Not What We Mean By Lending A Hand

BEIJING — Chen Fuchao, a man heavily in debt, had been contemplating suicide on a bridge in southern China for hours when a passer-by came up, shook his hand _ and pushed him off the ledge.

Chen fell 26 feet (8 meters) onto a partially inflated emergency air cushion laid out by authorities and survived, suffering spine and elbow injuries, the official Xinhua News Agency said Saturday.

The passer-by, 66-year-old Lai Jiansheng, had been fed up with what he called Chen's "selfish activity," Xinhua said. Traffic around the Haizhu bridge in the city of Guangzhou had been backed up for five hours and police had cordoned off the area.

"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest," Lai was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals."

Xinhua said Lai was "taken away by police" but did not elaborate.

A police officer who answered the telephone Saturday at a station close to the bridge confirmed the incident and said it was under investigation. He refused to give any other details and hung up.

According to Xinhua, Chen wanted to kill himself because he had accrued 2 million yuan ($290,000) in debt from a failed construction project.

On Thursday, he made his way to the Haizhu bridge, where 11 other people have tried to take their lives since April.

Lai volunteered to talk Chen down but was turned away by police, Xinhua said. Lai then broke through the cordon, climbed to where Chen sat, greeted him with a handshake, then pushed.

Photos in the Beijing Morning Post showed Lai, shoeless and in a T-shirt, saluting after Chen fell

Zen And The Ladies Man, The Big Guy Takes Notes, and Things Are Gonna Slide

I have been a huge fan of Leonard Cohen for 40 years now, his work has given me part of the language of my heart. We saw his tour this week.... it was part concert, part victory lap, and a moment of enlightenment delivered by this thin poet, prophet, and best song writer since King David. Sitting in front of us was a large man busy writing notes throughout the entire show. Not very Zen oversize grasshopper.

You can analyze poetry or music all you like, but that's not the same as dancing. I can watch all the love stories in the world, but that would never let me know what the morning light looks like as it drips across the small of a womans back when she dreams beside me at dawn. Poetry is light, art gives vision, and God is found in the silent glances more often than the explanation points.

Leonard Cohen celebrates love and what it can do to us, while .he warns of the future prepared by those 'killers in high places' . My prayer is that we continue to notice the cracks where the light comes in, and dance there as long as we can.

Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires

POTUS: Thank you everyone, before we begin I have a short statement. After consulting Doctor Roger Daltrey of the WHO and with the WHO Director Dr. Cindy Lou, here are some simple steps you should take:

Wash your hands.
Cover your mouth when you cough.
Girls should wipe from front to back.
Don't pick your nose.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
He who smelt it dealt it.
Don't run with scissors.
Wash behind your ears.
Don't eat anything larger than your head.
If you shake it more than twice, your playing with it.
Don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and don't mess with Joe Biden.

Thank you and now I'll take questions......

Look Back In Anger ( N'est pas?)

I was walking back to the TV studio from Union Station this morning when I found myself in a crowd of French tourists. My poorly remembered college French only allowed me to get the gist of their conversation, but I gathered they were excited to see the US Capitol. As one walks from the west side of the station, the Capitol dome is suddenly revealed from behind a screen of trees glimmering in the morning sun, with the statue of Freedom ever looking to the east. I began to wonder what Madame Freedom would think of the 'debate' in this country about torture, and it stuck me that all those brave men and women who fought and bled over the years under her banner are owed a profound apology by Msrs. Bush, Cheney et. al. My father and the men of his generation went to Europe with the moral authority to conduct the trials at Nuremberg. Where has that authority gone now in the wake of Abu Garib?

So I tell you what Mr. Obama, it's not for you alone to decide if we should prosecute those responsible for spitting on our constitution.... ask these tourists which country they came to see: Bush and Cheney's or Washington and Jefferson’s. Ask my father and the women and men in all those neat rows across the river in Arlington. Ask the lady on top of that alabaster building on the hill. Look back? Hell yes Mr. Obama, look back with anger.

Ghosts On The Red Line

Riding the train again.. all these years now on the Red Line..sleepy workers with chains of ID hung round our necks like talisman, screaming tourists children swinging on the hand rails, and the flickering images half seen and half imagined out dirty windows. More and more now I have these small daydreams as we rock and sway under the city......I startle awake as we stop at Dupont Circle, and then back to these half dreams.. Jan on that beach watching Lake Huron... kissing Davida under the moonlight, Sheila's scent on my fingers as I picked up my guitar, Nicki in a taxi on 48th street, blues on that Naw'lins station with sweat in my eyes, the housewife south of Kalamazoo, Kiwi in the shadows of Salt Lake... all these ghosts filling my head...and I wonder is this just the price for the life I've lived, is this the cost of loving more than once or twice?
If you could have told me all those years ago when I was a sandy virgin on that beach with Jan that some day I'd be old and dreaming and seeing her face on a dirty subway window.. I don't think I would have understood.... I didn't have the vision then...I'd never seen the ghosts.

Morons On The Edge Of America, The Price Of Mercy & Karla Faye

Here in South Carolina at the beach (in more ways than one the edge of America):

I overheard a young guy the next table over at Boots & Johns Biscuit Shack yesterday. He was 'explaining things' to his friends: The British had 'something to do' with the Boston Tea Party. And he was pretty sure (though not positive) that the Three Musketeers were French. Somewhere Msr. Dumas is rolling in his French grave. When you enter Boots & Johns there is a photo on the wall of the owner (not sure if it's Boots or John) with Dick Cheney, and Fox News is always on the Tee Vee behind the counter. Something tells me that the young idiot I sat next to may turn up at one of those 'spontaneous' "Tea Party" protests organized by Fox News. Someday when the sad history of the decline and fall of America is written, I'm quite sure that repeal of the fairness doctrine will figure prominently on the historian’s list of precipitate causes.

My friend was telling me the other day about a married couple she knows. They are both doctors, very nice people and wonderfully successful. It seems they have made their bundle by running a group of 'pain clinics'. It turns out that they have made so much money; they've managed to buy their own island somewhere. This is the point where I lost my mind and started yelling: "They have their own fucking island?? "Selling pain relief?? In a country where 50 million people have no health insurance?? How in the name of jumping fucking Jesus did we end up with a system that puts a price tag on pain? The last time I checked the words of the master did not say, " Blessed are the merciful for they shall be able to buy their own fucking island".

I am reminded of the man who only promised paradise to one living soul on this earth: the 'good thief' dying beside him at the hands of the state. I don't much care for that ' six dudes you'll meet in heaven' nonsense being sold these days, but two folks I'm pretty sure you might see there are Karla Faye Tucker and that fella from the hill outside the city.

Overheard At The K&W Resturant

Conversation in a restaurant April 2009

Older man seated alone on cell phone:


Hey yeah it’s me how ya doin?

Yeah yeah? So hows that wife?

Everybody?

Uh huh ahh yeah I see what’s that?

Oh yeah? Really?

What ..Cancer?

Uh huh… yeah that’s too bad ..she was a good dog I remember.

Yeah..sorry uh huh.

.How’s the store this year?

In the black or red?

Oh yeah we’re fine…..yeah yeah I just….

Well….I uh..yeah, oh oh..I almost forgot

Yeah when you come down

Yeah I got a set of (unintelligible) yeah I piad 795..no shit…

no no I’m gonna let ‘em go for 275 tops yeah….

You’ll see ‘em when you come down.

OK then..yeah I just you know I yeah