I’m never going back…

Just because…

Like how this article begins

From “China envoy’s Taiwan trip highlights differences” (AP)

TAIPEI, Taiwan – He stepped off the plane with a mission: Make history by becoming the most senior Chinese official to visit Taiwan. Sign a landmark trade deal. Draw the wayward island closer to motherland China.

Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin did all those things during his trip that ended Friday. But his five-day visit also highlighted how — socially and politically — Taiwan and China are not merely like two separate countries. They are more like different planets.

Separated at birth?

Onion- and YouTube-inspired mid-life crisis

Saw this in The Onion:

NEW YORK—In a stunning reversal of their long-stated reluctance to take it, members of heavy-metal band Twisted Sister announced Monday that, after 24 years of fervent refusal, they are now willing to take it. “I acknowledge that we promised not to take it anymore, but things change. The world is a different place today, and with that in mind, we would like to go on record as saying that, starting right now, we are going to take it,” read a statement released by the band’s lead singer, Dee Snider. “To clarify, we would still prefer not to take it, but as of now, taking it is an option that we would be open to. That is all.” Bassist Mark “the Animal” Mendoza also stated that, in regards to what he wants to do with his life, he no longer solely wants to rock, but would instead prefer doing other things, such as raising a family and working as a claims adjuster in Rye, NY.

Brought back memories…

Super Typhoon Jangmi makes landfall

Judging from this the 4:00 image [that has disappeared] from the Central Weather Bureau, Super Typhoon Jangmi has just about made landfall in Ilan County, northeast Taiwan. In western Taiwan, we’ve been having heavy winds most of the afternoon, and now it’s just starting to rain, too. It’s a powerful one–more powerful than the previous ones this year–and (unfortunately) a slow-moving typhoon, too. I just felt a gust of wind that seemed to shake our building. (Maybe I should close the window…)

“A very important kind of cultural demise”: Daniel Berrigan and Frida Berrigan interview

I’m supposed to be working on a conference paper that I need to send out soon, but I just received an e-mail advertising a new Routledge journal called The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture. The first issue is available for free online (for now) and contains an interview done with Father Daniel Berrigan and his niece Frida Berrigan. Frida is the daughter of Phil Berrigan, who passed away in 2002. I had the opportunity to meet him in high school when he gave a talk to our social studies class, so I’ve been interested in what the Berrigans have to say.

What really struck me in the interview were Daniel and Frida’s comments about the difference in media treatment of protests in the sixties and today:

Dan: When I think, let’s say, with beginning around 1965 or so, when things got serious in my life about the war – given the public situation today with media, and the foul politics, and the war making and so on and so forth – it almost seems like the early Sixties were a very innocent period. And that one could still hope for a certain kind of fair assessment of one’s life in the media – it was not all bought off and bought out and sold out – and that was certainly part of a very different picture at that point.

I remember when Phil was sentenced to, I think, five years after the first – ‘67 – the first action in Baltimore City.

There was an editorial in the [New York] Times (we quite took it for granted), and the editorial said that the judge exceeded all logic and all legal precedent in giving this outrageous term in prison. Well, today, this would be unheard of: that there would be any public media protest at a draconian sentence… There was still the possibility of a public voice in the media which later, certainly by ‘80, had quite disappeared and around the time when we went into the King of Prussia³ and so on, there was no possibility of a public debate following (let alone public approval).

That’s one great difference that occurs to me by way of lost innocence: we’ve lost the media. And that’s a very important kind of cultural demise, it seems to me, with regard to political responsibility and the hope for some kind of public fairness… But Frida, you were going to say something.

Frida: [laughing] Was I? Well, I started thinking about Cindy Sheehan and how she sort of retired from the peace movement not too long ago, and actually got a lot of press… She’s the one national figure today that is identified as antiwar and pro-peace – and there are no others. [pause] She’s the only one, I would say, and that she’s only there because her son was killed and there’s this personal story, that you can only really be against the war and dedicate your life to peace if you’ve been personally impacted and lost something very great. And she’s characterized, at least in the mainstream press, as somebody who is seeking attention. Right? Not that she has a position or that she speaks for a lot of other people – just that she wants attention. I think that’s an example of what you’re talking about.

Dan: Yeah.

Frida: And she’s been chewed up, and ground up, and spit out. And who would want to be a leader if that’s how leaders are treated? That they’re made by the media and then they’re unmade by the media.

Dan: That’s right.

Sobering. But I wonder what they would think of the potential of the Internet as an alternative to “the media” that they speak of, that they say “we’ve lost.”

Typhoon- and YouTube-inspired mid-life crisis II

We’ve got a typhoon coming. The weather forecasters, who are all just basically repeating what the Central Weather Bureau says on its website, try to outdo each other in terms of giving a confusing array of non-essential information about the typhoon. (In other words, what we really want to know is if we’ll have the day off on Monday!) So this is dedicated to them (though they aren’t all women):

Coffee shop eavesdropping, late Friday morning: some notes

The air is full of different times and places–a man and his “ex-girlfriend” (both with North American accents) are sitting behind me and catching up on each other’s lives. A snippet where a friend of the woman is mentioned–”she’s in South Africa” and has a good job now. The man is going to the US via Manila & I don’t know where else. The woman is going to Hong Kong, then Beijing, then Hong Kong next week.

Downstairs someone with a light British accent talks to people on her cellphone, inviting them to a dinner party at an Indian restaurant at 5:30. (That restaurant’s food is good–we’ve been there before.)

There’s sort of an inexplainable youthful unattached feeling here–ex-girlfriends talking to ex-boyfriends, flying around and working in different parts of the world. (Though the ex-boyfriend is flying back to the US to see his grandfather in the hospital, so there is not a complete rejection of commitment to family.)

Talk of schedules, though–”I hate my schedule.” Control by time.

I see the exes as I leave. Smile inwardly at the fact I had the correct mental image of the woman based on her voice–she’s a young Marcia Wallace (pre-Simpsons era; more like Match Game/Bob Newhart era–but without the scarf):

The guy was a surprise, though. I expected a crew-cut business type, and instead got Tony Carey (but a little thinner):

Belated mention of a review of Sarah Palin’s Republican convention speech

There’s a post and a long discussion regarding Sarah Palin’s Republican convention speech at The Rosewater Chronicles, a blog by rhetorician Joshua Gunn. Particularly interesting to me was the discussion of the appeal to Southerners that the “tone” of her speech (and much of Republican rhetoric) appears to have. (Obviously not all Southerners.) I’m thinking bin might be interested in it because…well, he’s in Nashville.