Execution of Saddam Hussein

After all, Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, was hanged for crimes against humanity after the U.S.-backed appeal court upheld the previous ruling of execution.

A thinking of mine has been lingering for a while in my head, that Hussein should not be executed, or at least it should not happen at this moment. It is undoubted that he was responsible for the Gulf War during 1990-91; he was accused of killing thousands of his enemies; he established a thirty-year absolute leadership in Iraq, which was the major opposition against the Western powers. Nevertheless, the current situation in Iraq is no better than the time when it was still under his rule.

War is the most destructive weapon. I may be naive to have this thought, but I would reckon that it is better to suffer from a dictatorship than to suffer from warfare. Everything is destroyed in a war - properties, families, society, and so on. Under dictationship, people still have the hope to stay with their families, or establish a social network (whatever big or small); it is at least a form of stability. I doubt the necessity of the invasion in 2003 by the United States and its allies, which I have repeated a few times.

Another point staying in my mind is that the ruling of the court. Probably owing to the poor network, I cannot quite catch the process of the trial. Yet I still wonder whether the transparency of the trial is up to standard. In usual case, it takes a long time to try a person who committed serious crimes. It may be up to several months or even several years. The judgement of Hussein just came to my ears suddenly on one day. Then suddenly he was hanged. It is so rough and rushed that I would suspect the motives behind.

George W. Bush, the U.S. president said after the execution, that "bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself.". I don't quite agree with him. The execution will definitely not end the violence, yet I do not think it can be a "milestone". This is the wrong moment as Hussein is believed to have a number of supporters. The very first motive of the invasion was about Iraq concealing mass destructive weapons, which was not found. The asserted genocide of Shi'ite by Hussein was not clearly tried. Hussein was just hanged before everything is truly clear.

Going through Global Voices Online (see the button at the right bottom), a blogger posted a cartoon, which was said to sum up the mood of many.



















A cartoon by Latuff

A lot of people expressed their wide range of opinions through the blog. Obviously, not everyone among them dedicated their support to the execution. By chance I share something similar with these people. I am not thinking how glad I should be because of this, but how sad and ridiculous this world is when an outsider also has a similar view to the people who truly know the situation.
There are countless things in life.

Farewell to Kofi Annan

Today morning I read the following from the Reuters, which stirs my emotion. Kofi Annan is a highly reverend person that I admire very much. His contributions to the peaceful world is identifiable and outstanding.

Annan warns against go-it-alone diplomacy
Mon Dec 11, 2006 7:47 PM ET

By Carey Gillam

INDEPENDENCE, Missouri (Reuters) - Kofi Annan, in his last major speech as U.N. secretary general, urged the United States on Monday to shun go-it-alone diplomacy and collaborate on its world challenges, including the Iraq war.

In a farewell address delivered at Harry Truman's presidential library in Independence, Missouri, Annan praised the 33rd U.S. president's legacy, and quoted Truman in cautioning that "no nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others."

Truman was a strong backer of the United Nations and helped found the world body.

Annan, who steps down at the end of the month, to be succeeded by Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea, said, "We need U.S. leadership; we have lots of problems around the world ... and we require the natural leadership role the U.S. played in the past and can play today.

"None of our global institutions can accomplish much when the U.S. remains aloof. But when it is fully engaged, the sky's the limit," he said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the outgoing U.N. chief was entitled to his opinions.

"There's no secretary-general of the United Nations that's going to be in lock-step with the United States or any other country with regard to its policies. It's not that person's job," McCormack said.

Republican Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, the retiring chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said Annan failed to mention "the rampant financial and moral mismanagement at the United Nations" and called his remarks "a classic case of misdirection aimed at the United States."

During his two five-year terms as U.N. leader, Annan has tangled often with President George W. Bush's administration, particularly over the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, launched without a green light from the U.N. Security Council.

"When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose -- for broadly shared aims -- in accordance with broadly accepted norms," Annan said.

In response to a question on how to end the war in Iraq, Annan said the United States needed to work with other countries, including Iran and Syria, to foster a "sharing" of political power and oil revenues within Iraq's Sunni and Shi'ite factions.

"If you make them responsible and pull them into work with you, I think it will be in everyone's interests," he said. "Getting Iraq right is not only in the interests of the U.S. and the broad international community but even more so for the countries in the region."

