WWWWD?

Two articles about completely unrelated news drew the same type of bile up into my throat this morning: China's pissed that we're letting Taiwanese President Chen land in SanFran for less than a day, and a marathoner's Bahraini citizenship was revoked when he won a race in Israel.

I hadn't known that the US refused permission in May '06 for President Chen to stop over on his way to Costa Rica. That is so piss-poor I can't even stand it. 'Pragmatism' doesn't even begin to explain away the crass, sniveling, un-Americanness of it. Good indicator that your power is on the wane: a country you still dwarf economically and militarily dictates who unofficially visits your soil.

Consider Bahrain, one of the more progressive countries (or at least less ideological) in the Middle East. Some guy isn't born Bahraini, he comes to your country and changes his name and asks for citizenship. Then he goes to the land of your sworn enemy and kicks their ass (though he did it in the spirit of living together, kumbaya, etc.), and you're still so pissed about it you kick him out. Face it Bahrain, you're not exactly chock-full of world class athletes; you should keep the one you have. had. The kicker is that Bahrain is one of the other stratospherically-rising economies in the world (finance, in their case) and if you're anyone you'll be vacationing there in the next ten years (BTW, if you are anyone, why are you reading this?). So, like China, Bahrain gets a pass for things like petulant outbursts and imprisoning people for questioning authority.

Makes me wanna paint my face blue and moon someone.