 2014

Many people have seen my emails with Ran Duan of Sichuan Garden restaurant in Brookline.

Having reflected on my interaction with Ran, including what I said and how I said it, it's clear that I was very much out of line. I aspire to act with great respect and humility in dealing with others, no matter what the situation. Clearly I failed to do so. I am sorry, and I intend to do better in the future.

I have reached out to Ran and will apologize to him personally as well.

Out of public's eyes, following three consecutive messages were sent to the Yahoo account of the restaurant operator, a second generation Chinese American, Mr. Ran Duan.

Email No. 1:

Ben Edelman Today at 3:54 PM
To me

Hi Ran,

I want to call and personally apologize for how I approached my interaction with you. Can we set up a time to talk? What number should I call?

Thanks.
Ben Edelman

Email No. 2:

ben@benedelman.org Today at 5:09 PM
To me

You may have won the battle Duan, but at least we can agree your menu is a little less slanty-eyed.
Thank you

Email No. 3:

ben@benedelman.org Today at 5:23 PM
To me

I sincerely apologize for that previous message just moments ago. I was intending to make light of the situation to a small group of students by typing a jovial response via your contact form but hadn't realized that pressing 'enter' would actually send the message as your website clearly has a button that must be clicked on. Nowhere does it state that pressing 'enter' will also be the same as clicking.

I trust you understand this & will not make this private correspondence, public.

Thank you
Ben

Blogger Luke O'Neal twitted "Edelman tells me that this was 'not a genuine email' from him. So someone has apparently hacked him in order to send racist slurs."

There are some problems with Luke's twitt. 1) You don't have to 'hack' anyone at all to send a message by any name. Even if the Luke O'Neil knows nothing about the Internet, the Harvard Professor must remember some basic concepts in CS 50 (the most popular course at Harvard, with 818 undergraduates enrolled in Fall 2014, btw), and thus 2) It makes the second sentence less slanty-eyed to having been crafted by the professor himself.

If all the professor can legally offer on the racial slur was quote and unquote, 'not a genuine email' from him, then I would be unsure about whether this is an HLS's way of denial in technicality or flat admitting of guilt.

Update:

This was obviously not the first time Dr. Edelman ran afoul of Asian restaurant. Reading the story online, a former sushi store manager provided an equally sensational email exchange to the Boston.com. In that incident, Dr. Edelman was not happy a Groupon coupon he bought did not apply to a dish the shop considered a special offer (to be excluded from using currently with the coupon). The sushi place subsequently shut down.

Extended Reading: What Other Lawyers Wrote in Their Spare Time Of course, as a licensed lawyer and a Harvard Law School alum Dr. Edelman is not alone. As another lawyer lamented, Dr. Edelman was only one of the "95 percent of lawyers who makes the rest of us look bad". So what did other lawyers wrote in their spare time?

George J. Atis, an outsourcing and technology transactions lawyer, wrote in the team agenda on Kayla Watkins, 12, the only girl on his son's hockey team,

"It is now 14 games into the season and I have noticed that Kayla's play has not improved. It is at the point where many of the team members do not want to play on this team if this situation is not addressed." Atis then details two possible options for consideration, either moving Kayla from defence to forward and keeping her off of power plays and penalty kills, or playing her every second shift on defence and again keeping her off special teams "until her skating and shooting improves." "If Kayla is NOT amenable to the above options, the coach should find Kayla a new team to play on - commensurate to her skill level - for the balance of the season," the agenda reads.
Kayla was cool about the agenda, only annoyed that Atis was offering a professional judgement while not even a member of the coach team. Apparently Mr. Atis is quite proud of his accomplishment. At one point, his own business website reads (which has since been removed):
As a sole practitioner in this area, you can imagine that my reputation is everything – and I never compromise it for any one client. I wont back down from bullying a 12 year old girl if needed to reach my goal.

In another place at another time, an unnamed lawyer who hired a photographer to shoot his own wedding at $3,800 sent a threat of $300,000 to the photographer afterwards, demanding extra work and extra money for 'no picture of the buffet (they had at a Las Vegas hotel)'.

It was a long story, but the highlights are:

  1. the lawyer's demand:

    So, if you don't comply with our demand, it's a NO WIN SITUATION. You only get to decide how much you want to pay. I will summarize your options again:

    1. Pay $18,800 to Karen. All this goes away....

    2. Do nothing. You will get sued; I will get my judgement for $300,000. I will file a Writ of Garnishment with all your employer and banks, place a lien on your houses, Subpoena you to court for Supplementary proceedings to find out what assets you have, and pursue the matter until all $300,000 is paid in full. If failed to appear in court, I will have the judge issue a bench warrant for your arrest. Then, next time you get pulled over, the cop will arrest you.

    I am a partner at this firm; that means I have - ZERO - out of pocket expenses for suing you. It costs me NOTHING. I will subpoena you out to court to get your testimony under oath of perjury..

    EVEN IF the jury agrees with you, (by some miracle) how much do you think you will need to spend on paying a lawyer? I guarantee you, by the time this gets to a jury, it will cost at least $50,000 in lawyers fees. YOU WILL NOT GET THESE FEES BACK, EVER.

  2. The photographer's work for this particular wedding was deemed excellent (90% percentile judged by one expert photographer), by many prominent wedding photographers, including Robert Evans, who shot the weddings for Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
Amazingly, the Washington State Bar refused to disbar this gadfly. After all, the WA Bar is probably a club house for HLS alums.

Thursday, November 06, 2014

All everyone cares to know about APEC '14

APEC is an abbreviation of Asia-Pacific Economic Conference. The 2014 summit will take place in Beijing in a few days from today to Nov 12, 2014.

The Seagull gathers the most authoritative list of all everyday person cares to know about this conference. In order to present a neat and ordered city, residents and travellers are advised following policy changes:

  • Transportation:

    Beijing, Hebei, Tianjin and Shandong implement traffic control. Vehicles are allowed on the road according to their license plate numbers. Air travel will be delayed at major airports. Subway will skip certain stations, and limit capacity by deploying manned entrant doors. Vehicles with out-of-town licence plates will not be allowed into Beijing. Mail delivery to Beijing will be partially suspended, started Oct 20th, 2014.

    The first APEC casualty was a 33 year-old girl who was pinned in between the security gate and the carriage door at the Huixinxijienankou (South Side of West Huixin Ave) of Line 5 in the evening rush hours of Nov 6. Because the subway system was running under human overwrite mode to handle unusually high volume of passengers driven by traffic control on the ground, automatic safety measures did not kick in when the passenger was stuck between two doors.

    While enjoying the clear deep blue sky, the most beautiful autumn color of Beijing, foreign visitors should bear in their mind that the sacrifice Chinese people made for this damn conference. Remember to wash your hands before heading home, because they had been stained with blood.

    The girl's name is Xiaomei Pan.

    Beijing residents are advised not to open their street-facing windows. The notice warned them, otherwise they risk being mistakenly shot by snipers of the security forces from 'multiple countries'.

    A fleet of Hongqi (Red-flag L6) with $1 million unit cost is deployed to transfer conference attendees.

  • Eat:

    Beijing will halt milk delivery, close restaurants and food stores in certain areas.

    The conference center guarantee the last dish to the furthest table will be delivered within 4 minutes and 35 seconds after it was taken out of the wok.

  • Living:

    Beijing and Tianjin will postpone centralized heating by 15 days despite cold weather.

  • Life:

    Beijing will entertain dinners for the conference goers with extravagant fireworks in the middle of the city. Tianjin, on the opposite, will prohibit fireworks throughout the city.

  • Death:

    Funeral homes in Beijing will not be allowed to cremate closeth of the deceased.

    The centralized appointment making service for all hospitals in Beijing will be shut down to discourage patients seeking medical help during the conference period. Hospitals will not treat outpatients unless its emergency. Among all the bizarre, this one is in particular hard to digest. Pictures on the right is the official 'holiday' schedule of Xuanwu Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in Beijing.

  • Industrial:

    Factories in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shangdao, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi were ordered to adjust or suspend production in the duration of the conference.

  • Work:

    The entire city of Beijing received a one week vacation time from Nov 7 to Nov 12. Residents are encouraged to travel to other places to leave an orderly city to the visitors.

  • Cultural:

    A book "Xi Jinping Talks on Ruling a Country" in multiple languages was published and provided at the Press Center.

  • Architecture

    A $1 billion conference center was constructed specifically for this conference. Hundreds of small shops in adjacent areas were converted to tourism shops.

The Great Leader Chairman Mao ignited Chinese people's aspiration with a famous saying, 'Man will conquer nature'. Apparently Beijing has accomplished just that, in terms of air quality and pollution control. By all means, this APEC 2014 is poised to surpass the Olympic 1936 as the most magnificent show of power in modern mankind history. After all, Socialists in Germany did not command the weather. Xi Jinping in China did.

Heil, Chairman Xi!

Monday, October 27, 2014

A Canadian Professor Who Does Not Speak English

According to the self-description which is officially verified by the Sina Weibo, Zhichuan "Frank" Li is an assistant professor of Finance at the Ivey Business School of the Western University in London, Ontario, Canada.

Yet this Weibo account wrote a twisted translation of the oath people take at their naturalization ceremonies, taking advantages of the fact that the great overwhelming majority of Chinese Internet users were blocked by the Great FireWall and could not read English.

The original version of the Oath of Allegiance is published at the USCIS website.

