Hey, all you folks in town to protest the Republican National Convention: Hold off on the graffiti.

Also, don’t steal from local businesses. And by all means, before you do something that affects someone else, ask for permission.

The RNC Welcoming Committee, a high-profile group of self-described anarchists who have repeatedly declared their intention to shut down the convention entirely, has published a handy four-page broadsheet aimed at guiding the thousands of protesters expected to converge on the Twin Cities next week at the same time as – though not in conjunction with – the Republicans.

“OK, here’s the plan,” the guide says. “It’s really quite simple: On September 1 don’t let them get to the convention.

“How do we do that? Well, my friend, that part is up to you. The most important part of the strategy is to do something.

“The politicians coming to the RNC would have you believe that the decisions about our lives and world are a spectator sport, something to be watched from afar and occasionally to be influenced by marking a piece of paper to choose the next decision maker. We say that our lives are our own, and by stopping their spectacle we will show that we have the power to take matters into our own hands.”

Inside, the group outlines the “swarm, seize, stay” plan, which it describes as its “mantra” for Monday, the convention’s first day:

“Move into downtown St. Paul via swarms of various sizes, from multiple directions, and with diverse tactical intentions. Seize space throughboth hard (lockboxes, etc.) and soft (congestion, etc.), fixed and mobile, blockading methods. Stay engaged with the situation in downtown St. Paul as long as necessary. Regroup. Reinforce.”

The guide includes a calendar of not only the protesters’ plans, but also times during which delegates will arrive at and depart the Xcel Energy Center each day of the convention. It gives information about support groups and “spokescouncils” – meetings of representatives from the various protest groups at the “Convergence Center,” located at 627 Smith Ave. S. in St. Paul.

And it offers tips on the proper decorum for protesters.

“Respect the neighbors,” it says. “Please do not steal from or tag local businesses, residences and gardens near the convergence space.

“Keep front clear. Do not gather in large noisy crowds near the building. There are parks nearby for gathering, smoking, etc.”

And this one:

“Ask for positive reinforcement before taking actions that affect others, like sexual interactions, taking pictures. Consent is the presence of ‘yes,’ not the absence of ‘no.’”

The broadsheet’s entire back page is filled with information about logistics and support groups, and also lists a meal schedule for the duration of the convention. It advises protesters to check in at the Convergence Center for updates, and adds that a group called Seeds of Peace will be providing “healthy meals as needed to folks doing jail support and to people as they are released from jail.”

And one of the (presumably) most important items: basic legal information, boxed and highlighted on the front page, and attributed to www.coldsnaplegal.org.

“You never have to talk to cops, no matter what they tell you,” it advises. “In fact, it’s best not to. Say, ‘I am going to remain silent. I want to speak to a lawyer.’ If a cop stops and tries to ask you questions, ask: ‘Am I being detained?’ If not, you are free to go. We recommend you do so! If they try to search you, say ‘I do not consent to a search.’ Repeat as needed.

“Stay safe! Practice security culture, and only work with people you trust!”

Dicey morning here at Politics in Minnesota, with news about John McCain's Veep pick changing from minute to minute.

Whether it's GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty or not (and it looks like it's not), Minnesota politicos should know that prominent Twin Cities businessman and diehard Democrat Vance Opperman thinks McCain should pick Pawlenty.

In a "memo" to RNC GOP delegates and alternates in the September issue of Twin Cities Business magazine, Opperman writes:

"You should nominate Governor Tim Pawlenty as vice president of the United States. He would bring youth, energy, and tireless enthusiasm to your ticket. Tim is a committed conservative on social issues, while at the same time not regarded as a wingnut—you know what I mean. And as a governor, he has actually run something as an executive. Do the right thing: Nominate Pawlenty."

Opperman is a class act and part of our state's rich tradition of promoting our native sons and daughters, regardelss of their party affiliations.

By the way, Opperman's monthly column is a must-read.  Some of Opperman's other September straight-shooting:

"Our current immigration policy may do a lot for orderly shrubbery, but it doesn't do much for intellectual property."

