Nancy, Nancy, Nancy! You've got it all wrong

My favorite Hong Kong murderer, Nancy Kissel was in court again yesterday appealing her life sentence for whacking her low life but very highly paid drug addict husband over the head five times after doping him with sedatives. Lizzy Borden look out; you've been upstaged!

The appeal is based upon, according to the papers and TVB the fact that the judge's summation took over 2 hours and was in English and that the jury were Chinese speaking locals who had jobs to get back to and were therefore more inclined to make a quick vote and get back to work plating dumplings at the dipaidong. To quote Bugs Bunny; "What a Maroon." Doesn't she know that judges in Hong Kong are infallible? They could never give improper instructions to a jury in a language they didn't understand.

During the first trial I came away with the feeling that neither Nancy or her legal representation were the brightest bulb in the lamp and this appeal sort of confirmed those suspicions.

A few relevant points.

• She could have made a credible claim that her husband was physically abusive - before she killed him.
• She could have made a credible claim that her husband was emotionally abusive - before she killed him.
• She could have made a credible claim that her husband was addicted to Cocaine - before she killed him.
• She could have made a credible claim that her husband was a serial philanderer - before she killed him.
• She could have made a credible claim that her husband was a danger to their children - before she killed him.

After she killed him, in cold blood, with premeditation all of those things are somewhat moot.

Raising these claims in a divorce court would have netted Nancy 1/2 her husbands 18 million dollar fortune and he would have been liable for the court cost. Not to mention probably costing her loutish husband his high profile job. As the saying goes, don't get even get a lawyer. She could have then moved to Montana, married her Internet boyfriend and lived the high life for ever after.

Instead, Nancy doped her husband with a triple dose of sedatives, bashed his brains out with a rolling pin, wrapped his body in a rug and hid his mortal remains in a storage room. When caught she claimed that she killed him in self defense.

It must have been tough to defend herself against an unconscious man! The self defense argument only works when you're in imminent danger which at the time she wasn't. After she drugged him her husband was not a danger to anyone. Therein lies the first point in my argument that either Nancy or her lawyer is an idiot. Given the known leniency of the Hong Kong judiciary if Nancy had pleaded guilty, shown remorse, been just a little contrite and agreed to attend anger management classes she would be a free woman today.

Please do not misunderstand; I think in many ways her sentence is just; or would be in a place with a sane judiciary. But it should be obvious that in a Hong Kong court pleading guilty, showing even contrived remorse and playing a bit of kiss-ass with the judge will get a serious crime reduced to the level of a traffic infraction. In Hong Kong pleading innocent gets you a longer sentence! Why didn't she pleade guilty and take the slap on the wrist? The only answer is that either she or her lawyer are idiots or that she really believes that she was threatened by her husband.

If she'd been a little smarter she could have walked away from this altogether. How? Easy. Dope the slob enough to ensure that he was off his guard, invite him out on the balcony for a BBQ and then whack him over the head once with the rolling pin to disorient him and then push his sorry Armani covered ass over the balcony rail. After he'd fallen 40 stories she could have called the police and reported an accident all the while playing the part of the hysterical tai-tai. In a city with less than 12 murders a year the police would probably not have assumed fowl play. The fact she planed the murder but not the disposal of the body tell us that she was scared of him and not really concerned with what happened afterwards. If she'd been a little more cold blooded about this she'd only be troubled by her conscience.

Who is a greater danger to society; The Hong Kong child molester who lured at least 12 preteen girls into a warehouse with McDonald's toys and raped them or Nancy Kissel who murdered an abusive husband? Who got life in prison and who got 8 years? Who showed "remorse" in court and who claimed they hadn't committed a crime? Who pleaded guilty and who didn't?

Nancy should have been smart enough and certainly her lawyer should have been wise enough to point out these things to her and convince her to plead guilty but with extenuating circumstances. You don't beat an unconscious man to death and claim self defense. So, again I say that either Nancy Kissel or her legal representatives are idiots. Or she really was scared of the guy and thought it was a form a self defense.

Now having set the stage so to speak, I think Nancy deserves an appeal and she deserves to have a her sentence reduced. In fact, because this is Hong Kong I think she should be let out of jail after having the rest of her sentence waived; but not for the reasons her lawyers are using. Instead, her legal team should be doing just what I have done above. When you compare her case with other recent high profile cases in Hong Kong her sentence is unjust by comparison.

Let's review some of the cases I written about in this blog and compare them with Mrs Kissel:

• If you let a 13 year-old illegally drive your van and kill a 7 year-old boy you get 10 months in jail and a suspended driver's license.
• If you kill a cyclist while driving on a road that was closed to traffic while speeding and talking on a cell phone you receive a slap on the wrist jail term and fine that is less than the cost of the bicycle the man you killed was riding.
• If you run over an old couple while illegally reversing your car at high speeds the wrong way up an entrance ramp you lose your drivers license and get a suspended sentence.
• If you beat a cat to death in an elementary school lunch room you go to jail for two years. (This was actually a just sentence because everyone knows that you should strangle a cat; you beat jackasses.)
• If you are a child molester and open an after school tutorial center so that you have a ready supply of little kids to molest you get a few months in jail
• If you lure a dozen or so little girls into a warehouse and rape them then you receive an 8 year prison sentence
• If you use your position as the CEO of one of the largest banks in Hong Kong to engage in insider trading and illegal stock market manipulation you get invited to THBT's office for lunch
• If you murder your abusive husband you get life.

You'll notice I left out the guy that went to jail for 33 months after stealing 14K with fraudulent ATM cards! We might not want her being compared with him.

I ask you; how is Nancy Kissel's sentence fair? She has already served more time in prison than almost any of those listed above. She isn't a habitual criminal. She is not a high risk case. Indeed, if they let her go she'll probably move to the US; so who cares? She is out of Hong Kong's hair.

How can we free Tibet when we cannot even free Nancy Kissel?

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who thinks that justice is not a concept that judges in Hong Kong understand

Mugabe opponent beaten to death

And the people outside are chanting "Free Tibet!" Tibet is freer today than Zimbabwe ever has been.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The blogger who really does not like to stick up for the PRC

A City Where You Can’t Hear Yourself Scream

In Causeway Bay the residents would sneer at a mere 85 decibel noise level on the street. I know that's true because I can read their lips when they laugh.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who has become far to used asking: "What did you say?"

33 months for Stealing

Another court case in Hong Kong Yesterday

A man who had through stupidity gotten deeply in debt compounded his problems by borrowing money from a Triad (Loan Shark - Gangster - HSBC Executive). Could he pay it back? Of course not, he didn't have a job. So, rather than break his arms the Triads took pity on him and gave him a job in their financial services office. He was given a stack of fake and stolen ATM cards and Visa's, a list of usernames and passwords and told to go to ATM's and use them to try and withdraw cash. Evidently some of them worked because he had 14K on him when the local constabulary caught him which seems a lot for an unemployed guy of his social standing.

The judge called this a "Serious Offense" and gave him 33 months in prison. Maybe he should have run down a kid on a bicycle! However, you figure that he will be paroled in about 10 months of actual time less what he has already served so maybe the sentence isn't so severe. But still, this wasn't a violent crime. Nobody got hurt. I'm not sure that stealing from the Robber-Barron Hong Kong banks is even morally wrong.

Now for the tricky part that uses dodgy logic. Assume he serves the whole sentence of 33 months in jail for stealing $14K. That means that he was sentenced to one month one in jail for about every HKD $425 dollars he stole. So if you then multiple 425 by 10 you $4245.00 Does that mean that the life of a 7 year-old boy is worth less than $4500.00 in Hong Kong? Could the Scout Master who was responsible for running over a little boy have paid the family $5000 and called it square?

As I said in some important ways the logic is dodgy but it is solid enough to
show how messed up the judges in Hong Kong are. Indeed, it shows clearly that in Hong Kong the idea of the punishment fitting the crime is an unknown element of the justice system. Neither of these men received justice.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who thinks maybe he should have trained as a judge

The Evil Empire?

Listen to the theme being played in the background by the Queen's band when the King of Saudi Arabia visited London. Do you think he got the joke?

Maybe there is hope for the British after all


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who may have to reconsider being an Anglophobe and proud

Re-considering

I guess I shouldn't be so hard on the group of Islamic scholars that said health insurance violates Islam yesterday. After all that means that people who employ Malaysian housekeepers in Hong Kong could justify violating Hong Kong law and not providing them with insurance on religious grounds. Most of the population here would probably like that.

Indeed, if the government insist on its mandatory insurance scheme despite already having having socialized medicine you might see a sudden conversion to Islam by lots of the population to avoid this program for similar reasons.

But then what do I know? I've been cynical since I was born.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who hasn't had a selfless thought since he was two.

Walter Veltroni is the butt of Silvio Berlusconi's campaign jokes

We need this guy to move to Hong Kong

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who does not Think that Donald Tsang is very funny

You can't make this stuff up

What kind of rates do suicide bombers get on health insurance anyway?