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

Professor Frank Li wrote in his Weibo account, in Chinese, "......, that I will defend the United States with weapons, that I will serve in the United States military forces, ......".

And this took place in the context while the CCP Propaganda Department labeled Hong Kong umbrella revolution to US interferences, and launched a smear campaign against independent intellectuals with US connections.

By his own post, Dr. Frank Li presented himself as a Canadian professor who does not speak English, or does he? Comparing the two versions, it's not hard to reach your own verdict.

Dr. Frank Li of the Ivey Business School of the Western University was also caught wet handed in intentionally fabricate speech of Hong Kong activists, which was then spread over the Internet.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, there is difference between making your voice heard and falsifying information. Steering public information is a professional technique which belongs to propaganda officials, not university professors. It also takes skills of an art, which obviously has not been acquired by Dr. Frank Li. Perhaps the Ivey Business School of the Western University in New London, Ontario, Canada should revisit Dr. Zhichuan "Frank" Li's credential and qualification.

Ivey Business School boasts the first North American business school to open a campus in Hong Kong. Dr. Frank Li's writings has made the Ivey Business School a prima facie propaganda outlet for the CCP. With an understandable monetary interest on its plate, the Ivey Business School has an obligation to exonerate itself from officially encouraging faculty members to distort public information for fiscal gains, unless the Ivey Business School of the Western University no longer considers itself as a member of the academic community.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Xi's Anti-Corruption Campaign Delivered Alarming Messages

Xi's anti-corruption campaign delivered alarming messages to his political rivals.

There are two distinctive patterns that were largely skipped public attention. 1) Only those 'lined up in the wrong queue' were crushed by the campaign. 2) The total number of senior officials that were sacked in the campaign was actually less than his predecessor, despite the perception of the public.

In other words, the anti-corruption arm of the CCP was converted to a political branch to deter any dissenting voices from within the CCP.

In separate threads, Xi spoke at a judicial panel, when he made the following statement: there are cases that are obvious in a layman's eyes, but unnecessarily complicated by intricacies of laws.

Red Flag (Hongqi) Magazine echoed Xi's words by claiming a judicial system can not replace dictatorship of the proletariat.

President Xi's most recent stunt was his talk at a panel of arts and literature. Xi summoned the most well known writers and entertainers in the country, and told them "arts and literature should not be enslaved by what the markets demand". The undertone is that they should submit themselves to the benefit of politics.

The Director of CDC Must Go

Perhaps it's time to move CDC away from Atalanta.

Nancy Snyderman was under the CDC self-monitoring program when she was spotted dining in a public restaurant. The CDC Director Tom Frieden insisted on CNN that the white female "not not putting others at risk".

Snyderman was classified as 'low risk'.

Amber Vinson was considered 'low risk' and under the CDC self-monitoring program, when she board an airplane for a family reunion.

Tom Frieden jumped on the opportunity to call out the black female "shouldn't have gone on that commercial flight", on camera before he heard of anything specific about the incident. Half day later it was revealed that Vinson had been cleared to board the commercial flight by a CDC official. In other words, Vinson asked first. When an Asian female nurse was contracted the deadly virus, the first words out of Frieden's mouth was the nurse broke a CDC protocol at work. Two weeks later, all nurses, including the hospital had come forward to testify that no protocol had been violated.

Tom Frieden is a disgrace as a doctor, a civil servant, and a human being. We do not second guess any of Frieden's decisions, whether they are in the interests of national security or scientific advancement. However what this senior government said and did in front of TV cameras make laymen lost faith in this administration's heart.

In the past 14 years, the CDC funding has been steadily increased through two presidencies from $2 billion to $7.5 billion.

Monday, June 09, 2014

How Mary-Faith Cerasoli Gets By

Mary-Faith Cerasoli is an adjunct professor for several colleges in the New York City. Her course load is about five courses per semester. Her annual income is around $22,000 before tax.

52 years old Mary-Faith has no medical insurance, owing 'thousands' in medical bills. She has around $60,000 in student loans. She is not married. She is homeless.

Mary-Faith's situation has been featured by varies websites to highlight the economic struggle of adjunct professors in the US. She appeared on PBS, the New York Times. Some colleagues and friends set up a website to raise funds for her. With a goal of raising $4,000, it received $285 in 17 days.

So Mary-Faith, why do you do this? Obviously, your skill is not appreciated by the college, because it is not appreciate by tuition-paying students. Teaching and learning should be a two-way selection process, wherein the students vote with their money, and you vote with your feet.

Extended reading: The Teaching Class.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Woman Beaten to Death in McDonalds in Shangdong

A female customer was beaten to death in a McDonald's restaurant in Zhaoyuan, Shangdong Province.

According to witnesses's account, a group of family members of friends started asking cell phone numbers from customers in a McDonald's restaurant in downtown Zhaoyuan city on May 28, 2014. When a woman refused to give them her cell phone number, the group was annoyed. The group of six men, women, and youth started beating the woman was a stool in the restaurant, then with an iron bar (until it broke). Although the woman was heard begging for her life, and willing to give her cell phone number, she was beaten to death after her head was smashed to pieces.

Many witnesses called the police, but they did not arrive until the woman was killed. The police did not stop the group beating the dead body, even after they arrived at the scene. The incident was covered up by the local police and the traditional media until someone uploaded a cell phone video to the Internet.

The video went viral instantly. Chinese netizens criticized the police's handling of this incident because:

  1. The tragedy took place in the most popular Jinbai Plaza in the city, and the nearest police squad is only 400 yards away. How come it took so long for police to respond?
  2. Why the group were able to ignore the police after they arrived at the scene and kept beating the obvious motionless body?
  3. In a police report which was released after the video had gone viral, the police stated it was a result of an oral altercation between customers of the restaurant, despite the video cleared showed that was not the case.
  4. The official report said the victim died in the hospital, while the video cleared showed that was not the case.
  5. The official described the incident as a brawl, while the video cleared showed that was not the case.
  6. The police refused to release the identities of the group.

Witnesses said the group was driving a Porsche Cayenne. The victim was said to be a 37 years old mother of a seven year old boy, who just got off her work shift in the plaza and was waiting to go home with her husband.

Many speculated the background of the group of six. However, more likely they are just some uncharacteristic 'common' wealthy people with some connections to the local government. Because it has grown to a national incident, the Party will not allow any questioning to its authority, not even under such extreme situation. The Party will see any reaction to people's demand a reflection of its weakness. Any demand of justice is seen as a challenge to the Party's ruling. Therefore, the Party will unfortunately see it the only way to survive is to side with the murderers.

And that's how things have been going in China.

It's a real terror, as a girl could be killed when eating a fast meal after work at the McDonald's in a busy city plaza a few hundred yards away from a police squad, just for not giving her cell phone number to a group of strangers.

In the mean time, the Central Propaganda Ministry has already identified two perfect targets: the McDonald's and the underground Churches. Millions of net police had been mobilized to post on the Internet claiming the girl's death was McDonald's fault. More are instructed to label the gang of six murders as preachers of underground churches who were collecting telephone numbers to spread the gospel.

As the Chinese social networks websites started blocking this incident, some Chinese netizens looked outside and asked President Obama to intervene by filing petition at the White House 'We the People' site.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Chicago Police: Chinese American Citizen Not American

In a video released by the Chicago Sun Times on May 19, 2014, a group of Chicago police officers were shown raided a store in the city in July 2013. A petite 32-year-old Chinese American manager was seen handcuffed behind her back and kneed on the floor, while police officers kept smacking her in the head.

The 110 lbs Chinese American manager Jianqing "Jessica" Klyzek was heard saying, I am a US citizen, I need a lawyer.

The Chicago police officers were heard saying, 'you are not fucking American'. An officer continued, "I'll put you in a UPS box and send you to wherever the fuck you came from!"

Jianqing Klyzek is a naturalized American Citizen of Chinese origin.

While the police officers were beating the woman, one was heard saying, "I'll take this building. You'll be dead and your family will be dead."

Obviously, according to Chicago Police force under Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama's White House, Chinese American Citizen is not 'Fucking American', whatever that means.

The police took all the surveillance video during the raid. However, the surveillance video was simultaneously remotely stored at an off-site location.

It has been close to one year after the incident took place. After reviewed the video, the Chicago police spokesman Adam Collins dismissed it as 'alleged' comments.

A large group of undercover officers as well as uniformed police officers were at the scene, as shown in the video.

Monday, May 19, 2014

They Said

It's a demonstration of loyalty (to the Party), rather than a reflection of cold-blood conduct, to renounce one's father in the Great Cultural Revolution.

--Zhang Yimou (artist), in an interview in May 2014.

The fact that you are allowed to stay alive proves the inclusiveness of our government.

--Zhang Xiaoming (CCP Party Boss in Hong Kong), in answering a visiting city counsel's question on whether a pro-democratic candidate can run for city executive office. September 2014.

Friday, May 16, 2014

Hua Chunying Comment on Chinese Killed in Vietnam

Reuters reported 16 Chinese had been killed in the anti-China riot in Vietnam. Companies and factories owned by Chinese or Taiwanese were looted. Dormitories were set fire while Chinese workers hiding inside.

This round of nation-wide riots broke when the coast guards of the two nations

The riot had occupied the social and political discussions in Hong Kong and Taiwan. As Vietnamese can not tell apart, their properties were destroyed too.

The news were strictly blocked inside mainland China. There is no single word mentioning the wide spread riot on any traditional media. All posts on the Internet posted by Netizens were promptly removed.

