On public relations

From: Laurence Shandy
To: Hu Jintao, president of China
Re: The retarded

Dear President Jintao,

Congratulations on your country's red carpet welcome to the 21st century. I have to say, I'm still a bit uneasy with China's growing foothold in the Western capitalist world. Seems like only yesterday I couldn't roam the streets of Beijing wearing my golden Chai pendant without fear of violent retribution from the Red thought police. (I'm not Jewish, by the way. Just a really big Elvis fan.)

But now look at you. Not only have you become the heart of industry--supplying the world's overfed free marketers with their unnecessary and brain-numbing toys, but you're also poisoning their children with lead paint. And all for a profit! Twenty years ago, the Chinese pictograph for "profit" was just a guy shrugging his shoulders.

Not only have you upped your profile by landing the next Olympic games, but you've now rolled onto your back and shown the global stage your softer side by hosting your very first Special Olympics. This is quite a turnaround for the nation that once refused to admit mentally disabled people even existed among its population. Who knows how many brownie points you've earned among the Western bleeding hearts by not only granting corporeal reality to the retarded, but by condescendingly embracing the idea that they're also "special"?

But you know what really impresses me? That you're able to pull off such a hearts-and-minds operation while still maintaining China's dignity and fierce independent spirit. And by "independent spirit", I'm not just talking about your complicity in the mass slaughters of innocent people in Darfur or your tacit approval of governmental oppression in Burma. I'm not even talking about your paranoid censorship policies, human rights violations, or reputation for political imprisonment. No, I'm talking about the fact that just this year a Chinese human trafficking ring selling retarded slaves to brick factories was shut down. I'm talking about the fact that while some smiling Mongoloid poster child is running in slow motion through a white ribbon, mentally disabled children across your country will be locked in cages or being prescribed death by their family doctors.

I hope you take no offense at this, President Jintao, but China's new found ability to say one thing and do another is downright American. And British. But mostly American. And French. Kind of Iranian, too, when you think about it.

Anyway, welcome to the world.

Best wishes,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman