Ohiocore

As much as we lament the erosion of the newspaper industry, the sensational viciousness of cable TV and the vapidity of much of the blogosphere, every now and then it helps to step back, look around and say, damn, at least we're not Chinese state controlled media. Seriously. Check this editorial from the Global Times titled "Charlie Sheen is not filial".

If that sounds funny from the start, that's because it is. The Onion could not do a better job. Global Times has some interesting insights about East/West cultural differences (but serves just as often to evidence as to indicate them), mixed in with draconian state-serving policy positions, and then some truly remarkable statements:

• "With no firm hand to guide them, Western media has deliberately goaded him into making increasingly delusional statements."
  
  On first read, I almost missed the implied fix being governmental control. As bad as the celebrity schadenfreude spectacle might be, I'm pretty sure government suppression of it would be far worse. But I needn't have worried, because they soon spelled it out:
  
  
• "Chinese family, coworkers, or the authorities would have taken firm steps to make sure someone like Sheen did not make a public spectacle of himself."
  
  Because you wouldn't want that. Thanks, authorities! Also, good luck to the Chinese version of Hollywood trying to to catch folks' attention without publicly spectacular celebrities.


• "Sheen attracted 1 million Twitter followers in just 24 hours, yet more evidence that microblogs spread the most unhealthy contagions in society like a disease."
  
  Nice timing. Compare this attitude to the lovefest Western media are currently having with Twitter.... which you can understand, right? because it basically delivered democracy to citizens in African countries without any real coordination, courage, insight or agency on their part. Which is really just the Western media fantasizing that they had something to do with it since they are Twitter users. That's as close as most of them get.
  
  
• "And instead of epic parties at his home with porn stars, why not keep Sheen occupied with business banquets?"
  
  
Hahahaa. OK, after you get done laughing, you sorta have to wonder -- wait, is there something I don't know about Chinese business banquets?


• And the answer is, maaaaybe: "His employers are unhappy that he was distracted with prostitutes and drugs, and didn't show up to work on time. Why not take a tip from the Chinese business community, and make visits to a KTV parlor part of Sheen's workday?"
  
  KTV parlor means a Karaoke TV club. But that means sex for sale. More than this idea being pragmatically right or morally wrong, the remarkable thing is that it is definitely not how we usually think about it.
  
  
• Best for last here: "He ignored his own father's advice to keep quiet, who was once the president of the US."
  
  Because as bad as ignoring your father is, ignoring heads of state (even former ones) is worse. Of course, his dad was also part of civilian massacres in Vietnam and running a shadow industry to protect humanity from interstellar alien races... if we can add Apocalypse Now and Mass Effect 2 to The West Wing as fictions accepted as reality.
  
  Wow, you don't even know who was a real president and who just played one on TV. And you edit a "global" newspaper. Yes, please explain more to me about our system of government.

Or wait, does that mean your policy recommendations are also intended for the fictional universe?