stop the floral float!

My year of 2008 began with a game, a stupid game, to be sure. There was a Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena, and the Falungong and some other Chinese human rights activists were excluded from the event for what they alleged political dirty deals between the Mayor of Pasadena and the government of the People's Republic of China. Hence, not only did they have a press conference, claim to bring this issue to the court, but they decided to interfere with the procession of the parade with their powerful spiritual weapon--發正念. Specifically, they would 發正念 to the floral float of the 2008 Chinese Olympics and they believed that this action would damage and therefore stop their floral float.

Dumbo was really amazed at this crazy idea! Therefore, Dumbo placed a bet of US$100 on their failure. That is, unlike what they claimed, Dumbo simply disbelieved that any spiritual power, however sacred, would ever be able to stop the secular--or mechanical--operation of the human world. However, Dumbo was knowledgeable enough to know that even if the Chinese Olympic floral float was going to run as smoothly as expected, these Falungong zealots would not agree that they failed--just like the many end-of-world prophecies remain, after so many disproofs of their predecessors' predictions that all of us should have already been destroyed by some known and unknown supernatural powers.

I trust that you don't need me to tell you whether the Chinese Olympic floral float joined the rank and finished a very successful parade that brought popularity of the upcoming major sports event to the audience of the Rose Bowl Parade. I also trust that you would not be so naive to think that the Falungong practitioners, at least the one in my household, would start questioning their faith. Nonetheless, where is the 100 bucks I won?!

Click here to see a photo that a group of Falungong practitioners 發正念 in front of the P. R. China's consulate in New York. I surely wish them success! If 發正念 were indeed effective, the Taiwanese government could easily save billions of dollars purchasing weapons from Uncle Sam.