blamebrampton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blamebrampton) wrote2009-06-03 11:16 pm
blamebrampton) wrote2009-06-03 11:16 pm
Buggery ...
It has been a while since LJ ate one of my posts ... This is now a recap of a longer post consigned to pixel history.
*marguerite_26 and I often have very similar tastes. Because of this, I believed what she told me about two great Beltane pieces in this post. One art, one fic, both brilliant, you should believe her, too.
* Alas, I have not been following Beltane, but I do think that everyone should also look at these pieces of art, A chance meeting at the Fires has the first H/D meeting after the war and is simple and stunning. And The First Day of Summer is still making me giggle weeks after the first time I saw it.
* HAPPY BIRTHDAY to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bewarethesmirk and sachael , may you both have a wonderful day!
* The Demon's Lexicon STILL not in shops (they hope for Saturday), though my new Frances Hardinge book has finally arrived, only three months after ordering.
* I have accidentally seduced one of my friends into H/D fandom. (NB, VERY important to read the whole of that sentence!) She is quite talented, the rotter. If you come acrosstreacle_tartlet , make her right at home.
* I do NOT need to do the HD Careers Fair, but it may be that you do. In particular, I do not need to write about Harry being a Zombie hunter and Draco being a cat-loving librarian, Harry being a novelist and Draco being a mean critic and DEFINITELY not about Harry being a political cartoonist. Watch me resist!
* Australian Family First Senator Steve Fielding is too stupid for words. He has just attended a Climate Change Skeptics conference in the US, and has now realised that it is all caused by sunspots. For fuck's sake. It's not 1978!
* June 4 marks the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. I remember watching, horrified, as Kate Aide reported from China; weeks of hope and excitement vanishing as bullets flew and bodies fell behind her. The only thing more heartbreaking than the sight of twisted young bodies on makeshift stretchers strung across bicycles was the sense of loss of hope.
And then I saw one of the bravest men I have ever seen walk out in front of a row of tanks and stop. And the commander of the leading tank also stopped, and would not run him down, and he pleaded with him to clear the way, and the man on foot, who was carrying a plastic bag, would not move. And the tank commander, even knowing that he was likely to be punished severely given the climate of that day, would not run over him. The man with the bag was swept away by a group of bystanders. Reports from that day suggest that they could have been government officials who took him away, but just as many reports say no, they were ordinary Chinese who wanted to save someone and who saw that they could. I have always hoped that the latter was true.
*
marguerite_26 and I often have very similar tastes. Because of this, I believed what she told me about two great Beltane pieces in this post. One art, one fic, both brilliant, you should believe her, too. * Alas, I have not been following Beltane, but I do think that everyone should also look at these pieces of art, A chance meeting at the Fires has the first H/D meeting after the war and is simple and stunning. And The First Day of Summer is still making me giggle weeks after the first time I saw it.
* HAPPY BIRTHDAY to
bewarethesmirk and sachael , may you both have a wonderful day!* The Demon's Lexicon STILL not in shops (they hope for Saturday), though my new Frances Hardinge book has finally arrived, only three months after ordering.
* I have accidentally seduced one of my friends into H/D fandom. (NB, VERY important to read the whole of that sentence!) She is quite talented, the rotter. If you come across
treacle_tartlet , make her right at home.* I do NOT need to do the HD Careers Fair, but it may be that you do. In particular, I do not need to write about Harry being a Zombie hunter and Draco being a cat-loving librarian, Harry being a novelist and Draco being a mean critic and DEFINITELY not about Harry being a political cartoonist. Watch me resist!
* Australian Family First Senator Steve Fielding is too stupid for words. He has just attended a Climate Change Skeptics conference in the US, and has now realised that it is all caused by sunspots. For fuck's sake. It's not 1978!
* June 4 marks the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. I remember watching, horrified, as Kate Aide reported from China; weeks of hope and excitement vanishing as bullets flew and bodies fell behind her. The only thing more heartbreaking than the sight of twisted young bodies on makeshift stretchers strung across bicycles was the sense of loss of hope.
And then I saw one of the bravest men I have ever seen walk out in front of a row of tanks and stop. And the commander of the leading tank also stopped, and would not run him down, and he pleaded with him to clear the way, and the man on foot, who was carrying a plastic bag, would not move. And the tank commander, even knowing that he was likely to be punished severely given the climate of that day, would not run over him. The man with the bag was swept away by a group of bystanders. Reports from that day suggest that they could have been government officials who took him away, but just as many reports say no, they were ordinary Chinese who wanted to save someone and who saw that they could. I have always hoped that the latter was true.
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* Speaking of writing ... Career Fair!! Yes. Do it do it do it. *nudge*. I want to write for that but the timing is a problem, and I'm such a horrible prompt writer in that I tend to drift away from it. But ... *nudge you further*
* Will definitely read Demon's Lexicon, but not in a hurry. Travel reading at some point, likely. I will have to wrap the cover up first though because I really ... don't like it. I want to punch the guy every time I see him, and the urge is getting stronger
* June 4th ... *Sighs*. It was so close to us, not only did it shatter the heart of everyone in our city, but it brought about so much fear. We were dubbed "The Anti-revolutionary Base" by the Chinese officials at the time because our donations basically financially support the whole movement towards the end and we demonstrated to show our support with a peaceful march— 1 million people on the street, which wasn't much until one found out that the city's population was ~ 6 million; and the fear, of course, was because we were due to return to our "motherland" in 8 years and so many of the folks had opted to stay, thinking the country had been heading along the right path.
One of the local stations became one of the few news agencies around the world that stayed in the Square when it happened. The footages ... were the most difficult to watch. I think my home still had a library of all the news and videos collected at that time. It was almost in the media round the clock and we taped everything. I don't think I need to see much of it yet though because I remember the details so well; I was 11 then and so my memory was good, and of course, these aren't things that one forgets easily.
The tank man—that's Mr Wang Wei Lin, supposedly. Yeah, no one knows what happened to him, which can be a good thing. I'd hope it's the ordinary folks who dragged him away too. He was a symbol; there were actually quite a bit of problems towards the end of the movement, but he was always the one who tried to do it with all that he had.
Even within the government the opinion was split ... half of them were against violence to the students as well, and they lost both their power and freedom. The Chinese newscasts at that time were sad to look at too, the newscasters sounded so flat and looked so expressionless... I would bet they didn't buy a single word they had to say, especially in the aftermath, when they had to report that only 23 (or 36) students died (!!) and these student violently attacked the soldiers, who were forced to defend themselves—and they only had three tearbombs (!!!).
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