Archive for November, 2004
November 19th, 2004 by Eshin
I guess I’m slow with the deaths these days. Such a cheery thought. Anyway…
Via Bohemian Philosophy.
The author of the Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang, committed suicide. The book highlighted the human rights violations committed by the Japanese during the occupation of that Chinese city during World War 2. It remains one of the focal points for Chinese grievances about the Japanese and their refusal to apologise for the war. It would be easy to call it the Chinese equivalent of the Holocaust committed by the Germans but any comparison is fraught with complexity.
Anyway, it’s worth highlighting her passing since the issue she researched and championed was a worthwhile one. One wonders too whether she was too embroiled in the subject matter. I’ve seen her in a number of documentaries and interviews and she spoke with such passion as if it happened to her personally. I’d imagine in many ways it did.
I suspect though that her passion for the subject and the past drove her to her suicide. One can only play with darkness and the barbarity of man’s evil so far without it becoming all-consuming. Her work, her cause was a worthwhile one and the attention she brought to it deserved. But her zealousness and the unfortunate conclusion that it perhaps brought should equally be a reminder to us.
Man’s evil is always sensationalist and enticing. Sometimes it helps just to walk outside the door and see how far we’ve come together. It’s quite surprising although the half-empty’s amongst you might be inclined to comment that it’s not that far. One hoped that Iris Chang could have also seen that and the healing that is ever-so slowly taking place.
November 19th, 2004 by Eshin
There are some funny phrases that float around the Chinglish sphere. One that seemed to be evident in a lot of the triad films of the 90’s was “I won’t give it a damn”. Being the marginally intelligent person that I am, I can pretty much work out it’s meaning. It’s interesting to see “not giving a damn” being used as “I’ll not give it a [second] thought”. Obviously, not giving a damn implies a sense of recklessness and hostility, more so than just not thinking about something. And by all accounts, you should by able to vary the syntax of a sentence including “not giving a damn”.
“I don’t give a damn about that.”
“I won’t give it a damn.”
In my mind it sort of reflects the perculiar way that Chinese folk sometimes have the ability to cut straight to the point without the waffle, yet at other times absolutely everything is done verbosely. It’s a strange phrase, “I won’t give it a damn”. It’s mildly hostile, since you are a damning something, yet strangely disconnected and liberating since you are not giving something a second thought.
November 15th, 2004 by Eshin
The world should be thankful that yet another terrorist leader in the form of Yassir Arafat has passed away. Screw the terrorist turned stateman line. The man was a terrorist leader. This means that he was a coward.
A coward for sending others to the dirty work and die for his cause as so many terrorist leaders are.
Perhaps his biggest act of cowardism was not properly running the state of Palestine when he finally got it, and greedily holding on to political power for himself. If his interests were for the plight of the Palestinian people, then he would have done a better job of ensuring that the potential power struggle to come would not have been an issue. He evidently had time to show his ugly mug in public to get into a rant about Israel yet didn’t have any energy to appoint any successor. No, not the mark of a great statesman.
The man was a terrorist not a revolutionary. Yassir Arafat probably wrote the book that taught Bin Laden. The world, believe it or not, is a better place without that man. He was a man who had delusions of being more than the murdering pig that he was and the hate that he embodied. It is a delusion that he quite happily infected his people with since they held onto the idea that he was Palestine.
Well done Arafat, you old butcher, you’ve put your people back at square one, where you started your miserable hate-filled life.
November 10th, 2004 by Eshin
This is old news but I missed it. Apparently, there is a fat virus (AD36) that’s apparently responsible for making people fat. One hypothesis is that it originated in India but the US seems to be hit the hardest by the epidemic, and there is evidence that it is around in the UK.
I’m curious. Why aren’t the media all over this? Perhaps we should all start wearing masks again, avoiding travel to infected hotspots like the US, UK and India? Fat doesn’t kill like SARS? When the possible global death toll for SARS was around 106 and the possible death toll in the US for weight-related issues accounts for 280,000 death a year, I wonder why there was such media hype with SARS?
I suppose it’s nice and trendy to flog the Beijing government and the various Hong Kong health officials for the failure to respond to the apparent “gravity” of the threat of SARS. It all makes it so much easier when bitching about things goes hand-in-hand with democracy and blame can be shifted to elected or not-so-elected officials.
I think the whole SARS fiasco demonstrated that the manipulation of the public by constructed perceptions through the media is a very real threat.
Public accountability is an intrinsic part of democracy yet this has often been coupled with the need for a free and independent press to provide that transparency. For many, the press has often been their substitute to actually thinking and exercising their right to responsibly hold their leaders to account. But what happens when the press should be called to account, as in the case of the SARS paranoia that they generated?
Who will answer questions such as why SARS was such a headline grabber? Questions that should probe further than just the public’s apparent “right to know”. Some one in the major media corporations should be held accountable. Whether it be the lowly journalist who hoped that his or her extensive coverage of the “epidemic” would be their big break to the board room where perhaps ulterior politic motives may have been in play.
If SARS wasn’t the worst thing to hit the human population, then why was it made out to be? And then, if so, why aren’t they media whipping up the hysteria about the legion of other virus and diseases that threaten to topple civilisation? Either way, they are doing something wrong. Some might say that people do the voting with their cash when they buy the media. Sure, they do. But more immediate action should be done to take media owners to task. After all, if voting through economics was a valid democratic tool, then why don’t we just elect the politicans we want into power by how much money we’ve paid them.
Oh wait, America already does.
November 4th, 2004 by Eshin
And for those of you who have no interest at all in US politics, four more years of death, doom, and Bush, console yourself with the seventh installment of our favourite geek lounge lizard, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude.
Mr. Gene Emery, writing from Reuters, probably snags the Understatement of the Year award when he writes in his article:
These games have not marked a crowning achievement in societal development.
But with eminent rise of the Metrosexual, it’s good to know that there is some educational material teaching the young boys of tomorrow about how to be men, good and proper.
