Archive for April, 2005
April 22nd, 2005 by Eshin
So Koizumi stood up and apologised for Japan’s wartime atrocities? It’s a nice step forward and it brings Japan one step closer to healing the wounds of the past. Of course, it doesn’t really cover the issue of compensation for the existing victims whose numbers dwindle with each passing year.
Of course, it waits to be seen if the Chinese, more importantly the masses, will accept this move. Perhaps this move will expose the riots for what they were - mindless mob lawlessness.
Anyway, let’s keep some perspective here. China never had two atomic bombs dropped on top of it but then I’ve got a nice “tourist” spot in Wan Chai that still has the original house that the Japanese used as a comfort house for its army. The air is tainted and the degradation and death must have been unbearable. Who’s right? Let’s try to move forward people.
April 20th, 2005 by Eshin
John Ratzinger, or Pope Bendict XVI, is probably the worst choice for the new pope. Head of the modern day Inquisition, the Centre for the Doctrine of the Faithful, he’s a move towards the far right of Catholicism. Can we expect the new Pope to build bridges to the modern day world that Christianity lives in? Can we expect the Catholic Church to do things like atone for its past? Perhaps, but I really wouldn’t expect it from a hard traditionalist like Ratzinger.
Congratulations to the 1.1 billion Catholics worldwide on getting a new voice of God on earth. You no longer have to think about tough spiritual questions. Oh, and keep the coffers of the Vatican full with plenty of donations. Your Church will probably need it as Catholicism becomes more distant with the modern world and its spiritual neighbours.
Onward Christian soldiers… Oh wait, that’s the other Christian radical in Washington.
April 16th, 2005 by Eshin
The Chinese are funny. For the last fifty years, their government spends their time lying to them wholesale, killing a million or so of their own people through economic mismanagement, potentially a few hundred thousand through the odd political purges that were in vogue, and happily bulldozes their heritage to make way for greedy little tycoons to make even more money from their lucrative party positions. Furthermore, the last twenty years of economic growth, enterprising capitalist Chinese have happily been exploiting workers to gain a competitive advantage over the rest of the world’s poorer nations.
Apparently the Japanese should be the ones held to account by the “man on the street” in China. Nanking? Perhaps one should compare the figures of who killed how many. Comfort girls? Yep, that was bad, but there are still one or two prominent Chinese associations that still float around today that reaped the benefits from supplying Japanese occupiers with the fresh source of women.
All these China men are so brave when it comes to beating up helpless Japanese signs for restaurants that probably employ only Chinese staff. When it comes to challenging the lies, corruption and dominance of Beijing, let’s see how brave you are then. Tiananmen was a long time ago.
April 14th, 2005 by Eshin
For the person that emailed me a while back about Shule or, as it’s correctly called, “Sjoel”, here’s the lowdown on how it’s played from my uncle, who is the font of all knowledge.
you get 20 points for every 4 stones you divide evenly accross the board, rather than the 10 you would have got if that rule didn’t apply.
You get 3 turns. You may not put your hand underneath the bar to try and reach for stones that ricochet back, those stones are taken off after your round is finished and you may use them in your next round. At the end of the game, if you divide all your stones equally and the remaining 2 stones in the 4 slot, you can get a maximum of 148 points. And that’s it, more or less.
Sorry I didn’t reply to your email but my PC where I receive mail from that email address was busy crashing at the time, so lost your email address.
April 14th, 2005 by Eshin
Wikipedia continues its cultural transformation of how information is authoritatively shared, with an obituary written before an official press release from her agent. It sort of exposes the flaw in the Wiki model but at the same time reminds us of how wonderfully powerful the Internet is in information dissemination.
The next thing would be to write your own obituary in the Wiki. Oh wait, I’d have to be famous for that.
