Sunday Morning.

I am up early. I couldn't sleep in if I wanted to. I have a few things I want to do today but I can't decide what I will do and when I will do it. I have a back log of unwatched DVDs to watch but I can't decide what to watch first.

Last night, I did watch the entirety of The Quiet Man starring John Wayne and directed by John Ford. It is a film set in Ireland and contains all the elements you would expect. The Quiet Man has priests, Irish songs, pubs, countryside, and greenery. It also has lots of drinking and fighting. The film ends in a brawl which brings peace to Innisfree even as the fists keep flying. Wondering why the film hasn't stood the test of time, I suppose it could be because John Wayne smokes through out the movie and the priests are depicted as worldly and kind: things you wouldn't dare show in a movie today.

Today, I may watch Anatomy of a Murder starring Jimmy Stewart and directed by Otto Preminger. I recently saw Stewart in the Spirit of St. Louis. I also may watch the fourth and fifth seasons of the Wire if I can pull myself away from the computer long enough to do so.

On the way home last night, I did ride to the bridge I had seen from off in the distance. I hope I can visit it today in the daylight. The bridge looks swanky enough with railings, smoothly paved roadway, and a great set of stairs for pedestrians. But it has a bridge built in the middle of nowhere feel to it. And I don't see why pedestrians would be walking in the area anyway.

I have to go downtown to get my phone charger. It is just my luck that I can't seem to get away from work. But I will check my bag now and see if I maybe, after a bit of rare foresight, put the charger there in.

No, I didn't.

Fari quae sentiat. This is Latin. In English, this means to say what one feels. I was listening to the latest episode of Radio Derb and he said that the latest fashion in Political Correctness is to banish Latin expressions because they are discriminatory to someone. I will use them whenever I feel like it. (I was going to say when I have the opportunity, but I am in China.) Derb also said that politics takes up too much time of the average citizen's time in America. Obsessing over the 2010 election has begun in earnest, he observed. In an ideal world, we would not be overly concerning ourselves about elections. We would be choosing the wisest of men to be our representatives and these pols wouldn't be filled with any grand notions that inflame the mob and bother the others who don't want to be left alone. So limited would be their power that only those who have a sense of duty would do it; not the fame seeking, power hungry, and money-grubbing bunch that seem to be elected these days.

But it is not an ideal world. dum vitant stuli vitia in contraria current. In shunning one kind of vice, fools run to the opposite extreme. libido dominator. The passions have gained control.

Now, I wait for the maid to do her thing. Yes, we have a maid. She comes in the morning every second day to clean the apartment for two hours. We give her 300 rmb a month. I suggested the wife hire because she is so busy with Tony. She speaks China in a Wuxi way and I find it impossible to understand her. I can't even make out the personal pronouns when she speaks.

I am taking the Latin expressions from some Latin books I brought with me from Canada.

If you have followed this blog entry this far, you may be asking yourself if Andis eats and if he has anything to do outside of the school and the apartment. You may also have noticed I don't seem to have other people enter this blog, at least on a personal level, excepting my wife and son. So, the answer to both questions is no. I don't eat much and I keep to myself more than ever.

It is sunny out this morning and with a cold crisp feeling in the air. A good day to go for a ride and take some photos. My digital camera is recharging as I type.

I am also thinking I will go to Nanchang temple, a market in Downtown Wuxi, and look at the old movie bin again. I hope I can find more Fred Astaire movies. More than ever, it is time to escape the here and now, and go to a place that doesn't exist and is somehow fancy filled.

Looking out of the window of AKIC blogging central, I see decoration is proceeding on a few apartments across the lane from us. If this complex was ever fully occupied, there would be no sense of privacy here. Fifteen or so apartments look right into this room.

I am getting updates from my wife. So far, Tony is occupying himself by pressing the buttons on the phone by which she talks to me.

I sprayed some WD40 on my electric bicycle last night. Two locks were becoming stiff and hard for me to open smoothly. It was the first time I have gotten my hands smelly with oil for years. It may seem strange to say but I have this notion that somehow because I am in a foreign country, I can't be doing dirty work. I would be stealing some one's rice bowl, as the expression goes, and China does not need foreign labourers.

The maid is asking me something about Tony but I don't know what. Ting bu Dong! I say.

In Canada, the Saskatchewan Roughriders won't win the Grey Cup this year. They were trounced in the Western semifinal game today by the British Columbia Lions.

Titles of books on the shelf above my keyboard: Great Expectations, The complete short stories of Evelyn Waugh, a brief history of the Boxer Rebellion, The Iliad, Zen stories, The Analects, Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard, With Charity Toward None by Florence King, Call to Arms by Lu Xun, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer, The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, Collected Poems of TS Eliot, and On a Chinese Screen by Sommerset Maugham, to name a few.

I am not feeling fully engaged as you can tell if you have followed this blog entry this far.

What does Obama mean by change? Is change, in this context, just a code word for revolution?

George Bush was a centrist politician little different in views from John McCain. When the left praises John McCain, as they did over a year ago, their hatred of George Bush seemed all the more inexplicable. They are probably mad at George Bush for being a Christian from Texas and being idealistic, and thus stealing the idealism mantle they thought belong exclusively to them. But the Left also wanted their idealism on the cheap without having to make war. And so they have to hate Bush intensely instead of having to deal with the implications of what Bush's foreign adventures have shown - the world is not one and parts of it intensely hate what they stand for, and not just Bush.

For all this talk about Bush being evil and authoritarian, he never fights back against his critics. Some of them don't deserve any response, because they are utterly classless. But some did, especially some of the intelligent critics on the right. Bush made it easy for his haters to have the day because he ultimately so passive.