Anyone besides me find Dean Barkley's prominent use of "Senator" in his current U.S. Senate campaign awkward, if not in bad form? All 2008 Barkley campaign communications refer to him as "Senator." Then there's his newly launched web site: senatorbarkley.com. Certainly traditional protocol does provide that former elected officials forever retain their titles. Informally, though, that protocol has evolved to dropping the title when the politician moves on to a different field. For example, both former Governors Wendy Anderson and Arne Carlson are still routinely called "Governor." But in the years Anderson practiced law and lobbied for the Larkin, Hoffman firm, "Governor" was dropped because it blurred his then-current role as an attorney advocate. Another example is Mike Hatch. No one calls him "Attorney General" now that he's practicing law at the firm of Blackwell & Burke.

After serving in the Senate, Barkley went on to work as a contract lobbyist at the Minnesota legislature and he then managed the 2006 Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman's campaign. [Friedman received only 12% of the vote despite memorable campaign slogans like his stated goal of the "dewussification of Texas."] Nobody called Barkley "Senator" when he held those jobs. We're guessing Barkley did not insist on "Senator" in his Match.com personal ad. 

Maybe our "bad form" sense stems from the fact that Barkley was appointed to the U.S. Senate in the chaos that became the 2002 Senate race after the Wellstone plane crash. At the exact same time, mere days from the election, as Norm Coleman and Walter Mondale were having their one and only debate downtown St. Paul at the Fitzgerald Theater, Gov. Jesse Ventura was up the hill at the Capitol appointing Barkley. Barkley was officially a U.S. Senator for only two months. 

One final thought. Barkley, as he has done in all his campaigns, is running as the anti-establishment candidate. Doesn't "Senator" scream establishment?!

A reporter takes on the Fair with pen and camera – and even survives an encounter with a statue of Jesse Ventura

You’ll never be able to find anyone to argue with this fact: We Minnesotans love our State Fair.

And politicians love it more than anyone.

Think about it: You’re running for office. You want to shake as many Minnesota hands and pose for as many photos with Pronto Pup-munching Minnesotans as possible. The logical conclusion: Spend so much time at the fair that your hands become numb and your voice disappears.

This being an election year, you can believe that politicians were thick on the ground Saturday at the Great Minnesota Get-Together. U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, the DFL-endorsed challenger to Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, held court in front of potential constituents for several hours.

“Look at that,” observed a fairgoer, whose Southern accent betrayed her as a non-native (and thus ineligible to vote for Franken anyway). “They’ve got him standing on a box, and he’s still shorter than everyone else.”

In the big DFL booth near the Snelling Avenue entrance to the fairgrounds, enterprising DFL volunteers had supplied a stack of Post-It notes and asked fairgoers to tack up “top reasons to dump Norm Coleman.” Among them: “He’s an empty suit.” “He’s Bush’s friend.” “Because he may think he can rejoin the DFL.” And: “He has a Jersey accent (in Minnesota)!”

Partway up Machinery Hill, Priscilla Lord Faris, the DFLer challenging Franken in the Sept. 9 primary, did some one-on-one campaigning.

“I’ve known her for years,” confided a volunteer in Lord Faris’ booth, watching the candidate chat with a fairgoer and his son. “She’s really a great gal.”

Just a cheese curd’s throw away from Lord Faris’ encampment was a booth with a big sign: “Nader-Gonzalez 2008.”

“Who is Na-dair?” wondered a fairgoer. Told that it was, in fact, perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader, she looked stunned, then embarrassed at her mispronunciation. “He’s running again!” she said.

And still farther up Machinery Hill, supporters of Dean Barkley, who spent two months as a U.S. senator from Minnesota in 2002 after U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone’s death in a plane crash, staffed a booth that was a tribute to pure symbiosis.

Barkley, a member of the Independence Party of Minnesota (formerly the Minnesota Reform Party), made several unsuccessful stabs at national office before gaining political credibility as the man whose guidance turned Jesse “The Body” Ventura into Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura in 1998. Ventura appointed him to fill the remainder of Wellstone’s term in 2002; this year, the former governor is managing Barkley’s campaign for the U.S. Senate as an Independence Party candidate.

And Barkley’s State Fair booth this year is dominated not, as one might expect, by Barkley photos, but by a large fiberglass statue of Ventura. It was a popular attraction Saturday afternoon; fairgoers meandered by and posed for photos beside the statue. (Small dents above the statue’s left eyebrow and on the tip of the nose indicated that someone might have tried a little unsuccessful facial reconstruction.)

A media jackal even made an attempt at fence mending and posed for a photo kissing Ventura’s fiberglass cheek.

