Innocent photographer or terrorist?

[uhligfd]

I spent some weeks in China and in Moscow over the last few years.

I loved the street scenery, the bustle and people. Never had any problems with photography. Bus driver ladies of M. would stop the bus until I had their picture, ... It was free roaming for me, except for some housing developments from Chrushtshov's time where they had fancy uniformed private guards who looked outside the front door via video cameras and would come out shouting at me .. But these are cops for hire, not the "law". The residents there all enjoyed my camera wieldings. So they did in Shanghai, Bejing (I always took a stroll around the neighborhoods each morning before breakfast and shot rolls and rolls. Got to know the people and scenes and understood the light for my purposes.)

Now I plan a few days in - of all places - England. Will write you from jail, I guess.

 

[craygc]

Why stop at that? There's a 50% chance he's a deviant, cult leader, axe murderer, and what's even worse, someone different from the police officer who arrested him.

Actually, based on any form of probability, there is going to be a significantly less than 1% chance that he belongs to anyone of these categories.

 

[Rayt]

You better believe it. I was born and raised in Seattle so I grew up hearing the same horror stories and such about China, then I came here and lived here and many many years later after being here you know what I found? A lot of the people outside of China dont realize what it really is like inside of China. If you were here in my situation and saw the things I saw, you might even draw the same conclusion. Sure there are rights problems here, just as there are in America and other places, but hey, no where is perfect, especially America in this fearful new world of ours. Try it for yourself sometime, might surprise you how much crap is thrown around from thin air.

China bashing has always been fashionable. Not that they don't deserve much of it but it is Western hypocrisy that bowls me over. What is the death toll in the Middle East as we are sipping our coffee and eating our Freedom fries this beautiful afternoon?

 

[Nh3]

You better believe it. I was born and raised in Seattle so I grew up hearing the same horror stories and such about China, then I came here and lived here and many many years later after being here you know what I found? A lot of the people outside of China dont realize what it really is like inside of China. If you were here in my situation and saw the things I saw, you might even draw the same conclusion. Sure there are rights problems here, just as there are in America and other places, but hey, no where is perfect, especially America in this fearful new world of ours. Try it for yourself sometime, might surprise you how much crap is thrown around from thin air.

The Reason you don't have any problem is because you're Chinese and most probably the authorities already know you're harmless.

 

[Roger Hicks]

What is the death toll in the Middle East as we are sipping our coffee and eating our Freedom fries this beautiful afternoon?

Depends on whom you believe. In the Near East, in Iraq alone, estimates vary from a bit over 150,000 to rather over 1,000,000.

The mere fact that the estimates differ by close to an order of magnitude is more than a little disturbing.

But this is substantially irrelevant to what is going on in Tibet; or Darfur; or Burma; or...

Each monstrosity is terrible. There is little value in drawing comparisons, and saying that my cause is more important than your cause. Otherwise one might argue that the 2792 confirmed casulties in the Twin Towers don't matter so much, compare with more people killed elsewhere. Worse still is the argument that there are so many monstrosities that it is not worth worrying about any of them.

We each pick the causes that matter most to us. No-one can try to support every worthy cause.

R.

 

[Rayt]

Supporting a dictator to ensure the flow of natural resources is not new and god help us no longer shocking. How can we steer others to do right when we ourselves have unclean hands? I am not fully clear what Iraq or Afganistan had to do with 9/11. Speaking of propaganda on the other thread, I remember shortly after the Afgan invasion their were many news reports of how badly women were treated there and the war had changed Afgan women's lives for the better. Meanwhile our buddies the Saudi's jails a woman for being raped. Talking about hypocrisy.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Actually, based on any form of probability, there is going to be a significantly less than 1% chance that he belongs to anyone of these categories.

I know 😉 I was just following the same logic.