Category: Current Events

Is Bush to Blame?

With the rare exception of economic issues, I don’t normally discuss domestic politics on this blog. However, as a departure from my regular routine, today I offer a few quick thoughts on recent criticisms of the Bush administration in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Comments are based on an article in today’s Washington Post titled, “Critics Say Bush Undercut New Orleans Flood Control.”

Would more money have helped? Probably not. The Post article notes that the President’s Democratic accusers willingly admitted that, “even with full funding in recent years, none of the flood-control projects would have been completed in time to prevent the swamping of the city. This lag between approval of funds and completion of projects seems to suggest that there is more at blame here than just Bush’s refusal to increase spending to the Army Corps of Engineers. As former assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, Michael Parker told the Post, “[e]verybody is to blame – it transcends administrations. It transcends a party.”

And this is probably the most honest and realistic assessment of the situation in the entire article. According to Parker, there is widespread resistance in government to investing in long-term projects such as those required to protect cities like New Orleans from flood damage. And why shouldn’t there be resistance? Long-term projects are often costly and benefits are not immediately seen or reaped. Furthermore, in the case of flood control projects, they may never be reaped. It isn’t difficult to imagine that for the holders of government purse strings there are always more immediate and potentially rewarding causes. The long-term gain is simply not always worth the short-term cost, be it political or monetary.

Are criticisms of the President’s refusal to allocate more money deserved? Perhaps. The details of the budget debate are not clear to me at this time and they were not elaborated upon in the article. It would therefore be premature to make assumptions about Bush’s reasoning for cutting spending on the Corps of Engineers. If a closer investigation of the matter revealed, for example, that the initial proposal to be a public works boondoggle, would anyone have blamed the President at the time for cutting funding? On the other hand, if accusations by the Democrats that Bush’s motivation was a reshuffling of resources to pay for tax cuts and the war in Iraq are true – in other words Bush consciously prioritized tax cuts and the war over domestic spending intended to protect American citizens – then some degree of responsibility certainly lays with the President. It does not mean that he deliberately ignored the safety or well being of these citizens, but in the end he simply made an unfortunate decision. The bitterly ironic fact that in July the White House attempted to block $1 billion to be used for the restoration of coastal wetlands but just yesterday asked Congress for $10.5 billion as the first installment of aid seems to support this point.

Should Bush accept responsibility for this decision? This is irrelevant. Hoping for contriteness from this President might soothe some raw nerves around the country, but it is unlikely to happen, unrealistic to expect, and in the short-term not much will change as a result. The President will adopt a serious, but positive sounding, forward-looking stance, not acknowledging any missteps of his own, as he has done since taking office following every major catastrophe, natural or otherwise. Bush supporters will unquestionably stand behind the President as they have in the face of past criticisms over tax cuts or the war. Those who do not support Bush will continue to be out for his blood. And perhaps a small number of Americans might experience disenchantment great enough to shift their political allegiance. In the long-term, if combined with growing dissatisfaction over the war in Iraq, rising oil prices, or some other unforeseen disaster, might reflect negatively on the President, but for now the issue is rather moot.

Partisan politics aside, we are all faced with choices and no one gets everything right. We cannot expect Bush to get it all right either. Certainly the decisions he makes as President may have greater consequences than those made by you or me on a daily basis, but another point of similarity is that in the end we must all bear the consequences of our decisions and Bush is no exception. It is hard to say at this point exactly what those consequences might be.

Did you know that North Korea has an animation industry?

Uniting the Two Koreas, in Animated Films at Least (NYT)

“North Korean animators are excellent,” he added. “They learn quickly and work very hard.” The SEK animation studio in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, which did the animation, has been involved in an array of international productions since the late 1990’s.

[…]

Mr. Shin has not finished working with North Korea, though. He said that both North and South Korea have agreed to produce his next project: a six-part animated series on Goguryeo, an ancient state that once occupied the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and much of Manchuria about 2,000 years ago. China recently created a furor in Korea when it claimed historical ownership of Goguryeo.

While South Korea is well known as a source of low-end cell drawing and inbetweening contractors for Japanese and American animation studios, the number of creative productions coming from that country has been dismally low. Despite being a fairly big animation fan, I have only seen a single long piece, a beautifully drawn film called Oseam, and a few shorts. Why after all these years is Korean animation so undeveloped? Why haven’t they benefited from this so-called ‘Korean wave’?

Be careful what you say about kimchi in Pyongyang

Be careful what you say about kimchi in Pyongyang

By Nopporn Wong-Anan Wed Aug 31, 5:40 AM ET

PYONGYANG (Reuters) – In
North Korea, it may be a crime to speak ill of the Dear Leader, but visitors are also advised not to badmouth the beloved national dish.

