The LongBow Papers

Liberal-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.

Friday, July 29, 2005

No One Alive Will Ever See This Again

5:06 PM

MARS IN AUGUST

The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!

This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.

Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m. By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30a.m. That's pretty convenient to see something that no human being has seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month.

Thanks a bunch to American poet Jayne Lyn Stahl for sending all of the above.

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Monday, July 25, 2005

Another Major Head of State Declares For Christian-Based Government

7:04 PM

Nothing needed from me in presenting the following:

"The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality.

Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our
culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent
immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press - in
short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into
our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during recent years."

Adolf Hitler. ( in his first radio address to the German people after
coming to power July 22, 1933; from "My New Order, The Speeches of Adolf
Hitler, 1922-1939", Vol. 1, pp. 871-872, Oxford University Press,
London, 1942.)

A special thanks to American poet Jayne Lyn Stahl for sending me the above.

7:04 PM / Editor / permalink 2 comments

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Bosco Returns to the Scene of the Crime

11:01 AM

It is with much joy but even more humility that I inform readers of these pages that I will be in Los Angeles in a little more than two weeks. It will be the first time that Ellen and I have been to LA since we left for China three years ago, almost to the day. Up till now, our visits to the States have been to see family, mostly New York, but also New Orleans once. But this visit will be back to the city that had become home to both of us for substantial periods of our lives--Ellen's for over two decades, mine for one.

The reason for our return was an invitation for me to participate in a literary and journalistic event. To wit:

The Odyssey presents:

"Writers of the Storm: Fake News, and Public Decency, in the Age of Terror"

A Panel Discussion brought to you by

Writers-at-Large
Writers-at-Large, a California-based writers' advocacy group which operates under a small grant from the California Arts Council, is delighted to bring you "Writers of the Storm: Fake News and Public Decency in the Age of Terror." The panel will deal with our role, as writers, in speaking to what the concept of decency means, who gets to decide that, and why, as well as whether that decision diminishes the power of the pen, the dignity of writers, as well as the importance of diversity of opinion.

Those Writers-at-Large members on the panel include prominent journalist, and visiting professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, Joseph Bosco, author and political satirist, Paul Krassner, author/environmental journalist, Dick Russell, award-winning playwright and screenwriter Cathrine Ann Jones ("Touched By An Angel" series), TV writer/producer and novelist, April Smith, novelist and poet Deena Metzger, poet, screenwriter, and dramatist, Jervey Tervalon, and Los Angeles political writer, and activist, David Koff. Moderator: Past President of the Southern California chapter of the ACLU, author, Co-Chair of the Freedom to Write Domestic CoDomestic Committee of PEN USA and constitutional lawyer, Stephen F. Rohde. Hosted by project director, founder, of Writers-at-Large: Jayne Lyn Stahl. Co-sponsors: City Lights Books, PEN USA, Dutton's Books, Poets Against the War, and The Odyssey Theatre.

Tuesday, August 9th, 6:30 to 9 p.m.

at The Odyssey Theatre, 2055 So. Sepulveda Blvd. West Los Angeles.
Reception: 6:30 to 7 p.m. Join us for hors d'oeuvres and beverages courtesy of
Dutton's Books.

Admission: $30- regular admission ($20 students and seniors)
$45 -- Golden Circle -- first 3 rows

Contact: Jayne Lyn Stahl
Project Director, Founder
Writers-at-Large
jayne.stahl@gmail.com
(925) 899-4739
Writers-at-Large is a proud member of the Intersection Incubator, a program for the Arts providing fiscal sponsorship, networking, and consulting to artists: www.theintersection.org, and is funded by a grant from the California Arts Council.

Further information on this event can be found at:

City Lights Bookstore, Events

PEN Center USA, Events

PEN American Center, Events

11:01 AM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

Friday, July 22, 2005

An Afternoon In Beijing With Moses

8:05 PM

My often needed bridge to sanity and to relative reality while living and working in China is a guy known to hundreds of millions of CCTV International viewers of the program "Dialogue" as the articulate, gentle American giant (he's six-foot-five) and International Relations genius with the distinctive buzz haircut. In academic and publishing circles he is known as Dr. Russell Leigh Moses. I am most fortunate to be able to call him Russ and, far more importantly, friend.

If over time I am going to become even a little bit accurately knowledgeable on the history and the processes of the New China, it will be in very large measure due to Russ. He has been in China for most of the last dozen years or so, primarily with the John Hopkins Center in Nanjing, and now the last two in Beijing finishing his next book. He speaks Mandarin fluently, and colorfully.

Russ and his exceedingly accomplished wife Jie, a native Nanjinger, are in the process of moving into their newly purchased, newly constructed, newly decorated Beijing home. Buying a home is a major commitment anywhere at anytime. But, for an American scholar, author, IR specialist and consultant with major political credits and therefore many economic reasons for being in the States, it is even more so. China is better for the fact that Russ--and Jie--made this commitment.

