tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:26:42 +0000Liberal-oriented columns, commentary and archived articles on national and international news, politics, and the communication arts--with emphasis on China--by Joseph Bosco, author, journalist, director and actor; Professor of Drama and Communications at Beijing Foreign Studies University.http://www.josephbosco.com/weblog.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)Blogger1434125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-521234769343727984Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:09:00 +00002008-10-05T17:26:42.720+08:00 O.J., as a man whose intelligence, at least, I defended to the world, at great personal cost for more than a decade now, I've just gotta say, YOU ARE STUPID, man! Now deal with it. Folks, if you are coming here looking for any insight, or commentary, on O.J. Simpson being fouund guilty in Las Vegas of multiple charges that should keep him in prison for most of his natural life, I have none to http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/10/oj-simpson-you-have-brain-wave-activity.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-6011150022430752888Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:15:00 +00002008-09-22T11:27:17.494+08:00No, I am not going back to America. Better yet, I am beyond joy to announce that I am returning to my real home: Beijing Foreign Studies University! Because there was uncertainty about my full recovery from spinal surgery (of which I will write more later), I am returning only part-time this semester to continue my passion, perhaps my most important life-time achievement, the further http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/09/going-home.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-5709698238364804498Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:44:00 +00002008-09-22T11:25:51.568+08:00 Oops, there has been another title change to the movie about Liu Changchun, the first person to represent China in the Olympics, in Los Angeles, 1932. Since we started working on it some 16 months ago, it has variously been called "The One" and "One Man's Olympics." It also now has an international release date, August 8, starting in Hong Kong. Oh, my surgery, done about 5 weeks ago, was a http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/07/one-man-olympics.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-4735250117685701864Sat, 24 May 2008 12:37:00 +00002008-07-26T13:06:30.304+08:00 I have just learned from my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Liu Zhongjun, that I will finally enter Beijing Hospital # 3 this next weekend, May 30, for a very difficult, high-risk surgery to repair both old and new injuries to my spinal chord and spinal column--two metal plates will be screwed into place in the hope that I will walk freely again. I have been lying in bed for 4 months now awaiting this http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/05/exit-laughing-surgery-at-beijing-3.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-5758636266457955582Thu, 22 May 2008 09:06:00 +00002008-07-26T13:04:16.478+08:00 The Chinese feature film, The One Man Olympics, that we shot all last summer, has opened nationwide. I will not review the film overmuch, since I play a featured foreign role; which renders me too subjective to do so. I will say this: through out my career I have hated to watch myself, and very rarely do, be it on TV or film. However, under the direction of Hou Yong, a genius with light and the http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/05/one-mans-olympics-opens.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-5647919004229643640Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:17:00 +00002008-04-21T18:18:52.915+08:00Okay, big deal, so I'm six days late, shoot me, please: On April 14, Joseph Allen Bosco, my first and only granchild, celebrated his FIRST BIRTHDAY! I am certain he was surrounded by at last two very special, loving families--along with a few of my old ballplayers and second sons--in New Orleans. But, dadgum, I can't give you the picture proof because for some silly reason the Baby Joseph Allen http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/04/joseph-allen-bosco-happy-birthday.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-9153096885177260367Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:34:00 +00002008-04-24T11:45:23.376+08:00It's been close to three months since I've posted to these pages. The reasons are not ideological, external (or internal) banishment, nor can I say that I was too busy. The reason is quite simple. Doctors ordered me not to. No, I don't mean that doctors specifically ordered me not to post to The LongBow Papers; the doctors ordered me not to come even close to my desk, which is where my computer http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/04/im-hurting-and-soon-theyll-be-cutting.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-9201752768381170294Fri, 01 Feb 2008 11:22:00 +00002008-02-03T22:28:58.796+08:00It is frightening but amazing what living on the other side of the world--in both distance and culture--can reveal about home to an American who understands the privilege of being one. In my case, it is from Beijing, China--the Capital of an authoritarian state far, far removed from being anyone's model of good governance--where for the better part of a decade now, I've watched and shuddered at http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/02/give-me-that-old-time-liberalism.