Can’t we all just get along?

More photos: Left: Volunteers at the Minnesota GOP booth. Right: a bulletin board set up in the DFL building. Fairgoers could write “reasons to dump Norm Coleman” on Post-It notes and tack them up.

Yes, indeed.  Regular Politics in Minnesota readers will note we've changed our masthead.

The change reflects the beginning of a ton of change as we, along with our sister publication, the Saint Paul Legal Ledger Capitol Report, retool for the changing information needs of our readers.  Please keep me and Capitol Report Managing Editor Bill Clements posted on what you like -- and what you don't like -- about what we're doing. 

We're excited about providing our own unique blend of news coverage for the Republican National Convention. Some of us are credentialed for the convention. Some of us will be running all over town. And some of us will be set up at the New Media Space nearby the Xcel, hosted by TheUptake.org. PIM's team of Dan Feidt, Peter Bartz-Gallagher and Andy French, along with publisher Sarah Janecek, will join Capitol Report managing editor Clements, reporters Betsy Sundquist and Charley Shaw, photographer Bill Klotz, and Web Editor Adam Johnson. We'll be posting at PoliticsInMinnesota.com (RSS feed is also available). We're also beefing up our team with free-lancers Kevin Featherly and Frank Jossi.

And, we're proud to announce that prominent Minnesota Republican blogger Michael Brodkorb of MinnesotaDemocratsExposed will blog for us, as well.  Brodkorb is an elected delegate and we hope to have him blogging live from the convention floor. 

We plan on posting news stories and our observations 24/7 as soon as things start heating up, probably mid-to-late next week. For the best insider Minnesota political coverage, be sure to make www.politicsinminnesota.com part of your surfing routine.

Meanwhile, here are some news tidbits about the RNC.  At Politics in Minnesota, we call them "Bits & Pieces" in our Weekly Reports.

Bits & Pieces: RNC Edition

As preparations downtown are in full swing for the RNC, we decided to go to the front lines and see how St. Paul is coping. At the very edge of the vehicles-prohibited zone lies the world-famous Mickey's Diner. Over a Lil' Jill (grilled cheese with tomato and bacon, side of chili—it's a must) PIM staff learned that Mickey's has been suffering a decline in business over the past few weeks due to the closing of the Xcel Center—no late-night concertgoers to fill the seats. Up by the grill, we talked to rapid-fire chef David Steien, who said it would be business as usual for the Convention, except he'd have to leave his motorcycle a few yards east of its normal parking place to respect the vehicle ban. Otherwise, Mickey's wasn't sure what to expect. Business should be brisk during the day, but Steien thought the no-drive zone might put a damper on evening traffic downtown.

Outside the Xcel, transformations are obvious. Fenced areas with black hybrid Chevy SUVs seem to be sprouting everywhere. We saw crews adjusting a huge bundle of cables coming from the X; the venue was chosen partly because of its cutting edge data connectivity. Finally, the most obvious modification to the cityscape is the addition of an incredible number of surveillance cameras, attached to streetlights and buildings.

Bob Collins at MPR's News Cut has an interesting post about who's on the other end of the cameras. He highlights an online forum's debate that calls the cameras "creepy and unwelcoming." Interesting media play: KSTP reported August 11th that the cameras would be connected to a public website during the RNC, so all could view the Big Brother perspective as webcams. "This is just another way to confirm with people of the level of trust with the St. Paul Police Department," said Sgt. Jack Serier. Interestingly, Serier told the Pioneer Press in an August 13th story that the camera feeds would not be rigged to the Web until after the RNC. [We'd bet the city lawyers didn't like the idea!]

Amusing billboards are popping up: Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has the priceless message, "Welcome, Rich White Oligarchs!" on I-494, as visitors leave the international airport. The Daily Show will be broadcasting from the History Theatre at McNally Smith College of Music; theoretically you could get tickets here. Taping time is 5 p.m., show up at 3 p.m. or else keep an eye out for roaming correspondents of "the best campaign team in the universe ever," now nearly the most trusted source of news in America, the NY Times noted. A 2007 Pew poll showed Jon Stewart tied for fourth most-trusted, alongside Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and Anderson Cooper. [Unlike most news sources, they can process both irony and public relations spin that saturates mainstream coverage now days.]