“Kimchi can prevent
SARS and bird flu,” a North Korean official told reporters at a dinner in a state-owned restaurant in Pyongyang, urging them to spread the word around the world.

Kimchi, typically radish or cabbage that has been packed with garlic, ginger and hot pepper and then pickled, is a staple on both sides of the divided Korean peninsula.

Although kimchi has been said to prevent bird flu and SARS, cure the common cold, prevent certain types of cancer and improve the skin, few of the claims have a scientific basis.

That meant nothing to an official guide escorting a group of Thai journalists travelling with Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon on a recent visit to the secluded Communist country.

Asked by one journalist how he knew the SARS and bird flu claims were true, the guide — who gave his name only as “Mr Kim”, answered in an angry voice:

“Where were you? I don’t understand why you never knew this information. Everybody in North Korea knows about it.”

North Korea had an outbreak of bird flu at poultry farms in Pyongyang earlier this year.

ALL HAIL THE LEADER ETERNAL

Other questions agitated the guide.

A journalist working for a Japanese news agency wondered aloud if North Koreans used “Ajinomoto” — a Japanese brand name for monosodium glutamate seasoning — in kimchi to make it so tasty.

“What do you mean?,” Mr Kim asked. “You said a Japanese word. We live in Korea and we only eat Korean food.”

North Korea’s official media roundly criticises Japan, the former colonial overlord of the Korean peninsula which was divided into North and South at the end of World War Two.

North Korea has stayed isolated since the split in the spirit of its national ideology of “juche”, or self-reliance, and is now feared by the international community to be building a nuclear weapons programme — the subject of so-called six-party talks being held on and off in Beijing.

Propaganda about North Korea’s leaders and the Communist revolution is part of life in the state. It assails visitors arriving at Pyongyang airport and thrusts itself from fields and roads on billboards in the countryside and from state television.

In fact, propaganda is launched at visitors before they even get out of the plane. Soon after touchdown, the plane’s speakers lauded Kim Il-sung — North Korea’s founding Great Leader, Father Leader and Eternal Leader — and his son, Dear Leader Kim Jong-il.

Billboards plastered with slogans are everywhere, from the government’s reception hall to paddy fields along highways.

“Long Live the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il!” reads a group of billboards, each carrying a Korean syllable, erected in the middle of a paddy field outside Pyongyang.

Another row of billboards on a grassy foothill read: “Whatever the party decides, we will do it!”

When asked who put up the billboards, Mr Kim consulted a colleague, then said: “It is the people who put up those signs themselves.”

The visit by the Thai foreign minister was timed to celebrate 30 years of diplomatic relations between Thailand and North Korea. Foreign journalists rarely visit and are closely supervised when they do.

Korean president “really jealous” of PM Koizumi’s ability to “gamble”

Asahi Daily, August 24, 2005, 8:23pm:

“I am so jealous of how Prime Minister Koizumi was able to take the gamble of dissolving parliament for the sake of reform,” South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun revealed on August 24th to a reporter on the presidential beat.

While the Korean president controls both the national government and international diplomacy, he is prohibited from uniting with any political party. His term is limited, and he has no power to dissolve the parliament. Invoking Prime Minister Koizumi’s situation, he fumed about how due to the inability of the ruling and opposition parties to work together, attempts at reform have stagnated.

“What the hell is the president of Korea? I can’t even risk my party or my job,” he whined, while expressing his desires. “A great flood can sometimes change the course of it’s own river. I want to make fundamental changes in the political structure and culture [of South Korea].”

Koizumi: Star Trek fan… or ALIEN?!!?!?!?

I hope you all were able to catch this great picture of Koizumi chillin’ on the train:

I tell you, the man truly has a knack for photo opportunities and promotional appearances (see this earlier post to get a sense of what I mean). But what’s up with his left hand?

Try as we might, neither I nor Mrs. Adamu could contort our hands into that position. He either REALLY loves Star Trek or he’s some kind of veloceraptor in disguise. What’s behind that wild mane, anyway?

(PS: Found while searching for the Star Trek link: Most pedophiles are into Star Trek? You decide.)

Some good perspective on Japanese politics from Taiwan

Unlike Japan, Taiwan politics lags in maturity

2005-08-25 / Taiwan News /

Taiwan’s politicians and political parties should pay closer attention to major and interesting changes taking place in the Japanese political system.

Earlier this month, the upper house of the Japanese Diet vetoed the postal service privatization plan of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Koizumi took this action as a sign of “no confidence” of the reform program of his right-wing Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito Party government and decided to dissolve the current Diet and call for general elections, which will take place on September 11.

The poll will mark the first time that a general election to elect a new lower house will have been called by a prime minister in the wake of a defeat by a proposed bill by the House of Councilors.