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger with Health Insurance

Odds and Ends

Another judge issued an outrageously lenient decision here the day before yesterday. I've been fuming about it for a couple of days. A Boy Scout leader was letting two 13 year-old scouts drive his van when they ran over and killed a 7 year-old boy riding a bicycle. He then lied to the police about who was driving to protect the kids that he had irresponsibly allowed to do this. He received a whopping 10 months in jail for this crime and lost his drivers license for 2 years.

The judge basically pissed on the grave of this little kid and the bereaved family was understandably furious. The judge then issued the same stinking self-loathing platitudes acquired in his second class British University or HKU (Sycophantically British in methods and curriculum) about how "You can't bring the child back to life" bla-bla-bla that HK judges always spout after they let an obvious criminal off with a slap on the wrist. Someone needs to tell these pompous twerps that it isn't about bringing the child back to life. It is about punishing wrong doers.

Indeed, this whole incident isn't about the perpetrator at all in one sense. It is about justice for the little boy's family. I do not care how contrite man was. I do not care that he pleaded guilty. I do not care that he is a low risk to do this again. How many people are high risk for this type thing? It is about people driving automobiles having courtesy and respect for people not in their cars. It is about a safe and fear free society. It is about remembering that "mercy to criminals is injustice to victims."

After the trial the boys father said on camera that "he would be waiting when the man got out of prison and would kill him" Since threatening to kill someone is an offense this judgment has already caused another crime to be committed. The boy's father probably won't do that but if he does then both the murdered man and the murderer's blood should but on the judges hands.

Humans have an innate sense of justice. The scout master needs to believe that he has made recompense for what he did. The father of the boy needs to know that the man who was responsible for killing his son has been punished. The two boys in the van need to know that it wasn't their fault. Nobody got justice in this decision. Nobody gets closure Not the plaintiff, defendant or the accessories. The judge gets to go home and feel that he is a progressive, enlightened person.

May he someday know what it is like to have injustice thrust upon him.

The man sentenced should have been put away for 3 to 5 years. While heinous this was an accident and not premeditated murder. It was a mistake but, there are some mistakes that you shouldn't make. If you want to teach a 13 year-old how to drive then great, do it where nobody is going to get killed. He is not only responsible for killing a 7 year-old but traumatizing two 13 year-old boys for life. How would you have liked to be the 13 year-old driver? More than that it would allow him to come to grips with a terrible mistake. It would also give the boy's family time to accept their son's death and to forgive someone who has hurt them badly.

Injustice being masqueraded as justice is nothing new in Hong Kong. Especially if the crimes committed are against bicyclist, children or the elderly as I have so often pointed out in this blog. Indeed, if letting criminals off with a wink and a nudge were an Olympic sport Hong Kong would probably be a favorite for the gold medal.

Which brings me my other topic today.

I don't like the Olympics. I gave up on them several years ago. When I was a child they were special because it was amateur sport. The Olympics were also special when I was a kid because it was a chance to see how non-professional US athletes could compete with and often win against those from Iron Curtain nations who everybody knew took hormones (Today we call them steroids)and were professionally trained. You always groaned in the figure skating events if more than one of the judges was from East Germany because you knew that your nation didn't have a chance.

Now all the teams, players and athletes can be seen on ESPN playing for their regular professional team. So what makes the Olympics such a big deal anymore? It never occurred to me that the Olympics were not a political event. They were all about politics. Cold War political slogans were almost etched into the medals. That is why I find the posturing of both sides of various groups wanting nations to either boycott the Olympics or not kind of silly.

It is simply inconceivable to me that the IOC chairman could sit there with a straight face and say "We are not about politics" BS, pure simple BS is all that was. But did these French doctors who want to free Tibet ever advocate boycotting Olympics in other places besides China that have equally abysmal records on Human Rights? Did they support Jimmy Carter for making the US team boycott the Moscow games? Did they ever complain about judges from Communist nations that obviously fixed various events in the name of politics? No. So, why start now?

That said, I hope that if I were a 28 year-old bicycle racer who had made the US team Olympic cycling team that I'd have the moral courage to skip these games. I think that if a significant number of athletes refused to go on their own accord it would be a much more meaningful protest than if their nation simply refused to issue them a visa. If the government of The-Socialist-Paradise of (Insert any EU member) bans it athletes from going the PRC can chalk it up to politics. If athletes refuse to go because they don't want to be associated with a regime that is repressive, cruel and corrupt then the PRC could still chalk it up to politics but couldn't hide the fact that it isn't.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who has never been to an Olympic event

Fitna to be tied

A comparison is useful here.

Some not all Christians get upset and protest when artist, or others slander them for what they do NOT believe.

Muslims get upset when you present WHAT they believe.

Are there verses in the Bible that are difficult to deal with? Sure there are. Christians and Jews have developed theology or possibly rationalizations to deal with those.

Islam needs to do the same.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The blogger who isn't really offended by very much

Reciprocity

I find the phraseology of this article interesting. I also find it interesting that most US citizens should have a favorable opinion of Europeans. Why should Americans think nice thoughts about the UK? I think it is because they don't know many UK citizens. Most people in the US only know the British by history books and the occasional BBC TV program picked up by PBS. They don't see the yobs, the snobs and antisemitic alcoholics that make up the largest part of UK citizenry.

But then maybe I'm overstating my case a bit. I admit that I am an inconsistent Anglophobe.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who can't wait for Europe to dry up and blow away

Our Silence is Deafening

What a great article!

All the "Free Tibet" people should read this carefully. Please, don't misunderstand. China has been pretty brutal in Tibet but there are many place that are much worse that receive no attention from the media or protesters.

Compared to other places in the world the people of Tibet have it good; Zimbabwe for example. Because the people of Zimbabwe do not have a charismatic guy, who speaks good English promoting their cause and because Robert (The Genocidal Maniac) Mugabe does a decent job of playing the "I'm a victim of European colonialism" card the left-wing protesters don't care how many people die in Africa. Besides the people in Africa are black and the Dali Lama looks almost white and does concerts with U2. I guess Africans suffering at the hands of true left-wing dictator types are not as fun to care about as Tibetans suffering under the hand of ex-left wing semi-dictatorships like China.

Let me see; who has more freedom, opportunity, social mobility or human rights A or B?

A----------------------------------- B
Buddhist in Tibet ----------Christians in Saudi Arabia
Almost anyone in Tibet - --Almost anyone in Sudan
Farmers in Tibet - --------Farmers in Zimbabwe
Women in Tibet ----------Women in most Muslim countries
People in Tibet ---------- People in Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti

The answer in every case is "A"

It would seem to me that if people wanted to work for a group of people to be freer then any of the places in column "B" would be a better place to start. Not that "A" is necessarily a very good place to be

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who really does not like to defend the PRC

Mac-the-Knife in the PRC and Tibet

Introductions to post, especially post about controversial topics are always the hardest part of an essay to write. As a blogger I am, or so I believe lumbered with the triple task of catching the reader's interest, setting out my topic and doing that in a creative, manor that encourages readers to think about their own opinions. Not that those aren't the job of any writer but I think, with so many bloggers posting it is important to kind of have that hook to keep people from cruising on by. However, I also have to be careful lest a reader simply sees that first sentence and says "What a jerk" and then doesn't finish reading. It is a line I don't feel that I walk very well at times. All of that brings me to my topic today which is actually something I've spent several days thinking about. I want those who would have a knee jerk reaction against my topic to take a deep breath, count to 10 and keep reading until the end of the post.

Here is the controversial part:

I believe that the government of China was justified in the way that it controlled the protesters in Lhasa Tibet two weeks ago.

Why?

Because I believe that Niccolò Machiavelli was correct when he said that the primary purpose of the state is to ensure that it continues exist. No nation, at any time, not even France last summer will allow citizens to agitate for secession. Notice if you will, that shortly after this tragedy started there were pro-Tibet protest in other Chinese cities, including Beijing. Did the PRC kill those people? No they did not. The issue in Tibet was, at least in part that the racial Tibetans were burning and looting the homes and businesses of Han Chinese that the government had moved into the area. This wasn't a group of monks walking peacefully down the street waving signs.

In this respect, the actions of the PRC mirror those of France last summer when the racial minority North African Youths rioted around Paris. Was the PRC more brutal? Yes it appears so but they also stopped the riots in less time. While the issues involved are different the principle by which both nations responded was the same.

Like it or not, Tibet IS part of China. Whether Tibet was part of China, or an allied power with Imperial China until 1911 is a moot question. In the early 1950's the PRC invaded Tibet, conquered it and assimilated it into to the PRC. Tibet is part of China by law of conquest. I do not necessarily like that. You may not like that. At least some of the Tibetans pretty obviously don't like it but it doesn't matter what any of us like in this case. It only matters that China invaded Tibet, subdued it and added Tibetan lands and peoples to the PRC. This is the way that empires have always been built.