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-1344561960260584610Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:11:00 +00002008-01-16T21:27:34.995+08:00It is surely no surprise to regular readers of these pages that I agree with China's central government on the national status of Taiwan. By modern international decree, at the very least, (i.e. Messrs. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.; etc., etc.) it is a province of China--which is almost universally recognized as the People's Republic of China--and should remain so, albeit with some http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/01/sanity-rules-in-taiwan.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-1767444900452091657Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:14:00 +00002008-01-16T21:34:23.538+08:00 Ya gotta be kidding me, Grammy. Are all Holiday Seasons this good? This is Grandpa Bosco, and well, yes, they are, Baby Joseph Allen Bosco; during those magical days and years of youth, or at least they should be. Children with the joy of wonder in their minds and hearts, who are loved by the family around them come what may, special children like you, are truly blessed. That is the essence of http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/01/first-christmas.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-3930244952413487241Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:04:00 +00002008-01-21T21:45:38.211+08:00Dead bodies on a stage make a searing impression on an audience; Shakespeare's Othello can conveniently end with three corpses on stage. That textually logical effect and purposeful staging of the Moor of Venice was a large part of our winning First Place at the Third Chinese Universities Shakespeare Festival last year. Perhaps two will do the trick this time. Our staging of Shakespeare's http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/01/nobility-of-suicide-in-beijing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-8669220536009512055Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:24:00 +00002008-01-06T15:14:29.954+08:00Ka-plunk roughly approximates the foreboding sound of good shoe-leather falling upon hardwood floors in the beginning revelations of illicit affairs of sex or State. There is certainly nothing sexy about the subject or object(s) of this CIA-generated Ka-plunk, which we have addressed earlier. I am too deeply absorbed into editing the 20-minute DVD movie of our Antony and Cleopatra entry in the http://www.josephbosco.com/2008/01/this-is-this-sound-of-one-shoe-dropping.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-6346174318753060410Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:33:00 +00002008-01-03T19:06:43.447+08:00The words of Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton are heavy; but then we've seen this movie before, or certainly its closest facsimile--the missing Nixon tapes? Those less than two-dozen minutes of audio tapes, that were apparently destroyed some 35 years ago, brought down a sitting president, through resignation, for the first and only time in American history. Richard M. Nixon avoided his congressionalhttp://www.josephbosco.com/2008/01/he-aint-heavy-hes-my-obstructionanother.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-5202665492986096221Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:59:00 +00002007-12-28T19:07:42.389+08:00It's been awhile since I've posted to these pages. Most everyone who knows me even casually knows of my decades of the Christmas Holiday blues, begun the midnight after Christmas, 1975, when my father was killed by a train on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. But that is not the reason for my absence from LongBow this Holiday Season; that thing is gone, for reasons better recounted at another time, http://www.josephbosco.com/2007/12/no-blue-christmas-in-beijing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-2970691964045686968Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:07:00 +00002007-12-02T22:52:53.278+08:00It was a quiet Thanksgiving for us in China. Back home in New Orleans, however, it was another matter--it was Baby Joseph Allen Bosco's first Thanksgiving, and the family had a splendid beginning of the Holiday Season. The picture proof is below. Mr. Personality Mom Michelle and Baby Joseph. Dad Joseph and Baby Joseph. Baby Joseph's first Thanksgiving dinner, with Aunt 'Princess' almost http://www.josephbosco.com/2007/11/hes-got-personality-and-then-some.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-1467000342951460337Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:35:00 +00002007-11-17T22:47:08.688+08:00 Get outta town! It's really going to happen. O. J. Simpson will face another criminal jury and take his chances with extralegal, mass-market manufactured perceptions, perceptions a jury is never supposed to consider during any trial and its deliberations. Except that petit juries have been doing some version of it since well before Lady Liberty was even a gleam, and they do it somewhere every http://www.josephbosco.com/2007/11/o-j-simpson-is-bound-over-for-trialo-my.