CNN's decidedly irony-free Wolf Blitzer, along with Campbell Brown, Anderson Cooper and the rest will be at the Eagle Grill, and they are even going to bring John King's favorite device, the famed "magic wall" touchscreen famously deployed during the primaries. They will be filming in HD.

Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine's Brian Lambert plans to park at and blog from the bar at The Liffey, just across the street from the X. Do check out "Lambert to the Slaughter."

MSNBC will be broadcasting from Rice Park, and reportedly the St. Paul Library system director Melanie Huggins' office in the adjacent Central Library has been turned into MSNBC's green room for talent. How many anti-GOP slams will MSNBC pack into their broadcasts?!

FOX News will be offering "The FOX Experience" from the large media tent across from the Xcel Center. Will they be able to set a new record for most onscreen American flag graphics?!

Chino Latino has a billboard on Hennepin Avenue in Uptown saying "Delegates, Try Our Capitalist Pig Roast." Parasole founder and partner Phil Roberts issued a clarification press release this morning, saying "Some callers find the billboard in bad taste, even after they discover that the Pig Roast is an offering that might be of interest TO delegates, not one we prepare WITH delegates. Others call with credit card in hand, wanting to book a party of 20, then end up accusing us of false advertising."

More than 40 local makeup artists applied to be the RNC makeup artist. Don't have a clue who made the decision at the RNC, but whoever did sure made the right call: KARE 11's Bonnie Erickson got the job. Bonnie is simply the best. [Publisher's note: On occasion, Erickson has performed makeup miracles on your publisher. No small feat, that.]

Keegan's Irish Pub has declared itself the "Official Blogger Headquarters" with free wi-fi and TVs tuned to coverage. "Bloggers who enjoy face to face interaction with follow bloggers are invited to meet at the pub. Bloggers who wish to work quietly and on their own are also invited," they say. They point out that the Northeast Minneapolis locale will have less traffic congestion than elsewhere.

The Pioneer Press has launched a sub-site organized in blog form at rnc2008.twincities.com. The PiPress has put forth consistently good blogging (especially "Political Animal," from the dynamic duo Rachel Stassen-Berger and Bill Salisbury) but the paper does need to make blogs much easier to find on the site. Currently the link to the new site is hidden away on the lower-right of the front page, and in fact that link doesn't even go to the new rnc2008 sub-domain - it goes here instead.

The American Cancer Society is running an ad campaign dubbed "Harry and Louise" directed at the the convention audiences, under the aegis of the Cancer Action Network. They're running spots on national cable networks and the Sunday morning news programs during the conventions; the ads will also run about 40 times on local network affiliates. On September 4th they're throwing a fundraiser with former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has started up the Center for Health Transformation. Check out the Gingrich event and an interview with their national president.

Microsoft is also a RNC tech sponsor and will help out with "collaborative virtual workspaces," volunteer management and venue scheduling. "Digital concierges" will be available via the spiffy new Microsoft Surface touchscreen computers, with transportation, hotels, restaurants and entertainment. They also sponsored an essay contest about the American flag - winners Victoria Blackstone of Roseville and Mark Rugnetta of Savage (15 and 13 respectively) won Xboxes and laptops from Qwest. More here.

The Mall of America will have a variety of events going on, and the most promising looks like "Kids Stump the Delegate Game Show" on September 3rd at 10 a.m. In "a contest of wills," six local fifth and sixth-graders will take on six RNC delegates in an "exciting, action-packed game show."

If you have ever watched the Minnesota State Legislature on television, you have probably witnessed an off-color comment or an amazingly laughable one-liner only to want to witness them again. Thankfully, the people at KSTP's At Issue, hosted by Tom Hauser, have the best of the best At Issue clips compiled on their website from 2000 to 2008.

The clips range widely: then-Rep. Pawlenty says, "I thought Austin Powers had mojo, but after watching Rep. [Ted] Winter at the Iron Range party last night, he’s got the mojo;" Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia) makes the startling observation that "Zero percent of zero is zero..."; to a clip of then-Gov. Jesse Ventura almost breaking out into tears... and that’s just in 2000.

