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Following up last month's news about reports that tie hackings of American defense contractors' websites to operations run — or at least encouraged — by the Chinese government, the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday told the tale of a Shanghai man who used to blog about his work in a People's Liberation Army hacking unit.

If the stories from this blogger — whose family name is Wang, but who blogged as "Rocy Bird" — are true, the Times writes, the hacking life was "all about low pay, drudgery and social isolation."

According to the Times, its reporters "tracked down Wang and his blog through an email address that was listed on a published 2006 paper about hacking. ... [He] did not return several emails and instant messages requesting comment."

The security firm that reported about hacking last month tells the Times that Rocy Bird's posts from 2006-2009 "provided the most detailed first-person account known to date of life inside the hacking establishment" and that it's likely not much has changed in the four years since.

A few details from the blog, via the Times' report:

— Rocy Bird complained about being told to improve his English skills, and then being criticized for reading too many English-language magazines. "The boss doesn't understand," he wrote.

— At a school reunion, the hacker "felt ashamed to say hello" to old classmates because his pay was much less than theirs.

— His unhappiness showed through right from the start. " 'Fate has made me feel that I am imprisoned,' he wrote in his first entry on Sina.com. 'I want to escape.' "

Related posts:

— "A Chinese Army Outpost That's Tucked Into Modern Shanghai."

— "Who's Been Hacked By China? Better Question Might Be: Who Hasn't?"

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

An American history textbook used by some schools in Louisiana's voucher system has caused a bit of a stir over passages describing 1960s counterculture. America: Land I Love teaches eighth graders that during the '60s, "Many young people turned to drugs and immoral lifestyles; these youth became known as hippies. They went without bathing, wore dirty, ragged, unconventional clothing, and deliberately broke all codes of politeness or manners... Many of the rock musicians they followed belonged to Eastern religious cults or practiced Satan worship." This is only the latest outcry over textbooks used in Louisiana voucher schools. Other textbooks claim that "[t]he majority of slave holders treated their slaves well" and "[d]inosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years."

"I don't think I'm particularly good at research. For better or worse, I write about myself," says Sarah Manguso, author of The Guardians, in an interview with Guernica.

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is writing a book called A Happy Holiday IS a Merry Christmas, according to The Associated Press. In a statement, Palin says, "This will be a fun, festive, thought provoking book, which will encourage all to see what is possible when we unite in defense of our faith and ignore the politically correct Scrooges who would rather take Christ out of Christmas." The book is slated to come out in November. There's still no word on the Palin family's fitness book we were promised last year.

In n+1, Rachel Aviv writes about Princeton psychologist Julian Jaynes, who used The Iliad and The Odyssey to trace the origins of human consciousness: "Drawing on evidence from neurology, archaeology, art history, theology, and Greek poetry, Jaynes captured the experience of modern consciousness — 'a whole kingdom where each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can' — as sensitively and tragically as any great novelist."

Several years ago I gave a speech in which I mentioned that athletes tended to be the only college students who were awarded scholarships for what is an extracurricular activity.

Afterward, Myles Brand, the late president of the NCAA, told me I was wrong, that many music extracurricular scholarships were awarded at colleges.

Brand and I seldom agreed on much of anything, but I've always found him to be a gentleman. So, I expressed surprise at this claim.

Oh, no, Brand said, many colleges award music scholarships to members of the band who march during halftime at football games. I resisted the urge to quote John McEnroe: You can't be serious. I only replied, politely, that it seemed to me that those students, however hardworking they may be at high-stepping, were not primarily getting aid for their musical education, but for being an entertainment adjunct to the football team. Brand shook his head at me; we disagreed once again.

It turns out, though, that because there is also an overemphasis on football down a step, at the high-school level, that may well affect secondary school music programs throughout the country.

Lisa Chismire, the parent of a student in the Unionville-Chadds Ford District in Pennsylvania, discovered that it was district policy — as it is elsewhere — to force serious music students to attend band camp in the summer and then march in the band at football games. If music students who had no interest in the marching band did not go along and assist the football program, the young musicians would not be allowed to play in the concert band, the symphonic band, the jazz band or the orchestra.

Chismire, who is a retired lawyer, was appalled. She called this "extortion" and "institutional bullying" — coercing students in one discipline to serve as spear carriers for those in another.

In response to her charges of discrimination, there were protests that if music students who didn't want to march in the band were excused, then those who did would be disappointed because the band would be smaller and make less of an impression at halftimes. Chismire was called "threatening, aggressive, unkind and disrespectful" by one school board member.

But she obviously had the law on her side and was able, ultimately, to cause reform of the program in the whole school district. But, although the numbers aren't known, policies of this sort do exist in school districts throughout the country.

We all know that athletes, in high school and college alike, are awarded special privileges, but somehow it seems even more unfair that students who pursue other extracurricular talents, should, anywhere in America, be placed in a subsidiary position to their classmates who happen to play sports.

When she got out of college and moved to New York, Elizabeth Cline liked to shop at vintage-clothing stores. They were the kinds of places tucked away on side streets in Manhattan and Brooklyn, where a lot of hunting and a little luck might reward you with a great, inexpensive cocktail dress that no one else had.

Then she discovered the world of "fast fashion" — chains like Forever 21, H&M and Zara — and it redefined her whole notion of bargain shopping.

"The products are very, very cheap," says Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. "The design is pretty attractive. And if you walk into the store, I think, for a lot of consumers, it's virtually impossible to walk out empty-handed."

“ You see some products and it's just garbage. It's just crap, and you sort of fold it up and you think, yeah, you're going to wear it Saturday night to your party — and then it's literally going to fall apart.