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"The Dalai Lama's so-called 'middle way' is a naked expression of 'Tibet independence' aimed at nakedly spreading..."

"... the despicable plot of opposing the tide of history."

That's AP translation of an editorial that appeared in the Chinese Tibet Daily. Strange the way "naked" appears twice. Not strange, but chilling is the notion that history has a tide and it's despicable to oppose it.

From a story in the NYT about the decision by a Tibetan exiles -- convening in Dharamsala, India -- not to seek independence from China but to continue with the Dalai Lama's "middle way."

ADDED: Want to swim naked in the tide of history?

Mao Zedong loved to swim. In his youth, he advocated swimming as a way of strengthening the bodies of Chinese citizens... But especially after 1955, when he was in his early 60s and at the height of his political power as leader of the Chinese People's Republic, swimming became a central part of his life. He swam so often in the large pool constructed for the top party leaders in their closely guarded compound that the others eventually left him as the pool's sole user. He swam in the often stormy ocean off the north China coast, when the Communist Party leadership gathered there for its annual conferences. And, despite the pleadings of his security guards and his physician, he swam in the heavily polluted rivers of south China, drifting miles downstream with the current, head back, stomach in the air, hands and legs barely moving, unfazed by the globs of human waste gliding gently past. "Maybe you're afraid of sinking," he would chide his companions if they began to panic in the water. "Don't think about it. If you don't think about it, you won't sink. If you do, you will."

Full post as published by Althouse on November 22, 2008 (boomark / email).