One recurring motif from At Issue's Greatest Hits are the Animal House clips. The scene where John Belushi screams "FOOD FIGHT!" works as a metaphor for floor debates. Belushi saying "Have a beer, it don't cost nothing," and then spilling his beer on the floor juxtaposes with clips of the Legislature's endless ventures into liquor laws and booze in general. In the 2008 Greatest Hits the topic of the 4 a.m. bar close was debated on the floor. Sen. Julianne Ortman (R-Chanhassen) wondered, "What are they doing in St. Paul?" A fair question since only one bar in the metro area has paid the $2500 fee to stay open until 4 a.m., Sheik's Palace Royal. [First Avenue may also obtain a license.]

If one experienced all these moments watching Channel 17, legislators' remarks would merely range from the banal to the absurd; thanks to the excellent editing, rearranged and shorn of their context, even the most boring clips become entertaining and frequently, laugh-out-loud funny.

It's been a little quiet on our front page, but behind the scenes we are working on re-engineering PoliticsInMinnesota.com to handle our coverage of the Republican National Convention.

We'll be joined by the team of our sister publication, the Saint Paul Legal Ledger Capitol Report. Reporters from our southwestern counterpart, the Arizona Capitol Times, will also be in St. Paul to cover their hometown guy, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

We've added a new 2008 U.S. Congress Election Directory, which has contact information and websites for every candidate for the U.S. House and Senate. Not every candidate provided contact info to the Secretary of State (our source), so if you have more information, please contact us and it will be added promptly.

We have posted some more Weekly Reports, available for free:

• Politics in Minnesota: The Weekly Report, Vol. 4, Issue 5 - 7/28/2008 - In this issue: Congratulations, Steve Sviggum; Notes From NCSL; House Race Jeers, Cheers And Website Tips; 8th Congressional District Staff; Bits & Pieces; Politics in Minnesota Blog Interview; Lobbyist Watch.
• Politics in Minnesota: The Weekly Report, Vol. 4, Issue 4 - 7/18/2008: In this issue: New "Infocenter" Rocks; MCCL Sees Only One Pro-Lifer In The CD6 race... And It's Not Tinklenberg; The Western Fringe: Minnesota's 7th Congressional District; The DFL Field In 2010; Bits & Pieces; Lobbyist Watch; Setting The Record Straight.
• Politics in Minnesota: The Weekly Report - Vol. 4, Issue 3 - 7/11/2008: In this issue: Jesse Won't Run; RIP: The Political Impact Of The Newspaper Institutional Editorial; DFL Congressional Candidates Have Best Shot In Years; The Ron Paul Revolution Reaches Minnesota's House Races; Top Ten House Races To Watch: Part II; Bit & Pieces; Lobbyist Watch.

Additionally, we have a few new items on the site to check out. We've got a couple new blogs for our Minnesota political blog directory on the left and the right, and they're good reads, with a lot of energy going into the material.

• The Twin Cities Daily Liberal (tcdailyliberal.blogspot.com), by Jeff Rosenberg, who describes himself as a "full-time policy wonk and part-time blogger," has been doing some nifty electoral mapping projects, as well as Twittering away (Twitter is an increasingly popular form of microblogging that's kicked into high gear among many politically engaged Minnesotans as the RNC approaches).
• On the right, Chris Kumpula at What the Republic Can Do (whattherepubliccando.blogspot.com) is closely covering the big dustup in the GOP's Senate District 16 race between recently endorsed Rep. Mark Olson (R-Big Lake) and the party establishment. Kumpula's definitely a partisan for Olson and an advocate of the local party members that backed him.

Thanks for stopping by. We'll have a whole new front page configuration up shortly.

Improving the presentation of one of the strangest Minnesota state government document batches we've ever run across, PIM staff has released a more complete version of the massive MnDOT doc dump about the rather mysterious plan hatched by the North American Super Corridor Coalition (NASCO) to implement a military-style RFID-powered shipping container tracking system on Interstates 35 and 94. We first reported this last July, and provided additional documents obtained by lawyer Nathan Hansen in December.

Now you can get the 598 pages in one PDF file, (a more svelte 43 MB) and we used optical character recognition to make it fully searchable. The rest of the media has still overlooked this strange story about yet another federal boondoggle; in this case, it's been proposed by NASCO's backers at Lockheed Martin, which would collect revenue from building the system, and mine the data it would generate.

To recap: they want to set up monitoring centers dubbed "Total Transportation Domain Awareness Centers of Excellence," which appear to be 'data fusion' centers that would likely turn perpetual profits for contractors supporting the facilities. A system called NAFTRACS, which is based on the military's existing shipping container tracking system, would primarily use RFID tag-based tracking stations to keep an eye on shipping containers, and feed this information into a 'data warehouse' system, which in turn would support some type of supply-chain management system.

