We all are prone to laughter when a needle is somehow figuratively stuck in the backside of a pompous person or entity. Let's face it; none of us is terribly amused when someone preens their self-importance, and we're no more amused when self-importance is preened by an institution, a university or a company.
Or the People's Republic of China.
Way back around 1914 or so, there was a gold-mining town by the name of Cripple Creek, Colorado. Cripple Creek is just west of Colorado Springs and, back in its heyday had an active and thriving gold mine. Miners flocked to Cripple Creek to seek their fortune, and plenty of gold was found there.
Miners being what miners are, some other "industries" arose to take care of their, er, needs. And so along with the lawyers and accountants, and the schools and the like that grew up to support the growth of the town, so also arose the practice of a profession much older also than any other, if you get my drift.
So at about that time, Cripple Creek was visited by a writer for the New York Mail and Express by the name of Julian Leonard Street. Street was a pretty well-known writer with a humorous bent, back in the day when writers could actually put nouns and verbs together. For some reason that is not worth worrying about, he decided to pay a visit to Cripple Creek and write about the town.
The whole town knew about the visit and rolled out the red carpet for him. Suffice it to say that Mr. Street, after being wined and dined, had no end of great things he could have written about Cripple Creek, had he been so inclined.
However, such was not to be. No; Julian Street spent the preponderance of his article about Cripple Creek paying attention to the red-light district and its necessity, let us say, in a Western gold-mining town. The red carpet was ignored, the red lights called forth. The town, well, saw red.
Needless to say, the elders of the town of Cripple Creek were none too pleased. And being none too pleased, they responded in the most clever and appropriate way, by renaming a town boulevard. For at least as long as there was a red-light district in Cripple Creek, the avenue running right through it bore the name "Julian Street."
And so we find ourselves today admiring the brilliance of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who has had it up to here with the pompous Chinese government. China, as if taking a page from Barack Obama, believes that it knows far better than anyone else what is good for its people, even though that means one-party government and a heavy Chinese boot firmly on the neck of its billion or so citizens.
Senator Cruz proposed a bill which has now passed the full Senate, and is in the hands of the House of Representatives as we speak. In true Cripple Creek fashion, the bill reminds us of one of those little needles that can get perpetually stuck in the backsides of the self-important folks who run China these days.
Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese national who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. Liu had struggled for the rights of the Chinese people in opposition to its throat-booting government. For his efforts, he received the Nobel Prize, but he was already in prison in China. China jailed him for the same thing that the Nobel committee felt moved to honor him (It is ironic that the same people gave the same award to Barack Obama "on the come", and Obama would spend his first two years of unchecked power lacing on his boots until the voters of the USA, a month after the Liu Nobel announcement, gave him an electoral shellacking). Mr. Liu will be in prison for many years to come.
Ted Cruz proposed that the USA do to the Chinese leaders what Cripple Creek did to Julian Street. Under his bill, the name of the street in front of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Washington, DC would thereafter be known as Liu Xiaobo Plaza, and the address "1 Liu Xiaobo Plaza" would be assigned to that very Embassy.
The Senate approved the bill unanimously, if you can believe it. The House will likely go along, and we can expect the weak and feckless Obama to veto it.
Who cares. The Chinese have already warned us in ominous, James-Earl-Jones-with-a-Chinese-accent tones of "serious fallout" if the bill becomes law. To heck with them. What are they going to do, exactly? They're already wiretapping us and stealing secrets. They play currency games and their economy is going in an unpleasant direction, although their leaders are surely eating well.
I want to congratulate Ted Cruz for a brilliant idea, or for productively shepherding someone else's brilliant idea. I think we win this one no matter what Barack Obama does. It's just a shame that regardless, Mr. Liu rots in prison. Tells you all you need to know about China, regardless of what their embassy's address is.
Perhaps they should move it to Cripple Creek, Colorado.
Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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