Durian Nation: Glocally Speaking

If it isn't one computer thing ...

It's another computer thing.

In addition to computer bugs, now I get to deal with new server addresses.

You know, I'll bet I could spend a full 40 hours at the desk just tying to update my 6 month old machine. I'll bet I will still loose.

Time to go watch a movie.

The Taipei Times

You just gotta 'love' those wild and crazy guys at the Taipei Times and what they publish on any given multi-polar day.

Check this out in the only one 'letter' to the editor: Oppose American independence.

Gerrit van der Wees is/was, apparently, an editor of the largely defunct Taiwan Communique, an organization new to me. (A hat tip to the TT.) In June 2003, the publication suspended publication.

Gerrit's wildly sophomoric attempts at satirical comparisons with regard to the crisis here in Taiwan on the Taipei Times letters page may explain why the publication died.

The wife has always said I am a DPP man. That is true but I certainly didn't like Chen's 'Willie Horton' tactics during the campaign. Taiwan is too small and cannot afford bigotry.

She has also said that she needs to "wash" my brain and de-program me because I always listen to the Taipei Times but that is quite unnecessary.

When the Taipei Times first went into print, those folks shook the other two English language dailies out of their lethargy with sharp presentations and on the spot reporting in Indonesia, for example, among many other things. The paper 'flew' off the sales rack.

That all changed on September 13, 2001 with this lead Editorial: Search for the truth, not a scapegoat.

Read it, slowly. But, I warn you, it will hurt, by calculated design.

Sure, I quote the TT when I think they have something to say. Still, I am wary.

The TT will turn on you if you happen to disagree.

Spoofs

Normally, I just read the spoofs and move on but, this is more than worthy. The folks over at INDC Journal took note of the habits of the not so nocturnal Chiroptera luna now active during this election cycle.

By and large, the authors concluded that most of the ‘moon-bat’ (in common parlance) specie to be really rather like their flying kin, insectivorous and harmless.

That was a relief. A bug bomb or two and I’ve got a B-BQ. No sweat.

Still, there was that one guy … with the boots and flag.

I just hope someone checked his backpack and reminded him not to breathe through his mouth because it fosters drooling.

The KMT’s young Turks

This is refreshing but won’t go anywhere soon like within the next decade. Still, I am very glad to see the “Blue Eagles” are urging the aged leadership to get a grip on reality.

The Blue Eagles said the KMT has been carried away by the election disputes, ignoring the need for reform. They said even if the KMT won its legal battle to annul President Chen's re-election, it would not erase the party's incompetence in managing the campaign.

"The KMT must face the reality, admitting that there were faults in the management of the campaign, so that we can have the courage for reform," said Chiu Teh-hung. "Unless we admit the faults, reform will be impossible."

"But so far we can only see infighting among the party leaders, not their determination to let reform take root. The fact that the campaign was poorly managed wouldn't be changed by the nullification of the election," he said.

Those eaglets have figured out the vision thing. Unfortunately, tradition dies a slow, lingering death. In this case, the old guard will steadfastly refuse to vacate their seats of power until they literally die in those chairs.

That is not a smart move as recent talk on the air waves have been about war, in part, as the result of Chen’s victory and unsurprisingly, the PRC’s nixing of democratic elections in Hong Kong.

Sisy in the dog house

Well. Sisy's in just about everyone's dog house now. The pan-blues have started to eat their 'own' by branding Sisy as one of the many culprits at large for the failure of the March 20 election loss. The Taipei Times (and English voice of the DPP government) reports:

A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) publicity chief from 1995 to 1998, Sisy Chen defected from the DPP after the 2000 presidential election. She has since become one of the fiercest critics of Chen Shui-bian and her former party.

Since her election in December 2001 as an independent legislator, she has sided with the pan-blue camp on a number of issues and was a driving force behind the pan-blue camp's publicity machine during this year's presidential campaign.

Although the upper echelons of the alliance appreciated and relied on her contributions to battling the DPP, her lack of official title or position within the camp generated resentment. Members of the alliance grumbled that she had too much influence and that she meddled in the blue camp's affairs.

Driving force is not quite the term, here. If you read the article, note just how powerful she was while working for the pan-blues. The way the TT plays it, she probably single-handedly turned the election around for the pan-blue camp and brought them within a whisker of the win except for that dang assassination attempt. Who knows? She might have given the dearth of intellect coming from the pan-blue machine … nevertheless.

Gosh, what's a girl to do? Sisy dropped the DPP to stake out her position as an 'independent' (and I thought, a really savvy move) only to pick up a pan-blue flag. Now, the KMT has no room for her in their shrinking political world. Even her TV program might be in jeopardy as it is affiliated with the KMT. But, that is just my speculation.

About the only thing she can do now is really become independent at the expense of a loss in prestige. If she is smart, she will make sure she keeps her audience, apparently, largely pan-blue as well, and her platform. That audience is her real power base and could save her from a lengthy eclipse and may, just may, provide a real foundation for disaffected pan-blue supporters at the grass roots and something no one can ignore.

Italian 'puppets'

This demand is not going to go very well at all with the evening pasta.

The brigands who have three remaining hostages, they murdered one, you know, another Italian.