[Sidebar: the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" bill also promotes other "centers of excellence" data fusion centers that would monitor America, so apparently this sort of Big Brother proposal is all the rage in Washington.]

Interestingly, the NASCO plan specifies that their NAFTRACS system would generate shipping container supply-chain data that Lockheed's business unit in Eagan would market as a business product. It appears that NASCO's plan has now become illegal under state law, because this year's (vetoed and overridden) transportation finance bill specifically banned privatizing the management of Minnesota's highways:

A road authority may not sell, lease, execute a development agreement for a BOT
facility or BTO facility that transfers an existing highway lane, or otherwise relinquish management of a highway...

No one at the Legislature seems to know about this: is anyone going to check out what the heck is going on? Stay tuned...

Like many people, I consider myself an Olympics junkie.  I love all of it.  The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.  The raw display and panoply of emotions by athletes who have trained their entire lives to be on the world stage.  The finest pageantry and architecture the human race can produce. 

The Chinese are producing a spectacular show (setting aside for a moment the shock and horror of losing prominent Minnesotan Todd Bachman in a random attack). 

But as I watch the Chinese athletes, I can't help but become obsessed by what I observed almost three years ago when I accompanied Governor Tim Pawlenty's trade mission to China. [You can read all the posts here.]

What 30 years of China's policy of limiting couples to having only one child has wrought.  Psychology Today explores other societal implications in a must-read article, the "Plight of the Little Emperors." 

Here's what I wrote in November 2005, from Beijing:

China's Gauntlet Of Shame

I might as well have taken the photos because their faces will forever be burned into my memory.

The faces of human beings rejected by China. Faces of people whose pain defies comprehension.

Faces of people too painful to photograph.

Several days ago, I wrote about our visit to the Forbidden City in Beijing. But I did not tell you about the most important part.

Our tour buses, like dozens of others, were parked on a major thoroughfare directly north outside the City. Immediately upon leaving the confines of the City, we were accosted by beggars.This is a typical phenomenon outside many of the world's major historical sites--people who beg for a living.

But to get to our bus, the Chinese beggar gauntlet was like none other in the world. Each beggar was in his or her late teens or early 20s. Each beggar was more aggressive than any I had ever encountered.

Each beggar was severely deformed. There was the boy without half of his arm who shoved his stump a few inches from my nose and screamed at me. There were the two young men with undeveloped legs who were somehow attached to skate boards (I could not look closely because that would have been seemingly rude). Back and forth across the sidewalk they quickly and loudly skated, almost blocking it. Wailing loudly, creating an atmosphere of panic.There were those with cleft palates.

It was a Ripley's Believe it or Not of what can go wrong with the human body.

And the most haunting person of all: A young man in his early twenties. He had arms the size of my hands. Certainly there was no way he could have ever fed himself let alone take care of any of his personal needs. But Mother Nature had not stopped there. He could barely walk, and his skin was stretched over his face, downward. Like someone had poured acid on it.

He was the last person to accost me before I got on our bus. I don't know why, but he followed me from the sidewalk, peering into the window from the sidewalk where I sat down on the bus. His eyes locked onto mine, and mine his. He would look at me, and then go hide his head in the phone booth six feet away. This happened a dozen times or so, in the next five minutes. Back and forth he went.

In my mind, it was if he was trying to tell me, "This is not the life I wanted, this is the only life I know. I want to go hide but I cannot. You cannot imagine my life, and I cannot fathom yours." It struck me that this young man had probably never been hugged or warmly touched.

Over the next several days, I questioned a number of Chinese about what I encountered on that street. China has a high birth defect rate, particularly in the more remote rural areas. Many of those born deformed are abandoned as babies. They are picked up by "operators," who take them in, raise them, and teach them to beg. And so, they do. Every day, for the rest of their lives. Each night, their "caretakers" empty their pockets. It is the sickest pimp/whore relationship on the planet.

And the byproduct of the "one-child only" policy instituted by the Chinese government in 1978. For many, that limitation fostered abandoning the not-so-perfect first child.

In the last fifteen years, China recognized the problem and started orphanages for abandoned children.

Mary At The Orphanage