From an article in the China Post today: "Cabin…
From an article in the China Post today:
“Cabinet spokesman Lin Chia-lung ridiculed Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou for accusing the local media of “missing the point” of his remarks and of nitpicking, saying the media knows what is newsworthy and that Ma should respect this. He also accused Ma of trying to collude with Beijing to block Taiwan’s democratic development.”
This has got to be one of the funniest things I’ve heard in months…has the good Spokesman ever seen the media here? They miss points and nitpick on a daily basis, and I doubt most of the media in Taiwan would know what was newsworthy if it came up and sat on their face. Remember the Taiwan News’ top story the day Beijing won the 2008 Olympics bid? “Human Head Transplant a Success” or something like that, wasn’t it?
The Taipei Times, of course, didn’t even attribute in its headline on the Ma thing, merely writing “Ma likens plebiscites to Cultural Revolution” in its headline. Then again, not only does the Times hate Ma and the KMT in general, it rarely feels the need to attribute anything in its stories.
The driver of a taxi I was in yesterday was complaining about the whole political situation. “These politicians are squabbling about stupid things like “Taiwan’s real name” and whether little towns should be able to mandate whether they get freeway exits or not, while people are losing jobs and the economy’s going to shit.” He recounted the Bayer disaster of a few years ago, when a group of residents in Shalu, near Taichung, successfully blocked the construction of a Bayer plant nearby because they feared pollution. If you’ve ever been to Shalu, you’d wonder why the same residents didn’t have a problem with the huge clouds of foul smoke emerging from nearby local factories who burn plastics on a regular basis. “It’s no wonder everyone’s going to China these days,” the cabbie said. “Everyone’s protesting everything, and nothing’s getting done. It’s crazy.” Yeah, I thought. Democrazy. I suppose it’s natural for an emerging democracy with a relatively uneducated populace to go through such troubles, but Taiwan’s situation is a bit more precarious than most.
Of course, the snippet of Ma’s discussion in which he was relaying that Taiwanese businessmen in China had compared the DPP’s referendum drive with a cultural revolution was a bit strange, but it seems like every time the DPP attacks an opponent they just dig themselves a little bit deeper. I personally don’t find the idea of a public referendum very useful. We could hold a referendums, say, in favor of raising everyone’s wages 20%; I’m sure everyone would support it. That doesn’t mean it would be a smart thing to do.
Whenever anyone in Taiwan doesn’t get their way these days, it seems inevitable that they will start shouting that someone is trying to take away their basic human democratic rights. Yeah, buddy, sorry about depriving you of your basic human democratic right to triple park park your benz in front of the Shark Fin restaurant for three hours there. Democracy means letting the people’s voice be heard, but basing all government decisions on popular vote is nothing better than anarchy, especially since democracy requires a reasonably enlightened populace. Not that anarchy is without its charms, but supposedly someone has to call the shots.
Speaking of shots, the more I use Windows, the more surprised someone hasn’t tried to hit Bill Gates with something more substantial than a lemon pie. The steps I took to get my computer to recognize USB 2.0, mainly installing a service pack, invalidated Premiere, which means I have to reinstall it and hope it still works. I swear, Macs are looking better and better, especially those lucious G5s I’ve seen at Apple stores here. Of course, buying one would mean going another couple of years without a vacation or saving any money, and I could really use a vacation.
I saw Pirates of the Carribean last night. Best line:
Will: You cheated!
Jack: Uh, pirate!
Due to a full bladder and a Bruckheimer shakycam-inspired headache I missed the final scenes stuck on after the credits. Ah, well. That’s what DVDs are for.
