Peng Shuai and the Rest of Us

Even folks who don’t follow tennis now know who Peng Shuai is, and may be contemplating what her situation means for international relations and democracy.

Peng is a veteran professional tennis player from the Peoples Republic of China, who was briefly ranked No. 1 in doubles in 2014.

November 2, Peng alleged that a former PRC senior vice premier sexually assaulted her three years ago. Within twenty minutes that tweet (on Wenbo) disappeared. So did Peng. Worried friends and tennis officials reached out to her. Nothing. State-controlled media aired unconvincing videos of Peng and said she wanted to spend time with her family and hoped people would respect her privacy.

An International Olympic Committee official says he talked to Peng by video, with a Chinese olympic official. He says she’s fine. Of course, the IOC’s overriding priority is to hold the Winter Olympics in February as smoothly and grandly as possible. In Beijing. Unsurprisingly, the IOC statement omitted Peng’s allegations, which Chinese media euphemize as “the things people talk about.”

A former U.S. president and a former New York governor wish they could so easily disappear harassed women and silence those pesky reporters.

Peng is being “reeducated.” Uighurs and Tibetans get reeducated by the thousands. (Traveling around China long ago, we passed through a remote area experiencing plague. When we reached Lhasa, a young British man sent a story on the plague to the newspaper he worked for. The government came for him. For days, they kept him all day in the police station, until he confessed his error. He had embarrassed China. They couldn’t do to him whatever they’re doing to Peng; and they can’t do to Peng, probably, what they are doing to tens of thousands.

You can’t dissent. You are better off if you are Han, not some lesser ethnicity. Whether from racism or some misguided view of communism, the PRC is destroying the ethnic culture and religions of Tibetans, Uighurs, and others – reeducating them in camps.

We should contemplate Peng’s fate. Out country should reconsider helping the PRC use the Olympics to glorify China. We should ask whether “business as usual” is appropriate. (These are tough issues. If we’d boycotted the 1936 Berlin Olympics, we’d never have seen video of Jesse Owens leaving Aryans in his dust.)

Contemplating Peng reminds us of how different China is from us – and how we’re similar. We too are still battling to outgrow racism and sexism. We laugh at how ludicrous the Chinese government’s lies sound; but you can get away with a lot, if you’ve silenced independent journalism. Here, it’s different; but we just had a president who rarely deigned to make his lies plausible, and who largely got away with absurd falsehoods. On January 6, and since, in state capitols around our nation, our democracy has been under attack.

If you’re a Republican, maybe you sympathize. Some Republicans believe, as firmly as some Chinese officials believe in their Party, that they’re doing the right thing for our country by limiting citizens’ participation in democracy. They’re “patriots.”

But democracy is critical. Ours is endangered. Yes, the electoral college, corruption, gerrymandering, and voter suppression have substantially limited democracy; but what we have matters. Without it, we are China. Or Brazil. We can’t let even “our side” toss it aside for shortterm partisan gain.

We have much to give thanks for; but if we sleep we could quickly lose much.

                                                      - 30 -

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 28 November 2021, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[By the way, Happy Thanksgiving! There’s a lot wrong with some of our most common ideas about this holiday, but gratitude is worth celebrating, and practicing. I know it’s getting trendy these days to point this out, but gratitude is not only a graceful attitude, it’s incredibly healthy, and both personal observation and scientific reports tell me it makes us happier.]

[Peng Shuai may not feel so grateful these days. I wish her freedom. As I suggest in the column, her well-publicized plight is important, but partly because it symbolizes the repression many our suffering. Read first-hand accounts of Uighurs and Tibetans.)

This is not the place for me to say much about my personal insight into all this, from various sources including travels in China and Tibet (and among the Uighurs) many years ago. (My travels, in 1985-88, were much closer in time to the Chinese invasion of Tibet and to the Cultural Revolution than to 2021.)  I loved China.  From what I saw first hand, and the direct contradictions between what good people who hated the Chinese Government and good people who praised the Chinese Government, I wanted to learn more, and did; and I portrayed some of it in a novel.

Soon I’ll post on my blog more about that experience, and what I learned.  This morning, every time I start to summarize it I find myself rapidly and passionately writing more than I have time to write or you have time to read this morning.

