Not All Dogs Go To Heaven

By Tara Overzat

Sen. Ted Kennedy passed this week after a 15 month battle with a malignant glioma, a type of brain cancer. While the media seems to be focusing on his “political achievements” and all the friends he had on Capitol Hill, Mary Jo Kopechne’s death seems to have been forgotten. Read more »

Chinese Marriage Fraud- How the Few Denigrate the Many

By Tara Overzat

Desperate times, desperate measures. Young, pretty girls trapped in a Communist country, where college grads are hugely disproportionate to available jobs, where the middle class is growing but hundreds of millions of peasants still work the soil, and where unattractive, unsuccessful foreign men go to escape, Read more »

US Journalists in N. Korea Sentenced to 12 Years

South Korea Protests for Ling and Lee

By Tara Overzat

Laura Ling, Euna Lee, US journalists doing a story on North Korean women fleeing into North China, were captured by North Korean border guards three months ago. After a 5 day kangaroo trial, they have been sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp. Read more »

A Real Kangaroo Court – Man Gets 1 Year for Murder

David Gabriel & Christina Mae Watson

By Tara Overzat

American David Gabriel “Gabe” Watson, the man accused of letting his wife of 11 days die by A) not attempting to retrieve her when she had problems scuba diving on their Australian honeymoon or B) intentionally harming her under water, has pleaded guilty. However, he will only Read more »

Obama Making Us Less Safe?

By Tara Overzat

It appears the security of Americans abroad has dropped since President Obama took office. Within his few months in office, Somali pirates attacked US ships for the first time (taking the captain hostage), an American journalist was thrown into an Iranian prison, and two journalists are being held against their will in North Korea Read more »

All That Glitters

I wrote this article last August, a few days after the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Sadly, I think little has changed, as stories of corruption and violence continue to leak out of the tightly controlled Chinese media. The original article can be found at The Atlasphere.

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All That Glitters

by Tara Overzat

Beijing was my home. For two years I lived and worked in the People’s Republic of China as an English and International Law teacher.

The people I met were like people anywhere with their dreams and hopes for a better life, not only for themselves but for their families.

My students were generally optimistic about their futures, with a booming economy and the sudden emergence of a middle class – but over time it was hard to ignore the set phrases about wanting to serve their “mother land” and achieve great things not for themselves but for the “whole of society.” Read more »

A Duty to Vote?

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So the charade continues. I saw this ad where a guy approaches a girl in the crowd and tells his minions to bring her tea to wake her up. She angrily responds saying she’s not asleep. The guy assumes a self-righteous reprimanding tone and says “it’s election day, if you’re not casting a vote, then you’re asleep.”

Read more »

Qaddafi (or his underling) Writes for the NY Times; Can Pres. Obama turn words into action?

by Tara Overzat

Back on 22 January 2009, the NY Times ran an op-ed piece with a by-line of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan political leader. The piece advocated a one state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict, as stated below. Read more »

The Sky is Falling for Tian Wenhua – But is it Fair?

by Tara Overzat

Tian Wenhua has pleaded guilty to the charges facing her in court, charges that hold a penalty up to (& likely) the death penalty. How does one come to the conclusion that their death is okay? Is her advanced age (Tian is 66) a factor? How do her children feel about this? Did she make enough money as SanLu’s chairperson to send them abroad and give them a chance at a more pure life? Does she feel like her work on this Earth is done and she has accomplished her goal of helping her family get ahead? Read more »

The SanLu Trials – Will the killing ever stop?

by Tara Overzat

Reports are sketchy, but it appears that a total of 20 people have already been put on criminal trial, or are about to be, in the SanLu tainted milk scandal. These include Tian Wenhua, the former head of SanLu and dubious recipient of the 2006 Women’s World Excellence Award, other executives in the company, and the persons down the line allegedly responsible for actually putting melamine in the milk products. Read more »