Oops.

My mistake, he was a Roman from another, older school of gladiators or praetorian guards. You know the type, a manly, man, muscular and full of … the 'stuff' to face death, alone.

Bluntly put, if the Italian electorate doesn't roll over and 'demonstrate' in favor of tyranny, three more will be murdered.

I can only imagine the dinner conversation, tonight.

If this keeps up, the Italians might just stop their quest to end the Mafiosi and enlist them instead.

Not a smart move.

John Kerry

Kerry is beginning to look a lot like Al Gore did four years ago.

In all respects, Gore could'a an' should'a won. Gore was a Washington insider and had pretty much established his credentials in foreign policy because of his work on those touchy issues with the Russians way back when. But when it came to domestic policy, Al just kind of slid off the left side of the table.

John has his own demons. As far as I am concerned the guy is a largely faceless senator from Massachusetts. As another Washington insider, I suppose he has had his share of good and bad legislation. But, the thing that gets me is this lingering Vietnam business. It just won't go away. It's almost like the guy brought home a SE Asian strain of political venereal disease. A real 'friend for life,' it always seems to keep erupting at the odd moment during this '04 'mating' season.

Frankly, I'm tired of hearing about 30 year old news. I'm also tired of hearing about the (gasp) Vietnam analogy/Iraqi quagmire. The real problem is a lot of people have not read enough history to realize that it is time to turn the page. This war on terror is really only the beginning of the world's first global civil war. But, Kerry hasn't quite been able to reason beyond what fellow Senator Kennedy has said about this war that is supposedly so much like his two brothers' war.

I guess that table has a Vietnam edge, too.

Jackie Chan, persona non grata?

Paris Chang, a senior DPP member has called for a boycott for Jackie and his movies. A new one is due next month as is the DVD for LOR3.

Why watch a movie specifically designed for the BIG SCREEN at home? Trust me on this one, it's the really little seats and the sugar coated popcorn sold at the movie houses especially as I prefer to have some popcorn to further 'flavor' my popcorn salt. That coupled to a three hour long movie is just not appealing.

Besides, I get to call the shots using my fast forward button for those really important segments, like when Frodo has a speaking part. I just hate it when he 'emotes' while wearing that frozen, severely drugged, look of his. It's always so numbingly consistent. In LOR I & II, I always wondered what chemical wizardry his make-up guru used to keep that trance-like effect?

Anyway. ...

Normally, Paris is pretty level-headed. Still, he is like a lot of Taiwanese. He talks before he thinks and that is a serious flaw in a politician. In response, his peers are largely underwhelmed by the call. Fortunately, this like other petty stuff will go away as soon as other people start complaining about how that sets a bad example because they, too, would have to go on record in support of such a silly motion.

You know ...

I'll bet that Frodo's make-up guru used some stratregically and deeply 'misplaced' shots of Botox to the frontal lobes to get the terminally zoned-out 'appeal'? I am constantly reminded of the next to last scene in One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest where Chief Bromden realized McMurphy's terminal state.

Hmm. I wonder? It might work for Paris, as well, if for no other reason than to highlight the mind not engaged effect.

Note to Paris: You are not the chief so don't try to wrestle with industrial plumbing, much less expect to break windows open to freedom with that attitude.

Computer Virus

No posting until I get this bug out of my eyes, ears, nose, throat and lungs.

... I wish I were a computer geek able to do unto those others as they have done unto me.

Sisy Chen (陳文茜)

Sisy (sorry, no photo links) is a force to be reckoned with if you are a part of Taiwanese politics and is now facing a reckoning of her own.

Sisy is very much akin to Helen Thomas, “The First Lady of the Press,” who has hounded US presidents for as long as I can remember.

Sisy is no different and can, justifiably, be called “the first lady of the air waves” here in Taiwan. Her clout is astounding and reaches our living room TV three times a week, without fail through her syndicated program. Once a DPP legislator, Sisy went ‘independent’ and as the article alludes has been helpful to the pan-blue camp, to an extent, but that aid ended on election eve despite her dislike of the President.

Not to their credit, the pan-blue camp has a pointed finger or two at Sisy and her responsibility in the election fiasco where the Lien/Soong ticket failed by a whisker. Yes, if you were a member of the pan-blue camp, it was a fiasco. Frankly, the whole thing was just short of comic were it not so important.

In effect, the blame game continues.

Here, Sisy comes in for some real criticism. About midnight on the eve if the election, Sisy stated that the assassination attempt was a hoax. OK. Fine. The pan-blue camp should be happy with that, right? Wrong.

The pan-blue camp now thinks that Sisy is ‘responsible’ for the defeat. Wrong again but for different reasons.

Here is the unfortunate part. Sisy responded to criticism with this:

"Statements I made during the March 19 press conference relevant to the election-eve shooting [of Chen Shui-bian and Lu] were not my personal opinion[s] … I can tell everyone that all the information was provided by the [KMT-PFP] alliance's national campaign headquarters,"

Granted, what I just quoted had been previously ‘quoted’ from a statement I never heard or read. Still, it looks bad in the press release.

Sisy doesn’t look so independent to me.

Does Polly want another cracker?