Universal Love, by Mozi

So I just finished reading "Universal Love," by Mozi, a great Chinese philosopher. It took him an entire essay to explain that if everybody loved each other, everything would be fine. Way to go, Captain Obvious.

A Poem Translation

The Flowering Tree
By Xi Murong

So that we could meet
At the height of my beauty

For this
I prayed to Buddha for 500 years
I pleaded that we might meet in this life
And so he made me a tree
Growing by the way you would take

In the sunlight
Carefully blooming
Each petal my past life's desire

When you come by
Please carefully listen
To the quivering leaves
It is my yearning passion

And when you finally go
Without even a glimpse
My friend
Upon the ground behind you
Are not fallen petals but the fragments of my heart

Dead dogs

Several hungry puppies were suckling, but their uncaring mother went out into the cold of winter, and being still attached, the puppies froze to death.

-Story from a friend-

Super Doctor

June 11, 220 AD
Hubei, China

Does not give a f---

This guy named Hua Tuo is like the most amazing doctor ever. He can heal every single sick person and his methods never fail. One day he receives a house call to treat the arrow wound of a famous general named Guan Yu. Hua Tuo takes a look at the wound and gravely shakes his head, muttering, "The arrow has penetrated deep, and it was poisoned. Unless drastic measures are immediately taken, the entire arm will need to be amputated."

"What drastic measures?" queries Guan Yu.

"An operation so painful that I will have to prepare you for it by first erecting a large pole, linking a metal hoop around the pole, then sticking your arm through the hoop and binding it against the pole to make sure you don't pull away."

"The pole and hoop won't be necessary," says Guan Yu, who proceeds to sit down, enjoy a brew, and play chess with a friend, remaining utterly unfazed throughout the entire process, which involves removing the bandage, opening the wound, slicing away the infected flesh, exposing the bare bone, and finally creating a horrific sound by scraping away the poisoned portion of bone.

Guan Yu gets up, yawns, stretches out, and thanks Hua Tuo. Those in the vicinity are thoroughly impressed.

Breaking News

June 11, 2010
Henan, China

A bunch of photographers hire a model to sit naked on a rock so that they can practice their human figure photography. Suddenly, a mob of angry villagers appears, shouting and wielding sticks, led by an old man shouting "This is an immoral disgrace!" They attempt to attack the model, whom the photographers rally to protect.



"They do not understand art," claimed the photographers

Book Recommendation

Do you think clean energy is good for the environment? That the rise of agriculture was intentional? Or that technological progress has any potential for solving the current ecological crisis? Well, YOU ARE WRONG!

To find out why, as well as learning a variety of fascinating information on the important role of decomposition in healthy ecosystems, humanity's misguided attempts to harness nuclear energy, and the striking parallels between human and insect agriculture, read "The Spherical Mind," by Adam Oswald.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-spherical-mind/6347669

How to Trick the Strategist of A Rival Warlord Into Joining Your Side

The following story is excerpted from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a famous Chinese novel about warlords struggling for dominance over the nation following the fall of the Han Dynasty (about 200 CE).

Liu Bei and Cao Cao are two rival warlords vying for dominance in central China. Liu Bei is good and Cao Cao is evil (Moral ambiguity is not one of the novel's strong suites) Unfortunately, Cao Cao is way stronger. He has like 300,000 soldiers and Liu Bei has like a tenth that many.

So Liu Bei wises up and decides to even the odds by finding himself a good strategist. One day when he is out in the fields, some kid riding on a water buffalo tells him about a super smart guy named Xu Shu who lives in the area.




Liu Bei decides to go and persuade him to join the fight against Cao Cao. Unfortunately, Xu Shu is living somewhere off in the boonies precisely because he doesn't want to be pestered by warlords into joining their squabbles. Liu Bei finds him and pesters him to him join the squabble, to such an extent that he can no longer stand it and finally gives in.

Before long he is hatching and devising ingenious plans and strategies left and right. Cao Cao sends his subordinate general Cao Ren with a 50,000 man army to attack Liu Bei. This army gets totally owned due to the help of Liu Bei's newest strategist.

Cao Ren runs home and cries. Cao Cao is hella pissed. He captures Xu Shu's mom and asks her, nicely, to write a letter to her son persuading him to come over to Cao Cao's side. Xu Shu's mom responds by calling him bad names and throwing the ink tablet at him. Cao Cao is so pissed he almost orders her to be beheaded, but then he gets a better idea. Instead, he places her under house arrest and then tells his friend to go every day to her house with presents, pretending to pity her plight.

Every time she gets presents, she writes thank you notes, and after awhile Cao Cao and his friend have gathered enough thank you notes that they are able to imitate her style of calligraphy and thereby fabricate a letter from mom to Xu Shu telling him to come rescue her.

A distraught Xu Shu receives the letter and tearfully bids farewell to his new master, who is equally distressed to see him go. As they are parting for the final time, Liu Bei watches Xu Shu's horse disappear around the bend and angrily declares something to the effect of: "How I wish I could obliterate this forest, just to be able to keep Xu Shu in my line of vision for that little bit longer." It is a very moving scene.

Instead of being relieved to see him, mom is furious with Xu Shu for being duped by Cao Cao's tricks. She chastises him for believing a fabrication and abandoning a virtuous warlord for an evil one. The next day she hangs herself.

The End