Ok, I have to admit, this morning I was the "boisterous tenor".

I’m watching this epic PBS special, in three parts, about China. It is so interesting that I got up this morning wondering what Mao was going to do next. I have to now admit that I knew basically nothing about the specifics of the Maoist regime. I find it interesting how the timing of events can make a huge difference to understanding them. No one really understands Watergate until they see “All the President’s Men” and see just how it all played out at first. No one really understands the bumblings of the Reagan administration without reading the daily update of how AIDS played out in “And the Band Played On”. Now, I am beginning to understand how Mao Tse Tung was a complete mad man who promised his people basic things that they had long been denied, like food and clothes, only ending up raping his own class, the farmers, by forcing them into co-operatives and taking so much of their output that they starved. “The Great Leap Forward” sought to modernize the country to America’s standard within 15 years. 30 million people starved as a result of his policies. One cannot even conceive of such a number.

When I think of Mao, or, perhaps, I should say, when I thought of Mao, I identified him as an overall good leader except for the Cultural Revolution bullshit which sought do destroy art all together. But, the reality of the Cultural Revolution is far more fucked up than I ever thought. Everything was starting to go well. Mao was semi-retired, and the people running the country were starting to make a recovery from the famine that Mao oversaw. Then, suddenly, Mao, discontent for whatever reason, came out of hiding, and called upon all young people to revolt against the Party leaders—his own Party leaders. Because Mao had reached this god-like status for the people, the young were extremely susceptible to being given a direct order by Mao to revolt. They basically became a group of young brigands, putting all party officials on trial, and, eventually, going through the entire country wiping out any signs of foreign influence and old traditions (this included burning many works of precious Chinese art...)

I just find it so interesting. Check it out. It is very well done.

Chris and I were hoping that he would be released from the hospital today. But, he met with his head surgeon this morning, and he will have to stay for another week. Damn. I actually woke up earlier than I normally do, my eyes flickering slowly out of my subconscious’ netherworld, slowly realizing where I was. Then it occurred to me that I might bring my baby home today and, in an instant, I was awake, with a broad smile on my face, jumping out of bed, prancing around like an overgrown hare on meth. When Chris called to tell me the bad news, I was a giant version of that rabbit on the old Duracell commercials, the one that got the “other name” battery: I just sort of hunched over slowly, running out of juice, waiting for someone to wind me up again like the good Stepford husband gone awry. Insert sad, descending trombone lick here...wa wa waaaa.