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-6139397391830030985Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:00:00 +00002007-11-14T03:04:51.328+08:00No way. There wasn't even a chance of me believing that O. J. Simpson would one day go to trial on charges including kidnapping and armed robbery in a Las Vegas hotel room, apparently captured on audio tape. Of the many ways I imagined Act 3 of Mr. Simpson's turn-of-the-century Passion play to conclude, this one ain't even close! Jeezemtally. Do I go home to cover the damn thing? Some time ago Ihttp://www.josephbosco.com/2007/11/this-i-never-would-have-believed.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-4141138959350644781Sat, 10 Nov 2007 15:04:00 +00002007-11-10T23:20:56.612+08:00Norman Mailer died today. There is nothing I can write at the moment other than to link you to an obituary in The New York Times. Norman Mailer, Outspoken Novelist, Dies at 84 By CHARLES McGRATH Published: November 10, 2007 Norman Mailer, the combative, controversial and often outspoken novelist who loomed over American letters longer and larger than any writer of his generation, died today at http://www.josephbosco.com/2007/11/there-are-no-giants-at-all.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-7488994500083217219Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:46:00 +00002007-11-08T18:44:16.844+08:00 Frankly, folks, I'm working hard at working some personal things out; but it doesn't look good at present. I appreciate the continued traffic and e-mails; and when this worried mind pulls its pitiful ass out of the sucking marsh-mud of regret--a most futile endeavor, to be sure, but we are flesh--I will get around to replying to e-mails, and posting in these pages stories still relevant to the http://www.josephbosco.com/2007/10/worried-mind.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-7679607659936237740Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:24:00 +00002007-10-25T01:33:32.351+08:00Below is my favorite photograph of Linda Powajbo Bosco, my teenage bride, mother of our son Joseph, and my beautiful, loving wife from 1968 until 2001. Today is her birthday. I have had much reason to think of her recently, with love; although she will hate the thought and sentiment. That's okay, because no one we know mutually will tell her the post is here, upon her orders. Happy Birthday, http://www.josephbosco.com/2007/10/happy-birthday-linda.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-3991628390667987437Mon, 22 Oct 2007 09:16:00 +00002007-10-25T18:40:23.496+08:00 And there's the reason why, Joseph with Baby Joseph, on the Riverwalk, that day of days I have always lived on dreams and hope, and far more often than not, professionally, creatively, both have served me well. Would that I could say the same about my personal life. Even though hopes and dreams also fueled and guided its course through the same five decades, failures of every kind, with their http://www.josephbosco.com/2007/10/its-time-to-get-over-it.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-8617305047645169037Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:17:00 +00002007-10-11T11:38:06.606+08:00 Sylvia, Mom, me and Prince at Beach House late 50's ...ain't what it used to be, or was it ever even that? At last we are back in Beijing; nightmares private and public, to be spoken of later, delayed our return from New Orleans for some two dreadfully uncertain days. We could not imagine such a happenstance, of course. That is until attempting to check in at the Continental Airlines counter http://www.josephbosco.com/2007/10/home.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-4568270736014097627Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:26:00 +00002007-10-08T17:11:09.576+08:00NOTE: *Updated from the post of Wednesday, September 19, 2007. We will continue to mark the release of The New York Times Chinese journalist Zhao Yan after three years of harsh imprisonment. These pages will republish a few of the most distinguished of a series of op-ed pieces written on the highly visible case by then sophomore journalism majors at Beijing Foreign Studies University that firsthttp://www.josephbosco.com/2007/09/when-can-we-be-free-to-tell.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-310163733920410181Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:59:00 +00002007-09-28T10:19:12.356+08:00We're going to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast to meet my first grandchild, Joseph Allen Bosco; leaving on a jet plane today. Home, it's been a long time coming. It will be a short visit, though, only a week, spanning the National Day Holiday. I won't be posting during the trip; we return to Beijing Saturday, October 6.http://www.josephbosco.com/2007/09/gone-to-new-orleans.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5412608.post-6201051268606035399Sun, 23 Sep 2007 04:35:00 +00002007-09-24T00:07:21.260+08:00He is a handsome fellow, no doubt; he is the brightest light in any room he enters. In short, he is a living, breathing Saint. Don't take just my word for it; the picture proof is below. While the New Orleans Saints stumbled out of the gate at 0 - 2, Baby Joseph Allen Bosco is no tidewater front-runner; he knows that patience and optimism are two of the necessary ingredients for success. http://www.josephbosco.com/2007/09/hes-saint.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Editor)