None of this means that I like what is happening in Tibet.

There is another issue involved here which isn't thought about by the protesters either as far as I can tell. If the Chinese give Tibet independence they'd have to do the same for Taiwan. The population in PRC have been taught for nearly 60 years that Taiwan is part of China. They'd never stand for that. Also, if they give Tibet Independence then why not a Free Hong Kong movement? What about all those Western Chinese provinces that would like to become their own 3rd world Muslim slum? Why not "freedom" for the 160 to 200 million Cantonese speakers?

If China were to let Tibet slip from its iron-fisted grasp the whole nation might fall apart. While there are people who think that might be a good thing I doubt the leaders in Beijing would. Indeed, as the US has just spent 5 years learning in Iraq, overthrowing a bad government does not mean the next one will be better.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who doesn't really like to defend the PRC on this issue

Go away for a week and the place falls apart.

Holy Cow!

The really smart-pretty-looks twenty years younger than she is- hardworking wife and I go to the hot spring for Easter break and Hong kong goes to Hell in a handbasket. Geez, I guess I don't need to ever take a vacation.

So tell me, who pays for raising that tug boat that sank after it was rammed by a Chinese freighter? There are traffic rules for ships just like there are for automobiles. That means that someone, figuratively speaking was in the wrong lane or ran a stop sign. Shouldn't the owners of the ship in the wrong be charged for the rescue and salvage? Yet the local news hasn't said as far as I can see which ship was in the wrong.

Let us not even ask what a tug boat registered in the Ukraine was doing in Victoria harbour?

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who doesn't have a boat

Who Says The Elite Aren't Fit To Serve?

Well said indeed!

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who was 4F

You can't do this if you are Chinese

I am not a fan of this woman's music. Couldn't careless about her most of the time. I also think think this was an empty gesture that may even have been counter-productive. The leadership in China are all paranoid and think everybody is out to get them. Giving them reason to believe their fears are justified doesn't really help the situation.

Besides Tibet isn't the issue in China, or at least not the whole issue. The real issue is that the entire nation groans under the imperial heel of the jackbooted, Ex-communist cum Neo-Nazi party that controls my nation. It isn't just the people in Tibet who are oppressed in China it is everybody. To single Tibet out because the somewhat charismatic Dalli Lama makes them an issue and to ignore the rest of the country is not right. She should have yelled. "Freedom, Freedom, Freedom" not "Tibet, Tibet Tibet" Better yet, she should could have yelled; "Live up to your Constitution and obey the laws you claim to respect; you slimly pieces excrement and black hair dye!"

The Chinese constitution promises, freedom of speech and religion and a whole host of rights that the Chinese people are routinely denied. The government of the PRC needs to live up to its own creeds which were adopted in the 1980's. But doing so would threaten the party and the party, in the eyes of its members must never fail. Chairman Mao forbid (Since they are officially Atheist I can't say God forbid) that the party should ever be shown to be guilty of a crime! It can't be. They are the progressive and compassionate leaders of the proletariat revolution. I think they need to read Karl Popper's critique of Socialism.

But, at some level, I've got to admire what this singer did. Especially since the central government just declared a "People's War" against Tibet yesterday because of the protest going on there. I asked around a bit to find out what a "People's War" is. The definition provided by the nearly always unreliable Wikipedia is evidently somewhat incorrect or at least in this case less than complete. It appears that in this case the government has declared a state of overt Martial Law, as opposed to the somewhat more discreet version that is the norm in China. It also means that the police, military and other security forces in Tibet are probably going to simply machine gun the protesters after putting a media blackout in effect.

I've printed these lyrics before. But they deserve to be printed again

How Many Tears
Gunmetal grey for golden rules
White hot steel for the comfort of fools
Molten wills in iron hands
Forge new sons for the Motherland

How many tears will fall down
How many tears must fall
How many tears will stain this ground
How many tears must fall

Hidden mounds in jungle dust
Youthful voices forever lie hushed
Poets and peasants know the truth
But what in the world can one man do

How many tears will fall down
How many tears must fall
How many tears will stain this ground
How many tears must fall

A mother’s eyes ache with her hatred
Her lips they are crippled with fear
She waits for the news that she don’t want to hear
How many tears
How many tears
How many tears must fall down

Ain’t no funerals
Ain’t no prayers
Ain’t no blood in the Government Square
Reign of terror
True and tried
Dries the eyes before they’ve cried

How many tears will fall down
How many tears must fall
How many tears will stain this ground
How many tears must fall
How many tears
How many tears will fall down

From Dry Bones Dance
Back to The Mark Heard Lyric Project

How many people have to die in the name of the people, social harmony and progress? Now there is a question that even Confucius couldn't answer.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who wants all of China to be Free

Right Here Right Now

I am an existentialist. That is a difficult thing to say not only because Existentialism is such a difficult movement to pin down (though it is) but, because it has also been out of fashion since the 1950’s. So it is somewhat embarrassing to say “I am an existentialist” in the same way that the middle-aged stockbroker in an Armani suit is just a little embarrassed to say “ In college back in the ‘60’s I used to wear tied-dyed T-shirts and told myself that only fascist drove Volvos.”

Another reason it is somewhat embarrassing to admit to being an existentialist is that there is a general conception that existentialists are a group of morose or depressed individuals. Sort of like a room full of Edgar Allen Poe want-to-be types only they don’t write poetry but prose in French or German.

In reality, only some existentialists were morose and depressed. At least one was insane. Quite a few were religious unless they were Atheist. Heidegger was a NAZI but his friend Jan Husserl whom he dedicated his book “Being and Time” to was Jewish, as was Henri Bergson. Jaspers was a psychologist before giving up that pseudoscience to pursue uncertain philosophic truth. Kierkegaard was a devout Lutheran whose meditations are still read in Danish churches. Some like Jean-Paul Sartre attained a kind of celebrity status if only for the purpose of seducing women[1], while others like Bergson and Popper sought ways harmonize philosophy, science and religion. Some existentialists are read only by other existentialist if at all; but Camus was a best selling novelist. Francis Schaeffer was a Protestant missionary in Switzerland who wrote books in which he spent a lot of time complaining about how existentialist are a bad influence are on society but his theology is based upon experiencing a personal God so you could, in a sense call him a Christian Fundamentalist-Existentialist.

If you look around you can probably find an existential writer to praise or blame, support or debunk any subject you can think of.

Which brings us to the central questions; “What is Existentialism?” and “Why am I am Existentialist?”

What ties existential thinkers together is a belief in experience. Existentialists generally believe that it is our experiences which explain reality not primarily logic, reason or laws. It is this emphasis upon experience that separates existential philosophy from not only more popular schools of philosophy but even from concepts like Dadaist art. Art is not, to the existentialist what the artist says it is, that is Nihilism which I think is a form of sophistry, but rather art is important because of what the experience of experiencing the art reveals about us and the artist.

Believing that experience is equal to reason, and logic and doesn't mean that existentialist don't believe in moral absolutes, ethics or science. Just that they don't feel you can separate the experience from the fact in most cases.

I do not always agree with everything that every existentialist says. Far from it; often I often disagree heartily. But, because I recognize the role of experience in the thought process I can better talk to people that have different points of view. It also gives me a way to convince those who hold different views. I can simply say "Try it, you'll like it"

Something that I find funny about existentialism is that you can an existentialist and be almost anything else at the same time. You can be a philosophic Idealist, a Platonist if you will and still be an existentialist at the same time. But, you can also be a philosophical Realist, have Aristotle memorized in the original Greek and heartily agree that Thomas Aquinas is the greatest intellect in 1500 years and still be an existentialists. I guess you could probably be a Nihilist, believing that nothing is real and go around trying to experience nothing in an existential manner but the difference between that and a Buddhist might be hard to explain to all those people who aren’t really there and probably couldn’t careless.

Experience is broad topic. As you can imagine there is considerable disagreement over what constitutes a “valid” existential experience and different existentialist have looked at different types of experience as valid. Early in his career, Heidegger said that the ultimate experience was our angst over death but as he grew older he thought that we should look to our poetic muse and the creation of beauty in the world and in our lives. Sartre, thought the universe was meaningless and wrote about our feelings of alienation and striving to impose meaning and personality upon an impersonal universe. Martin Buber and Soren Kierkegaard describe experience in terms of faith and experiencing God. This means that existentialist maybe tied together by their emphasis upon experience but the rope has lots of slack and the knot isn’t that tight. That is one of the things that makes’ existentialism attractive to me. There is room for all sorts of people. I think it was Richard Rorty who said something like “90 % of everything that philosophers say is wrong; but the 10% they get right explains 99% of everything else.” Well, that statement is as true of existentialism as it is of any

This broadness and amorphous quality of existentialism is my chief proof for my next statement. I am an existentialist because I believe that we are all, every one of us, regardless of culture, creed or gender, are existentialist. We may, and many do, try and deny this. We want to deny it because it is a scary thought. We want the universe to make sense. We want to be able to prove, to know, to understand. Existentialism offers no assurance we will find those things. But, look around. How many of the decisions we make each day are really based upon logic, or reason? The closest we normally get to those things is biology. Indeed, we almost never use reason or logic as the sole basis for important decisions. Even if we think we do. For example; when I wanted to get married I did not advertise a vacancy for a spouse, collect resumes, have candidates vetted for, attractiveness, earning potential, compatibility, age or what not. It didn’t happen that way at all. It never does. If we look, most of the major decisions we make are made according some metaphysical soup ethics, logic and experience. I think that the more important the decision, the less logic and reason actually have to do with it. The sooner we realize that the sooner we will make better decisions.

Does that mean I don’t believe in logic, reason or absolutes? No, it does mean that I am aware that many times I will use reason, logic and other external cannons to justify my own desires. Reason and logic are not the deities that eighteenth-century French philosophers thought them to be. They are tools, a kind of mental hammer that allow us to break down our desires into simpler parts that we can understand. We’d see that we aren’t half as smart as we think we are but maybe far wiser.

We are all creatures of experience. We all live, or should live for the love of life. Not that it is always pleasant, or easy or even understandable; but just because it is. Is there a meaning to it all? Science, logic and reason can never know. But the existentialist can; right here right now.

More on this at a later time.

[1] Thinkexist.com: http://thinkexist.com/quotation/if_i_became_a_philosopher-if_i_have_so_keenly/159232.html March 16, 2008


Until Next Time
Fai mao
The Philosopher Want-to-be Blogger

No cause for flu panic: scientist

I guess this scientist doesn't have an children.

That said the population here does tend to panic a bit over these things,

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who can understand why parents are concerned.

Wedding role for `dingo car'

If this had happened in Hong Kong the mother would have been convicted but not gone to jail if she had looked remorseful to the judge


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger without any faith in Hong Kong's justice system

Another Paedophile - Another Stupid Judge

I wish that the link above would take my gentle readers to the actual article. It won't and the newspaper digest that I have access to is always a day late so if you want to see the rest of the article you'll have to register. I'll replace the link when I get access to the article.

This was the 4th time this animal (Apologies to our four footed friends who probably don't deserve to be maligned by having their good name associated with this beast) was convicted of molesting little girls. This time he'd setup his own after school tutorial business and priced it cheap to attract low income parents then raped their preteen daughters.

According to TVB last night he exhibited no remorse but is only sorry he got caught. But, he pleaded guilty and so the damned idiot of a judge gives him a four year sentence.

This is just another case that shows that the justice system in Hong Kong is broken. Pedophiles, cannot be rehabilitated. They don't out grow it. This was not a case that could have been an accident in that this creep (In the actual meaning of the word) didn't accidentally or unintentionally place his hand to low on a girls' shoulder while trying to help her with her homework.

This sub-human-slice-of-bottom-feeding-sewer-scum needs to be put away forever. However that might be considered cruel and unusual punishment or inhumane given that normal criminals, thieves, triad members, murderers and the like don't like pedophiles and often don't have any scruples about abusing them as they've abused children. So, maybe Hong Kong should just turn him over to mainland authorities and have his family billed for a bullet. That would be the humane and merciful thing to do. Just kill him; do it today. That won't happen.
Our socialist-pig-progressive-never-give-the-victims-of-crime-closure-or-justice-trained- in-Europe judges evidently don't think pedophilia is that big a deal. I guess they vacation in Amsterdam.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who believes that Pedophilia should be a capital offense

"You might think I'm Plastic"

Can you identify the quote above?

I love articles like this because they illustrate three things.

1. People have very short memories as a rule.
2. Most people just want extremist to leave them alone and so will sometime go along with things to shut them up.
3. The environmental movement is full of cowardly people.

Rant One: It was the environmental moment back in the 1980's that pushed for the use plastic bags instead of paper bags. They claimed that the plastic bags were more ecologically friendly than paper ones. I doubt you could get any of them to admit this now but I heard them myself on Radio talk shows. The slogan at the time was "Don't destroy the rain forest just to carry you groceries home." This despite the fact that rain forest are generally cut down by people wanting to convert the land to agricultural purposes not make paper. The trees for paper are grow on big tree farms just like wheat or soybeans. However there was some limited truth in the statement because paper mills, especially older one are not very pleasant and the stores liked the plastic bags because they took up less space and didn't attract pest like roaches that feed on paper.

Most people had a justifiably hard hard time understanding how a biodegradable paper was more environmentally friendly than a plastic? Wouldn't it be better to have just built cleaner paper mills?

Because the environmental lobby was insistent and most people want to be left alone we went along with it. It made them feel good and we just wanted them to leave us alone. However, I think that most people looked at the change to plastic bags as nuisance in that the paper ones were useful as bin liners and for kids to use as construction and coloring paper.

Rant Two: Because normal people don't like to have environmental idiots yell at them and don't like to argue with people in public they found it easier to go along than to challenge the nuts. The nuts know this so they become aggressive and threatening in public and obsequious in private. Because they couch their idiocy in pseudo-philosophic language about higher purpose and "Saving the Earth" they feel they have the right browbeat any one who challenges them. What this means to me is that people who know better need to not worry about having ideological baboons call them names. Society needs to stand up thugs, especially those who think their actions are justified because some higher calling.

Rant Three: It appears to me that the real object of much of the environmental movement is not to protect the environment but to bring about some kind of political agenda and is besotted with some form of noble savage myth. I may be wrong but it appears to me that the environmental lobby wants everyone to live in a mud hut with no electricity and use dried grass for toilet paper after destroying the US, UK and sometimes Japan. I guess they can grow their marijuana organically in the back garden. I say this because they only seem focus on issues that hurt Western nations economically.

For instance; look at the thugs that bother the Japanese about whaling, do they ever go after Indonesian fishermen who dynamite a coral reef? No.

How about harassing some Chinese fishing boats catching sharks? Oh they'd never do that.

How many times have they picketed in front of the Chinese medicine factories that collect bear bile? None. Why not?

Could it be because Indonesian is not a free-market economy?

Could it be because whales have a cuter image than garoupa?

Or, is it as I believe because environmentalist are essentially cowards and know that they can harass a Japanese whale boat or American housewives with impunity and that the Indonesian fisherman would simply heave a couple of stick of dynamite at the environmentalist rather than into the reef? I don't know. I do know this. dynamite fishing is wide spread in Asia and I would bet is a greater threat to the environment the few dozen whales the Japanese kill for culinary research each year.

Please note, I don't support whaling. The Japanese should eat something else.

However, because the environmental movement focuses on easy targets or only in nations where they won't get arrested or who have a decidedly non-socialist agenda I think they are either cowards or have another agenda that they don't talk about. At least political psychopaths sometime have to stand and fight like the monsters the Colombian government whacked a couple of weeks ago. Speaking of that, why is it that everybody gets so worked over Columbia going after commie thugs and nobody cares when Turkey goes inside Iraq to kill a few Kurdish thug? but I digress.

A prediction: In ten years or so, maybe 15; after all of the factories that make paper and plastic bags have closed the environmental movement will start another hugh and cry. This time they'll say "Those awful Cotton bags! Don't you know how much pesticide is used on Cotton? Do you know how much water it takes to grow it? Don't you know how company 'X' based in the US/UK/Australia/wherever works poor migrants as slaves so that you can carry your groceries home? We've got to abolish cloth bags! they are bad for the environment!" You just wait, it will happen. By 2020 the environmental movement will advocate the use of brown craft-paper bags.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who wants a clean environment not a dishonest environmental movement

McUniversities

They used to call it Great Britain but it hasn't been great in quite awhile; now it is just the UK. With universities like these no wonder they spell thing funny and drive on the wrong side of the road.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger with a four year US undergraduate degree, a three Year Master's and a PhD from China

Of Pots and Kettles and Relative Blackness

I wonder if my reference to idiom in the title will be understood by the people at China Travel?

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who appreciates good service

The Return of the Fat Cat and the Death of the Fat Woman

I haven't posted anything for two weeks but that isn't because there has been a lack of things to think about; just a combination of my laziness and business. I had other things to do at the times I normally post and didn't want to take the time at other points of the day.

Perhaps the most noteworthy item in the past couple of weeks however was the memorial service for Lydia Shum ( Fey Fey) this past Sunday. As far as Hong Kong celebrities go she will definitely be missed. The lady was just funny; Lucille Ball funny. You could also sit down with a 6 year-old and watch "Living With Lydia" and not have to worry about periodically covering their ears or eyes. I also apreciated the fact that she seemed to be comfortable in her extra large skin. Healthy life style and all that aside, there is a place for people to be content with their appearance. Hong Kong actors, at least those on the local TV programs all seem to have that overly perfect makeup, and strive for that animi-cartoon look. Lydia's rotundity helped to make her acting appear human.

I have a lot of sympathy for her daughter. That poor girl effectively had to bury her mother in public three times. That is two too many for anyone.

TV needs more like Fey Fey.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who is slightly less rotund than Lydia Shum

Beijing Keeps shooting itself in the Head

Why is it that all the people in the Chinese government are such knuckle-dragging thugs?

Until Next Time
Fai Mao

A new way to create wealth in Hong Kong

I'm being sarcastic here folks.

After all why do we need another pyramid scheme here when we can, with impunity engage in insider trading just like David Li the president of the Bank of East Asia?

Holy Cow! All we have to do is invite the CEO's of big brokerage houses here and hobnob with them over cocktails and canapes.

Who needs to be able to sell kits for producing "magic cheese" to peasants when we can rig the markets so that HK investors, at least the big rich ones like David Li never lose?

More than that, why is the Human Bow Tie so concerned about his friend David that he is willing make Hong Kong an international pariah in financial circles?

David Li is a criminal. He is also if you talk to people who work at the BEA a very mean and stingy boss. He should go away. I don't care where. Maybe retire in the South of France with the other third world dictators and tax evaders.

Hong Kong may not not have the insider trading laws like most non-corrupt nation but he knew that what he was doing was unethical. He should not only be barred from the government but removed from his post as CEO of the BEA as well.

Geez, this guy makes Li Kai Shing and Nina Wong look good. The only way this story could be better is if he'd used some of the money he stole to hire prostitutes in Macao.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who thinks Hong Kongers should get over their "Get rich quick mentality"

Me and Eric and that Woman on the Bus (Another long and rambling post)

I must confess I don’t much like cold weather. I grew up in a hot place and I enjoy the heat. I’m not really comfortable until it gets close to 30 degrees Celsius. While air pollution here is horrific and the humidity is a killer I don’t ever feel like the heat just assaults me like I did when I was a boy in Texas. The recent, by Hong Kong Standards cold weather has just made me miserable. I wish it would end and can’t help but have nightmares about the possibility of this being one of those freak years without a summer that seem to happen every 100 years or so. I can almost see the marathon runners in Beijing plodding along through the snow during the summer Olympics this year.

My grumpiness at the cold has been somewhat mitigated by my job. The new building is very nice, not drafty at all and I now have adequate work space for processing materials, and for doing all the things that school libraries should really be doing that I couldn’t do before. Indeed, if it were not for the new library I’d probably have taken a couple of sick days this week and gone somewhere warm like Phukett.

Another thing that is unexpectedly pleasant this winter is the new bus I now get to take to work. It is faster than the MTR in this case and much more comfortable in that I always get a seat. Sometimes it is just me, the driver and my MP3. I guess that not many people live in Causeway Bay and work in the Sha Tin area or if they do they go to work later than me. This bus is also nice because it doesn’t go through that hideous Hung Hom tunnel but the Eastern Tunnel. That means I don’t spend an hour on the bus in the afternoon waiting for it to enter the tunnel. It only takes about 30 to 45 minutes each way to go back and forth to work and home or home and work and that is about as fast as a car could drive the same route. The Hong Kong bus system is really amazing. I wouldn’t think that I could get a bus that goes pretty much from here to there but there it is.

I think that a nearly empty bus is a good place to be in the morning. It gives me time to think and have my morning devotions without being overly concerned about who is looking. However, my devotions have changed in the several months since I got my new bionic eyes. While I generally see much better now that I no longer have cataracts, color blindness or myopia and greatly enjoy seeing in 3D for the first time in my life there are some things my new eyes cannot do as well as the old pre-cataract surgery ones could. Two those things and they are the only two which really bother me all the time are that I am now quite far sighted which means that I require reading glasses and I can no longer read in a moving vehicle. I am now much more comfortable reading print on a screen than I am on a page. All of that means that I don’t read on the bus anymore. My morning devotions are now stints of thinking about what I’ve read other places while plugged into the MP3 so that I cannot hear the infomercials for weight loss clinics that play on the commercial video system on the bus. I guess that’s just middle age.

I’ve been thinking of late about how we change and grow spiritually as we get older. I know that some people don’t seem to change much as time goes by but I think that most people do and I think most people are better for it. I’ve also been thinking a lot about the way we hide behind codes of language and fashion to hide our flaws and how that becomes or should become less important to us as we get older provided that we are happy with ourselves.

I started thinking of this, in part because my ever lovely, gracious, looks-25 years younger than she is, hard working and really smart wife gave me an Eric Clapton CD and DVD this Christmas and I've had the CD on my MP3 for a couple of months now. Clapton is an interesting guy and his music has been intriguing to me for many years because he is someone that you can really see change and become a better person over time. I like him because he is also an anomaly in many ways in the contemporary music industry, especially when contrasted to Canto Pop singers who can make the 1980's version of Elton John look like a conservative dresser. Clapton doesn't do the big stage shows, fancy hats or weird costumes but just comes out and sings and plays. There is also an obvious spiritual element in much of his music and yes I know that sometimes, especially in the older stuff the spiritual parts are code for drug use but sometimes they don’t appear to be either.

When I was younger I’d have never used Eric Clapton in a meditative sense. I guess I was too orthodox or legalistic or whatever; but as I’ve gotten older “I Feel Free” to do so. Youth, it seems to me is often times like being in a “white room with black curtains” but those who are older know that we often time live in a world that is really shades of gray and I came to a “crossroads” several years ago and took a little less strident and to my mind more grace filled path.

I guess as I’ve grown older I’ve come to see that there might be more ways to stand in the “presence of the Lord,” and more ways of “running on faith” than I would have imagined when I was a 20 something idiot who was just walking around "after midnight" with nothing to do.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who is still "Riding with the King"

Things in the World and Caring

I found out last night that a man I'd intermittently corresponded with on the Internet over the years had died. His name was Sheldon Brown and he lived in Massachusetts. It would be dishonest to say that he and I were close friends but he was someone I knew slightly through Internet user groups and respected though politely disagreed with on several issues.

Martin Heidegger wrote about how it is in caring for others that we separate ourselves from the animals and from inanimate objects. I think that is probably the truest thing that Heidegger ever said. Humans care for each other not because we have family ties or because it necessarily makes us more successful as a species in an immediate way but because we realize how much alone we would otherwise be. Other people add beauty to our lives. In at least some small way I cared for Sheldon Brown because he made me feel less alone and added beauty to my life; I hope that I did a little of both for him.

I am saddened by the death of Sheldon Brown. My world was made better because he was included in my life if only as a fellow poster on user groups that dealt with antique bicycles and bicycle touring.

I will grieve for Sheldon Brown today and weep in my own quiet way with his family. It is the caring thing to do; it is the human thing to do; it is all that I can do.

Rest in Peace Mr. Brown


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The blogger who is getting old enough to have friends die.

Ferris Wheels

They should have called this the Singapore Sling


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who would rather ride a roller coaster

Internet Sex - Hong Kong Style

This whole story is a joke.

Since when do HK Canto-Singers mind a few nude photos of themselves? Oh, I remember, these were obtained for free. If they'd been purchased from the celebritard's web sites then it would be OK.

As far as I can tell, all this scandal (The word is used in the most lose sense of the term) proves is HK signers and movie stars are about twice as immoral as the average stray alley cat and have about the same amount of body hair and fleas.

They can't sing, they can't act, and they aren't even that good looking without six pounds of makeup.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger with a wife that is prettier than any of wenches in this scandal

Garlic flavored Chocolate?

I guess that this is just the stuff if your favorite food is raw fish and your boyfriend is a Sumo wrestler.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who prefers his chocolate without garlic

At least he couldn't smoke in public!

So the government was unable to find that this guy had done anything wrong but now wants to let life guards and street-sweepers give fixed-penalty fines for smoking in public.

And people wonder why I think the Hong Kong government is both corrupt and incompetant?

Anyway, happy Chinese New Year

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who doesn't like rats

Do you find this odd?

I don't find it odd at all that students with poor English skills have a harder time being accepted into a University that teaches in English. Indeed when the HKEdB changed the medium of instruction to Chinese in 1997 this was predicted.

I don't find it odd that the universities, especially HKU want to maintain English as the medium of instruction either. Indeed, given that something like 70 or 80 percent of all printed research is in English a strong case can be made that all tertiary education should be in English. English is, in that regard the new Latin. Please note, that says nothing bad about other languages. However, the arts and sciences are better served by having a "lingua franca" and English is currently that language.

I don't find it odd at all that the HKEdB would suppress a report that criticizes the decision it made to give fewer students an education in English in order to protect a few immorally overpaid running dogs and other assorted bureaucrats.

I do find it odd that more people don't see that limiting the number of students who can gain entrance to HKU and CUHK to those wealthy enough to get an education at an English school was exactly the plan. The HKEdB and the rest of the bureaucratic sycophants, aging shoe-shiners, running dogs and wealthy tycoons wanted to keep the entrance to the governance of HK in the hands of a few families, the local elite. While they might not say it publicly they believe that only those with the right breeding should lead Hong kong. One of the signs of having that breeding is that you are able to graduate from one of the "elite secondary school" that are on the Peak or in the Mid-Levels.

I have no doubt that the afore mentioned autocrats would heartily deny what I've just said being true. I would counter, look at who gets government jobs, what universities did they attend? What secondary schools did they attend? Did their families have either money or some other connection to the British? Now look at the secondary schools that are currently sending young scholars to HKU and CUHK, do you see a pattern? I thought you would.

The poor yahoos who don't have money or can't get a scholarship should just pipe-down and accept their place in life is to be lead by governed by the cartel.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who didn't come from an elite school

He should drive a mini-bus (Long and Rambling Post)

So, steal a lot of money in Macao and go to jail for 27 years. Kill a little girl through reckless driving in Hong Kong and go to jail for 4 months.

Hmmmm; it makes me wonder what would happen if a minibus driver stole 10 million and a government official killed a little girl?

The justice system in Hong Kong is simply broken. We need to replace every judge. If we can't do that then we need some mandatory sentencing for crimes like murder or manslaughter (Which is what this was) and negligent homicide. But, I'd really like to fire every judge in Hong Kong, revoke any pensions they might have and make them move their sorry butts back to the UK.

Speaking of the UK did anyone but me see the story of the blogger there that is under threat of arrest for complaining that the UK is letting proven terrorist into the country to preach in a London Mosque? Honestly, some might find this guy a bit over the edge; but I don't see that he is saying anything that is deserving of jail or even arrest. People of all political stripes say much more controversial things in other countries all the time. Especially since what he is saying is more or less true.

The concept of free speech is an important one to me but then I was born in the US not Europe. I can't see that he is that far out of line. It also seems to me that there is some differential enforcement going on here. Why do they arrest him for saying an Imam who advocates suicide bombers is a terrorist and not the people who called George W. Bush the heir to Hitler? Does the UK government not think that at least some Americans might be really offended by that? I'm not Mr. Bush's biggest fan but I certainly find the comments made about the US, most of which by the way are nearly completely false, by many UK citizens to be highly offensive. Why don't they worry about offending me or my religion? After all, If the average American is really the knuckle dragging Neanderthal that the Manchester Guardian makes us out to be you'd think they'd be afraid to offend us for the same reason they are afraid offending Muslims. Maybe a few Americans need to start calling for a holy war against Europe.

Nuke 'em 'til they glow! Or better yet, move there and take over the place. Turn it into "Eurmerica." Now there is an idea that's time has come!

"Eurmerica" is a concept whose time has come. Then Anti-Americanism would be a hate crime and US citizens could freely immigrate to countries like the UK and begin agitating for American law, American foods and American culture to be enforced as a sacred part of our culture. Actually that might be a good thing.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who believe in Liberty, Justice and Free Speech for all

A clarification

I had a comment from an anonymous reader complaining about my last post. he/she/it/they seemed to think that I was wanting to punish the school leavers. Actually nothing could be farther from the truth. But, when I reread my post I kind of see what they meant. I did come across as harsh. Indeed, I was trying to be harsh but my harshness was directed at the ERB and its nearly useless legion of social workers not the people they they spend millions on not helping. I didn't state my point as clearly as I could of. I was simply trying to say that there are better ways of helping dropouts than teaching them how to be a foot massage therapist.

I believe that many of the school leavers, and if you don't think that such people are destined to be loser, thugs and welfare slackers for the most part I'm sorry, would benefit from being part of an organization that allows them to gain some direction in their lives. The military has, in many countries been a major way that children of the poor or disadvantaged acquired the skills and social status to move out of poverty. That Hong Kong does not have a military means that the poor here are denied one of the best ways that the poor in other nations have of escaping poverty. At worst it would get these kids off the street for 6 years and give them something useful to do.

Military organizations are much more than people with guns. For every soldier that is in a combat unit there is at least one more in a support role behind the lines, sometimes more.

Here are some of the careers that someone could receive training for in a military unit.

Pilots (Helicopter and fixed wing)
Mechanic (Diesel, aircraft, automotive)
Logistics (Warehouses, inventory control, accounting, purchasing)
Administration (office skills, supervising, organization, communication, computer systems)
Food Service (cooking preparing service, environmental hygiene)
Medical (EMT, Nursing, Doctors, and other areas of health care)
Weapons training (Useful for becoming a police office after military service is complete.)
Physical conditioning (instills a healthy lifestyle)


Even a light infantry brigade would need all or most of these things.

The men and women that I know who have had some type of military service also have a great deal of self confidence, exhibit professionalism in their demeanor and dress, know how to be team players, how to both follow and give directions and exhibit a great deal of reliability. In other words, they make good employees and even better citizens.


Now, compare that list of attributes and skills to what the ERB is offering?

Which would help more people? Which would provide employers with better employees? Given the huge, immoral salaries of the bureaucrats in Hong Kong which would be a better use of money?

Oh yeah, one more thing. One of my pet gripes is people who are not grateful for what they have. I get tired of hearing and reading about young people, who are by the standards of many places in the world wealthy complain about how life is so tough for them. There really isn't any poverty in Hong Kong; nobody here starves. Even the poor have enough to eat. Sending a plane load or two of complainers off to Ethiopia to guard people who are starving and need protecting from Arab slave traders might make an impression on these kids that needs to be made. They might realize that they didn't have it so bad.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who believes it would do most teenagers good to march through the mud for about four years

Hong Kong Needs an Army

Hong Kong maintains something called the Employees Retraining Board (ERB) which is sort of a semi-governmental organization that was, I think first set up several years ago to help uneducated former factory workers make the arduous transition into new careers as security guards and convenience store clerks. That mission was achieved, I guess sometime ago to a resounding yawn of applause.

While not officially a part of the government the ERB does receive a huge pile of money from the government from the tax on domestic helper's wages. The weasels who control that money, quite understandably don't want to see their cushy, immorally high paid jobs come to an end. Talk about corruption. The government collects a tax and then hands it over to retired civil servants who then spend most of it on their own salaries while collecting a pension that is already many times the average income and spend the rest on salaries of professional do-gooders with social work degrees from HKU. As far as I know, there is no oversight on how this money is spent or any accountability as to whether the ERB actually accomplishes anything.

Machiavelli said that the major purpose of any government is to perpetuate itself. This organization has just proved him correct because they've just expanded their client pool by announcing that they are going to start retraining 15 year old school dropouts since the out of work factory workers have moved on or died off. Excuse me, how can you "retrain" a 15 year old? I am assuming that the ERB isn't talking about potty training. These little punks don't need retaining. They need to get a life.

These are punks, probably drug users who dropped out of school to play mahjong when they were 14, worked in a dai-pai dong until they were 18 (the ambitious ones anyway the others played video games or sprayed graffiti under bridges) and then complain that they have no career opportunities when they are 20. No fake! And now I am supposed to pay a tax for retraining these little creeps?

I have an idea.

The government should start a military unit and put these little slackers in it. Any brat who drops out of school before form 5 or who gets 6 zeros on the HKCEE and has an IQ over 85 should be required to spend the next 6 years in the HK military. Once they get trained up then the HK government could volunteer them for duty as peace keepers in a UN force, perhaps in East Timor or Darfur. Hey, HK could even join the war on terror and send them to Iraq. Assuming they survive after 6 years of military service they'd be mustered out having learned to read, bathe and gained a job skill of some sort depending upon their assignment. More than that, the percentage of thugs who drop out of school would plummet to nearly zero.

I'd even be willing to have my tax dollars to pay for their unit tattoos.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who thinks every child should learn to march

Holland: Likely to Be the Next Target of Islamist Rage

I want to see this movie


Until Next Time
Fai Mao

Of Cavemen, Spirinters, Rocketships and Nationalism

I find it odd how the Chinese seem to have an overwhelming desire to be able to trace every aspect of human history back to China. Every invention, every political, philosophic or political thought simply has to have been at least foreshadowed in China a thousand years before anybody else thought of it. I must admit that I don't really like racial interpretations of history or ideological ones either and it appears to me that often times the Chinese engage in a well stirred blend of both.

They've found a fossil of a caveman this week that is a prime example. It is supposedly 100,000 years old and according to the local news reports shows that ancient humans where in China long before anyone in the West thought they were. In other words, though not stated as such, everything started in China. They wouldn't care if this thing had been found in Canada. It might make a short blurb on the "Culture Express" program on CCTV9 but nothing more. But, because it was found in China it is all over the news. You'd think they'd found the signature of Slartybarfast on a rock and that it was in Chinese.

The manufactured excitement over the Beijing Olympics is also somewhat scary to me. I really wonder about people whose national identity is so shallow or fragile that they feel they must prove their national manhood by winning more medals than anybody else. I would expect wealthy nations with relatively large populations to do better in a setting like the Olympics than a poor and corrupt country like Chad or the UK. Make no mistake, China is a nation that is both wealthy and populous. They should, therefore, win their fair percentage of medals at the Olympics. But the Chinese I've talked to and those they quote on TV seem to want Chinese to finish with the top three spots in every sport to prove how superior China is to the rest of the world. "Zek Heil" anyone?

I lived in the US during the Atalanta, Lake Placid, LA and Salt Lake City games. I don't remember 30 minute TV mini-series on the Olympics airing every night after the news.

If I were the IOC I'd make every Chinese athlete pee into a cup three times a day and draw blood as well from now until after the Olympics and do a complete test for steroids or banned substances in every sample. Otherwise they could just ask those women divers on the Chinese team why they suddenly have all that hair on their legs and have started growing hooves, horns and tails and going "mooooo" when they pass a bale of hay. Herbal supplements? Yeah right.

Then there is the Chinese space program. Why are they so proud of it? The PRC is doing things that the US and USSR did nearly 50 years ago. You'd think they'd be embarrassed rather than proud. Especially since they didn't even do it by themselves. They simply photocopied the blueprints of old Soviet rockets.

I don't know. I feel that patriotism is a good thing generally. It is also true that the last refuge of scoundrels is patriotism. Too often those who are not scoundrels go along with the scoundrels for personal gain, out of complacency or out of fear. I think that the patriotic Chinese need to rid themselves of more than a few scoundrels in their government. It is time that the Chinese become able to separate themselves from their history and be able to look at their national flaws as well as their virtues. But that would require an amount of honesty and freedom that isn't present in China. Not yet anyway; maybe soon.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who loves China but doesn't always understand China

Nina Wong's Husband Found Alive!!!!

He is living on Mars.

The link above takes you to a photo!

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who doesn't believe in space aliens

Missing cat found in Owner's Suitcase

This is CBS, so I'm not sure it is a credible news source.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who really doesn't like cats

Shame on the Media

The link above is to an article by the blogger Iowa Hawk and it satirical in nature but deals with a serious subject, media bias. There have been a whole raft of articles in recent days about the level of violent behavior exhibited by US military personnel returning from Iraq. The reality is that returning military personnel are LESS likely to be criminals than the population at large.

Journalist who are generally the stupidest of the stupid and come from non-military families don't believe this because it doesn't fit into their preconceived prejudices. Indeed, as Iowa Hawk points out so well journalist are more dangerous than returning military.

Like most prejudice this one is wrong.

Until next time
Fai mao
The Blogger who comes from a military family

Criminal German teenager sent to Siberia

Oh boy doesn't this look like a good thing!

Hong Kong ought to do this to that creep named Karsen or Karen that is slapping their name in graffiti all over Causeway Bay.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who really doesn't like graffiti.

Shanghai residents protest maglev train

I've been to Shanghai. It is so dirty and so polluted that I am amazed everyone there doesn't die of some dread disease by the time they are 35. I guess all those cigarettes protect them from the other air pollutants. It just seems to be a strange thing to get worked up about. But then these are the same people that call a Feng Shui master to tell them how far to open their windows.

Kind of reminds me of the chief justice in Hong Kong complaining yesterday that there has been too much public criticism of the amount of leeway given to judges in sentencing criminals here. (This has been a recurring theme on this blog and I have emailed every post to his office. I wonder if he read them?) He seems to think that judges are some sort of special persons whose opinions and work are above question. So, I guess that sentencing one man to years in jail for killing a cat and another to community service for running over two old people makes perfect sense to ho him.

This is a soapbox I've been preaching on for sometime. The justice system here isn't a justice system at all. When child molesters rape 10 or 12 little girls and receives about 18 months on average for each rape and a reckless driver almost no jail time for killing a cyclist in the regional triathlons then justice isn't served. I find it amazing that he can't see the problems with his own judges.

I wish that he would see the need for mandatory sentencing

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who thinks that no man or judge is above the law

Things from home

The link above is an article about the needs and desires that Roman legions expressed in letters home.

It is amazing to me how much somethings stay the same. I've been in Hong Kong a long time but there are still many things that I wish to bring back with me when I visit the US.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The only slightly homesick Blogger

Hey Ho, Hey Ho

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Spring Semester so I go back to work.

I am not by training, personality or desire a natural teacher though I have through effort and diligence become at least acceptable in the job. Indeed, I've come to really enjoy it in many ways but I did have to make an effort to do so. I guess it is sort of like learning to eat all those bitter, stringy, green leafy Chinese vegetables my really smart-good looking-hard working- looks twenty-five years young than she is wife introduced me to when we were first dating. I choked them down for several months before I got to the point where I could tell one from the other and for a couple of years before I actually came to like any of them. Now I actually look for my favorites in the wet-market.

I do like the holidays that teachers get. They are probably the my favorite part of the job. Wow!

Two and a half weeks at Christmas and New Year.

Twelve weeks or so in the summer!

Plus Spring Break.

Plus assorted other official holidays like Ching Ming and Buddha's Birthday and that many people do not get.

That has to be worth quite a bit as a benefit.

But now it is time get that nose back to grindstone.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who isn't as lazy as this post makes him sound.

How much would

Just when you thought it couldn't get any stranger.

Maybe they should have placed them in a big jar and urinated on them


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who sometimes gets outraged at the things people get outraged about.

Auld Lang Syne?

I hope that my few faithful readers will have a good year.

In the twisted sense of my Hong Kong Christmas Carols here is one for the up coming New Year. I will probably revise this a bit so the chorus is a bit different every time

By the way. I make neither apology or excuse for my apparent hypocrisy in posting what may be seen as mean spirited social or political parodies on one day and peaceful religious meditations the next. It is just me.

To the tune (sort of) of Auld Lang Syne

Should old relatives be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should old classmates be ignored
Because they didn't pass the HKCEE?

Chorus
For the DAB's Ma Lik,
And Nina Wong
We will take a cup of finest cheer!
Neither will be mourned

We all have run about after a bus
And pulled the muscles fine,
But we also rode the KCR
Even though it was the very last time.

Chorus
For the DAB's Ma Lik
And Nina Wong
We wll take a cup of finest cheer!
Neither will we mourn

We two have Coughed in the street
From noon until dinner time,
From air so thick it looks like smoke
And hides the whole skyline

Chorus
For the DAB's Ma Lik
And Nina Wong
we wll take a cup of finest cheer!
Neither will we mourn

And there is a place called Tin Shui Wai
There you can live without hope
Or if you cannot find a job
Then maybe try and learn to fly.

Chorus
For the DAB's Ma Lik
And Nina Wong
We will take a cup of finest cheer
Neither will we mourn

And surely you will pay for your pint,
And surely I will pay for mine!
For they lowered the tax on beer!
For all us old drunks!

Chorus
For the DAB's Ma Lik
And Nina Wong
We will take a cup of finest cheer
Neither will we mourn


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who really isn't a good song writer

It's Over

Christmas is over!

The daughter and the boyfriend returned to the UK so the really-smart, looks twenty-five younger than she is wife and I have the flat to ourselves again.

However, to celibrate this my wife made me two appointments yesterday. I went to the dentist in the morning and to get my prostate medicine renewed in the afternooon. I cannot imagine a worse day than a dentist in the morning and a prostate exame in the afternoon.

Until next time
Fai Mao
The blogger who is finishing up his holidays

The Vine that Strangled Christmas

This is a really unusual post for me. First it is being composed in the evening on a weekend. Second I normally avoid speaking of groups, people or organization by name unless they are politicians. Third, when I write about religion I try to write about personal themes. Tonight I am writing about an identifiable group.

The really smart, pretty, looks twenty-five years younger than she is wife and I have been looking for a new church for the past couple of months for a variety of reasons. For a city with a fairly large number of prominent churches this has been harder than you might think. Part of that process took us to the Christmas pageant presented by "The Vine" in the HKCEC theatre 2.

This was one church that we can scratch off our list.

I can sum up the rest of this post in three words when I say that this Christmas pageant was: offensive, sacrilegious, and blasphemous.

I walked out after about 15 minutes but the wife, our daughter and her non-Christian boyfriend stayed for the whole performance in part because my wife and daughter didn't want to climb over the seats in the last row like I did to get out.

I can honestly say that they had a very good video presentation of the church announcements. I cannot recommend anything else about their service. If this was indicative of the theology that is commonly believed in their church I really wonder about that congregation's salvation.

They had disco dancing angels, God played by an overweight woman, idiotic angels. They made fun of the way God chose Mary and Joseph. They made fun not of Christians as fallen beings but of the invisible church eternal, the nature of God and displayed a shocking lack knowledge of basic Christian doctrine. Those were just the things I saw in 15 minutes or so. My wife told me that they basically disparaged and denigrated the entire Christmas story and that after I left it got worse. I went out side the theatre and sat on a couch not knowing whether to be angry or sad over a church that would do something like this.

