First Emperor, Two Bloggers & Freedom of Speech

That the Lotus can grow out of the dirtiest of water and manages to be  clean is a miracle of mother earth. Some of us managed to do just that.

©2010 Am Ang Zhang

In First Emperor, Animal Farm & Allyson Pollock I wrote:

“For centuries, the brutal and tyrannical reign of Qin Shihuangdi, First Emperor of China, was summed up by a four-character phrase, fenshukengru 焚書坑儒, ‘He burned the books and buried the Confucian scholars alive.’”Anthony Barbieri-Low: 21st Sammy Yukuan Lee Lecture. See also: The Independent.

When the First Emperor died, the students that survived just recited the books and they were back in circulation!!!

In CAMPAIGNING FOR HEALTH Julie Mcanulty wrote:

Are Medi Bloggers Being Picked Off?

Two months ago, Dr Crippen, the daddy of medi bloggers retired. It wasn't entirely unexpected - he had had a couple of breaks from blogging before and was showing signs of fatigue. But now Jobbing Doctor has 'taken a break' from blogging, just a few hours after doing a routine post about shoulder injections. He has taken down all his posts and has even removed Sam and Frodo, his two cats from the page. 

One medi blogger could be an accident. Two looks like carelessness. Three? Who's going to be next and what is going on?

Dr Crippen and JD weren't any old bloggers. They were the best and there's a feeling that something a bit more sinister is going on here. Are they getting picked off? And if they are, what can we do to support them?

Some years ago, I visited a country with a repressive regime. The food and clothes were very cheap. But the books were the same price as they are here, which made them six times more expensive for the people of that country than they are for us. The thing that a government prizes and fears above all is the flow of information. They do not take kindly to areas that they have no control over and that is the blogosphere. It is a compliment that we are now attracting this kind of unwelcome attention, but we now have to move and ensure that that conduit of the unvarnished truth does not get blocked.

I was in one of those countries too:

©2010 Am Ang Zhang

And beautiful:

Royal Palace, Phnom Penh©2010 Am Ang Zhang

Very few in Cambodia are over 65. Most doctors disappeared. Nobody wears glasses. At the end of the ‘era’ the ratio of male to female was 1: 5 according to our tour guide.

Of course in France they used to guillotine them: Pol Pot was educated there.

Mallorca©2010 Am Ang Zhang

The Cockroach Catcher is off to Aruba to snorkel; for a few weeks in case some of you thought I gave up too!


Others


Related:

Oh! No! Not Jobbing Doctor!

Learning from History: Lavoisier

First Emperor, Animal Farm & Allyson Pollock