Years of Poems and Spirits

Read on the New Yorker a story about the African slaves during American Revolutionary War. I was almost late for an appointment because I didn’t want to drop the magazine.

It is a book review but the author, Jill Lepore, narrated differently. Starting from the story of Harry Washington, “formerly the property of General Washington”, the author recounted the horrible stories of the black slaves in the 1770s. The British enticed them to rebel against the colonialists but then abandoned them after the war.

Some quotes:
“There is not a man of them but would leave us if they believed they could make their escape,” a cousin of Washington’s wrote from Mount Vernon, adding bitterly, “Liberty is sweet.”
–The word coming from a relatively benign slave-owner (I guess) tells how the coercive nature of the slavery. There is no liberty not because by choice but because of no choice.

When the British evacuated, fifteen thousand blacks went with them, though not necessarily to someplace better. … [in a frantic rush to escape America, the slaves] Clinging to the sides of the longboats, they were not allowed on board, but neither would they let go; in the end, their fingers were chopped off.
–It is so strangely true today as how the Mexican are risking their lives trying to coming in …

American allies reported seeing “herds of Negroes” fleeing through Virginia’s swamps of pine and cypress. American slave owners “seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New York, or even dragging them out of their beds.”

Pregnant women had to hurry, too, but not so fast as to bring on labor, lest their newborns miss their chance for a coveted “BB” certificate: “Born Free Behind British Lines.”

As the historian Gary Nash observes in “The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution” (Harvard; $19.95), slavery is so entirely missing from those histories that “it would appear that the British and the Americans fought for seven years as if half a million African Americans had been magically whisked off the continent.”
–The forgotten details of the American Essence/Dream/Soul.

Read this article from China Youth Daily: 美国在华企业评估中国城市竞争力

北京市首当其冲需要解决的问题是该市急剧恶化的交通堵塞。全市有超过250万辆轿车，而且每天还新增1000辆。在空气质量上，北京在中国的主要城市中持续排名最后，主要原因是机动车污染的显著增长。

日益恶化的环境也削弱了上海的竞争力. 空气污染使上海每年在医疗上至少多花80亿元人民币。2002年，污染造成的经济损失相当于上海GDP的2％。由于缺乏高素质、有经验的管理者和富有能力的职员. 该市的平均工资居中国大陆之首。

对于人口大省四川来说，缺乏的则是熟练工人。

对于天津和成都来说，地方保护主义、对中小企业的准入障碍、效率低下的海关办事效率等，则限制了当地对外来资本的吸引力。

Rural Reform:
1. Fees to tax: no fees or levies but increase of agriculture tax to 7%
2. From 2005 on, zero-burden.

Old rural tax/local revenue makeup:
1. Agriculture tax, cash corp tax, slaughter tax
2. Fees and levies
3. 3 Tiao? Wu Tong
4. Obliged labor

Wu Tong (五项统筹):
Education, family planning, social security, road construction, mailitary training

RFR is supposed to make up the difference from the reduction of rural tax. ZFZ found out the RFR are often short-changed. Even so, not all are distributed to the local level where they are affected by the rural tax reform.

Education funds:
Capital and expense funds from the state have to have “matching funds”
Matching funds–who is responsible to collect/fulfill?