June 2006


Salomae and I have recently started attending a weekly open mic poetry night at the Bookworm, sponsored by the Subterranean Poets. As we have contributed works to the effort, I suppose that makes us de facto subterranean poets, whatever that might be.

Here is a poem I wrote for the theme, “nations & nationalism.”


“Branded”

Wave your torch
Convictions unfurl
As you raise your pride
Proud emblemAll must see
For all agree
Save those who don’t
Those who won’t

Broadcast your message
The masses cheer
Brandish the fear
Righteous wrath for those who oppose

Poke through the ashes
From whence your ideals rose
The glow of the embers
Mostly unseen
Tomes of the wise ones
Now fuel for the rods that brand those who question

How hollow your lines
Beside the words you spurned
The words you burned

[tags] poetry, poem, nationalism, nation [/tags]

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Thanks to my inability to block certain key words in Google AdSense, I found myself completely unable to access my blog, even through a proxy service. Actually, I did get through a couple of times, only to see the words “human rights” showing up in my ads, including links to sites that would certainly not get past “.” I was able to block certain sites, but not all and more kept showing up to take their place. So, unless Google is kind enough to set up some special filtering for me, which based on my click-through rate is not likely, I just have to hope this new method I’ve found to access my blog works long term. Unfortunately, a side effect of the way I’m accessing my site now is that my AdSense ads don’t show up! I suppose there is always the option of doing away with ads altogether, but as I promote myself in Beijing as an Internet marketer, I would lose an opportunity for experimentation and sharpening my skills. I’m planning to launch a couple more blogs in the near future maybe at that time I’ll think about doing away with ads on this blog. We’ll see.

So, I hope I manage to find a solution. I certainly don’t need to promote things on my blog that my host country doesn’t approve of. I certainly have political views, but they are usually more along the lines of, “Oh, you think you have the right to complain about what China is doing? Let’s take a look at your record.” There are no clean governments in this world, especially among those shouting loudest about democracy.

I’ve got a lot of drafts of posts I wanted to post wasn’t able, so there will be some backposting as I catch up. I also hope to keep current with my blog as well and post more photos.

[tags] China, censorship, firewall, politika, government [/tags]

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