Moreover, thanks to another division in the ruling LDP triggered by the controversy over the postal service privatization scheme, it is by no means certain that the LDP will be able to maintain a majority in the September 11 election, with or without the assistance of New Komeito.

During the years of Koizumi’s premiership, the trend in Japanese politics to “oppose factional bosses and oppose bureaucrats” has become increasingly evident.

In other words, the fading away of the traditional central concepts of “interests and connections” in policy debates has now become a mainstream trend in Japanese parliamentary politics.

Contemporary Japan is no longer a polity dominated by sterile “opposition for the sake of opposition,” but is now increasingly characterized by a growing focus on national interest as the main determination in political tendencies and orientations.

Japanese politics can thus be said to be progressively becoming more mature.

Moreover, in contrast to the previous focus on personal ties over political positions, the new trend is for politicians with sharply different advocations and stands to cease cohabitation in the same political party.

‘Political responsibility’

Therefore, Koizumi has refused to re-nominate LDP Diet members who opposed his postal privatization bills and even, in emergency Cabinet meetings, sacked ministers who openly objected to the dissolution of the Diet.

In addition, a former Diet speaker and four other LDP heavyweights who voted against the postal privatization bills submitted their resignations from the ruling party on the same day of the crucial Diet vote and commonly decided to form a new “People’s New Party.”

In our view, such actions reflect a proper sense of “political responsibility.”

Nevertheless, while Taiwan has experienced over a decade of democratic parliamentary politics (counting from the holding of the first genuine Legislative Yuan election here in December 1992), the dominant value systems in substance of most politicians remain personal or partisan interests.

Unfortunately, not only are the actions of politicians swayed mainly by personal interests or partisan considerations, but so is the behavior of many if not most voters.

As a result, the main determinant of voting behavior is not a party’s or politician’s political vision or policy appeal, but rather following the lead of “ward bosses” or factional chiefs and the pursuit of narrow and highly partisan definitions of “welfare.”

Politicians with sharply different views or even divergent notions of national identity are regularly nominated by the same political party and, in turn, they frequently work to undermine the political bases of their “party comrades” in order to advance their own personal or factional interests or to seize political power.

Real motives

Certainly, Taiwan has already reached the stage in which “the counting of heads has replaced the cutting of heads” as the main means to decide political power, but we must seriously ask ourselves whether our current political ecology can truly be described as a “democratic society.”

Politics absolutely should not be divorced from the people. However, the advocations and judgments of the people are rarely visible in the daily operations of Taiwan’s political party system.

Instead, the bulk of the news media and politicians are feverishly occupied with trying to deceive the people or keep them in the dark about the real motives and issues at stake in our political life through activities that smack more of fundamentalist revival meetings than rational or substantive political discussion or discourse.

As a result, Taiwan society remains deeply ideologically divided between dogmatic “blue” or “green” quasi-religions that mask the nature of the real interests, problems and questions that our citizenry must decide.

In this state of affairs, politicians are either using the media or being manipulated by the media. In any case, what neither the bulk of the media nor most politicians are inclined or able to realize is substantive policy discussions on issues.

Politics is Taiwan is mostly for show and fails, no matter how extremely views may be offered, to be “radical” in the sense of dealing with fundamental matters.

We hope that factional politics and dogmatic ideological strife can “wither away” from Taiwan political life, along with related maladies such as quasi-religious mobilization, vote buying and “voting for the winner.”

We hope Taiwan’s political parties will begin to display the signs of maturity that are now surfacing among Japanese politicians and shift the focus of debate and decision to what is in the best interest of our society and our people so that genuine democracy can finally emerge in Taiwan.

Philippines hopes isle-name raffle woos Japan’s wary tourists

From the Japan Times

Would you like to have one of the 1,107 islands in the Philippines named after you?

That’s the come-on of the Philippine government in a bid to woo more Japanese tourists.

As part of its aggressive marketing to boost the country’s sagging tourism industry, Philippine officials, with the help of Japanese public relations experts, hatched the idea to raffle off the naming of 25 islands to Japanese tourists.

Dubbed “An Island in Your Name,” Philippine Tourism Secretary Joseph Durano hopes the effort will lure more young and adventurous Japanese tourists to visit the Philippines, a nation considered dangerous by some Japanese.

The promotional event will kick off in October.

The 25 Japanese raffle winners will not own the islands, Durano explained. Instead, the winners “will have the prestige of having these islands named after them for a period of one year.”

Who wants to bet that one of the winner’s names ‘their’ island Takeshima?

The God pigs of Taiwan

<Update: October 5, 2010 >I just noticed a surge of visitors to this post, so I thought I’d add a link to a Flickr photo set I took of the god pig sacrifice at a small temple next to the apartment where I was living in Taipei at the time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/sets/817964/

Doesn’t that sound like the title of a pulp story or B movie?

