Russel Norman, MP and leader of the New Zealand Green Party, marked the arrival of Chinese heir-to-be-but-we’re-still-not-telling-anybody-officially-yet Xi Jinping to Wellington by waving a Τibetan flag and calling for Τibet’s independence.

A tacky move I’ll grant you, and one that probably would have rated a mention on page 23 of the Dominion Post (right after the rugby scores) if the Chinese security forces had the sense the Good Lord gave to a drunken kakapo.**  Lest the very sight of the Τibetan colors mortally wound the delicate sensitivities of CHTBBWSNTAOY, Xi Jinping’s security detail harassed the MP with the Chinese counterintelligence weapons of today (the umbrella) and yesterday (a good old fashioned elbow in the ribs).

Mr. Norman wishes to press charges.  Good luck with that.

The WSJ has a roundup of the mini-fracas and the international fallout which ends on a point I’ve made in this space not a few times.  In trying to “manage” situations which have a potential to be embarrassing for the Party or the PRC, Chinese officials ]]> Down in the antipode this week, an international scuffle broke out and it had nothing to do with the criminally atrocious officiating last night in both the Germany/Serbia and US/Slovenia matches…*

Russel Norman, MP and leader of the New Zealand Green Party, marked the arrival of Chinese heir-to-be-but-we’re-still-not-telling-anybody-officially-yet Xi Jinping to Wellington by waving a Τibetan flag and calling for Τibet’s independence.

A tacky move I’ll grant you, and one that probably would have rated a mention on page 23 of the Dominion Post (right after the rugby scores) if the Chinese security forces had the sense the Good Lord gave to a drunken kakapo.**  Lest the very sight of the Τibetan colors mortally wound the delicate sensitivities of CHTBBWSNTAOY, Xi Jinping’s security detail harassed the MP with the Chinese counterintelligence weapons of today (the umbrella) and yesterday (a good old fashioned elbow in the ribs).

Mr. Norman wishes to press charges.  Good luck with that.

The WSJ has a roundup of the mini-fracas and the international fallout which ends on a point I’ve made in this space not a few times.  In trying to “manage” situations which have a potential to be embarrassing for the Party or the PRC, Chinese officials and their goons have an innate knack for displays of staggering buffoonery that THEN become the story.  As the WSJ notes in the final paragraph, if Xi Jinping and his boyos had just sucked it up and ignored the blatherings of a Kiwi lefty politiciain, would this be making international news? Probably not.  But then again, nobody ever became poorer for betting against the propensity of the CCP for diplomatic foolishness, rash overreaction, or political shortsightedness when the issue of China’s claims to Τibet are questioned publicly.   So…I guess this is all just par for the course.

UPDATE 2:30 p.m. CST.  WSJ follows-up with a report on China’s official reaction to the incident.

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*Seriously, we’ve found Tim Donaghy’s Malian cousin.  I can’t even speak rationally about this right now.  First the refs absolutely JOBBED the Celtics yesterday morning and then last night’s debacle in South Africa.  No joke. I’m a wreck.  I just might seriously explore an intravenous drug habit to take my mind off of it all…Either that or I REALLY need to stop caring about sports so much.  Either way.

**I think it’s a kind of parrot. I just love the word.  It’s the five-year old inside us all.  And if you don’t think that my next fantasy baseball team will be named “J.D. Drew takes a kakapo” then you don’t know me.

“The CSL was already the third attempt at setting up the league because the other two collapsed due to corruption and fan violence,” Rowan Simons, author of Bamboo Goalposts, a recent book about soccer in China, told CNN.

“There’s corruption at every single level of the game, from the top to the very bottom. It’s an indictment of wider Chinese society and representative of a much bigger problem with corruption and nepotism. It’s more visible with football because your results are taken by your performance in international competition. So there is nowhere to hide. They are 85th in FIFA’s world rankings with a population of over a billion ]]> James Montague and Jaime FlorCruz have a feature piece up on CNN.com on the state of soccer (sorry, football) in China.  It details the trials and tribulations of establishing a professional league in the PRC and FIFA’s hopes to tap into China’s legions of soccer fans in the face of corruption and match fixing.  The whole piece is worth a read, especially for sports fans, but author Rowan Simons makes a point which bridges the gap between the world of athletic competition and the ills which face Chinese society as a whole:

“The CSL was already the third attempt at setting up the league because the other two collapsed due to corruption and fan violence,” Rowan Simons, author of Bamboo Goalposts, a recent book about soccer in China, told CNN.