At a news pre-scheduled routine news brief, in respond to a reporter's question as to why Chinese media turned a blind eye to the loss of lives of Chinese workers in Vietnam, the spokeswoman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry Ms. Hua Chunying said, "in your day to day life, you have frictions with your friends, colleagues and co-workers, do you want to get over it and move on with bilateral conversation or do you want to shout out in a speaker for propaganda purpose?"

The candid answer reconfirmed many common understanding of how things work in China.

  1. People's lives really mean nothing comparing to the Party's interests;
  2. All media in China is under the Party's tight control;
  3. Anything that were actually reported by any Chinese media were indeed, propaganda.

News briefs by the Foreign Affairs Ministry is a worthy event for foreign journalists, because their many beautiful spokeswomen have been known to offering straightforward wisdom you wouldn't read in the People's Daily.

In a news brief on March 3, 2011, spokeswoman Jiang Yu threatened foreign journalists that they would not be allowed to use Chinese law as their shield against state persecution.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Quotas Are Illegal in the US Education System

One common misconception on Affirmative Action is to equate it to a quotas system. As a matter of fact, quotas are explicitly prohibited by law in the US.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (1865) is often cited as the legal root for equal protection. The US has come a long way since then on its record of race-based systematic discrimination. Women had not been allowed to vote until 1920, and segregation continued in many southern states well into the second half of the 20th century. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 makes Chinese the only ethics group to be legally discriminated by the federal government in the history of the US.

Quotas system sets aside a specific fix amount of seats for a specific group of people by skin color, religion, country of origin, gender or sexual orientation, etc. Quotas System was designed as a tool of discrimination in early 1920s in the height of antisemitism, echoing the hate sentiment in Europe. Elite universities such as Harvard and Yale set quotas for Jewish applicants. Regardless of their dedication to education and hard working, Jewish students were capped to a fixed ratio for twenty years.

Throughout the US history, Quotas system has been use as an effective way of systematic discrimination against some ethics groups or practitioners of certain religion. In the wake of the Civil Rights movement, quotas system was mistakenly used by activists in higher education to promote African American representation. In Regents of the University of California v. Baake (1978), the Supreme Court ruled specific quotas, such as the 16 out of 100 seats set aside for minorities by the University of California Davis School of Medicine, was unconstitutional.

The Affirmative Action was a policy introduced in the form of an Executive Order 10925 by President JFK in 1961. Affirmative Action is not a quotas system. Instead, it encourages government and employers to promote minority representation in a specific area.

In other words, the Affirmative Action allows a school to make additional effort to take racial into consideration into setting a goal of fair representation. For example, a university may set up a basketball team to 'attract' African American students, however, it is illegal to admit an unqualified African American student to displace an otherwise qualified white student. In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the Supreme Court ruled the admission procedure used by the University of Michigan was unconstitutional because it assigned a fix points to minority applicants.

In the domain of K-12 public education, the Supreme Court ruled in Parents v. Seattle (2007) that assigning students to schools partially based on their race was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court called the method extreme means of 'discriminating among individual students based on race by replying upon racial classifications in making school assignments'. Chief Justice Roberts authored the majority opinion, in which he likened Seattle School District's policy of assigning students based on their race classification to high schools to boost diversity to segregation. Roberts wrote:

Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin. The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once again—even for very different reasons. . . . The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

In an Affirmative Action legal guidance issued jointly by the Department of Education and Department of Justice in 2011, it states, a school may adopt individual racial classifications based approach to achieve a diverse student body only after they can demonstrate a race-neutral approach would not be workable to achieve its compelling interests. In implementation, no student should be insulated based on his or her race from an assessment or comparison to other student applicants. In addition, a student should not be evaluated in a way that makes a student's race his or her defining feature.

Over decades, the Affirmative Action policy has helped minority to realize their dreams in education and at workplace. Recently, the quotas system, on the contrary, is advocated by white supremacists to discriminate against real minorities, such as Asian. The 2010 demographics composition in the US sees about 72.4% white, 16.4 Hispanic or Latino, 12.6% African American and 4.8% Asian (notice that the total is more than 100% because one can select multiple options). White supremacists employed quotas system to counter the effect of the Affirmative Action to suppress Asian who are considered working too hard. Although quotas system is still illegal in the US, the undercurrent is gaining popularity among many racists working in the government and education systems. If the Asian community does not put up a fight, it could be institutionalized in a short time riding a conservative drive in era of grass-root politics.

Thursday, May 08, 2014

Journalist Charged on Seven No Say

A seventy-year old journalist was arrested. Ms. Gao Yu was charged on alleged crime of 'illegally provide national secret to overseas'.

The document at question is a CCP's internal doctrine [File No. 9: A Report on Current Situation in Ideological Domain, issued by the CCP's Central Committee Chief Staff's Office], also known as the 'Seven No Say'. Specifically, it cautioned party members, 80 millions strong in China, not to use or mention following phrases at any time:

  • universal value;
  • freedom of the press;
  • civil society;
  • civic rights;
  • CCP's past mistakes;
  • crony capitalism;
  • judicial independence;

A former college professor Zhang Xuezhong posted this rumor online in May, which was immediately removed and blocked. Zhang was fired by East China University of Political Science and Law in December, 2013. For a long time there had been debate and speculations online regarding whether the rumor of this Seven No Say was true, until today. The charge said Gao Yu translated this document in its entirety by herself and forwarded it to Hong Kong based Mirror Monthly under Der Spiegel.

The charge itself is problematic. For one, the literal translation of 'illegally provide national secret to overseas' begged the question of whether that is a legal way of providing national secret to overseas.

The awkward choice of wording of the charge might stem from difficulties to frame the journalist of leaking a national secret, because she has no access to this 'secret'. The document was faxed to her by someone anonymously, who could be a conscious citizen or a rival political leader inside the CCP.

A prosecutor will have trouble to prove actual damage or potential damage to the nation in the court trial, because what was revealed was not any specific. If the Party has a mind, then this equates to what the Party was thinking. It is an assessment of the political eco-environment as well a style guide for Party members.

When a communist believes everyone is his enemy, it's hardly a crime. It may not even amount to a secret because no action has been taken; a privacy issue perhaps. When he recites his thinking loudly in a hall full of people, you may argue his tongue leaked a secret of his. At this point, once it came out of his own month, it is no longer anything confidential or secret. However, instead of arresting his own tongue, the communist arrested the old lady who happened to have heard his recital and passed on to another person.

Born in 1944, Gao is a veteran journalist. She worked for China News Service, and was former deputy Editor-in-Chief for the Economics Weekly. She had been arrested twice before in 1989 and 1994 on similar charges. Gao served jail time 1989-1990 and 1993-1999.

Gao had been reported missing since April 24, 2014 by family and friends before the official news agency Xinhua News confirmed that Gao was arrested on May 8, 2014. Xinhua News Agency said Gao confessed the crimes she had committed, and that Gao was very regrettable over what she did. Xinhua stated Gao said she felt guilty and sorry, and that she would be happy to accept punishment for her crimes.

Monday, May 05, 2014

The Princeton Dude Needs to Check his Facts

A Princeton freshman found himself under the liberal bombardment because of a paper he wrote on his family past. In the paper, Tal Fortgang, a grandson of Polish Jewish immigrants who worked their butts off with a clear vision to support their family and see their children success. Tal did not understand the bias against white people who earned their success through hard work with a deep believe in education and family value. Fortgang concluded his paper "Checking My Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege" which was published by the Princeton Tory journal in April with the sentence ".. I apologize for nothing."

Having a discussion is always a better scenario then suppressing any idea that is not officially endorsed. Mr. Fortgang is brave to touch a very sensitive and often volatile topic. However, the possible history or political science major needs some training in fact checking before speaking out in public. For one, if not thanks to Affirmative Action and Princeton University's distorted admission standard, Mr. Fortgang probably wouldn't even be able to find a seat on the privileged campus.

In the article, Fortgang recounted his parents's immigration to the US, "a country that grants equal protection under the law to its citizens". This history major should have heard of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a law passed by the US federal government and signed by the President of the United States, to specifically suppress Chinese Americans. No, there was never anything close to this to any other groups of ethnics, not Africans, not Hispanics, not Polish nor Jews.

Fortgang needs to look back no further than seven years, when a Chinese student Jian Li filed a civil complaint against Princeton University, after denied admission because of his race.

In response, the Daily Princetonian, who billed itself the second college newspaper in the nation to publish daily since 1892, ridiculed Li with a parody, which mocked Li's parents for doing hard labor in a Chinese restaurant to support their children's education. The article goes like this in an obvious broken English perceived spoke by illiterate Chinese Americans such as restaurant operators, and the Seagull quoted here

"I so good at math and science...My dad from Kung Pao Province....Lots of bulldogs here for me to eat."

It is worth noting that this piece of dog shit was endorsed by then Princetonian editor in chief Chanakya Sethi, and supported by a Harvard student journalist Sahik K Mahtani, both Indian. There is no secret that Chinese and Indian are the two groups who directly compete at all fronts in the US. Therefore on one side it's a pity Indians could go so low, on the other side, it's a shame the Princeton University knows how to play a house underclass to fence off a filed underclass.

The Princeton University tried to launch a smear campaign to throw the stereotype of first generation Chinatown Chinese restaurant workers on a promising young scholar. In the real world, Jian Li graduated top 1% from Livingston High School, which has been consistently ranked a top school in the US. Li scored 2400 on the SAT, as well as perfect or near-perfect scores SAT subject tests in Math Level 2, Physics, and Chemistry.