I will say that I saw, and heard harrowing first-hand tales from folks who’d experienced it, the terrible pain and devastation the Cultural Revolution had caused; and I came to a better understanding of the Chinese invasion of Tibet.

(On one occasion, we traveling through a remote western area experiencing plague. When we reached Lhasa, a young British man sent a story on the plague to the newspaper he worked for. The government came for him. For days, they kept him all day in the police station, until he confessed his error. He had embarrassed China, but he was a wai guo ren.  A British citizen. They couldn’t do to him whatever they’re doing to Peng; and they can’t do to Peng, probably, what they are doing to tens of thousands.)

1985 - Peasant

However, I say all this without forgetting the scale of the problem Mao and his cohorts faced when they suddenly won their underdog fight against a warlord (Chiang Kai-shek) well supported by the U.S. Even in their treatment of the Tibetans, which I abhor, there was more good intention mixed in with the self-interested repression than most realize.]

[Sorry if I too often mention the hope of preserving our democracy. It is under attack. The attack is bold, brazen, and dangerous. I worry about its effects. And as long as folks pursue voter suppression and anti-democratic policies, while claiming loudly to be “patriots,” I guess I’ll keep mentioning that they are being misled.]

1985 The Potala

1985 "Whose Dreams?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Notes:

Peasant: in beautiful countryside, I guessed he was carrying so proudly a photos of his father and mother, or his grandparents; but this was recently "rehabilitated" former President Li Shao-qi, I think, and the portrait we can't see may have been Ching Ling.  His pride in the portrait is clear.  His clothing was identical to 80% of the other citizens of China, except that the shirt also came in khaki; it was cheap clothing; but to the extent the government could ensure it, everyone was clothed, and housed, and fed.  Unlike more democratic countries where one might see dozens of beggars and then a fat, rich family driving by in a fancy car.  Despite horrible mistakes, the Chinese Government was trying.

The Potala: It's a beautiful building in a beautiful land.  It was both the seat of government and the palace the Dalai Lamas lived in, until the current Dalai Lhama, now a wonderful old man, fled from the Chinese as a 14-year-old boy, in March 1959.  In his bedroom I noticed a drinking cup that was a skull, a reminder of death's imminence.  ironically, this view was from near the toilet in the local hotel we stayed in.

"Whose Dreams" expresses more than I can put into words.  The bicyclist is Tibetan.  The Potala, though still  visited by devout pilgrims, is now sort of a tourist attraction for Chinese and foreigners.  Across the street from the sacred Potala are photo backdrops such as this one, which expresses a sort of Chinese paradise: sufficient wealth to own a TV, and a great view of the beautiful countryside near Guilin (not far from where I met that peasant) which is famous in China.  Tibetans were both resentful of the Chinese and, sometimes, envious of them.  They were angry, but impotent.  Whether this gentleman was envying the view of Guilin, disgusted by Chinese commercialization of the Dalai Lhama's home, or just taking a break was more than I could ask, since both of us spoke lousy Mandarin. 

 

 

Thoughts on Pretrial Release in New Mexico

In 2016, New Mexicans amended our unfortunate constitutional stance on pretrial release and bail.

Our bail provision was modeled after a colonial Pennsylvania constitution. Bail was important. An accused is presumed not guilty unless and until someone proves s/he is. Not so in China, Russia, Iran, or Belarus.

Bail is money deposited to ensure the court of your appearance at trial; but you must have money or property. Our system had two fatal flaws: rich folks could go home ‘til trial, while poor folks, though presumed not guilty, might stay in jail for months, unable to work, feed their families, or hug their kids. Meanwhile, some defendants who made bail robbed more stores or sexually abused more kids.

The 2016 amendment rendered financial status less crucial, and empowered judges to keep truly dangerous people in jail pending trial after a hearing. Prosecutors had to show “by clear and convincing evidence” that the person was a real danger. A 2018 case established that the hearing need not follow strict rules of evidence. Judges could rely on other reliable evidence.