The Ghost Month is nearing it’s end here in Taiwan, and all through the past few weeks festivals and offerings have been visible in temples and shrines and in front of homes and businesses throughout Taipei. While most people reading this may know that Chinese religion involves the offering of food, drink, and burned fake paper money (which looks nothing like real money) to ancestor and god spirits, the continues existence of ritual animal sacrifice may surprise some.

Danny Bloom had a short post on Japundit about two weeks ago, the day after I saw my first pig offering at a small corner temple I pass everyday on the way to class.

Taiwan’s Hakka ethnic group holds an annual festival during the seventh lunar month, where a unique custom of sacrificing “spirit pigs,” which are traditionally grown to a huge size — and we mean HUGE — before being slaughtered.

However, in keeping with the principles of the ethical treatment of animals, today’s ceremonies often use likenesses of pigs instead of the real thing.

In this photo from the Taipei Times, a sculpture of a ‘divine pig’ can be seen outside Taipei City Hall, where the annual Taipei Hakka Memorial Ceremony was taking place recently.

Oink!

The August 13th Taipei Times had a rather hilarious photo of a pig stand-in made out of fruits.

They also have two interesting articles about the tradition of pig sacrifice in Taiwan.

Sacrificial swine prompt backlash
The belief that “the bigger the sacrificed pig, the more luck a person will have for the rest of the year” has resulted in a lifetime of agony for hundreds of pigs, bred by farmers to become abnormally overweight before slaughter, animal-rights activists said yesterday.

Dozens of activists from several animal-rights groups yesterday gathered in front of the Council of Agriculture (COA) to protest traditional pig contests, saying the government has failed to regulate abusive practices toward animals.

Showing a documentary about pigs selected for the contest, activists said that 15 to 18 months before the overweight pigs are killed as sacrificial offerings, they are deprived of fluids, exercise and even turning over freely. The pigs undergo these cruel farming practices until their weight reaches upwards of five to six times their normal weight, activists said.

The accompanying photo truly must be seen to be believed. Yes, those are the pig’s ears at the bottom.

Three days ago the same publication had a good article giving a roundup of various traditions of the Ghost Festival. Of interst here is the final anecdote, concerning a rural pig farmer who raises animals for sacrifice, which gives a much more accepting description of the practice than the earlier story focusing on animal rights protesters.

About 10km away from the Yonglian Temple, a different type of religious tradition is taking place. The Ghost Festival had attracted about a dozen pig farmers carrying truckloads of sacrificial pigs to the Tachong Temple in Pali (八里) Township, Taipei County, one of three local temples taking turns to host the annual event.

The 210-year-old Tachong Temple has just been designated as having historically significant architecture, and temple managers hope to begin a renovation project by the end of next month to give the building a face-lift.

Chou Chin-tiao (周金條) won this year’s pig-raising contest with an animal that weighed 890kg. The first runner-up came in far behind, at under 500kg, with the second runner-up weighing about 400kg.

This was the fifth time Chou won the contest. The secret of growing such a big pig, Chou said, lies in the fodder. The feed he uses contains grain shells, rice porridge, canned fish, pig oil, milk powder and raw oysters.

The animal is fed twice a day, with 14kg of fodder each meal, and is given water every three hours. The cost for the fodder alone is about NT$30,000 a month.

During the summer, he has seven fans blowing on the animal to keep it cool and comfortable.

During his some 30 years of pig farming, Chou said that only three pigs died under his care. Although he spends more time and effort taking care of the animals than his wife and four children, Chou said that it pays off when he wins the highest honor.

“I don’t raise the pigs for the gold plate or certificate of merit,” he said. “I do it to fulfill a promise I made to the Buddha when I was poor that I would offer big sacrifices if I could have food to eat and clothes to wear.”

Gov’t to launch ‘Warm Biz’ campaign from Oct 1

Can’t wait to see what Koizumi will wear! If he’s still PM that is…

BTW check out the LDP Manifesto (Click where it says “120”) for some great shots of Koizumi looking majestic and wise.

Gov’t to launch ‘Warm Biz’ campaign from Oct 1

Monday, August 22, 2005 at 19:28 JST
TOKYO — Japan will kick off the “Warm Biz” campaign Oct 1, an autumn-winter version of the “Cool Biz” campaign held during summer, to promote energy conservation by encouraging business people to wear layers of clothing and help reduce the use of heaters, the Environment Ministry announced Monday.

Under the campaign, office workers will be encouraged to wear knitwear, warm underwear and headwear so that they can comfortably work in an office with a temperature of 20 C, the ministry said.

(c 2005 Kyodo News. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission.)