Annan renewed a call to expand the 15-nation Security Council and took a dig at U.S. opposition to a plan to add 10 seats.

Bush administration officials have argued Washington should use the United Nations only to serve its national interests.

But Annan said it was crucial to organize U.N. bodies "in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong."

"It is only through multilateral institutions that states can hold each other to account," he said.

The United States has historically been a leader in human rights, noted Annan.

"When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused," he said in an apparent reference to charges of abuse at U.S. prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Iraq's Abu Ghraib.

Truman, who ordered two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, learned from that experience that security from then on "must be collective and indivisible," Annan said.

"All civilization is at stake, and we can save it only if all peoples join together in the task," Annan said.

"You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago?"

(Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff at the United Nations)

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© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

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Short comment - I very much appreciate Kofi Annan's work as secretary general of the United Nations. During the term he tried his best to strive for human's peace and content life. It remains unknown that how UN will be (or change) under the new secretary general Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea. Annan's achievement is unquestionable.

In the article the United States responded by saying why Annan did not mention "the rampant financial and moral mismanagement at the United Nations". I consider this problem as trivial compared with the rest of the contemporary world. I would not argue the US suffers from internal managing crisis, yet the sufferings in Middle East, Africa and many less developed countries are obviously more urgent and worth to mention. As I do not reckon the America as the supremacy, Annan is not necessary to talk about that.

Like Annan, I also do not agree with what "Bush administration officials have argued Washington should use the United Nations only to serve its national interests". Since everyone constitutes the world order, the US has no excuse to stay alone and serve only itself. In spite of recognizing human's selfishness, it is why all of us have to learn communication and compromise.

Russia (2)

A short piece as a personal response to Russia recent incident:

A month or two ago, I expressed my view about Russia and the murder of the famous journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The investigation is still obscure and former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned to death. I think it is bitter.

The bitter comes from the fact that murders happened frequently and none of the investigations of the murders had a satisfactory and open result. The importance of Litvinenko's death lies on the place he was killed - Britain. It led to the investigation carried by the British, regardless the sensitive relationship between Russia and Britain. Yet the British investigation is apparently hampered by Russia.

Time.com released a story, or say a comment that speak what I think out.

Friday, Dec. 08, 2006
Keeping Russia's Deadly Politics at Home
Viewpoint: The murder of Alexender Litvinenko demonstrates, once again, how murder has become an accepted part of Russian power struggles. But the West can't — or won't — do much about it
By YURI ZARAKHOVICH/MOSCOW

Murder is a firmly established tradition in Russian battles over money and power. So, the suspicion in Moscow is that the recent murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko — as well as the alleged attempt on former prime minister and economic-reform mastermind Yegor Gaidar — result from domestic clan warfare. Russians are quite accustomed to seeing assassination used as an instrument to silence an opponent or redistribute assets, and over a dozen major energy-corporation and banking executives have been killed in the past couple of months alone. What is different about the Litvinenko and Gaidar cases is that they happened beyond Russian borders.

The Litvinenko murder investigation, in fact, may have a profound effect on the image of President Vladimir Putin in the West — much like the Chechen war of 1999 did, or the dismembering the oil company Yukos and the imprisonment of its CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, or the Beslan terror tragedy. Each time, Putin chose a course of action that benefited his regime in short term, but deeply hurt his country's interests in the long term.

Britain, horrified that a foe of the Kremlin could be murdered with a radioactive isotope that has left traces all over London, has vowed to pursue the Litvinenko investigation wherever "the police take it," regardless of diplomatic sensitivities. However, once the men from Scotland Yard landed in Moscow, Russian prosecutor-general Yuri Chaika bluntly spelled out the limits of the British inquiry: It's the Russians who ask questions — the British just sit tight and watch. And should any Russians be discovered to have been involved, he said, they would not be extradited.

Then, on Thursday, Chaika's office announced that it had launched its own criminal probe into this "death of a Russian citizen," and that a Russian investigative team would be sent to London, where they expected "understanding and cooperation" from their British counterparts. This appeared to be something of a stunt designed to counteract growing Western indignation over Moscow's lack of enthusiasm for cooperating with the British investigation.

