Posted On: Tuesday - April 27th 2021 6:54PM MST
In Topics: Music China Americans Big-Biz Stupidity
The 21st Century is supposed to be the "Asian Century", and by "Asian", they mean Chinese. I give lots of credit to those who said that back in the 1980s. I'd read it myself and thought WTF? Peak Stupidity was most optimistic about the nation of China about 15 years ago, from personal observation. We don't feel very optimistic now, after seeing something of a few years back, and reading more recently of, the Orwellian Police State well into the process of installation over there. (See our Dashed High Hopes for China - Part 1 and Part 2, but there's plenty more with the China Topic Key.)
Chinese it seems to be, though. We don't have to like it. We don't have to particularly respect the place and the culture either, as in the previous century, most nations around the world DID respect America. For one thing, we do know that the Chinese have stolen so many original technical ideas and business ideas from us. An article linked-to by Instapundit the other day reported on the theft, via the usual espionage done by those diverse HR hires, of technical information about the Coca~Cola beverage. I remember a number of $120 Million being bandied about, though for the life of me, I don't think the secret formula is worth that much! Hell, just put the cocaine back in it, Chinese Big-Biz thieves, and you'll get the sales.
OK, that article had had a paywall, but go to this Conservative Daily News article to read about it. It's not about the formula but about the engineering technological development of BPA-free cans. The manufacturing of the cans and the canning process are both amazing. Yet, diverse Miss Xiaorong You* stole it all, as part of China's "Thousand Talents" project.**
You know, this Coca~Cola talk had me thinking of an oldie by the excellent British band Supertramp, due to a lyric line in one of the album cuts. The last song on this band's best-selling album, Breakfast in America, from 1979, had not only a good tune, but this superb 4-minute-long hypnotic instrumental ending (over 1/2 the song), along with some really thoughtful lyrics. Child of Vision was an admonition to Americans about their commercialism and supposedly wasteful lifestyle. I always wondered how a British band would have any standing to criticize, but then, it was a different Great Britain back then. This album was released a couple of months before the election of Maggie Thatcher and only 1/2 way through the Jimmy Carter presidency. It's been a while!
Here's are the lyrics I remembered:
And you gave me Coca~cola.
You said it tasted good.
Then you watch the television,
cause they tell you that you should.
Are the Chinese getting so commercialized and so far from any moral grounding that Americans ought to have a song like this about them? Are the Chinese the new "Children of Vision"?
Supertramp:
Rick Davies – vocals, piano, keyboards, harpsichord, harmonica
Roger Hodgson – vocals, guitars, all kinds of keyboards...
John Helliwell – saxophone (on this track), backing vocals
Dougie Thomson – bass guitar
Bob Siebenberg – drums, percussion
(I didn't include all the different instruments these guys played. They were very versatile.)
PS: At least, for this latest theft of technology, we won't quite be selling out our manufacturing capability. I just don't see how the Chinese will penetrate the American market with their own Coca~Cola. There are just too many American consumers around that remember that old "pee-pee in your Coke" joke. (Well, I had to get that joke in here somewhere, dammit.)
* I'll give the Chinese this: They don't spend the time on preferred pronouns, as we discussed in Fun with Pronouns. Hey You, you say you want to change the world ... it's NOT alright ... .
** Peak Stupidity has personal knowledge of a similar deal regarding automobile airbags, as we related in Chinese grad students and airbag espionage.
Comments:
Moderator
Thursday - April 29th 2021 7:02AM MST
PS: See?!! "Think", not "thing". And, I've got no excuse about being drunk either!
Moderator
Thursday - April 29th 2021 7:01AM MST
PS: Mr. Kief, though I sometimes thing Mr. Unz is a bit of a nutcase, he made one hell of a well working web-site, aka "platform". I know Mr. Blanc doesn't agree, but I like the unz.com commenting system better than any other I've ever seen.
As for Peak Stupidity, for about 4 years, besides dealing with SSL bullshit and that, I have spent ZERO time on the website itself - just happy doing the writing. I don't dread working on it either - I just better do one of the other, and that'd probably be a couple of weeks.
I would not be offended if you said this commenting system sucks ass, or the Deutsch equivalent thereof.
BTW, I've got to slow down even on unz, as I'll make typos that I let get through both edit processes.
As for Peak Stupidity, for about 4 years, besides dealing with SSL bullshit and that, I have spent ZERO time on the website itself - just happy doing the writing. I don't dread working on it either - I just better do one of the other, and that'd probably be a couple of weeks.
I would not be offended if you said this commenting system sucks ass, or the Deutsch equivalent thereof.
BTW, I've got to slow down even on unz, as I'll make typos that I let get through both edit processes.
Dieter Kief
Thursday - April 29th 2021 3:06AM MST
PS sorry, can't help it - your last comment made me laugh, because it can be quite easily read as - an excuse for not being drunk (not necessarily though, I'd aadmit that).
(I make the same mistake quite often - not least because in some places I comment on, you can correct texts after posting them.)
(I make the same mistake quite often - not least because in some places I comment on, you can correct texts after posting them.)
Mr. Anon
Wednesday - April 28th 2021 11:45PM MST
PS
Supertramp were one of the great Rock-and-Roll / Pop bands. Very underrated in my opinion. Yes, the Breakfast in America album was a huge sensation when it came out in 1979, but all their songs are good, and many of them are great. A very talented bunch of musicians. Jethro Tull incorporated the Flute into Rock (and did it well), but Supertramp gave us a pop song with Klezmer Clarinet and made it work ("Logical Song").
And check out this funky 70s masterpiece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_HArj8ksXU
Supertramp were one of the great Rock-and-Roll / Pop bands. Very underrated in my opinion. Yes, the Breakfast in America album was a huge sensation when it came out in 1979, but all their songs are good, and many of them are great. A very talented bunch of musicians. Jethro Tull incorporated the Flute into Rock (and did it well), but Supertramp gave us a pop song with Klezmer Clarinet and made it work ("Logical Song").
And check out this funky 70s masterpiece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_HArj8ksXU
Dieter Kief
Wednesday - April 28th 2021 1:55PM MST
PS So - the waitress is walking the friendly sky. The aircraft window-sill resembles a toilet bowl (this is Tom waits territory here - T. W. being so full of shit, port-O-san ought to name a model after him, as Bob Christgau once put it)). The beer in the fat mam's deliciously spread out fingers - ahhh: What is this big yellow thing representing - rising, rising up in the air outside - eight miles high - - - a glass of beer, yellow as the apron of the fat ma'm - and then there is the skyline of Manhattan in the background, and it looks even more like genitals - now not only male, but also female ones.
- And the song is about Mr. Nice Guy, busy going nowhere, / blindig in the sun. Yeah - Pop-dystiopia. - Simple, and really peaking out stuff, not dumb at all.The Supertramp-oeuvre ages - pretty damn well.
A visionary of Nietzschean wit, caught in the body of a pyknic teenage genius yelling out all kinds of interesting simple (and not so simple) truths (now I think of The Confederacy of Dunces / John Kennedy Toole - maybe rightfull so...).
- And the song is about Mr. Nice Guy, busy going nowhere, / blindig in the sun. Yeah - Pop-dystiopia. - Simple, and really peaking out stuff, not dumb at all.The Supertramp-oeuvre ages - pretty damn well.
A visionary of Nietzschean wit, caught in the body of a pyknic teenage genius yelling out all kinds of interesting simple (and not so simple) truths (now I think of The Confederacy of Dunces / John Kennedy Toole - maybe rightfull so...).
The Alarmist
Wednesday - April 28th 2021 1:51PM MST
PS
Not drunk ... just didn’t proof before sending. Sorry!
