AKIC Blogspot Tidbits.

• An editorial from National Review on China and the Olympics: well-balanced and realistic I would say.
• As I type, Canada and China are tied one-one in an Olympic Woman's Football match.
• David Warren on Solzhenitsyn: Prophetic writers are a holy nuisance to everyone, but especially to themselves.
• The students thought that the Opening Ceremony last night was fantastic. The lighting of the flame, said one student, was like Peter Pan.
  
• We had a runner yesterday at school. A runner is a term for a foreign teacher who up and flees a school in China without giving any notice. A Canadian we had working for us, --- ------, did not show up for work yesterday and conveniently had his phone out-of-service so I could not contact him. He later sent me a text message telling me he was going to Shanghai to catch a flight back to Canada. Why did he leave? There has been much speculation. He left and lost a lot of money doing so, at least 8000 rmb. So, he didn't leave because he wasn't getting paid. There is speculation he used the school for some nefarious scheme he had. That I can believe. He did seem to be an operator. Many others agree with that assessment. Some people use English teaching as an excuse to travel, others come here for less worthy reasons: I have seen a few persons like that in my four years.
  
• I wonder if it is proper that I mention the name of the teacher who fled our school. I never have criticized anyone by name in any of my blogs before. I have commented, in general, on some stupid things I have heard said and seen done and that has been enough to have people accuse me of writing against someone personally. Make no mistake, I am now criticizing someone personally and specifically. In the case of the teacher I named above, I feel it necessary that I publish his name so that hopefully others beware. His behavior was such in the time that he worked at the school that his name be besmirched publicly. Every word he said to anyone in his time in Wuxi, China was a lie it would appear. Hopefully, he never comes to Wuxi again, and the bad reputation he has now earned himself in Wuxi follows him everywhere he goes. Give a guy a second chance and if he is too stupid to take advantage of it or doesn't care, he should be damned.
  
• Pardon, me blowing up steam.
• I saw three crazy traffic maneuvers today worth mentioning in my blog. Two of them occurred near my new apartment where traffic is light. First in the morning, I saw this van pass a bus on the right. The bus had on its right turn signal because it was about to stop at a bus stop. The van driver, not wanting to slow down, passed the bus, oblivious of the fact that the bus was turning right to change lanes. So I saw the strange sight of a van nearly getting itself cut off when, if the driver had waited, no near-collision would have happened. And there was no other traffic on the road. Then in the evening, I saw this motorcycle with two passengers run a red light at 50 km/h, just narrowly missing two dump trucks which were racing through a green. You would never see that sort of thing happen in Canada. The third incident occurred in downtown Wuxi, China. The bus I was in nearly had a head-on collision with a left-turning taxi at an intersection. The taxi driver was in a hurry and was cutting it too close. Again, much closer than you would see in Canada.
  
• I remember seeing Georgia in the parade of nations at the Olympics. Now, I read they are at war with Russia.
  
• Wuxi Tony Update #155. This makes the blog entry all worth it.