“There’s corruption at every single level of the game, from the top to the very bottom. It’s an indictment of wider Chinese society and representative of a much bigger problem with corruption and nepotism. It’s more visible with football because your results are taken by your performance in international competition. So there is nowhere to hide. They are 85th in FIFA’s world rankings with a population of over a billion people.”

And with that, I will continue watching the Celtics/Magic game because there’s no corruption in the NBA, right?

You have a problem with that? Didn’t think so, because there’s a bleacher full of guys behind me who will find your ass, pull you out of your seat and get all Dropkick Murphys on you…

You can hold me down, prop open my eyelids with rusty nails and make me watch video of David Ortiz plunging needles into his body like he’s filming the last 15 seconds of  Kurt Cobain: The Movie and I still won’t believe that Papi was juiced on steroids even though he went from hitting 20 home runs a year with Twins to bashing 50 home runs only after joining the Red Sox and making the acquaintance of one Manuel Ramirez.

The cover of Sports Illustrated with Nomar Garciaparra that caused every red blooded New England male to question their sexuality for .000001 seconds? Yeah, nothing going on there.  Oh sure…right AFTER steroids became a big deal Nomar started breaking  down like a decade-old Xiali, but ]]> I want to come clean: I am a Red Sox fenqing.  Mao may have had his Red Guards but I’m a card-carrying armband-wearing brainless slogan-chanting member of the 红袜兵.*  Hey, we’ve got our catchy songs and marching anthem too.

You have a problem with that? Didn’t think so, because there’s a bleacher full of guys behind me who will find your ass, pull you out of your seat and get all Dropkick Murphys on you…

You can hold me down, prop open my eyelids with rusty nails and make me watch video of David Ortiz plunging needles into his body like he’s filming the last 15 seconds of  Kurt Cobain: The Movie and I still won’t believe that Papi was juiced on steroids even though he went from hitting 20 home runs a year with Twins to bashing 50 home runs only after joining the Red Sox and making the acquaintance of one Manuel Ramirez.

The cover of Sports Illustrated with Nomar Garciaparra that caused every red blooded New England male to question their sexuality for .000001 seconds? Yeah, nothing going on there.  Oh sure…right AFTER steroids became a big deal Nomar started breaking  down like a decade-old Xiali, but he wasn’t slamming hog hormones between his toes. Nope. Nope.  I will NOT believe it.

Don’t talk to me about history…or at least history that makes me uncomfortable.  I don’t care about how racist the Red Sox were; How they were the first team to pass on Jackie Robinson and the last team to integrate.  That’s the PAST…We’re all about the future.  Here and now, leadership should do whatever it takes to beat the evil imperialist powers and emerge a stronger nation, respected and feared.

86 Years of Humiliation is not quite a century, but we trusted the regime — a closed inner-circle given to palace intrigue — to make it right.  We BELIEVED.  We had FAITH.

Stories of censorship and media manipulation are just New York Post propaganda.  Even though the Red Sox own their own television station and have the largest city newspaper firmly in their back pocket and Boston’s sports journalists — one famous columnist in particular — make The China Daily and The Global Times look like epic heroes of independent reporting, it DOES NOT MATTER.  If they tell me that $14 million is a fair price to pay for J.D. “Called Strike Three” Drew, then I will brook no counter-narrative.  It is THE TRUTH.

(Oh yeah…and that whole business about taking our most famous historical figure and preserving parts of his body for future generations…SO WHAT? Like you never pickled or froze a departed relative for posterity? Yeah, right…)

Nothing makes me more irrational than sports.  If you’re massacring kittens for the Burmese Army but you’re doing it while wearing a vintage Yastrzemski jersey, than hey — You’re okay in my book.  Saving drowning orphans from shark infested waters while wearing a Yankee hat? Yeah, hope you oiled yourself up in tuna fat first, buddy….

I am not just some loser supporting people who take my money and don’t care what I think…I’m part of a NATION!

And I am not alone.  If my team isn’t doing well, it’s not OUR FAULT, it’s because the Yankees have more money or the league hates us or ANY OTHER reason other than “We suck.”  Rational truth and reason ARE NOT my friend.  I AM A FENWAY-QING!

Game on.

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*红袜兵 (For the Chinese-impaired, Hong Wa Bing (“Red Sox Guard”) a play on the Chinese name of the Red Guard 红卫兵 Hong Wei Bing.)

Yes, it’s that time of year again and in the spirit of exposing my stupidity to the public, I submit my picks for this year’s tourney:

Louisville, Michigan State, UConn, Memphis, Syracuse, Gonzaga, Duke, Florida State in the Eight; Florida State, Syracuse, Louisville, Memphis in the Final Four; and Louisville beating Florida State for the championship.

A little unconventional to be sure…but what the hell.

Bring on the madness.