Bernalillo County District Attorney Raúl Torrez, a 2022 candidate for NM Attorney-General, advocates making it easier for prosecutors to keep dangerous people off the streets. He’s seeking a law that in certain cases (such as murder, kidnapping, rape, sexual penetration of a minor, or new crimes committed while on pretrial release) there would be a “rebuttable presumption” that the defendant will stay in jail. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham supports the proposal. Public defenders and civil libertarians don’t.

I have doubts that such legislation would be constitutional.

Presumption of innocence is a huge part of who we are, what our country stands for; and folks who’ve not experienced being “put in a cage,” as one attorney phrased it, underestimate the damage that does to a human being. When I said as much to Torrez, he differentiated between a cage and a jail cell. Certainly a jail cell is more humane, but either’s pretty grim, and can ruin your life and emotional health, or even trigger suicide.

Though some say Torrez is trying to make political capital, I take him at his word. He’s fighting an epidemic of gun violence; when he goes through the hard task of requesting a dangerous defendant be locked up, he loses more often than not; oddly, that’s even more likely if a gun is involved; and he’s seen a significant number of released defendants kill again.

Defense lawyers stress that the vast majority of pretrial releasees don’t get arrested again while out. (Torrez counters that many crimes never result in an arrest.) Defense lawyers say they get a high percentage of their defendants off, which undermines any prosecutor’s claim that s/he knows a given defendant is guilty and violent. (Sometimes, defendants win on police and/or prosecutorial errors, not innocence.)

One thing I know is that when you add a serious new duty to folks’ jobs, like showing, denying, or judging someone’s dangerousness, in court, without increasing everyone’s budgets accordingly, you invite problems.

With all due respect to Torrez and Lujan Grisham, I’m skeptical. I see the problem, but there should be a better way to harmonize individual constitutional rights with the community’s desire for safety. We must continue to improve pretrial services, even if that means little to committed criminals. Let’s also redouble our fight to keep kids from turning to crime, and provide real alternatives.

                                                       - 30 -

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 21 November 2021, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[These are not easy questions. They are also not questions most people contemplate, and they involve a few terms some folks aren’t familiar with – such as a rebuttable presumption. In law, there are presumptions created by law. An example would be the presumption, which was once universal in U.S. states, that when a child is born to a married woman, her husband is the father. That made for some awkward law cases when the child had been sired by a lover, perhaps one the woman later left her husband to be with, but who couldn’t adopt the child unless the abandoned husband gave up his rights. More recently, looser mores and the feasibility of DNA-testing have been factors; but theoretically a state legislature could instruct courts (a) to presume (conclusively) that a child born in a lawful marriage is the son/daughter of the husband; (b) to presume so, but allow the other side to rebut the presumption by a bundle of persuasive evidence; or (c) to make no presumption at all. So “rebuttable presumption” just means start with that assumption, pending both sides’ presentations of evidence.

I’m not sure how that would work here, where state constitution says I have to show dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence. (For what it’s worth, we had a very interesting radio discussion of all this with Torrez, local chief public defender Kris Knudson, and Judge Conrad Perea. KTAL listeners found it instructive and accessible.)

What’s important, I think, is that while we can take very different positions on this issue, we respect both the law and each other’s views. I can’t say how having to do Raúl’s job for a month would change my views on how best to harmonize individual constitutional rights with community concern for safety.]

Thoughts Provoked by Thought-provoking Photograpy - and other Matters

Wednesday evening we saw a thought-provoking photo show; next morning, making notes on fictional characters, I realized why everyone should write fiction; then a cousin called from California, dismayed about changes at the community college where she teaches art.

David Sorensen’s “Beautiful Barbarism” is at Art Obscura, a Mesilla Park gallery we really like. I took my time viewing the images.

David moved to New Mexico for its peace and natural beauty, then noticed how we treat this land we love. One image eloquently juxtaposes a sunset storm/rainbow with colorful graffiti on the roofless adobe walls of an abandoned bar. In another, the sun highlights a freshly-killed coyote strung up on a mesquite. A third shows a child’s pink sandal atop hundreds of spent shells in the desert.

