"Hong Kong leader confesses that real democracy is 'impossible'.-Christian Science Monitor.

But he's willing to talk to the kids anyway.

That is the Monitor's sub-head.

So much pain in China. 

I have written that, of course, it is true that the protests will not bring democracy, that the students surely know this, but to see it put so starkly in a headline--not to fault the Monitor--it is, I don't know, discouraging, painful. Painful: There is, there always has been, so much pain in China. 

The statement from which the Christian Science Monitor took its headline, by CY Leung, the chief executive of Hong Kong is:

"The Hong Kong … government cannot make something that is not in the Basic Law possible. Politics is the art of the possible and we have to draw a line between possibilities and impossibilities."

This Basic Law thing...I don't know this Basic Law thing but the students are being advised by a Michael Davis who the Monitor says is a constitutional law scholar at Hong Kong University and Professor Davis says Leung's statement is "ridiculous," which strongly implies that he has advised the students that real democracy is reasonably possible under the Basic Law. I defer to Professor Davis.

T'AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. My concern is for the students. My concern is for the students' safety and for their souls. They are sleeping on roadways and they believe that it is reasonably possible that their protests will bring about real democracy. Both their physical beings and their dreams are going to get crushed. I defer to Professor Davis any feelings of responsibility when that happens.