Recent peered reviewed academic papers showed that with all other factors equal, it took Chinese a whole 50 more points in SAT then white students to get admitted by elite universities because of the racially motivated quota system imposed by schools such as the Princeton University.

Mr. Fortgang and his peers alike at the Princeton University better take a good look at the reflections from the puddle of their own pee, and ask themselves this question: would they have gotten where they were, if it were not their skin color?

Friday, May 02, 2014

University of Massachusetts Student Acquitted

A University of Massachusetts student Wang Weilang was acquitted by a jury of 10 female and 2 male of all charges.

On February 19, 2013, eighteen year old computer science major Wang called the campus police to confess that he had raped a girl, a fellow UMass student from China whom he met at the orientation, and was subsequently arrested. Wang was charged with rape, indecent assault and battery. The jury reached their decision after a one hour discussion on April 30, 2014.

The jury believed that Wang conspired together with the girl to file a false police report to justify the girl's 'conversion' to him from her previous boyfriend who was in China at the time. What a twisted plot.

What was also worth mentioning was that during the trial, Wang showed the court his SAT scores with 'very low scores in English reading comprehension and writing'. Recall that it was Wang who called the police after the alleged 'rape', because the girl's English was poor. You would wonder what was the admission standard for the University of Massachusetts.

Readers may compare the verdict to the original media description of the crime:

According to court files, the alleged victim said she and Wang had been socializing for about a month before the alleged assault. However, she told Wang she had no romantic interest in him because she already had a boyfriend.

About 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19, 2013, the two were studying in his room when the alleged victim became tired and Wang offered to let her nap in his bed.

The woman said after about 30 minutes, Wang climbed into bed with her, began kissing her, removed her pants, fondled and assaulted her, according to court records.

The woman protested, and at one point Wang was sitting on top of her and gave the woman her cell phone so she could call her boyfriend and tell him what happened, which she did, according to her statement to police.

The woman told Wang she would contact police if he continued the assault, and he allegedly replied, “I’ll go to the police department with you,” according to court files.

Wang called the police himself and told them he wanted to speak with an officer because he “attempted to rape someone,” according to court records.

According to the woman’s statement to police, Wang agreed to call the police himself because she did not know what English words to use to describe what happened.

Wang waited with the woman for police to arrive, according to court records.

For most, this is probably an unnecessary rendition of Gua Sha.

Monday, April 28, 2014

A Lonely Sole Finds His Way Home

John B. Rehm, a State Department lawyer, became the first general counsel in the office of the Special Trade Representative (1963-69). Upon leaving government in the 1969, he practiced international trade law in Washington, D.C.

A Friends Seminary graduate in 1948, Rehm sent his application to only two schools: the University of Chicago and the Harvard University. He was accepted by both with scholarship. Four years later, Rehm went to the Law School of Columbia University only to get out of Harvard.

There must be some really extinguish traits that made John picked Diane, a divorced Arabian secretary, who was working for the State Department, as his love and wife in the height of John's prominent and successful career life.

For one, John loved the way Diane ironed his shirts. Diane would iron his shirts all day after she sent their children David and Jennifer to school for the next fourteen years, until one day she volunteered for an intern position for The Home Show at WAMU in 1973, during which she scolded the guess, a public official, because she thought his policy was wrong.

In the next few years, history would see Diane raise to a national celebrity, while John became disappointed by what a law degree was meant for, making money that is, while he made tons of money everyday. According to Diane, John became unhappy and sad by the moneycentric way of live which was adopted by the society. Although John lost interests in his career and life, but "not eve a single time" had he implied any discouragement on Diane's success. "Not even once," recalled Diane.

The duo loved each other, and were truly committed, toward commiment. Diane tool John to a 115 acres family farm for 15 days on a family vacation, while the couple reflected on ups and downs and bumps of their marriage. Diane taped and transcribed the exchange in its entirety. The book was raved on its revealing honesty.

Millions of loyal listeners of the ever so popular radio program were pleased to hear that Diane, WAMU and the NPR signed a three years contract extension in Spring 2014.

John was disabled by Parkinson's disease moved in an assisted living facility. "John once said," recalled Diane, "a best couple should live next door, or different floors, in a short distance." "Now you get your wish granted," joked Diane.

"No decision I have made was so valid and right on the woman I married," John told Melbourne Spector during an Oral History Project interview, which had became a part of the history held by the Library of Congress.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Japanese Parade on Hilter's 125th Birthday

Japanese gathered on April 20 to honor Adolf Hitler's 125th birthday. The parade started at Tokyo's Ikebukuro Central Park East where seven Class-A war criminals including Hideki Tojo were hanged by international court post WWII. Participants include youth as well as elders.

Banners advocating Japanese Supremacy were displayed along Nazi flags. Posters of South Korean President Park Geun-hye were defaced and marked 'beggar' and 'prostitute'.

A national politician, former vice president of the nationalist "Restoration Political Party-New Wind", Hiroyuki Seto made the following remark: I don't know what's wrong with agreeing with Hitler. Is it the holocaust of six million Jews? Are there still people who believe that happened? That's a lie. It's the same fabrication of history as the Rape of Nanking and the forced comfort women.

The admiration to the Fuehrer is deeply rooted in generations of Japanese. Last year, referring to a constitution revision, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance commented "we can learn from techniques of the Nazis", who changed Germany's Weimar constitution "unnoticed".

The gathering and parade were escorted by police, as it had been registered and approved.

Prior to US president Obama's visit on April 23, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and his cabinet members paid respect to a shrine Yasukuni where war criminals were commemorated.

Neighboring countries such as China and South Korea see Yasukuni as a symbol of Japan's militarism, and repeated visits by Japanese leadership as a lack of remorse over the pain Japan had forced on peoples in Asia.

On April 1, 2014, the US Justice Department confirmed that 35 Japanese war criminals were banned from entering US. Most of them either served in Unit 731 which carried out horrifying experiments on live human subjects, or operated 'comfort stations', where females from occupied countries were enslaved as sex tools for Japanese army.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Chinese Students Populate US Universities

University of Southern California announced that over four thousand Chinese students were studying on their campus, based on Fall 2013 enrollment. Among which, 3,600 are from mainland China, 400 are from Taiwan, and 125 are from Hong Kong. The total number of international student population at USC is 8,500.

On the other end of the pipeline, around 7,000 Chinese obtained long term employment based visa through H1B in 2013. The total number of post-secondary Chinese students in the US exceeds 287,260 in 2013-2014 academic year (USICE). This number has doubled in five years from 128,000 since 2009-2010 academic year. The great majority of those who wish to stay in the US will have to explore options beyond high tech workers project.

According to Study Abroad Trend Report released by China Education Online, 103,427 Chinese students went to US for education. Among whom, 43.9% attended graduate schools, while 39.8% attended undergrad colleges. 23,795 Chinese students attended high schools, which reflected an increase of 366 times in eight years.

The most popular areas of study for Chinese students in the US are: Business (29%), Engineering (19.2%), Math and Computer Science (11.2%) and Social Sciences (8.2%). In the US, international students represent 3.9% of total students enrollment in the US in 2012 (OpenDoors Report).

One notable change in Chinese studying abroad is the emerging of 'international classes' in first tier cities in China. A conservative estimate put the total enrollment around 50,000 at this time. There are over 100 international classes in Beijing and about 50 in Shanghai, and various number of such classes all across China. High school students in these classes are prepared for going overseas rather than taking the National College Entrance Examination in China. They study for TOEFL, SAT, ACT, and science and humanity classes in English.

A study conducted by Xiaojie Li found the most important factors to draw Chinese students are academic quality and safety, which were followed by employment opportunities in the US after graduation. It is as interesting and important to find their school choices were not greatly influenced by the size of existing Chinese students population nor collaborative programs between the US institution and their Chinese alma mater.

Globally, Chinese students represented the top foreign students population in US, UK, Australia, Canada and Japan.

