(v2.0)
(v2.0)
(March 21, 2005) The Scilingo Effect Argentine President Nestor Kirchner removed military bishop Antonio Basseotto after the latter said that the public health minister should be "thrown in the sea" for favoring the legalization of abortion. Whatever happened to freedom of speech and religion? To understand Kirchner's response, it is necessary to recount the Scilingo Effect.
(March 21, 2005) Two Tales of the City How did the suspects of the Hong Kong park trail robberies get caught? Two completely different news reports on the same event.
(March 20, 2005) Maria Elvira Confronta Maria Elvira Salazar spent years trying before landing an interview with Chile's Augusto Pinochet. That so-called 'final' interview would land Pinochet back into legal problems, because his astute, self-righteous performance destroyed his own claim of mental senility.
(March 20, 2005) Characteristics of A Consumerist Society A survey by the Friends Of The Earth found that 44% of Hong Kong consumers have discarded clothing that they purchased but never once wore. Is this the metric for consumerism?
(March 19, 2005) The People's Party of Hong Kong A market positioning analysis of the newly founded political party in Hong Kong. This is rather confusing, because Hong Kong is not a two-dimensional society. Thus, the People's Party has been described as pro-Beijing and pro-democracy in the same sentence.
(March 18, 2005) Category "A" CD's The government of Taiwan intends to crack down on the manufacturing of adult entertainment CD's. Since Taiwan owned an 80% share previously, this will have a significant economic impact. Can they rationalize their way out of this?
(March 18, 2005) School Bullies of Hong Kong The 'luridness' meter goes through the roof on this news story. Should the beautiful minds of the readers of the South China Morning Post and The Standard be shielded from such filth? We report, you decide.
(March 17, 2005) How Taiwan Robbed My Childhood A child grew up in Hong Kong, seeing and hearing about Free China, and is deceived twice. And the second time hurts much more.
(March 16, 2005) Wal-Mart Prices A collection of anecdotes about how Wal-Mart created the impression that it always has the lowest prices. Is that true? No, it cannot always be true because someone may undersell them on something somewhere. But it is the consumer perception that matters more, and sometimes it may be unfavorable to Wal-Mart.
(March 16, 2005) Matching Names for Data Mining The art and inexact science of matching names from different sources, with some examples of bad consequences of mismatches.
(March 15, 2005) Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems Business models for prostitution are used to illustrate the behavior of complex adaptive systems. Either adapt or become extinct!
(March 14, 2005) Los Galindo A new hit sitcom in Chile is in fact a re-make of ... The Jeffersons. But this is not another instance of the inexorable march of globalized cultural imperialism.
(March 13, 2005) Divorce in China & Chile A comparison of the divorce laws and procedures in two countries.
(March 12, 2005) Group Polarization on the Blogosphere "The phenomenon of group polarization has conspicuous importance to the U.S. communications market, where groups with distinctive identities increasingly engage in within-group discussion Customization makes this possible; specialized Web sites and blogs compound this problem ... different deliberating groups, each consisting of like-minded people, will be driven increasingly far apart, simply because most of their discussions will be with one another. Extremist groups will often become even more extreme." Three examples are given here.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Dear Friend: You were probably trying to reach a page on the EastSouthWestNorth blog. As of March 12, 2005, that blog and all its archived materials have been removed from the server. There are a number of reasons why the blogger made that decision, including:
First, the blogger has a full-time job as well as a full-fledged commercial website of his own. The blog was meant to be a collection of bookmarks and thoughts in his attempt to understand the world around him. Unfortunately, he has found that the blog was turning into a full-time occupation dealing with bandwidth theft, hate mail and the rest of it. This was not his plan.
Second, the blog traffic has shot up to a point where there are significant financial considerations involved. The blog draws zero income, and the blogger makes it a point of honor to pay the operational costs out of his own pocket. The blogger has no intention of seeking revenue, either through contributions, advertisements or sponsorships. While the blogger thinks that he can can afford the bandwidth charges (note: the 'worst' day last month had 3.6 million hits and 102 gigabytes of data transfer), he weighs two options: either give the money to Doctors Without Borders or spend it on bandwidth usage. There was no doubt in his mind that his preference would be where some actual good can be done.
This does not mean that the blog is defunct for good. For now, the blog will operate in a bandwidth-conserving text mode and then it will be re-launched in April. Some archived materials will be brought back, but most of the 400 megabytes of content will be gone. For example, you can see below what will be saved for the month of March so far. In the future, the blog contents will be more focused on media, culture and politics in Greater China and the Americas. There will be fewer posts; the posts will be focused and analytical; and the longer pieces will be hosted on external sites. ¡Hasta luego!
(March 10, 2005) Serve The People A description of the banned story by Yan Lianke that appeared in the Hua Cheng magazine in China. Shorter summary: Lovers achieve sexual ecstasy while smashing Chairman Mao statue.
(March 8, 2005) Examples of Cantonese Culture [in Chinese] Two excerpts from InMediaHK about the best of Hong Kong Cantonese-based culture. They are 'must save'-items for future reference.
(March 6, 2005) An Internet Affair In Taiwan This is a cautionary tale about an emotional venting after the break-up of a relationship. This would have been nothing, except the Internet community rolled it into up into a scandal of unimaginable proportions and terrible consequences.
(March 4, 2005) Media Coverage of C.N. Yang's Marriage A translated article about the various culturally and politically conditioned responses from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. I am very much in sympathy with this analysis.
(March 3, 2005) The Great Chinese War Against Japan If you believe that the Chinese goverment is 'channelling public frustration into anti-Japanese xenophobia,' then the antidote would be for the public intellectuals to take a unified, principled and rational stand against cynical, irrational nationalistic chauvinism. Is that happening?
(March 3, 2005) The Basic Law On The Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive A close reading of what the Basic Law says in the event that the current Chief Executive resigns.
(March 2, 2005) Triangulation Meets Apostasy An unintentionally funny editorial in the Taipei Times about the best things in American-style two-party democracy. The most important lesson delivered by the master Bill Clinton himself: "The cunning of triangulation is that it leaves the betrayed with nowhere to go. In its devastating, yet effective cynicism it assumes that party faithful who feel betrayed will nevertheless continue to support the party if only because the alternatives are appalling."
(January 29, 2005) My Dinner Conversation Bits of conversations at the annual shareholders meeting of my cooperative apartment buildings. What does Max Sawicky have to say?
(January 23, 2005) Why I Don't Talk About Chinese Politics It is disclosed here that my reluctance came as a result of watching a Monty Python sketch.
(January 3, 2005) New Year's Day Numbers For Hong Kong How many people were at the march to protest politicians botching the Link REIT deal? The high estimate is 50,000 and the low estimate is 1,000. How could it be so different? Let us review the identities of the estimate reporters.