Still, there isn't much the West can or will do about it. Relations between Moscow and the West have rarely hinged on single, or even systematic, human rights abuses. It was not expedient for the democracies to admit the existence of Stalin's Gulag when the priority was working together to defeat Hitler. It may be no more expedient to focus on human rights issues in Putin's Russia as long as Moscow must be kept as an ally in the war on terror, and persuaded to back sanctions against Iran.

"Realpolitik" dictated, for example, that the Soviets' downing of a Korean airliner in September 1983, killing 269 people, was not allowed to significantly interfere with business as usual. And "realpolitik" eventually paid off — at least for the West — as the Soviet Union disappeared a few years later without a shot being fired. Today, "realpolitik" has given way to "realeconomics" — who cares if Moscow bumps off its citizens in Chechnya or elsewhere as long as the oil and natural gas are flowing from Russia? The West reacts most loudly when its investments in Russia are endangered.

This Western attitude is sensible, and probably the only one possible. If the Russian people accept this murderous political culture, no outsiders can convince them to do otherwise. It can expire only when the Russians themselves grow sufficiently resolved to abolish it — if ever. The West may, however, have an urgent interest in ensuring that Russia's deadly political games are at least played on home turf, and don't spill over Russia's borders — lest the killers, believing they can get away with anything, anywhere, establish precedents of nuclear or any other terrorism on foreign soil.

Russians may have come to adopt barbaric ways of settling their political and business scores, and it will be up to Russians to find a better way or else be submerged in a bloodbath of their own making. All that other countries can do, in the meantime, is try to protect themselves from the flying debris.

Copyright © 2006 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

(http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1568360,00.html)

Not only coming from the obscure murders, the bitter also comes from the helplessness felt by outsiders. I agree the writer that if this is what the Russian people choose, it is almost impossible to break through. Meanwhile I definitely doubt the education and the messages through mass communication received by the Russians are controlled by the government. It is a melancholy percepted by foreigners, but I do not know how the insiders think.

Anyhow a lot of things depend on own perceptions.

Google Inc.

Sometimes I think it is heavy to always discuss hard topic. As I started to use Google Reader yesterday, suddenly I have an impulsive thinking about Google Inc.

Having started in 1998, it has grown rapidly as one of the most influential Internet corporations. It was only a search engine in the beginning, but it expands in size and in services provided owing to its user-friendly set up and its growing popularity. In my point of view, Google is one of the best illustrations of globalization and multi-national corporation.

I set Google as my home page in the Mozilla Firefox browser. Gmail is my primary email. I read Google news everyday and I use Google Alerts to read Cambodian news. Earlier this year when I was organizing Dramatics Week, I uploaded a video on Google Video. This Website, Blogger, is also one of the services Google provides. I search most of the things in Google. I subscribe RSS through Google Reader. Google penetrates my Internet experience.

I believe I am not the only Googler. There are more people who use its services more than I do. Not talking about the rest of the services, the importance of Google cannot be neglected. Despite not being favor of appreciating its dominance, its success is hardly to be combatted.

An idea jumps into my head. While the term "McDonaldization" becomes more known, it must be interesting to start a study of "Google-lization". As Internet is widely used nowadays, the effect induced by Google, notwithstanding its virtual nature, must be valuable to have a deep research and analysis.

Nonetheless, a litte person and being as poor academically as me has almost no way to conduct such a study; and I don't think I have the wisdom and the patience to work this out. Furthermore I believe there will be studies about this topic in the future.

Philosophical interest

After the end of the semester, I borrowed three books from the library and read them during the days in the East Coast, Australia. They are part of the series of A Very Short Introduction, published by the Oxford Press - Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

I have been interested in philosophy for a while, yet I did not pay much effort. To record my recollection, I recall my first formal lesson of philosophy was the existentialism I took in my first semester, year 1. It is an interesting subject; unfortunately I was too fresh and not prepared to study this great subject, so it was sort of wasted and I did not do well.

Nonetheless the unit has hereafter caused my notice to matters related. Existentialism is a very difficult subject, and it takes so much time and energy to understand the logic. Until now I am still on my way to understand it, so I am not going to discuss more. Anyway it brings me further interest to read some books afterwards.

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are three of the greatest men in philosophy. Socrates invented Socratic method - to develop an idea or a belief and convince the others through arguments and discussion. Plato was the founder of the Academy, the first school of philosophy which marked the independence of the subject. Aristotle was considered as one of the most important person in scientific history, and influenced the development of science and philosophy.