Blasphemy is the sin of demeaning the nature of God. This program did that at almost every opportunity tonight. That is a horrible thing to say but I can find no other words.

The non-Christian boyfriend told me that his Anglican relatives would have walked out as well. Then he made another comment that I found profound. He said: "This looked like a spoof of the Christmas story that anti-Christians would have staged to make fun of Christians." Wow! How is that for a comment from an unbeliever. He was on the other hand almost amused by the event which in this case, isn't good.

We brought him to this service as an evangelistic opportunity. I'd hoped that he would see the wonder and awe inherent in the Christmas story. What he saw was poor almost beyond belief.

Great job guys! you're doing the devil's work better than he could himself.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who is still trying to celebrate Christmas.

"Oh the monkies have no tails in Zam-Boanga"

I've been thinking about Christmas this week. We've got some preparations to make and some gifts to buy and the normal holiday stuff. A lot of people seem to find this a really stressful time of year but I never have. While Christmas in Hong Kong often defines the words "trite, cheap & materialistic" It is also a pleasant time in too many ways to count.

This year I have been thinking about how the holiday season has changed for me over time. Family traditions are a nebulous thing in my household. I guess that the nearest thing to a Christmas tradition we had was the concept of a Christmas trip. Whether that was going back to see my parents when we were in Austin or later family trips the Bahamas, Guam or Thailand, we've taken trips at Christmas several times. We also used to host graduate students from the mainland when we had a larger apartment. This was a really nice way to spend a holiday.

The really smart, very pretty, looks twenty-five years younger than she is, hard working and gracious wife and I will also spend several hours with a bowl of popcorn watching corny old Christmas movies. I can't stand "It's a Wonderful Life" but most of them I really enjoy. The Polar Express from a couple of years ago has moved up to the top of my personal list of Christmas movies but you are free to have your own.

I also try to read through the Christmas story in the book of Luke several times in December.

When I was a child my parents would drive us kids around to see the lights on people's houses. There was a competition in the town at that time and neighborhoods would compete for some sort of prize or trophy for best decorated neighborhood as well as individuals. This was a very simple thing for my parents to do. Just load the kids in the back of the 65 Chevy after dark and head off to where the lights were. Yet it was one of my favorite things and one of my most cherished memories. Sometimes we'd see lights that said "Happy Hanuka" and I found it pleasant to know that Jewish people could celebrate the holidays too. It made me aware of the fact that there were were people who believed different things and that is a good lesson for any child to learn. One year, a rather well known atheist in our town decorated his house for Christmas with the words "Bah-Humbug" and images of Scrooge and Tiny Tim on crutches. He didn't think that Christmas should be a holiday at all. He won the prize for the best lights display that year which may not have been his intention. I thought it was hilarious and laughed really hard when I read that he'd won in the paper. Something else that may not have been his intention was that because I didn't understand the meaning of his display, I read "A Christmas Carrol" by Charles Dickens. I have wondered at times if that man ever read the ending of that book? I can't say those lights changed my life but seeing them did improve my life.

In a similar vein my wife, who deserves the superlatives listed above, and I try to ride the Star Ferry across the harbor at this time of year to see the lights on the buildings. It is something that I always look forward to. I thought of that this week and I thought of those lights that said "Bah-Humbug" on that house so long ago. I thought of the strings of memory that tie us to what we were and shape us in unpredictable ways years later.

The existentialist in me has been wondering about these kinds of things lately. I don't know why, sometimes I just can't help myself. I asked myself, "When do silly things become a tradition and when do those traditions take on an importance beyond the actual deed?" When did driving around looking at Christmas lights on people's houses become more than entertainment for me and become a cherished memory? When did seeing the lights on Hong Kong buildings go from being something that happened almost accidentally into something intentional? When does the trivial, the small and the ordinary become special? When and how do we raise those special thing to an almost religious status? I don't know if I can answer those questions. If I could I don't think I would want to. I'm not going to try. Sometimes knowing the answer ruins everything. Sometimes I just have to sit back and marvel at how wonderful it is to be able to develop family traditions at all.

It occurs to me that family traditions like this are a very odd thing. They are personal yet occur in a group. The best ones also seem to just happen. They aren't forced or intentional but become intentional through the pleasure they give us. I can see this in one of the Christmas movies I watch which isn't really a Christmas movie at all as far as I know. It's Donovan's Reef, staring John Wayne, Lee Marvin and (I think) Maureen O'Hara. It is set on a Pacific Island just after World War II. It is a fairly typical romantic comedy of the 1950's, a "B" movie all the way but a fun one. It does have a Christmas scene, and that makes it a Christmas movie to me, that I laughed at as a child, thought was culturally insensitive as a university student and find profound today in a way that I don't think the people who made the movie ever intended.

In the movie the people of the island produce a Christmas pageant in a ruinous church with a leaky roof. The major part of the pageant is the adoration of the wise men who in the movie are represented by the King of Polynesia, the Emperor of China and the King of the United States of America. Besides the cheap laugh of seeing Lee Marvin dressed as the Statue of Liberty there is something going on in this scene that has parallels in my family. I see a group of people of mixed culture and race adapting and blending traditions from somewhere else into something that is meaningful to them. It is new but contains elements of things from somewhere else. I think of the foods my family eats on Christmas and how different those are from what we had when I was a child. It is different in every particular and yet exactly the same.

It is the same because it is the same love and joy, the same fellowship, it doesn't matter what we eat. It is, or so it seems to me, the Dickensonian Spirit of Christmas Present making merry with all who will make merry with him. It is the wonder of the Christ child, helpless in a manger. It is all things good, all things desirable and all things wonderful. It is no surprise to me that the best hymns, from a musical and theological standpoint, are often Christmas carols.

This blog averages about three hits a day. I can watch the number but don't have any idea who is behind the numbers. But, whoever you are, "Merry Christmas from me and mine to you and yours. May the love of the Christ child be yours this year and for many to come"

I may not be able to post much for the next couple of weeks.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Holiday Making Blogger

The Welcome Tyrannt

This is a scary, but well thought out article

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who is scared of Tyrannts

Was that a (Y)Ip in Hell or a Hoot in Chan?

So Anson (Got her Fangs On) Chan won the election yesterday. Not really a surprise. And if the truth be know I couldn't give a hoot in Hell who won. None of the candidates except the Cecelia Ling had 1/2 a brain between them and I didn't like her that much either.

Lets see we had a choice between:

1. A Running Dog of the British (Anson Chan)

2. A Running Dog of the PRC (Regina Ip)

3. A Welfare Queen activist with an IQ in the low 80's who probably graduated 1st in her class from HKU with a degree in Social Basket Weaving (Ho Loy)

4. A union leader who despite being Chinese bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Jimmy Hoffa. I'm actually surprised he didn't do better in this election. I guess the local union thugs haven't figured out how to buy votes like they do in France the UK and the US

5. Cecelia Ling (she seemed like a fairly bright and competent person except for her generic Hong Kong secretary style helmet cut hair)

6. Some old guy with a mustache who was I think a former district councilor but who looked like the manager of a Karaoke Bar behind Nathan Road

7. Another guy who did some sort of Tai Chi for some reason or another.

8. Does anybody really know who the eighth person in this election was? The skinny guy. I saw him on TV. He had no organization, no volunteers and evidently no clue.

Those ancient Greeks who thought up the idea of participatory government must be spinning in their graves. They assumed that the cream of society would rise to the top and thus good leadership would win out. I guess they never lived here

Anson Chan may have been the cream of Hong Kong society one upon a time but that cream soured years ago. What is really sad is that she was demonstratively the best candidate in many ways.

On a stranger note, the Franklin Graham evangelistic meeting ended yesterday. 120,000 in the Stadium and easily over 100,000 more on the infield of the Happy Valley race track. I guess if you didn't like the sermon you could place a bet. Maybe the Jockey club should have taken odds on the number of professions of faith.

They also had full venues at Yuen Long and in Macao. Not counting Macao there were probably over 250,000 attending this thing if you counted all the venues. I think it says something about the number Christians in Hong Kong or possibly the amount of spiritual hunger here.

What is strange is that TVB didn't report about this on the new last night. I don't know about ATV. However, I'm just a little curious, isn't 250,000 people attending an event a newsworthy topic?

I mean if 250,000 street sweepers decided to strike and march from Chai Wan to Chatter Garden on a Sunday afternoon to demand that the government give them bigger brooms wouldn't it make the news? It would seem that the TV stations here might have been able to run a short story on it. Maybe they though all those people were going to vote.

I guess that is why I am not a journalist. I'm not able to discern what is a big story from what is important.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who can't vote in Hong Kong

Sarko the Lady Killer

Take that Bill Clinton!

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger Who has never had a Chinese Pop Singer propose to him