David hopes to please and provoke us, encouraging us “to think about what we do to our environment in New Mexico,” adding, “I’ve also tried to show that there can be beauty in almost anything, depending on how you see it, not just our majestic landscapes. . . There can be a beauty and aesthetic to even the grubbiest of things.” (I thoroughly agree.) J. Paul Taylor received a private showing because of his age and vulnerability – a privilege for both Paul and David. I understand why his daughter wanted to bring a class to the show. Or shouldn’t I mention that? Are we still allowed to share glimpses of reality with schoolkids? Provoke reflection?

At twenty, I wouldn’t have picked up my bullet-shells either. “Hey, man, it’s the desert.” But we go out into the desert to escape town and people. Why make others seeking wildness stroll through our garbage? (Unless that’s the point.)

It would be healthy to think about what we do to our Earth. It would be healthy to consider that we share it with many others. And that our carelessness hurts more than aesthetics. It costs lives.

My cousin says her college is discontinuing her art program. One administrator complained that “People keep taking that class over and over. They must not be learning anything.” How about, maybe, they love it, I say to my cousin; and love your help deepening their vision. I think of the Seven Samurai character who wanted only to perfect his swordsmanship. Later I tell a high school senior that everything we study involves new ways of thinking, which sharpens the weird tool inside our skulls.

Writing fiction is a form of play and exploration I stumbled on early and never grew out of; but articulating others’ very different points of view is a tough task that demands you open your mind to let stuff flow freely in. Try, during a tense moment in a marriage, to write your spouse’s thoughts vividly. If kids were encouraged to write stories portraying kids with vastly different lives, just the effort might help.

I interrupt my reverie to take the dog to the river to run. The dog runs with joy, and likely no memory of her previous life in a crate. (And, yes, we pick up her droppings, something I’d not have dreamed of doing decades ago.) I pause to marvel at a spindly-legged Great Blue Heron, who quickly lifts her long wings and flies North along the largely dry riverbed, also bent on escaping human contact. The Organ Mountains redden, the sun disappears, and, despite us, everything must be all right.

                                           - 30 -

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 14 November 2021, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[ I do want to say a word more about Art Obscura, a favorite haunt that the pandemic and other matters had denied us for awhile. It’s a gallery and curio shop, with an upstairs gallery with a variety of interesting art and a featured show in the downstairs gallery pictured in some images David sent me Saturday. One shows David with Paula in front of some of his work. (By the way, here’s Mike Cook's take on the show.)]

[Gallery owner Deret Roberts is a fine artist in his own right; and Art Obscura is one of those places that’s not pretentious, just real and enjoyable. Some interesting art. Some old stuff. I was sad not to see the old pinball machine. Because this was a “pre-opening” with few people, we got to take our time; and as I wandered around the small gallery looking at David’s work, I could listen to his conversation with Dael; but there was no food truck, no energetic young crowd, and we never took time to go upstairs this trip.]

[My big insight that “everyone should write fiction,” is typical, in that I often think everyone should try something I happen to be into. As a young cabdriver, I thought everyone should have that experience; and as a first-year law student I thought most everyone could benefit from learning the language of the law. (Both propositions still seem true.) I also think everyone should have the experience of being a newcomer / complete foreigner in a country. You learn a lot.

Anyway, I was making some notes, primarily about two characters who know each other slightly in high school, go their separate ways, but eventually meet each other again, decades later, and get together. In the notes, she’s recognizing some things about them, as folks do who think about psychology and such. But what occurred to me was not how satisfying that is and how good it feels sometimes to get a slightly better fix on fictional characters, or portray something they think or feel or do, but what it demands of one: stifling a lot of personal bullshit, concentrating on that other person and his or her mind and heart and memories and experience, in a wholly different time and place, while staying open to memories or experiences of one’s own that, transformed, may contribute to the character. Publish or not, “succeed” or not in drawing a realistic and/or moving portrait, the exercise is beneficial, and could be even more so in the kinds of situations I mention in the column. If you agree, try it some time!]

[Anyway, sorry if it’s sort of a goofy column. It doesn’t expose any scandals or take our leaders to task for their misdeeds and stupidities.

Maybe it takes us to task. All of us, surely including me.]

Pickleball - A Delightful Obsession

With so much to say this week about Climate Change (100 nations at COP 26 vowing to cut methane emissions sharply) and education (public comment period on teaching social studies ending on 12 November), I’ll ponder pickleball.

