##Under House Arrest Zhao Ziyang, a reformer placed under house arrest after the 1989 Tiananmen massacres. (Zhao remains incarcerated for fear he might emerge as a rallying point for reformers.) Why wasn't I aware of this earlier? Why the cloud of silence surrounding Zhao Ziyang's house arrest? I assumed he had passed away. If I turned my webpage into a "Free Zhao Ziyang" (cache that, Google) page, how quickly would the Great Firewall block me? I will be researching this intriguing finding and posting my results at a later date. [ Link ] ##Books, Wonderful Books I've been through 5 weeks at Borders and I'm still not sick of books. Employees can borrow two hardbacks or quality paperbacks at a time, provided they come back in sellable condition. At the moment, I've got on loan two books: Robert's Rules in Plain English by Doris P. Zimmerman, and Graduate Admissions Essays: Write Your Way into the Graduate School of Your Choice by Donald Asher. The first is a book based on Robert's Rules of Order, which dictate how a meeting should be conducted in a civil and fair way. Parliamentary law is the basis of all constitutional governments. By protecting and practicing correct parliamentary procedure, we also protect our democratic institutions. Parliamentary procedure protects the rights of the people to join together to accomplish common goals and enables them take action in a fair manner with the least amount of controversy. Because it is written in plain English and gives lots of examples, it's good for beginners and people like me who just want to dabble in procedure and not be bogged down by the extensive rules and vocabulary of the original Robert's Rules. The second is a guide to writing a graduate essay that will set you apart from the other applicants. In reality, though, the guide will give you far more advice than just how to write an essay: it starts with deciding whether grad school is right for you, and goes on to help you choose schools, set deadlines, find financing, and get good letters of recommendation. The author is even not afraid to face the brutal facts (Jim Collins reference!): If you have procrastinated until the last minute, the first thing you need to do is relax. You can still finish a great essay by tomorrow morning. But he assumes that the majority of his readers are intelligent people, and willing to put hard work into applying to graduate school. The writing is frank and humorous, and the example essays are varied and inspiring. If I were not taking it on loan from Borders, I would probably still buy it. This morning Shirley and I dropped by the Yorba Linda library book sale. I picked up a stack of books for $5.45. These include All the President's Men, about the Watergate scandal; a Deng Xiaoping biography by Richard Evans; a couple of government textbooks to review for the Foreign Service exam; The Socialist Economies in Transition by Robert W Campbell; and The Complete Air Guitar Handbook, a complete crack-up of a book. You'll find me under the covers with a flashlight tonight. --I might as well make this a long entry. ##Say Yes To Thugs Apparently, not only were gangs were extracting tickets from the group who owns the Tokyo Dome, they had also set up "massage" shops inside the Tokyo Dome Hotel. I know all about this. I've been watching it weekly on Salaryman Kintaro 3. The final episode is this weekend. [ Link ]