SchoolEnrollment Mainland ChinaYear of DataUS News 2014
Princeton University 326 2013 1-National
Harvard University 582 2011 2-National
Yale University 378 2012 3-National
Columbia University 2,849 2013 4-National
University of Pennsylvania 104 2012 7-National
Northwestern University 526 2009 12-National
University of California--Berkeley 1568 2013 20-National (2014)
University of Vriginia 828 2013 23-National
University of Southern California 3,038 2013 23-National
Tufts University 235 2013 28-National
Georgia Institute of Technology 1,470 2013 36-National
Pennsylvania State University 2,375 2012 37-National
University of Illinois Urbana-Champion 4,512 2013 41-National
University of Miami 976 2013 47-National
University of Texas--Austin 596 2008 52-National
University of Maryland--College Park 1,912 2012 62-National
University of Pittsburgh 1,387 2013 62-National
Purdue University 4,323 2013 68-National
Texas A&M University 1,688 2013 69-National
University of Iowa 2,062 2012 72-National
Michigan State University 4,419 2013 73-National
Indiana University--Bloomington 3,250 2012 75-National
Stony Brook University--SUNY 1,827 2013 82-National
University of Denver 733 2013 91-National
Binghamton University--SUNY 713 2012 97-National
Iowa State University 1,917 2013 101-National
University of Kansas 190 2006 101-National
Duquesne University 132 2012 121-National
University of Arkansas 211 2013 128-National
Ohio University 920 2013 135-National
Kansas State University 981 2013 135-National
Arizona State University 2,497 2013 142-National
Virginia Commonwealth University 171 2013 167-National
Northern Illinois University 104 2011 177-National
Western Michigan University 268 2013 181-National
University of Houston 686 2010 190-National
North Dakota State University 266 2013 190-National
Central Michigan University 259 2013 190-National
Georgia State University 465 2013 RNP-National
East Tennessee State University 119 2012 RNP-National
Wichita State University 156 2011 RNP-National
University of North Texas 381 2013 RNP-National
Portland State University 299 2011 RNP-National
Amherst College 28 2012 2-Liberal Arts
Swarthmore College 22 2012 3-Liberal Arts
Bowdoin College 20 2013 4-Liberal Arts
Claremont McKenna College 13 2010 9-Liberal Arts
Bucknell University 50 2012 32-Liberal Arts
Rochester Institute of Technology 406 2013 7-North
Chatham University 23 2013 48-North
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania 15 2009 95-North
Weber State University 79 2013 80-West
Xavier University 17 2012 4-Midwest
University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire 89 2012 30-Midwest
University of Nebraska--Kearney 115 2013 48-Midwest
Avila University 27 2013 102-Midwest
University of North Carolina--Pembroke 69 2009 80-South
University of Houston--Clear Lake 100 2003 UR
University of Maryland, Baltimore 53 2005 UR

Numbers are cited from publicly available reports. Many universities with high Chinese students representation do not publish by-country enrollment data. For example, there are over 1,000 Chinese students on the main campus of Johns Hopkins University, among its 8,000 total students population. JHU is not listed in the above table because we do not have an exact official number. Similar situations include Duke University and most colleges and universities in the Boston area.

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Jogging Not As Safe As Runners Thought

Jogging in a small town community park might not be as safe as runners had thought. Two female joggers were attacked while they were jogging together along paved path at Walkersville Community Park in Maryland.

Both 37 year old and 50 year old were sexually attacked by a youth.

Less than one month ago and a few miles to the east, a female runner who was running along the North East Street was groped by a person who did not match the description of the park incident. Earlier, runners reported that they were shot by paintball from driving-by pickup trucks while they were running along country road.

The Greater Washington D.C. area, following the national trend, have found increasing popularity of running. However, the safety issue could never have been worse.

In a politically charged campaign targeting former Californian Congressman Gary Condit, who lost a following re-election, the media focused upon the unexplained disappearance of a Washington intern Chandra Levy. Levy was later found murdered in the Rock Creek Park, probably while she was jogging. As a result of the Levy investigation, it turned out many, many women, possibly all joggers, had been attacked in the same park.

Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Will Yale University Do this to an African American Student?

Frances Chan, an Asian American student majoring in History was threatened by officials at Yale University that she would be kicked out of the school, because she was not heavy enough, according to report by the Huffington Post, New Haven Register.

The Asian American student stands 5 ft 2 tall, and weights 92 lbs. Despite having lived a healthy life, the University simply does not like how much she weights. Obviously she is not as heavy as most white girls, even though 92 lbs and 5 ft 2 is not an unusual combination among people with a skin color of Asians.

Yale University forced the student to check in weekly for weigh-ins. Chan was forced to bury herself with junk food such as Cheetos, cookies and ice cream. Whenever possible, she was forced to take elevator rather than taking stairs. Her family talked to the University, even had her childhood doctor talked to the University, as well as had her medical record shared with the University. The University couldn't be pleased.

Yale does not like how she looks. She does not look as heavy as what Yale likes to see.

The million dollar questions being that whether Yale would do the same to other students who look different from a desired figure (the Lebensborn project anyone cares to recall)? Is Asian the easy target for its hard to contain unresting internal urge of discrimination?

Frankly we could care less about discrimination or in particular a systematic attitude of discrimination at Yale. Be real, if you don't see it at other places you must be blind. The problem is: after several months of forced eating of junk food, the Asian girl is reporting a real eating disorder. What can she do?

Thursday, April 03, 2014

An Arrest Affidavit

Jing-Police-AA[2013] No. 306

Suspect: Ding Jiaxi, male, born August 17, 1967, of Yidu City of Hubei Province, ID# 11010819670817XXX, Han, postgraduate study, CEO of Hongde Law Firm in Beijing, permanent residency: xxxx, Building 107, 37 Xuyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, current residence: x-x, building 16, Huanshan Village, Wenquan, Haidian District, Beijing, member of China Democratic League (note: aka Minmeng, one of eight officially sponsored democratic political parties in China). Criminally detained on April 18, 2013 on allegations of illegal gathering; jailed at the No. 3 detention center of Beijing.

Defense lawyers: Liu Zhiqiang, Hongrui Law Firm of Shaanxi, License number: 610622197008280913; Wang Xing, Huicheng Law Firm of Beijing, License number: 110108198007113410.

The alleged illegal gathering case was stemed from another case investigated by this bureau (note: Metropolitan Police of Beijing) on March 31, 2013, wherein Hou Xin et al, illegally gathered at the Xidan Plaza advocating for public disclosure of properties owned by officials. Findings in that case revealed Ding Jiaxi was involved in the organizing, planning and displaying banners on the street. Suspect Ding Jiaxi was taken into custody on April 17, 2013.

Lawful investigation found: suspect Ding Jiaxi developed resentment because of his personal experiences, and start pursuing 'democratic citizenship'. He is connected to the Citizenship organization headed by Xu Zhiyong. He followed Xu's illegal political theories, i.e. advocate practicing of personal citizenship, reject dictatorship and corruption, exercising spirit of citizenship, share work under a democratic framework, push for peaceful conversion to a democratic legal system, participate by writing and posting articles, vote in elections, parade and demonstrate, push forward property disclosure, anti-corruption, anti land bound laws, promote citizenship awareness), participated in the New Citizenship Movement', therefore conducted damages.

In September of 2012, Xu Zhiyong led Ding Jiaxi, Li Wei, Sun Hanhui, Zhao Changqing and Wang Yonghong et al core members, started pushing for property disclosure of officials. They laid out a framework plan, in which Xu Zhiyong was charged as contacting valuable persons with levels of social influences, Ding Jiaxi as the chief coordinator, Sun Hanhui as public relation and the contact person, Li Wei gathering and distributing information. Afterwards, in the same month, aforementioned persons utilized a 'local partying' website to introduce the movement to those came to group meals.

On December 9, 2012, Sun Hanhui drafted a proposal to petition the 205 minister level ranking or higher level senior officials to disclose their properties. After Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiahui edited the petition, Li Wei and Wang Yonghong et al secured sixty-eight democratic and civil rights advocates as co-petitioners. They posted the petition on the Internet and ask for public endorsement. Xu Zhiyong instructed Zhao Changqing, Li Wei and Sun Hanhui et al purchase cell phones and set up mailboxes to accept signatures from the public.

In January 2013, Xu Zhiyong, Ding Jiaxi and Sun Hanhui, et al, donated ¥15,000 ($2,500) to sponsor Ruan Yunhua of Hubei Province and Zhang Kun of Jiangsu Province on their 'North-South Traversal of Property Disclosure Public Officials'. The Ruan and Zhang set out from Zhuhai, via Hubei Province, Changsha, Junyang, Nanchang, Shanghai, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Xi'an, Lanzhou and Chongqing, etc. along their way, they displayed banners and passed out flyers. They also collected endorsing signatures and contacts to promote the petition. By February, they had collected thousands of signatures, which were handed to Sun Hanhui, Li Wei and Ding Jiaxi when they returned to Beijing. On March 4, Sun hanhui sorted through 7,033 signatures obtained through varies channels and attached them to the 'petition' that was sent to the government agencies including the National People's Congress, Chief Operation Office CCP, Chief Operation Office of State Council and the Chief Disciplinary Committee of CCP. On March 13, Ma Xinli was captured when he attempted to pass the petition to Members of the National Congress along other petitioners while the National Congress were in session in Beijing.

Between September to December in 2012, Ding Jiaxi, Sun Hanhui, Zhao Changqing, Wang Yonghong, Li Wei, et al, organized and participated multiple group meals through 'local partying'. While they were eating, they discussed ways to push for the 'Disclosure', including displaying banners on the street. Beginning January 27, 2013, suspects including Ding Jiaxi, Sun Hanhui, Wang Yonghong, Zhao Changqing, Hou Xin, Zhang Baocheng, Yuan Dong, Ma Lixin, et al, identified public places and organized, planned and exercised near 30 times street political activities while they displayed banners, gave talks, and fast mobbed. On March 31, 2013, Hou Xin, Zhang Baocheng, Yuan Dong, Ma Xinli, et al. went to Xidan Cultural Plaza, where they illegally gathered. At the scene, Zhao Baocheng and Ma Lixin, et al. displayed banners with words such as "Ask the Top Seven Politburos to Disclose Property", "Only Big Turtles (Turtle is a disparage term in Chinese culture) Would Not Disclose Their Properties". Yuan Dong gave a speech with a handheld speaker. Hong Xin, et al. took pictures and videos. The event attracted about one hundred passersby. They passed flyers of the 'Petition', and would not desist despite instructions from police and security guards. They were taken away by police from the Xidan Avenue Dispatch Station. After four persons including Hou Xin were taken into custody, Li Wei drafted a open letter of support, and posted to overseas websites after edited and signed by Xu Zhiyong, Ding Jiaxi, Sun Hanhui, Zhao Changqing and Wang Yonghong et al. to promote the cause.