A lifelong basketball addict grown old, I play pickleball frequently. So do about four million people in the U.S., and many elsewhere. It’s our nation’s fastest-growing sport. One Hollywood producer won’t vacation anywhere that lacks pickleball courts, per a Vanity Fair piece, “How Pickleball Won over Everyone from Leonardo DiCaprio to your Grandparents.” (I know folks in their eighties who routinely beat folks half their age.) National TV caught relief pitchers playing in the Chicago Cubs’ bullpen; and pickleball addicts include Russell Wilson, DiCaprio, George and Amal Clooney, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Phil Mickelson.

The City has turned Apodaca Park tennis courts into eight pickleball courts, newly refinished. During construction, when we played at Lions Park, I often looked from our two tennis courts (eight pickleball courts, with sometimes two dozen people on them, 16 playing, others waiting) at the other ten courts (boasting six or eight tennis players, perhaps).

We also have the Organ Mountains Pickleball Club; and an excellent pickleball instructor, John Allevi, has relocated here. Clinics for beginners and intermediates are offered Thursdays at 6 p.m., for a nominal charge. (For info, Google “Organ Mountains Pickleball.”) Early in 2022, Allevi, who’s certified by three different entities, will instruct public school phys-ed teachers on teaching pickleball to kids. Local players he coaches recently took first place in an Albuquerque tournament.

A family invented pickleball on Bainbridge Island during the summer of 1965, answering a teenager’s complaint regarding boredom. The court is about 1/3 the size of a tennis court. Easier on the legs. Mostly people play doubles, though some of us play singles too. The hard plastic ball has holes in it, like a wiffleball, but doesn’t behave like a wiffleball. The paddles are solid, the size of a smallish racquetball racquet.

Folks play daily at Apodaca and Meerscheidt, and elsewhere in and around Las Cruces. It’s a quick, competitive sport, providing vigorous exercise and lots of laughs. There’s little arguing, as long as we stay off politics while waiting to play.

Pickleball is healthy outdoor exercise; it’s cheap and fun; no long runs or physical contact with opponents; and although it’s easy to learn, you can keep improving your skills for a very long time. As Allevi points out, the whole family can play.

The only downside is whatever’s left undone while I play for hours. Or ego damage when I play badly. “I know exactly what to do and how to do it, so how did I just #@&%*©$ screw up again?”

We have a welcoming pickleball community, too. People help and instruct each other. Some local tournaments have raised money for charities, notably Mission 22. There have also been special events for July 4^th and Halloween. This Halloween, one player wore a wedding dress of which and had to hold up the rain as she ran and hit the ball. (She and her partner still whipped my butt.)

Pickleball is an increasingly important part of quality of life, for residents and visitors.

Join us! Relax while improving cognition, then return to the problems of climate change and education refreshed and strengthened.

In these times, it can’t hurt to bring people together in a non-divisive way.

                                   - 30 -

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 7 November 2021, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

from the Oct. 30th "Ghoul Duel"

[Fellow pickleball enthusiasts should enjoy the recent Vanity Fair article mentioned in the column. They’ll nod understandingly when various famous people describe their addiction to the sport.

Newbies should take a look at the local club’s website, https://organmountainspickleballclub.com/; you can also check out the group on its facebook page; and the U.S. Pickleball Association (https://usapickleball.org/)

is a great resource. As mentioned, John Allevi’s a great teacher here; and there are many on-line videos to help with specific aspects of your game.

Locally, folks play daily at Apodaca Park and Meerscheidt Rec Center, mostly mornings. (Indoor games require masks, at this point.) The free clinics (well, clinics with a very nominal fee) are a great resource, reached through Organ Mountains Pickleball. Equipment you can borrow at Meerscheidt; and local sports stores, the USAPA, and Allevi also have equipment for sale. If you have questions, ask me – or, probably better, ask OMPC.]

 

 [This image shows folks playing at Lions, and the tennis net in the center will give folks a sense of the relative sizes of the courts, since there are two pickleball courts on each side of the net.  At least the player in foreground has his eye on the ball.]

 [All pictures ripped off from Organ Mountains Pickleball Club]

And these two killer octogenarians will kick most readers' butts in this sport:

Doug Bogart

Michiko