There are posters

up all over the house today. They have some kind of happy smiling baby pandas up the top, and then big bold letters saying. "CHINA is a friend to the world. Beijing 2008." Just thought you should know how Chinese kids living in the states feel.

I am fine with the protests. It is easy, because I don't care about the Olympics anyway. But what's made me concerned in the last couple of days is the widespread objection to it, especially in the media. They have nothing to say about Tibet. I understand. It's a bizarre and awful situation, but not unique in the world. What's troublesome to me is that they regarding protesting in itself as something off-putting and terrible, and this is a bad attitude. There are myriad things in the world that need protesting, so much so that protesters get caring fatigue and others get fatigues from seeing protests. But you can't just adopt the, "oh, you hate to see that" attitude about a protest. Life is ugly, or at least disappointing, and there's nothing wrong with saying something about it.