In addition, on February 23, 2013, Ding Jiaxi went to Zhong Guancun e-World Plaze, Hailong Plaza, New Zhongguancun Plaza, East Entrance of Beijing University, West Entrance of Qinghua University, etc. to organize and participated activities such as displaying the banner and passing flyers to passersby.

The findings are evident with: depositions of the suspect and conspirators, material evidence, books, A/V materials and arresting procedures. The suspect confessed accordingly.

Herein, suspect Ding Jiaxi, along with Xu Zhiyong, et al, in name of push for property disclosure of officials, organized, planned and performed pressure in public places to government, with intention to create social instabilities criminal activities. His conduct violated articles 79 and 85 of the Chinese Criminal Code, therefore, please approve this arrest.

Regards,

To: The No. One Prosecution Branch of the Beijing Prosecution Bureau

From: Beijing Metropolitan Police

On: May 18, 2013.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Judge Dismissed Baidu Censorship Case

A federal judge of the District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed a case against Chinese search engine Baidu.

Activities alleged Baidu's government sponsored censorship prevented them from reaching to Baidu's users in the US.

Judge Jesse M. Furman reasoned in his ruling that Baidu as a business was entitled to its own right to free speech, in this case in form of censorship, from (US) government interference.

The Seagull disagrees with this analysis.

The court failed to recognize three facts: 1) Baidu is a government sponsored company, which is the only reason for its dominance in China, despite well recognized technical and service advantages of Google. 2) For people living in China, there is no alternative as the case of newspaper or radio stations. 3) Same can be said to Baidu's users in the US, who are stuck with the only search engine that they are familiar with.

The First Amendment was never designed are meant to protect a government speech. Other search engines who are considered of higher quality product and service standard including Google were literally driven out of Chinese market by the government.

In other words, Baidu is more of a propaganda arm of the Chinese government than anything else. Regrettably, Judge Furman built his rationale on a false assumption.

The case is Zhang et al v. Baidu.com Inc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-03388.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

A Slip of the Tongue

"It would be too good to be true. There is no such good deal to get Taiwan residency at only $8,000," said Ma Xiaoguang, the spokesman of State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, referring to the trade accord between the two parties across the Strait at new press on 3/26/2014.

"Multi-party systems can be corrupt, too", stated Xinhua News in an editorial on June 8, 2013, which is entitled "Party System and Anti-corruption".

"The US is the greatest villain of this era," stated Xinhua News in an editorial on June 24, 2013, which is entitled "The US is the real villain of this era".

Monday, March 24, 2014

How to Steer a Good-Will Visit

US first lady Michelle Obama is touring China with her mother and two daughters. The trip was designed as a good will visit, partially to compensate for the missed meeting between two first ladies when President Xi Jinping visited Washington. Madam Obama toured learned calligraphy from a high school boy in Beijing, then tried out local dishes in Xi'an. The two daughters were praised for their beauty and good manners.

However for propaganda experts in Beijing, there is always a way to steer the public opinions.

Right before the first lady to visit the Terracotta museum in Xi'an, special op police stormed the museum to kick every visitors out in name of security. A tour guide was not moving 'fast enough', and was kicked down unconscious in front of thousands of museum patrons. The last thing witnesses saw was the poor guy who was not moving or responding was thrown in a police car.

While the Obamas were still doing selfies with terracotta warriors, the pictures of the security kicking museum patrons went viral on Chinese social networking sites. "Because of Michelle Obama, an innocent Chinese was kicked down motionless."

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Du Daobin v. Cisco Systems Dismissed

A federal lawsuit against Cisco was dismissed by the District court of Maryland. Cisco had been accused of assisting the Chinese government to censor, monitor and control online speech made by political dissidents.

The court found there were legitimate usages for the networking equipment designed and manufactured by Cisco, such as routing and passing internet traffics.

The finding of the District Court contradicted to a monumental supreme court ruling in 2005 MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. (04-480), while the top court found that a company might be found liable for if they encouraged users on illegal usage of its products, even if that product might support legitimate usages. Grokster lost the file-sharing case and subsequently fell because they advertised file piracy, even when they demonstrated in the court (and accepted by a lower court) that their product was useful in lawful distributing files.

Cisco had produced and distributed printed materials boasting the censorship and monitoring capability of its routers to Chinese government.

The case was Du Daobin, et al, v. CISCO Systems, Inc. et. al, 8:11-cv-01538-PJM.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Dongguan Hold On

Dongguan is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province with a population of 8 million. The city situates itself between Guangzhou and Shenzhen. For decades, it had been known as the 'manufacturing capital' of the world. Recently, it is also dabbed as the 'sex capital' of China.

For whatever reason, the CCTV under the Central Propaganda Ministry named Dongguan in it's national news broadcasting, accusing it of harboring prostitution activities, a criminal offense in China. It came as a sudden earthquake. Over six thousands police combed the city, and 67 prostitutes and their clients were arrested in one night. It's an inconvenience and understandably disappointing for those who rely on the service. But the reaction from the public was interesting, to say the least. According to online data research, more than 80% of online comments support the illegal business. Shy of mentioned the word prostitution per se, online media and even some publication use banners with bold fonts to show support 'Dongguan Hold On', 'Dongguan Be Strong'. Data analytics studies suggested that the great majority of males posters mocked and taunted the CCTV and the police, while women who as a whole did not approve prostitution activities kept silence.

An off duty police officer was seen holding a sign on the street in Hong Kong to protest for a colleague who was arrested on a sex trip in Dongguan. Local residents also displayed banners with the phrase, 'our soul is not for sale', with an undertone of mocking the reporters of CCTV.

What made Chinese, known for being introverted otherwise, to publicly spoke up for such an embarrassing act?

In an unrelated incident hundreds miles away in Guan'an, Sichuan Province on the same day, a police officer confiscated a scale from a peddler who was selling vegetables without a permit. The officer then threw the scale down a ditch. It appears the peddler was not beaten or mistreated. Still passerby were engaged, and soon a brawl was ensued. Thousands of people who had no ties to the peddler surrounded the police force, and demanded an apology.

It's no secret that any public defiant to the communists party rule will predictably gain a standing ovation from the audiences, anytime, any where. In many cases, it doesn't matter which side was at fault. Bashing the government has been a fashion for intellectuals and often a marketing technique for businessmen.

Since assuming the power in 2012, the Xi/Li administration has arrested and jailed more dissidents than twelve years of Hu/Wen administration combined. But obviously, people did not blink.

Shouldn't 'they' be scared?

Sunday, February 09, 2014

Building Up An Espionage Case

It took over two years of police work to build up an espionage charge against six individuals who alleged stole agricultural secrets for a Chinese Conglomerate DBN.

Hailong Robert Mo was found kneeing in an unmarked corn field near Tama, Iowa digging freshly planted seeds, with a getaway car waiting, on May 3, 2011. A field manager of DuPont Pioneer questioned Mo, but he was able to get away fast. The car's license plate was traced back to Mo. Monsanto also reported suspicious activity. FBI agents were alerted during a routine site visit on June 30, 2011. An investigation was initiated in September 2011.

It turned out a team of 'Asian males' had been travelling extensively through Midwestern farm belt states, visiting farmers who had been contracted with seeds companies DuPont, Monsanto and LG to plant bio-engineered corns. Mo would be stopped again four months later checking out an unmarked Monsanto test field by Polk County (Iowa) Sheriff's Deputy.

In February 2012, FBI was expecting Mo to accompany visiting Chinese leader Xi Jinping on an agricultural tour but could not locate Mo by surveillance they set up at the Des Moines airport. Later, FBI was notified by Pioneer security team that Mo was found at their headquarters with the tour, using an assumed name of Wu Hougang, Chairman of Dalian Zhangzidao Fishery Group. FBI was able to locate Mo several hours later in a tour of a Monsanto facility in Ankeny, Iowa. Later that evening, Mo attended the state dinner hosted by the Iowa Governor for Xi. The next day, Mo would attend an agriculture conference with the same assumed name Wu. Mo was seen meeting with former Pioneer employee whose wife was an active Pioneer corn geneticist researcher.

FBI recorded a revealing conversation between two DBN employees Ye Jian and Lin Young, when they were traveling in a rental car in the US.
Ye: You can forget about ever coming to the US again... Isn't that ruining an individual's future?
Lin: I don't think it's that simple. I actually studied the law.
Ye: They could treat us as spies.
Lin: Trespassing, theft/larceny, IP. All criminal offences... not just blocking us from visiting.
Lin: Dr. Li actually knows clearly, he knows. When the seed operation was launched, he was in charge of the legal side.
Lin: My family just has no clue what I am doing here. My oldman asked me what you guys are doing staying in the US for so long? What can I say? Can't say anything.
Lin: I don't really want to come to the US anyway.
Ye: So [sigh]. The company can't afford the legal cost.
Lin: Taking things from the property is theft... Nowadays the US is very hostile to China on this matter. If this time they opt to -
Ye: [Deep sigh]
Lin: I mentioned it to Dr. Li that I don't agree on running this project for such a long time.
Ye: The longer the time is, the more likely we get in trouble.
Lin: My point is that the outcome doesn't justify the effort we put in. We take such a huge risk, for such a long time, just to get some duplicates. From decision-making standpoint, I think it's not. Dr. Li's personality tends to go extreme.

