Ai Weiwei was really not that important for the Bird’s Nest… He was merely one of many people involved and was not the main designer. He was just a “Artistic consultant”. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_National_Stadium. Being a self-important person, he claim he designed the Bird’s Nest.

What he said/did in recent years hasn’t earned him much respect/credibility in my mind. I’d like to see a credible report that he was beaten up by the Chinese government.

Having stayed in the US for 7 years, I cannot say for sure who trust their government more, the average Chinese or the average American. The Chinese hate corruption, but at least most people believe the government will take care of them in difficult times (think about the earthquake in 2008, and the floods in 1998 and 1999). I cannot say the same for the US.

That’s what’s called DEMOCRACY. This is the central contradiction in these arguments from most Chinese. “We Chinese can choose our own way”, “We Chinese can solve our own problems”, but you can’t. CAN NOT without a democratic apparatus in place. You constantly say you don’t trust the government of China. Do you trust them to do right by you? Do you trust them to be fair? Do you trust them to help and support your people? The resounding answer from the majority of Chinese I talk to, educated and uneducated is NO, NO, NO. If you don’t trust them with your own family, your own culture, and your own people, why would you expect a different nationality to trust them?

The Chinese government has never earned the respect, nor the trust of the Chinese people. When questions are asked those who ask are bullied into submission or imprisoned. Look what happened to Ai Weiwei, who should be considered a national hero for designing the Bird’s Nest. The SAME YEAR as the Olympics he was beaten nearly to death by Chinese police only for supporting the rights of parents to question what happened to their Children.

I’m not sure how to parse this valid json with your code.

example: string teststr(“[ \"test\",30,\"er\" ]” ) ;

bool rewind_input(std::istream& input, std::string &str) { for (int i=str.size()-1;i>=0;i–) { input.putback(str[i]); } }

char push_digits(std::istream& input, std::string &str) { char ch=0; if (match(“-”, input)) str.push_back(‘-’); else match(“+”, input); while(input && !input.eof()) { input.get(ch); if (!isdigit(ch)) { input.putback(ch); return ch; } if (!input.fail()) { str.push_back(ch); } } return 0; }

bool parse_number(std::istream& input, long* value) { eat_whitespaces(input); char ch=0; std::string value_str; ch=push_digits(input,value_str); if (ch==’.') { rewind_input(input,value_str); value_str.clear(); } else if (ch==’e’ or ch==’E') { value_str.push_back(input.get()); push_digits(input,value_str); } if (value_str.size() > 0) { std::istringstream(value_str) >> *value; return true; } else { return false; } }

bool parse_number(std::istream& input, double* value) { eat_whitespaces(input); char ch=0; std::string value_str; ch=push_digits(input,value_str); value_str.push_back(input.get()); char next = input.peek(); if (ch==’.’ and isdigit(next)) { ch=push_digits(input,value_str); if (ch==’e’ or ch==’E') { value_str.push_back(input.get()); push_digits(input,value_str); } } else { rewind_input(input,value_str); value_str.clear(); } if (value_str.size() > 0) { std::istringstream(value_str) >> *value; return true; } else { return false; } }