Tiredness is an odd
narcotic. Once it’s gripped you and
entered the blood stream, as it were, the pull horizontal remains for some time
afterward. So if you nod off and then
jump up and walk across the room and talk to someone and pour a glass of juice,
there is still that siren song grip, nursing you back to surrender. Listening to the trombonist Bob Brookmyer
yesterday on his 1957 track “Arrowhead” from the album “The Street Swingers”,
the slow pulse of the valves sliding up and down, the sleepy embrace got its
fingers sunk in deep. Not long after, I
turned to face the music and lay down for a quick nap. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Brookmeyer
And I stirred up about an hour later and I was
refreshed. I wasn’t feeling groggy or
cheated but rather, topped-off. And
later that night when it was time for the evening ritual of reading to the
girls before they headed to bed, I strode forth with confidence that I wouldn’t
be a sleepy mess. But as soon as I saw
my daughter’s bed, I could feel the sleepy fingers reasserting control. If I snuggle up next to her and read while in
bed, I will be off to sleep after a page or so.
So I nearly always sit and read from a chair where I have more hope of
remaining lucid. I told my daughter;
“move over, I’ll read next to you.” “No
Baba. You’ll fall asleep.” Wise words
from the nine-year old. OK. We’ll do it from the chair.
And she, lying in bed, fell asleep before I did, barley. And I moved over to her older sister’s room
to read to her. But by now the pull was much
greater. Sleep was mid-flush in my
blood. I felt robbed. My whole nap investment had come to
naught. I was just as tired as any other
night. And it showed as I read more of
“A Brave New World” set 500 years in the future with all its mis-guessed
anachronisms like books that people read, that are already becoming irrelevant
a mere 80 years after the book was written. My reading was dispirited, dry, tired. I guess I need to get further in, as the
fictional modernity of odd irony on top of odd irony, largely mis-predicted thus
far feels devoid of human narrative.
A good old-fashioned rise and fall human narrative is
underway here in the PRC. Xi Jinping has
been touted as a leader of a different sort, having taken control of both the military
and the Party from the outset of his term, unlike his predecessors. He has already made moves at the former
Standing Committee ruler tarred with the Bo Xi Lai affair, Zhou Yongkang. I mentioned last week that he was going after
the former Premier Li Peng’s daughter as well.
This, as part of his brave pronouncement of going after both “tiger and
flies.” (One recalls the former Premier
Zhu Rongji’s announcement to get 100 coffins ready, 99 for corrupt officials
and one for himself). And now we see
that Xi is going after what is arguably the biggest tiger of them all, the
P.L.A.
On Monday prosecutors formally charged the high-flying
Chinese General Gu Junshan with “bribery, embezzlement, misuse of state funds
and abuse of power.” From his perch in
charge of military procurement with he managed to amass a remarkable fortune,
worth perhaps more than US1$B, and in the process some important enemies. Now he is apparently naming names in a broad
investigation that is assumed will involve quite
a few other military tigers. But once
the hunt is on, its hard to know how to stop, gracefully when effectively
everyone is 为虎作伥[1].
Rhetorically the CCP is in charge of the PLA. As Mao’s dictate suggested: “revolution comes
from the barrel of a gun, but the party controls the gun.” That is a comforting thought. But in the days of Jiang Zemin (the self
described “northern Jiangsu pig”) or Hu Jintao who had no formal military ties,
one could never be sure. Party
officials have arguably amassed more wealth over the last few decades than the
military. Xi Jinping is asserting his
authority early by taking down a particular stem of relations within the
army. Can that be done without weakening
the overall tree? A line of
investigation around corruption stemming from the procurement department could
theoretically lead to any and every official in uniform. So how do they decide where to cut and how
effective will it be when they sew up the wound?
The world’s second largest economy and the world’s largest
military are still run with medieval organizational principles. As one academic
once quipped “the religion of the Chinese people is being Chinese” and this has
all the transparency and predictability of waiting for Papal smoke signals. A small group of people still decide who will
live, who will flourish and who will fall.
And for now, China remains a place where the Party still controls the
gun.