FBI observed a meeting of Mo, Ye, Li and 'Hongwei Wang' September 2012. US Border Patrol found in checked bags of luggage of Ye and Li to China what appears to be factory-sealed microwave popcorn boxes. Upon opening the boxes, on top were popcorn package, but inside each box were approximately 100 small manila envelops with corn seeds. USCBP found additional napkins with corn seeds in Ye's pockets when Ye was awaiting for his flight. Approximately the same time, Boarder Patrol at a Canadian border found 44 bags of corn seeds in Hongwei's car hidden under his seat and in his luggage. Hundreds of pictures of corn fields and Monsanto and Pioneer tours were found in Hongwei's digital camera.

The criminal complaint was violation of 1832 (theft of intellectual property). The case was US v. Mo on trial in the Southern District of Iowa 4:2013-cr-00147-RP-CFB-002. Mo pleaded not guilty.

DBN is a publicaly traded company at Shenzhen Exchange with a market value of 25.66 billion RMB ($4 billion). The Chairperson of DBN is Mr. Shao Genhuo, a self-made billionaire with a net worth of $1.45 billion (#90 China Rich List).

Friday, February 07, 2014

What Espenshade/Radford/Nieli Did not Say

Being a Jew himself probably offered Russell Nieli the courage to speak out on the systematic discrimination against kids of Asian heritage. However, anyone who had watched the Japanese movie Rashomon knew, the real truth was left out for an unspecific reason which is often darker than one would dare to face.

The prevailing racially motivated discrimination in education opportunities are in fact crafted by the elite white people to preserve an otherwise unjustified self-interests, as Espenshade, Radford and Nieli pointed out. But that was not new information.

Racial discrimination against Asian kids in the education system in the US is a well accepted common sense that does not need any number to prove. What could be a better topic is 'why' do they do that? Why did the elite what intentionally hurt the most hard working and high productive class in the US, especially at a time when advent of information technology has made the world flat thus the US is facing mounting competition from outside.

The words that nobody is mentioning is 'affirmative action', the most corrupt power-sharing framework designed by the elite to serve themselves at the cost of everyone else, including the African Americans. By bribing the African Americans (and late comers such as the Latinos), the elite class in exchange is allowed to use holistic standard in the admission process to get their own kids into places they would not be able to reach.

It is equally important to point out that although the victims are Asian kids, but those who benefited are the 'elite' class rather than a specific ethic group. Justice Sotomayor, a lucky AA product, impromptu defended the legacy preferences in an exchange with lawyers on the Michigan case because she too wanted to guaranteed seats for her own children, even though lawyers argued that it was obvious beneficial for increasing minority admission to see the Legacy Preference gone.

For low information followers, the message that the elite what to get out is that they are being saved by the elite from harms of competition from Asian kids who work unnecessarily too hard. The elite portrait themvselves as the saviors and guardians for the Blacks and Latinos. They plays the tricks of fears to cohort Blacks and Latinos into their political allies. As a result they got to keep the preferences admission.

Nieli correctly pointed out that by means of preferences admission, the elite not only blocked hard working Asian kids education opportunity only because of their skin color, but also sent unqualified offspring of their own to top schools. As a byproduct, it effectively killed self-esteem of Blacks, Latinos and Indians. All in all, the elite successfully secure the most favorable scheme for their own prosperity.

What the elite fail to learn from history lessons are: 1) once people realized what they have done, they would be recognized as thugs and treated as such; 2) after they had brought the entire country down, there would be little room for their own kids to enjoy.

How Diversity Punishes Asians, Poor Whites and Lots of Others
By Russell K. Nieli
July 12, 2010

When college presidents and academic administrators pay their usual obeisance to "diversity" you know they are talking first and foremost about race. More specifically, they are talking about blacks. A diverse college campus is understood as one that has a student body that--at a minimum--is 5 to 7 percent black (i.e., equivalent to roughly half the proportion of blacks in the general population). A college or university that is only one, two, or three percent black would not be considered "diverse" by college administrators regardless of how demographically diverse its student body might be in other ways. The blacks in question need not be African Americans--indeed at many of the most competitive colleges today, including many Ivy League schools, an estimated 40-50 percent of those categorized as black are Afro-Caribbean or African immigrants, or the children of such immigrants.

As a secondary meaning "diversity" can also encompass Hispanics, who together with blacks are often subsumed by college administrators and admissions officers under the single race category "underrepresented minorities." Most colleges and universities seeking "diversity" seek a similar proportion of Hispanics in their student body as blacks (since blacks and Hispanics are about equal in number in the general population), though meeting the black diversity goal usually has a much higher priority than meeting the Hispanic one.

Asians, unlike blacks and Hispanics, receive no boost in admissions. Indeed, the opposite is often the case, as the quota-like mentality that leads college administrators to conclude they may have "too many" Asians. Despite the much lower number of Asians in the general high-school population, high-achieving Asian students--those, for instance, with SAT scores in the high 700s--are much more numerous than comparably high-achieving blacks and Hispanics, often by a factor of ten or more. Thinking as they do in racial balancing and racial quota terms, college admissions officers at the most competitive institutions almost always set the bar for admitting Asians far above that for Hispanics and even farther above that for admitting blacks.

"Diversity" came to be so closely associated with race in the wake of the Supreme Court's Bakke decision in 1978. In his decisive opinion, Justice Lewis Powell rejected arguments for racial preferences based on generalized "societal discrimination," social justice, or the contemporary needs of American society as insufficiently weighty to overrule the color-blind imperative of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. That imperative, however, could be overruled, Powell said, by a university's legitimate concern for the educational benefits of a demographically diverse student body.

Virtually all competitive colleges after Bakke continued with their racial preference policies ("affirmative action"), though after Powell's decision they had to cloak their true meaning and purpose behind a misleading or dishonest rhetoric of "diversity." Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, a critic of racial preferences, accurately explains the situation: "The raison d'etre for race-specific affirmative action programs," Dershowitz writes, "has simply never been diversity for the sake of education. The checkered history of 'diversity' demonstrates that it was designed largely as a cover to achieve other legally, morally, and politically controversial goals. In recent years, it has been invoked--especially in the professional schools--as a clever post facto justification for increasing the number of minority group students in the student body."

While almost all college administrators and college admissions officers at the most elite institutions think in racial balancing and racial quota-like terms when they assemble their student body, they almost always deny this publicly in a blizzard of rhetoric about a more far-flung "diversity." Indeed, there is probably no other area where college administrators are more likely to lie or conceal the truth of what they are doing than in the area of admissions and race.

Most elite universities seem to have little interest in diversifying their student bodies when it comes to the numbers of born-again Christians from the Bible belt, students from Appalachia and other rural and small-town areas, people who have served in the U.S. military, those who have grown up on farms or ranches, Mormons, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, lower-middle-class Catholics, working class "white ethnics," social and political conservatives, wheelchair users, married students, married students with children, or older students first starting out in college after raising children or spending several years in the workforce. Students in these categories are often very rare at the more competitive colleges, especially the Ivy League. While these kinds of people would surely add to the diverse viewpoints and life-experiences represented on college campuses, in practice "diversity" on campus is largely a code word for the presence of a substantial proportion of those in the "underrepresented" racial minority groups.

The Diversity Colleges Want

A new study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade and his colleague Alexandria Radford is a real eye-opener in revealing just what sorts of students highly competitive colleges want--or don't want--on their campuses and how they structure their admissions policies to get the kind of "diversity" they seek. The Espenshade/Radford study draws from a new data set, the National Study of College Experience (NSCE), which was gathered from eight highly competitive public and private colleges and universities (entering freshmen SAT scores: 1360). Data was collected on over 245,000 applicants from three separate application years, and over 9,000 enrolled students filled out extensive questionnaires. Because of confidentiality agreements Espenshade and Radford could not name the institutions but they assure us that their statistical profile shows they fit nicely within the top 50 colleges and universities listed in the U.S. News & World Report ratings.

Consistent with other studies, though in much greater detail, Espenshade and Radford show the substantial admissions boost, particularly at the private colleges in their study, which Hispanic students get over whites, and the enormous advantage over whites given to blacks. They also show how Asians must do substantially better than whites in order to reap the same probabilities of acceptance to these same highly competitive private colleges. On an "other things equal basis," where adjustments are made for a variety of background factors, being Hispanic conferred an admissions boost over being white (for those who applied in 1997) equivalent to 130 SAT points (out of 1600), while being black rather than white conferred a 310 SAT point advantage. Asians, however, suffered an admissions penalty compared to whites equivalent to 140 SAT points.

The box students checked off on the racial question on their application was thus shown to have an extraordinary effect on a student's chances of gaining admission to the highly competitive private schools in the NSCE database. To have the same chances of gaining admission as a black student with an SAT score of 1100, an Hispanic student otherwise equally matched in background characteristics would have to have a 1230, a white student a 1410, and an Asian student a 1550. Here the Espenshade/Radford results are consistent with other studies, including those of William Bowen and Derek Bok in their book The Shape of the River, though they go beyond this influential study in showing both the substantial Hispanic admissions advantage and the huge admissions penalty suffered by Asian applicants. Although all highly competitive colleges and universities will deny that they have racial quotas--either minimum quotas or ceiling quotas--the huge boosts they give to the lower-achieving black and Hispanic applicants, and the admissions penalties they extract from their higher-achieving Asian applicants, clearly suggest otherwise.

