The entire city of Beijing was covered by awful thick haze, with visibility less than 500 meters in certain parts of the city. “The longest distance in the world is (between us) when I am holding your hand but cannot see your face.” A sarcastic joke spread quickly on the internet, which was adapted from a famous Chinese movie’s line on the distance related to love. There were many versions of this “longest distance” joke and other phrase twists forwarded by thousands of Chinese microbloggers on the internet, playing with the hard-to-see effect of Beijing’s heavy smog. A Chinese way of humor helped a little to ease people’s nerves in coping with this severe air pollution. Anyhow, life has to go on. Although the government sent out alarms and recommended people to stay indoor as much as possible, especially for the elderly and children, people still need to go to work, and events and conferences were still held as scheduled. In fact, a national landscape architecture conference was being held in Beijing over that weekend. The conference theme was “Ecological Civilization, Beautiful China”.

Of course, anyone proposing the use of the noose or the chair is guilty of moral cowardice anyway. Capital punishment is supposed to act as a deterrent, but it doesn’t seem to have much effect on crime statistics. This is because most current executions a) employ methods that are as quick and efficient as possible and b) take place behind closed doors – almost as though the people doing it are ashamed of themselves.