Not drunk ... just didn’t proof before sending. Sorry!
The Alarmist
Wednesday - April 28th 2021 1:48PM MST
PS
$125b in lost cola sales seems like a small pric to pay for all the pasta we’ve eaten in the West sice we wtole the formula for it centuries ago.
Ban menthol cigarettes? This might very well Biden’s Hot Summer. I guess we’ll know for sure if he moves on Colt45 and Juicyfruit.
$125b in lost cola sales seems like a small pric to pay for all the pasta we’ve eaten in the West sice we wtole the formula for it centuries ago.
Ban menthol cigarettes? This might very well Biden’s Hot Summer. I guess we’ll know for sure if he moves on Colt45 and Juicyfruit.
Adam Smith
Wednesday - April 28th 2021 11:15AM MST
PS: Good afternoon everyone...
Last week, tobacco stocks tumbled after the Wall Street Journal reported that the JoBidet regime is weighing whether to move forward on a menthol ban or a nicotine reduction in all cigarettes, or both.
About 85 percent of Black! smokers smoke menthols, including Newport and Kool, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Civil rights groups have long argued Black! Americans have been disproportionately harmed by menthol cigarettes. As we continue our push to protect Black! lives, we must put an end to one of the most pernicious destroyers of Black! lives, deadly menthol cigarettes.
Past efforts to ban menthol cigarettes have failed under intense industry opposition, but advocates are confident this time could be different because of JoBidet's stated commitment to reducing racial health disparities.
The ACLU is among those likely to be in opposition to such a move. In 2020, when a House bill proposed a ban on menthol among other flavored tobacco products, the rights group said such an action would have disproportionate impacts on communities of color.
“Blacks! in America have a God given right to smoke menthol cigarettes.” said Anthony D. Romero.
While it would likely be years before any ban would take effect, the move would be praised by anti-smoking busybodies.
Altria, Liggett, Imperial Brands and British American Tobacco were not available for comment.
☮
Last week, tobacco stocks tumbled after the Wall Street Journal reported that the JoBidet regime is weighing whether to move forward on a menthol ban or a nicotine reduction in all cigarettes, or both.
About 85 percent of Black! smokers smoke menthols, including Newport and Kool, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Civil rights groups have long argued Black! Americans have been disproportionately harmed by menthol cigarettes. As we continue our push to protect Black! lives, we must put an end to one of the most pernicious destroyers of Black! lives, deadly menthol cigarettes.
Past efforts to ban menthol cigarettes have failed under intense industry opposition, but advocates are confident this time could be different because of JoBidet's stated commitment to reducing racial health disparities.
The ACLU is among those likely to be in opposition to such a move. In 2020, when a House bill proposed a ban on menthol among other flavored tobacco products, the rights group said such an action would have disproportionate impacts on communities of color.
“Blacks! in America have a God given right to smoke menthol cigarettes.” said Anthony D. Romero.
While it would likely be years before any ban would take effect, the move would be praised by anti-smoking busybodies.
Altria, Liggett, Imperial Brands and British American Tobacco were not available for comment.
☮
MBlanc46
Wednesday - April 28th 2021 11:11AM MST
PS The 21st will likely be the Chinese century, if they don’t collapse financially (along with everyone else). One might suppose that they really do need the West to keep buying the manufactures to keep the economic engine going. And we’re just about tapped out. From a broader viewpoint, one might wonder whether a culture so focused on respect for ancestors will ever be able to escape cultural stagnation.
PeterIke
Wednesday - April 28th 2021 10:32AM MST
PS
OT, but here's some major stupidity.
https://nypost.com/2021/04/28/biden-administration-expected-to-ban-menthol-cigarettes/
Banning menthol cigarettes... THIS WEEK!
OT, but here's some major stupidity.
https://nypost.com/2021/04/28/biden-administration-expected-to-ban-menthol-cigarettes/
Banning menthol cigarettes... THIS WEEK!