fashion beach

It appears that Chief Executive CY Leung has a new tactic for dealing with differing views.  Following his recent speech suggesting that the government had already explained the HKTV issue and we were just too dumb to understand it, last night's TVB news reported that "The CE also said thee were no more concerns about the plans for developing the Northeast New Territories".

As my wife said "Not for him maybe, only for everyone else in Hong Kong."  Still, if you can't solve the problems, pretending they no longer exist is an interesting alternative.

TVB news reported on a Consumer Council study of toilet paper which found that one brand, BBB, was contaminated with bacteria that could cause infection.  However, "the distributor insisted that only the tested batch had the bacteria".

Yeah, sure, whatever.  Of all the toilet rolls in all the bathrooms in all the world, those pesky little bacteria just had to walk into that one...

An alliance of Hong Kong's real estate agencies withheld advertising from the media yesterday in protest at the higher stamp duty imposed by the government to curb property speculation. Urging the government to scrap stamp duties on commercial properties, Pierre Wong, Managing Director of Midland Realty, said on TVB news last night: "We don't think the commercial market affects most Hong Kong people".

He has got to be joking (cue incredulous John McEnroe tones here), because this remark is utter nonsense.  Commercial property prices form a major component of the operating costs of every shop, restaurant, warehouse or other business in Hong Kong.  Consequently they affect the price of all the goods and services purchased in Hong Kong, giving them a direct and powerful impact on every Hong Kong person's cost of living.  Has Wong not seen all the media coverage of businesses catering to local people (including estate agents) being forced out of operation by rising rents and replaced by luxury goods shops catering to mainland visitors?

It doesn't say much for the professionalism of the real estate business here that the head of one of the largest agencies has such a simplistic and inaccurate (and, it should be said, self-serving) view of the local property market.  Consequently, while the industry is trying to arouse public sympathy for its job losses arising from the government's bizarre attempts to reduce property prices by making property more expensive to buy, most Hong Kong people are likely to show little concern if the entire parasitical real estate business goes down the drain.

A new entrant to the toadstooling crop (mushrooming is too complimentary a word for these poisonous growths) of clumsily-named and aggressive organisations claiming to love Hong Kong so much they need to tell us all how to think, "Caring Hong Kong Power", wants local teachers to be forced to declare their political affiliations.  If this latest attempt at CCPisation succeeds, one can only hope that someone will found a Mind Your Own Damn Business Party which all teachers will join, then they can all write Mind Your Own Damn Business on the declaration form.

On the other hand, it may be possible to turn this against its instigators.  Since it is well known that certain schools in Hong Kong are sponsored by pro-Beijing organisations (founding DAB member and current LegCo president Tsang-Yok-sing was principal of one of these before entering full-time politics), could we not argue that by the same token, these schools are subjecting children to undue political brainwashing and should be closed down?

In a SCMP profile, the group's loudmouthed leader,  Chan Ching-sum, reveals her ignorance - or true intentions - by saying: "We in Hong Kong abide by the Chinese constitution".  Well, no, we don't.  The whole point of the Basic Law is that Hong Kong, while part of China, is exempt from much of the constitution which governs the rest of the country (except for the other SAR, Macau), and has its own system.

Chan also says of the pan-democrats: "When there was no universal suffrage, people asked for it; when there is [sic], they ask for it to be real".  Presumably she thinks fake democracy is all the Hong Kong people deserve.  Whatever she "Cares" about, it sure isn't Hong Kong.

A rather amusing Freudian slip from Robert Chow, a convenor of the so-called Silent Majority for Hong Kong, speaking on ATV's Newsline about the Occupy Central movement, opposition to which is his group's main objective:

"...and then it will come a time when police officers, and maybe government servants, maybe entire Hong Kong, will refuse to arrest any more people, and then they will refuse to follow the orders of the government, and that would be apathy in the streets."

I assume he meant to say "anarchy in the streets", but given that the supposed silent majority are by definition apathetic (that's why they're silent), perhaps his version is more appropriate.

Another of the Pro-China Morning Post's meaningless polls today.  "Do you agree with ex-minister Fred Ma that Hong Kong has been distracted by trivial issues?"  Yes, I think we can all (well, 89% of respondents, anyway) agree on that - but I very much doubt that we would all agree on what is trivial.  For example, I would consider one protester shouting abuse at the police in the heat of the moment a trivial incident - as would many others - but Chief Executive CY Leung apparently considers it significant enough for him to call for a report on the award-winning teacher responsible, and the China Daily predictably backs him in this witch-hunt.  There is no sign that this report will look into the far-from-trivial accusations of police bias that raised the protester's ire in the first place.

I'm not going to add more to the weight of verbiage on the demonisation of that unfortunate lady.  What interests me today is the Post's choice of words in its editorial - written by Lau Nai-keung, who can usually be relied on to channel the latest propaganda direct from the Central Government Liaison Office without any intervening thought process. The article, headed "Public opinion turns on anti-government protesters", begins: "The dissidents made a big mistake by staging a mass confrontation on August 4".

Now there are several points of interest here - for one thing, how big does a crowd have to be to make it a "mass"?  And which public is he talking about?  When you read the article, he appears to be talking mainly about the media and the new so-called Silent Majority organisation.

"Mainstream Hong Kong people", Lau argues, "badly want change, but not to the point of rocking the boat, never mind some kind of regime change as some dissidents would like. When our dissidents go too far, the silent majority will rise up and try to push them back, and this is what we are witnessing now".  He doesn't mention public concern that some of the "pushing back" at the recent Tin Shui Wai incident appears to have been done by known gangsters.  That's another issue the government apparently considers too trivial to pursue.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of Lau's piece is his frequent use of the word "dissident".  The term is broadly defined, says Wikipedia, as one who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy or institution.  But in general usage, the term is almost exclusively applied to those who do so in response to a tyrannical dictatorship.  It seems that Lau's choice of the word is telling us more than he intends about the regime he so avidly supports.

it is not uncommon for me to splutter with indignation when watching the news, but last night brought an even bigger splutter than usual.  Chief Executive CY Leung told LegCo yesterday that Hong Kong is not yet ready for public consultation on political reform (i.e. the arrangements for the CE election in 2017) because "it is necessary to listen to different views before starting the consultation", and "there is still no consensus" on the issue.  The whole purpose of having public consultation is to give members of the community a chance to express different views on an issue - so does that mean the government needs to consult the public before it can consult the public?!

And as for consensus, there isn't and probably never will be a real consensus on the issue of democracy.  There are simply two fundamentally opposed camps - those (the majority) who think democracy is long overdue, and those who just think what Beijing tells them to (or worse, what they think Beijing wants them to).  The closest we can get to consensus will be a political framework that gives Hong Kong people as much say in their own future as possible, while reassuring Beijing that Long Hair will never be elected CE.  Achieving that would be greatly helped if the Rita Fans and Maria Tams of this world would spend less time telling us what Beijing won't let us have, and more time using their close links with the Chinese leaders to let them know their fears are unfounded.  But then, nobody ever earned a Grand Bauhinia Star or whatever it's called by speaking truth to power, so I don't see much chance of that.

Another piece of vintage political BS came from DAB leader Tam Yiu-chung a few days ago.  Commenting on several proposals for a political framework put forward by The Alliance for True Democracy, he said "the DAB fears the proposals may not be acceptable to Beijing because the different sectors of the community may not all be represented".  Now since the DAB has never shown much interest in inclusiveness, I think we can take it that he wasn't overly concerned that transgender vegetarian unmarried mothers who ride bicycles would not be fairly represented.  What he really means is that the proposals would destroy the current rigged system whereby pro-Beijing groups and other conservative forces such as the property and banking sectors and the NT Mafia are grossly over-represented in Hong Kong's political structures.  Which is exactly the point, of course.

Rabid pro-Beijing propagandist Lau Nai-keung gives us another of his trademark rants (it would be excessively complimentary to classify them as journalism) in the China Daily.  Lau is worried that Trade Development Council Chairman Jack So has reassured the American business community that the planned Occupy Central movement will be just another peaceful expression of views, and unlikely to disturb "business as usual" in Hong Kong.  In Lau's eyes, this is an unforgivable departure from the official party line, as expressed by Chief Executive CY Leung a couple of days earlier, that the mild-mannered academics spearheading Occupy Central are planning mayhem, violence, rioting in the streets and general Armageddon.

'Even if Hong Kong has the "rule of law" and so forth, investors will still flee if our top officials are all ignorant fools' spouts Lau.  It only takes one look at the current government line-up to disprove this hypothesis - if Lau were correct, there would be nary a foreign investor left here already.  Still, credit to Jack So for being an exception to the rule and displaying a measure of calm reason amid the general hysteria.

--Jeremiah 22:3

Anyone who kills children for any cause (assuming the Boston Marathon bombings were some kind of political act) amply demonstrates that their cause is not worthy of support.

Yesterday when I heard the news, my first thought was for a close friend who is visiting the city, where her daughter, son-in-law and grandchild live.  Thankfully they are all safe.  This boy, Martin Richard, was not so lucky.  Rest in peace, little one.  And rot in hell, whoever did this.

Last night's TVB news, talking about a case of burd flu in China:

"The girl's mother also developed a fever, but her temperature has come down and is in good condition."

I'm glad the temperature is in good condition - I wonder how the mother is?

Also reported last night was the case of "W", a male-to-female transsexual in Hong Kong who is seeking the legal right to marry her boyfriend.  W has had gender reassignment surgery and both her Hong Kong ID card and passport now specify her sex as female.  Yet despite officially recognising her as a woman for most purposes, the government is arguing that she is still a man for the purpose of marriage.

One of its arguments in the Court of Appeal yesterday was apparently that "a criterion of marriage is to produce the next generation".  There may be valid reasons for not letting W marry a man (though I can't think of any), but this is certainly not one of them.  If it applied this logic consistently, the government would also have to consider the inability to procreate an impediment to marriage for infertile couples and post-menopausal women.  Not even the Catholic Church would go that far!

The NTSCMP's parody of it led me to a Standard article on the dangers young women allegedly face by going out drinking.  Among the other horrifying statistics there was this shocker from a social worker: "As for those who work in bars, we believe that money is the main motivation." 

As opposed, presumably, to social workers, lawyers, dockers, toilet attendants, shop assistants, accountants, civil servants, journalists, cleaners and construction workers, who all go to work purely for the love of the job.  With srticles of this quality, one wonders if a parody is really necessary.

Headline story in toda's South China Morning Post:

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during US President Obama's visit "We extend our hands in peace and in friendship to the Palestinian people", surely he meant "hand" in the singular?  The other one is still busy grabbing Palestinian land.

OK, my comment is a little facetious, and this map is dramatic, but as a pro-Israeli website points out, an over-simplification.  Then in debunking it as a supposed lie, it introduces new inaccuracies into the picture.

• The first map, it says, is incorrect because much of the land shown in green was not privately owned, but held by the government, and therefore "when the state of Israel was established, it became legally Israel's".  This assumes of course that the population of the new state recognised its legitimacy, and glosses over the fact that the Arab (then) majority of its residents did not, and that many of them were forcibly dispossessed of land they may not have technically owned but had lived on and farmed for generations.
• Map 2, it says, is incorrect because the Arabs never accepted the proposed partition plan.  Fair enough - though why should they, in the circumstances of the time?
• Map 3, it argues, is incorrect because the "Palestinian" areas were not part of a Palestinian territory but held and administered by neighbouring countries, Egypt and Jordan.  What is omitted here is that those countries never accepted the Palestinians as part of their own nations, but continued to regard them as a separate people - just as the many Palestinians in Lebanon today are still treated as refugees.

The site then goes on to praise Israel for "giving up" large areas of land in exchange for peace.  Apart from the fact that it did not "give up" the largest area of land, the Sinai Peninsula, but lost it in war to Egypt, from which it had earlier seized it, it would be more correct to talk of "giving back" than "giving up",  The reality remains, however, that the Palestinian Authority has limited control over the areas nominally ceded to it, and that Israel continues to establish settlements in many of the occupied territories.  Draw your own conclusions about Israel's sincerity in making peace.

Catching up on Hemlock's blog from a few months back, my attention was caught by a quote from a South China People's Daily, sorry SCMP, opinion piece by one Lau Nai-Keung, who delivers this gem of either confused thinking or blatant hypocrisy, (depending on whether he is as stupid as he seems):

"The South China Sea will no longer be an issue, after China recovers the sovereignty of various rocks and islands one by one, either through peaceful means or by force. But with a tradition of a somewhat benign paternal attitude, China will refrain from bullying its neighbours despite the American absence. Instead, it will continue to push for peace and co-development in the region, if only to distinguish itself from Western hegemony."

So China will recover [sic] the chunks of rock it claims in its neighbours' backyard by force, but will "refrain from bullying and pursue peace and co-development".  Does the writer not recognise his own contradiction here?  And does no one in the CPP (to which he belongs) recognise that this sounds exactly like the kind of "peace and co-development" that Japan pursued at China's expense in the 1930s?

And I love that "if only..." clause - the implication being "we want to be violent, but we have to be peaceful to look different from the US"!

Our Chief Executive's usual opaque transparency was never better exemplified than by this gem on last Sunday's "Newsline" on ATV:

"Records show clearly that this government grabs the nettles by the horns"

So don't be afraid of those fearsome horned nettles out there - our government has them well in hand.

It would be hard to find a more perfect putdown than the response by a hotel chain to criticism from British "celebrity" Katie Price - whose main claim to fame is the frequent display of her oversized breast implants - of her honeymoon stay at one of their hotels in the Bahamas.  (She makes somewhat of a habit of going on honeymoon, being on her third marriage already.)   Among her other complaints Price apparently said her "wedding snaps showed a beach — but if you looked the other way there were ugly skyscrapers”.  Well, duh.  Check out Google Earth next time.

The response of the resort: "As a gesture of goodwill we are willing to offer her a refund on condition she does not choose our resorts for any future weddings or stays.”  Nice one!

An "Eats Shoots and Leaves" moment on last night's TVB news, reporting on the arrest of a woman suspected of stabbing her husband to death:
"Police said the woman had a history of mental illness and took away the knife for further investigation."

The more I think about Richard Mourdock's views, the more bizarre they seem (though he now claims they've been misinterpreted).  If he believes that the biological consequences of rape are God's will, then wouldn't it also be God's will if the rape victim contracted HIV as a result?  His God maybe; but not any god I would choose to worship.

Overheard in Delft, the Netherlands, recently - an American visitor looking at an old church tower with a pronounced tilt to one side: "It's, like, totally leaning!".

Apparently "totally" is American for about 2 metres from the vertical.  Or like it, anyway.

Incidentally the artist Vermeer is buried in the church, which is totally still standing.