Russ and I try to get together once a week for a lunch of freshly made jaozi at a tiny, four-table eatery deep inside a still-thriving, not at all gentrified, hutong in the Baitasi area of west central Beijing--so named for its elegant, majestic White Dagoba Temple perpetually o're hanging. After we eat several steaming platters of

cabbage, mushroom and egg dumplings--during which Russ will converse familiarly with the family that operates the shop and the neighborhood regulars that drop in while we're there--we walk them off by exploring the limitless nooks and crannies of a number of central Beijing hutongs.

Actually, I'm the one exploring; Russ is guiding me through a labyrinth of Chinese culture he has tread before. He will have reason to tread these kaleidoscopic pathways of time and senses even more frequently some time next week, after he and Jie move into their new digs.

Below you will see a picture of me on one of the terraces of the new Moses domicile. An almost perfect mix of the best of the old and the best of the new, Russ and Jie's new home is in a small, modern complex that does not detract from the traditions and rhythms of the neighborhood surrounding it. They spent almost a year making it happen; and it is a very good happening. Congratulations!

A note about the pictorial repetition of the same old man in the goofy straw hat (me): Russ has a great new camera, and loves to take pictures; he does not like to appear in them, however. He places me in them for spatial perspective only. And to kill cockroaches. It's a fact. With this face? Zap. Up to 30 yards. Dead roaches.

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Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Convicting and Hanging Japanese War Criminals, Again

1:04 PM

Even though there was still that perpetual layer of grimy sweat between me and the thick 1940's double-breasted wool suit I'd been roasting in alive for a month, and there was a huge motion picture camera arduously, meticulously placed only inches above me, when I circled the ornate "Yes" on the "Death Penalty ballot" and then dropped it though a slot into a plain wooden box, it felt good.

It felt good every time I did it--every take of the multiple points of view the director shot of the climactic scene of the movie I'd been acting in for more than a month. We finally wrapped this past weekend in Tianjin, where we'd been shooting for a week, ending it much like we had begun, with almost 24 straight hours on set.

What movie, pray tell? "The International Military Tribunal for the Far East" is the movie's literal English language translation. It is a dramatic, extremely accurate re-telling of one of the last untold stories of World War Two.

Almost everyone knows something about the trial of the top Nazis at Nuremberg, Germany. And a lot of people know at least something about the "14 Class-A Japanese War Criminals" that Prime Minister Koizumi is so intent on honoring each year by visiting their burial site. But almost no one can tell you how they came to be adjudicated as "war criminals."

That happened through the process of a two-year trial that began in Tokyo in 1946. The Allied High Command brought 28 of the top Japanese political and military leaders to trial before a tribunal of 11 judges chosen from 11 Allied countries upon whom Japan had perpetrated "a war of aggression" in violation of international law to which it was a signatory.

At the invitation of General Douglas MacArthur, judges came from Australia, China, America, England, Russia, Canada, France, New Zealand, Holland, India, and the Philippines, to hear the evidence and first decide guilt or innocence, then life or death.

While the outcome is known, how it was arrived at is a riveting story. One should not predict much about a film before it's been edited, but not only will this movie royally piss off Japan, if post-production doesn't destroy it, it will move people every where. Although it is an historical film, it is also a very human film.

The international confluence on the set was amazing. The film will be released with four languages spoken naturally within it: Chinese, English, Japanese and some Russian, with subtitles. And all of those languages could be heard on the set--but English was not a prominent one, I can surely attest to that. Except for a few actors brought in from Japan, two from America, and a handful of expats, this movie set, which sometimes consisted of two to three hundred people, was completely Chinese.

We few foreigners were in a totally Chinese environment. There was only one English language "translator" for the whole movie company. Never have I regretted my difficulties in learning Chinese more; but never have I felt as close to China as I have in these past several weeks.

I am physically and mentally exhausted--drained bone dry, actually--from weeks shooting under intense movie lights in the middle of a June heat wave. I have slept a great deal since returning from Tianjin.

I dug into weeks-old e-mail only yesterday, and made a dent. I have a great deal of editing and posting to do for WOW. And I have my own writing deadlines that I'm behind on.

But I will never regret my return to acting for this film. Some folks need to remember things. Of course, a lot of other folks just like a well-told story. We shall see if our work is so judged.

Oh, did I mention that they want to release the film in a month or so! They want it to be a part of the 60th anniversary celebrations of Victory over Japan Day (August 15 in China, August 14 in America). And be in full distribution in September.

Yeah. That explains some of the crazily scheduled, around-the-clock shootings, and at least some of the many absolutely unbelievable things that happened daily during the making of this movie--of which I will write more about in time.

Anyway, it's over; I'm still mostly healthy. And it was one hell of a hoot to do!

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