Not Everybody Is Kung Fu Fighting

The Skinny: Shaolin Temple Monks Duck Chance To Fight At Beijing Games, Spurring Trash Talk

(CBS)  The Skinny is Keach Hagey's take on the top news of the day and the best of the Internet.

Is kung fu a meditative path to enlightenment, or merely a really cool-looking way to deliver a beating?

It's a question at the center of many a poorly dubbed martial arts movie. And lately it's been in the headlines of Chinese newspapers, the Wall Street Journal reports, after the monks at the famous Shaolin Temple declined to join one of the biggest kung fu battles of all times - a competition to be staged in tandem with next year's Olympic Games in Beijing.

The monks at the 1,500-year-old temple, which has become synonymous with Chinese martial arts in the popular imagination (though only some of the thousands of varieties of kung fu actually can be traced back there), say they don't fight unless they have to.

But their rivals say they're just chicken.

"We are the best wushu competitors," said 21-year-old Ma Lingjuan, referring to kung fu by its other name. A Chinese world champion, she's been training at spinning and jabbing a spear since she was 10. "Our goal is the medal," she said. "The monks in the temple do it as a hobby."

Oooh, snap! And how do the monks, who claim they learn the kung fu moves as part of their meditation, respond? The monastery's abbot says they practice kung fu "with an understanding of Zen Buddhusim and love of the temple. On the other hand, athletes use wushu as a way to find honor. It is easy to tell which one is more sustainable and deep."

And, a little later, another monk adds: "We could win that. But we don't want to hurt anybody."

British Terror Plot Had Iraqi Al Qaeda Links

The New York Times has a scoop today on the inquiry into this year's bungled terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow. The Times says British investigators have linked the plotters to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. That's the homegrown Sunni extremist group in Iraq that American intelligence officials say is led by foreigners.

The evidence pointing to the involvement of the Iraqi group includes phone numbers of its members found on the plotters' cell phones recovered in Britain.

The plotters include Bilal Abdulla, a British-born doctor of Iraqi descent, and Kafeel Ahmed, an Indian aeronautical engineer. They parked two vehicles laden with gas canisters and explosives near a popular night club in central London at the end of June. The next day, they rammed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas canisters into the Glasgow airport.

The main source for all this comes from - of course - an unnamed American intelligence official, whose was granted anonymity because he was spilling secret intelligence information. (In other words, take all this with a large grain of salt. After all it's not the first time we've seen front-page Times stories attributed to unnamed American officials with their own agendas to push about Iraq's dangerousness.)

The official noticed several similarities between the events in Britain and attacks in Iraq attributed to al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, including the use of vehicle-borne explosives aimed at multiple targets. Other officials backed the first official's claims, but cautioned that the terror plots should be viewed as "A.Q.I.-realted, rather than A.Q.I.-directed," referring to the initials of al Qaeda In Iraq.

None of them would divulge the exact nature of the group's involvement with the operation.

Welcome To The New Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal appeared to be its good old self this morning, with the fun kung fu story above tucked just under a massive story about Goldman Sachs' eerily good luck in the face of the mortgage meltdown.

Yet a three-page ad for News Corp. in both the Journal and the Times reminded print readers what was different: There's a new sheriff in town, his name is Rupert Murdoch, and he does garish stuff like take out megalomaniacal ads in his own paper to crow about how he's going to change it.

The ad tracks News Corp.'s Napoleonic march to conquer all media, beginning with Murdoch's purchase of the Adelaide News in 1954 and ending with his company's recent acquisition of Dow Jones & Co. (Dow Jones shareholders just voted to approve the company's sale to News Corp.) The final words confirm many people's worst fears: "'The Wall Street Journal will never be the same.' Exactly. And that's a promise."

An editorial introduced the five-person committee charged with safeguarding Dow Jones' editorial integrity under the new regime - called, rather hilariously, the Special Committee. One wonders just how special they're going to have to be to compete with bold promises like the one above.

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[dapsugarwily]

I have given it much thought. It seems disaster must come.... at best only postponed. Shaolin Kung Fu, to survive, must now be taught to more young men. We must expand and get more pupils so that the knowledge will spread.

[Wookiee-1138]

Ray Park would kick their orange butts anyway.

[canyoutellme-2009]

shame on the journalist here for even implying in the slightest that the Monks are "chicken" or Spurred trash-talk. Shame on Keach Hagey for putting this out there. The monks in question are a peaceful people. They don''t need to prove anything to the world whatsoever. This is akin to a bully pushing people around and saying to them "if you don''t fight me back, you''re a chicken!" When in fact, the bully is the one who is insecure and is the real "chicken". Leave the Monks alone. And they''re right, if they really DID fight to win a medal, they would indeed hurt someone. It is not their goal to hurt anyone.

[missingamerica]

"Goldman Sachs'' eerily good luck"?

It is freaky, isn''t it? And of course it cannot have a thing to do with the number of GS alumni who are in or have passed through this Administration.

With all of the turmoil these days, isn''t it nice to have an Administration whose record for honesty and straight dealing speaks for itself?

Would suck to have an Administration who attacked the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, mauled the integrity of the Justice Department, and installed censors who modified or deleted the data coming out of ALL branches of the Federal bureaucracy because they knew people would jump to the conclusion that they were motivated by ideology...when in fact they were motivated by good old-fashioned criminal greed.

[denn034]

Great! The last thing we need is more dress wearing monks going around Kung Fu fighting. Just kidding. Kung Fu is a good way to teach your kid self-control and that''s a good thing.

[zoltaric]

I think the monks would win a real fight.

A true martial artist does not compete. Besides the most effective techniques are not allowed in competition and they wear pads.

[jyu1915]

So this is the type of news story we can expect from the Wall St. Journal, now that Rupert Murdoch has sunk his claws into it?

[j-whitman]

jyu1915,,,, I see I wasn''t the only one who noticed.
.. I''m a bit suprised Murdoch didn''t put in the article, "They would be better fighters if they were just Christians"

[kiskis1]

Sunday is the day targeted by GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul''s supporters for another fundraising push.



So, I''ll be sending my money in on Sunday for the simple reason Ron Paul is an honest man among charlatans and power seekers. And he gives me hope when it is in short supply.

It is also fun to think of what a Paul administration would do if the establishment allowed him to get that far.

Hope, truth and justice are in short supply in what is now the United States. When they are offered, they should be grabbed and protected like the rare treasures they have become. Ron Paul offers those things.

Certainly it is another David and Goliath struggle, and the Davids have rarely won since the original face-off. But, that is why we have hope.