Charter 08 and Chinese Censorship

I know there are a great many important things afoot in the world right now, but it seems to me that this really ought to be front page news worldwide. A group of Chinese intellectuals, government officials, and ordinary people signed a bigdealio declaration in favor of democratic reforms, human rights, and a new constitution two weeks ago and there's been a rather dramatic crackdown internally since. Lots of writers and journalists are being put in jail, and it looks like this could get real interesting real fast.

Unsurprisingly enough, China's internet censorship has bounced back up in the last week, including the New York Times. Kristoff's asked if anyone is still reading, with some interesting responses. Curious times indeed.

In which I try to justify linking to Newsweek

You know it's a dark day when Newsweek has become a major source for your music news. But then again, maybe it isn't; by the time an act is getting covered by Newsweek chances are it alread gone through the grinders of snobby hipster opinion and emerged relatively unscathed. Or, alternatively, it's about to be shredded to cries of "sell-out" that will force the informed classes to forget the act entirely, leaving you the last devoted fan on Earth, a position glorious and pathetic in equal measures.

So that said, I was super excited when I read this. It's about the Sparrow Quartet, a group composed of Abigail Washburn, Bela Fleck, and two other unnamed string players, who are travelling around China playing for the respective folk musics of both countries for Chinese audiences. Apparenty they will also be doing the first ever American folk tour of Tibet, which I imagine would be... interesting.

There are many, many angles to a story like this, where music is simultaneously functioning as a tool for cross-cultural understanding and as propaganda for two deeply ambivalent superpowers, each of whom has a very different understanding of what the music is and what it's presence means. Fortunately for me, I'm no longer under threat of academic destruction, and so I can leave those thoughts hanging for later posts. (Of which there are sure to be more.)

In the place of a more full discussion, please accept this extremely strange peice of modal awesomeness. (Yes, I know the vocals are less than ideal. But seriously, where else are you going to hear Bela Fleck pull a whatingodsnameisthat, as he does at 2:30. Obey, mortals.)