Espenshade and Radford also take up very thoroughly the question of "class based preferences" and what they find clearly shows a general disregard for improving the admission chances of poor and otherwise disadvantaged whites. Other studies, including a 2005 analysis of nineteen highly selective public and private universities by William Bowen, Martin Kurzweil, and Eugene Tobin, in their 2003 book, Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education, found very little if any advantage in the admissions process accorded to whites from economically or educationally disadvantaged families compared to whites from wealthier or better educated homes. Espenshade and Radford cite this study and summarize it as follows: "These researchers find that, for non-minority [i.e., white] applicants with the same SAT scores, there is no perceptible difference in admission chances between applicants from families in the bottom income quartile, applicants who would be the first in their families to attend college, and all other (non-minority) applicants from families at higher levels of socioeconomic status. When controls are added for other student and institutional characteristics, these authors find that "on an other-things-equal basis, [white] applicants from low-SES backgrounds, whether defined by family income or parental education, get essentially no break in the admissions process; they fare neither better nor worse than other [white] applicants."

Distressing as many might consider this to be--since the same institutions that give no special consideration to poor white applicants boast about their commitment to "diversity" and give enormous admissions breaks to blacks, even to those from relatively affluent homes--Espenshade and Radford in their survey found the actual situation to be much more troubling. At the private institutions in their study whites from lower-class backgrounds incurred a huge admissions disadvantage not only in comparison to lower-class minority students, but compared to whites from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds as well. The lower-class whites proved to be all-around losers. When equally matched for background factors (including SAT scores and high school GPAs), the better-off whites were more than three times as likely to be accepted as the poorest whites (.28 vs. .08 admissions probability). Having money in the family greatly improved a white applicant's admissions chances, lack of money greatly reduced it. The opposite class trend was seen among non-whites, where the poorer the applicant the greater the probability of acceptance when all other factors are taken into account. Class-based affirmative action does exist within the three non-white ethno-racial groupings, but among the whites the groups advanced are those with money.

When lower-class whites are matched with lower-class blacks and other non-whites the degree of the non-white advantage becomes astronomical: lower-class Asian applicants are seven times as likely to be accepted to the competitive private institutions as similarly qualified whites, lower-class Hispanic applicants eight times as likely, and lower-class blacks ten times as likely. These are enormous differences and reflect the fact that lower-class whites were rarely accepted to the private institutions Espenshade and Radford surveyed. Their diversity-enhancement value was obviously rated very low.

Poor Non-White Students: "Counting Twice"

The enormous disadvantage incurred by lower-class whites in comparison to non-whites and wealthier whites is partially explained by Espenshade and Radford as a result of the fact that, except for the very wealthiest institutions like Harvard and Princeton, private colleges and universities are reluctant to admit students who cannot afford their high tuitions. And since they have a limited amount of money to give out for scholarship aid, they reserve this money to lure those who can be counted in their enrollment statistics as diversity-enhancing "racial minorities." Poor whites are apparently given little weight as enhancers of campus diversity, while poor non-whites count twice in the diversity tally, once as racial minorities and a second time as socio-economically deprived. Private institutions, Espenshade and Radford suggest, "intentionally save their scarce financial aid dollars for students who will help them look good on their numbers of minority students." Quoting a study by NYU researcher Mitchell Stevens, they write: "ultimate evaluative preference for members of disadvantaged groups was reserved for applicants who could be counted in the college's multicultural statistics. This caused some admissions officers no small amount of ethical dismay."

There are problems, however, with this explanation. While it explains why scarce financial aid dollars might be reserved for minority "twofers," it cannot explain why well-qualified lower-class whites are not at least offered admission without financial aid. The mere offer of admission is costless, and at least a few among the poor whites accepted would probably be able to come up with outside scholarship aid. But even if they couldn't, knowing they did well enough in their high school studies to get accepted to a competitive private college would surely sit well with most of them even if they couldn't afford the high tuition. Espenshade and Radford do not address this conundrum but the answer is easy to discern. The ugly truth is that most colleges, especially the more competitive private ones, are fiercely concerned with their ratings by rating organizations like U.S. News & World Report. And an important part of those ratings consist of a numerical acceptance rate (the ratio of applicants received to those accepted) and a yield score (the ratio of those accepted to those who enroll). The lower the acceptance rate and the higher the yield score the more favorably colleges are looked upon. In extending admissions to well-qualified but financially strapped whites who are unlikely to enroll, a college would be driving both its acceptance rate and its yield score in the wrong direction. Academic bureaucrats rarely act against either their own or their organization's best interests (as they perceive them), and while their treatment of lower-class whites may for some be a source of "no small amount of ethical dismay," that's just how it goes. Some of the private colleges Espenshade and Radford describe would do well to come clean with their act and admit the truth: "Poor Whites Need Not Apply!"

Besides the bias against lower-class whites, the private colleges in the Espenshade/Radford study seem to display what might be called an urban/Blue State bias against rural and Red State occupations and values. This is most clearly shown in a little remarked statistic in the study's treatment of the admissions advantage of participation in various high school extra-curricular activities. In the competitive private schools surveyed participation in many types of extra-curricular activities -- including community service activities, performing arts activities, and "cultural diversity" activities -- conferred a substantial improvement in an applicant's chances of admission. The admissions advantage was usually greatest for those who held leadership positions or who received awards or honors associated with their activities. No surprise here -- every student applying to competitive colleges knows about the importance of extracurriculars.

But what Espenshade and Radford found in regard to what they call "career-oriented activities" was truly shocking even to this hardened veteran of the campus ideological and cultural wars. Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student's chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. "Being an officer or winning awards" for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, "has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions." Excelling in these activities "is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission."

Espenshade and Radford don't have much of an explanation for this find, which seems to place the private colleges even more at variance with their stated commitment to broadly based campus diversity. In his Bakke ruling Lewis Powell was impressed by the argument Harvard College offered defending the educational value of a demographically diverse student body: "A farm boy from Idaho can bring something to Harvard College that a Bostonian cannot offer. Similarly, a black student can usually bring something that a white person cannot offer." The Espenshade/Radford study suggests that those farm boys from Idaho would do well to stay out of their local 4-H clubs or FFA organizations -- or if they do join, they had better not list their membership on their college application forms. This is especially true if they were officers in any of these organizations. Future farmers of America don't seem to count in the diversity-enhancement game played out at some of our more competitive private colleges, and are not only not recruited, but seem to be actually shunned. It is hard to explain this development other than as a case of ideological and cultural bias.

This same kind of bias seems to lurk behind the negative association found between acceptance odds and holding leadership positions in high school ROTC. This is most troubling because a divorce between the campus culture of its universities and its military is poisonous for any society, and doesn't do the military or the civilian society any good. The lack of comfort with many military commanders that our current president is said to have seems to be due not only to his own lack of military experience but to the fact of having spent so many of his formative years on university campuses like Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago, where people with military experience are largely absent and the campus culture is often hostile to military values and military personnel.

In an attempt to find out what kind of diversity exists -- or doesn't exist -- on the Princeton University campus, I once asked students in a ten-member discussion group to raise their hands if they knew one or more Princeton undergraduates who had served a year or more on active military duty (in the late 1940s or early 1950s, of course, undergraduates at Princeton would have encountered legions of such people coming back from WWII and the Korean War). I made it plain that I wasn't asking if the students had a close friend or roommate who was a veteran, just a single person with military experience that they had at sometime encountered during their Princeton undergraduate careers. Only one student -- a female -- raised her hand: this student once met someone who had served in the Israeli military. On a second occasion I asked this question to a larger group and again only one hand went up -- this student once met a Princeton undergraduate who had served in the Turkish military.

Many universities, including Princeton, are interested in enrolling foreign students, along with students from disparate regions of the U.S. But the more competitive private universities seem to have little interest in diversifying their student bodies when it comes to people who have served in the American military or people who intend to make a career out of military service. Even if they don't shun such people, or hold their military service or aspirations against them, they clearly don't seek them out or court them the way they do "underrepresented" racial minorities. And while many universities host college-level ROTC programs (often for financial reasons), the military/civilian relationship on campus is usually far from amicable.

Military veterans and aspiring military officers, like poor whites and future American farmers, are clearly not what most competitive private colleges have in mind when they speak of the need for "diversity". If nothing else the new Espenshade/Radford study helps to document what knowledgeable observers have long known: "diversity" at competitive colleges today involves a politically engineered stew of different groups. drawn from the ingredients selected by reigning campus ideology. Since that ideology is mainly dictated by the Left, it is no surprise that the diversity achieved is what the larger American landscape looks like when it is viewed through a leftist lens. I suggest a different approach: elite colleges should get out of the diversity business altogether and focus on enrolling students who are the most academically talented and the most eager to learn. These students should make up the bulk of their entering classes. Call it the Cal Tech Model since the California Institute of Technology seems to be the only elite institution that comes close to realizing such an ideal. Or call it the U.S. Olympic Team Model, or the Major League All-Stars Model, since it is based on the same strict merit-selection principle governing our Olympic sports teams and our major league baseball all-star teams. Let the diversity chips fall where they may and focus on recruiting the most intelligent, most creative, and most energetic of the rising generation of young people. In my naive way this is what I always thought elite universities were supposed to be about.

------------------------------------------------------
Russell K. Nieli received his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Princeton University and currently works for Princeton's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He has been a lecturer in Princeton's Politics Department and for ten years was an academic adviser to Princeton freshmen.