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I'm blacklisted in Beijing.
Ann Ferland, traveling with her husband, informs me this evening that she'll have to wait until she gets home to check up on my most recent reflections.
"The Great Firewall of China seems to think your blog is too dangerous for people in this country to access," she writes.
In the next few days, this blog will have topped 20,000 visitors in slightly more than a year online. (I'd hoped to make that figure by its anniversary and fell short. And it was soooo in reach.) ... Imagine how many visitors I might have had if nearly 1.4 billion potential Chinese admirers weren't barred from reading? (I kid.)
I'm pretty sure that I know how this happened. In ranting about those who complain about the dark side of horse racing (drugs, etc.) and thus feed information to reporters anonymously rather than putting their names, reputations and credentials on the line to solidify their claims, I cited the Tiananmen Square "Tank Man" as a person of courage who changed the course of world history by putting himself at risk.
I suspect the Chinese communists would prefer the whole world would forget about Tiananmen Square. Fat chance. But, being a dictatorship, the Beijing government does have the power to blind its citizens to what those of us on the outside think of such totalitarianism.
At least I'm still not banned in Boston. Although wouldn't it make me darkly intriguing if I were?
