Hands off China!

Matt Damon's smackdown of Bill Kristol (and Kristol's subsequent challenge to debate) is getting all the attention, but this is the part that really got my attention:

"What we liked about Matt is that he's Harvard educated, so he's a very smart guy," says Hal Weiner, who with his wife Marilyn produces Journey to the Planet Earth, the PBS series Damon has narrated for the past eight years and was working on last week. "But he's also a little political."

The Weiners discovered just how political when Damon started arguing with them about some lines he was supposed to read in one episode, which said rising Chinese soybean consumption was leading to slash-and-burn farming in the Brazilian Amazon.

"He really objected," Hal Weiner recalls. "He wanted to make sure we were not just bashing China. We had to bring in some scientists to talk to him before he'd do it."

Matt, my friend, the Chinese government is only nominally Communist these days. Mao is long gone, and they've embraced capitalism. You don't have to make excuses for them anymore.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at January 26, 2009 04:14 PM