[CENSORED]

This is where I live.
Originally uploaded by billmcgonigle.

So... I was trying to explain the concept of someone else "making you feel old" the other day. While I can't remember my exact situation (it might have been over something like music before Linkin Park was popular), I equated it to the Chinese, who was my age, meeting someone who didn't know about what happened in Tiananmen Square.

"What do you mean something that happened in Tiananmen Square?" she asked.
"I mean something big that happened there... in 1989?" sayeth I.
"I dunno." repliedeth sheen.
"College students?"
"Oh! Yes! I know! They had a party!"

I wrote it off as she isn't the brightest, but I was curious enough to start asking every Chinese person about it. None of them knew much at all. They knew about the demonstrations, they knew that the college kids were protesting and even going on hungerstrikes; but only the brightest I've talked to knew even just this.

But one did say that one day the news just stopped coming from Beijing. No one ever told him what happened after that day in early June when the news just stopped.

Wow.

I've been trying to keep up with the Katrina Catastrophe via the Internet, but I don't think it has hit me like it has hit everyone back home. Nobody here talks about it, most don't know about it, and certainly no one is broadcasting anything about it. Its a non-story.

Boy, am I happy we've got the internet!