Ethan Gutmann is one of the foremost writers about China today. His book Losing the New China is an eye-opening experience. And almost no one knows more about Falun Gong, and the evils inflicted on those people, than he does. And almost no one has so attuned a conscience on China as he does.

Anyway, that’s to orient you. (No pun intended, I promise!) Ethan sent me a note about “Safe-Zone Violation!,” my piece on the homepage today. He said,

Of course, as old Ann Arbor boys (my educational path went from Burns Park to Tappan to the Earthworks), we should be used to the idea that everything — from lentil soup at the food co-op to nuts in the Arboretum (of all varieties) — is inherently political.
I guess we are equally maladjusted.

Yes, that is true. Ethan and I went to the same junior high (different elementary schools, different high schools). And one of the reasons I turned against the Left was that I could not believe that everything under the sun was political. I thought that some things were above, or at least apart from, politics. Remember the slogan “The personal is the political” (or was it the other way around?)? In any case, one of the things about being a conservative is that you reject the political, in many cases. You realize that a ham sandwich can be a ham sandwich, a concert a concert, a football game a football game, etc.

Anyway . . .

Say this for good old Ann Arbortown: It created some righteous backlash in some of us.

P.S. People like our colleague David Pryce-Jones get to be Old Etonians. Ethan and I have to be old Ann Arbor boys. Great.

P.P.S. Dan Mahoney’s book about Solzhenitsyn is entitled The Ascent from Ideology. That’s what I’m talking about, above.