The three books briefly described their lives and introduced their most important ideas. Socrates pursued and worked out the virtue he insisted. He claimed he was not a wise man and did not possess any knowledge; he also found the Socratic method, which was about to discover his own belief through arguments. Plato invented the idea of Forms and discussed how kwowledged was to be taught from one to another; he developed philosophy into an independent subject and his own platonism influenced the philosophers until now. Aristotle was a genius that he studied heaps of science subject and wrote the first book about biology; his logical thinking inspired hunreds and thousands of scientists afterwards. What a coincidence was one was the student of another - Socrates was the most important person in Plato's philosophical life while Aristotle was the most outstanding students of Plato's.

After reading the books, while I was waiting for the flight back to Perth from Sydney, I wrote down some of my thoughts provoked by the books.

Most things interlock with each other. In my life, there were countless coincidences. ONe of the most common examples is I often encounters some vocabulary right after I've just realized what they mean. It is interesting to see the connection among various items/incidents; meanwhile the reason for this is yet to discover. For one single item, it is probably not hard to explain, but since events somehow connect to each other, I think it is beyond my ability to grasp the answer that why things happen incredibily.

Some people suggest God holds the control. God is often protrait as a human-kind, but it's probably because of the limited imagination of man. What is God? Some claimed they talked with God before, or God sent them messages. The most outstanding instance was Jesus, who said he was the son of God. Who created God? How did man create this term with a divine meaning? If God can talk, somehow it means God is just another living creature. What form is it? What structure is it? If it controls the world order in such a complicated way, there're too many questions aroused.

Some say everything is written in the book of life. We've got no idea of what it is. If it is a book, we don't know who wrote it and the reason behind. Plato and Laozi had a similar view that they thought it was under some sort of Form. Scientists fail to find the answer.

Within the boundary, the knowledge of science is infinite; however boundary exists. Regardless of God, book of life, Form or so on, we know nothing beyond the boundary. In another way, we can't break through it. We have no way to know if human, or the universe is actually only like a glass box with water and fish. Astronomists tell us the universe is expanding all the time, but we don't know where it has the space to expand. Stop talking about huge matter, nonetheless we dxo not know many tiny matters. As basic as all of our acknowledgement, are we bound to know them? Where does our intelligence come from? Why do we have evolution? Why is everything changing? In films about going back to the past, it is always said that one could not and should not change anything. However, what if it was actually what should have happened? It is not only that we don't know the answers, but we do not even know how to find out the answer. It sounds a hopeless situation. Too difficult.

Another question: why do we believe things are what they are? To some extent I would say we're just following what our senses, body or brain tell us. What if these things in fact lie to us? Perhaps the answer is simple: we have no alternatives. Our own body is the only thing we control directly. Certainly there should be some arguments about this statement, yet it is true in certain condition. However, the truth is not known; it is just our only choice that we can only believe everything we experience or are told.

To me, trust is too fragile and weak. Nonetheless as long as this is the only choice, it has to be maintained firmly. Otherwise our mental system might have collapsed.

Many things are beyond our intelligence to manage or understand. Even trust can be doubted, such as what it is exactly, how it is formed and whether it is "trust" to trust. However, to think in this way will be like what another book I am currently reading (to be discussed) say that it becomes skepticism, although I am also interested to know how or why human determine certain degree of doubts to be skeptic.

I do not know how to conclude. At the moment I am thinking about atheism and theism, a worthy topic. Yet it is very complicated and I cannot discuss it without further knowledge. I am too shallow for this now, but I hope I could learn more later. I believe this has something to do with the books, as they stimulate my choices of reading.

A little episode - I told my friend about my interest, and guess what he replied - "Usually the people who read or study philosophy are crazy, or turn to be crazy finally".

I denied, despite the fact that crazy people is said to always deny they are crazy.

Diminishing marginal return

A famous economic law, in my point of view, is applicable to many things happening in the current world.

In economics, diminishing returns is the short form of diminishing marginal returns. In a production system, having fixed and variable inputs, keeping the fixed inputs constant, as more of a variable input is applied, each additional unit of input yields less and less additional output. This concept is also known as the law of increasing opportunity cost or the law of diminishing returns. [Wikipedia]

The mid-term election of the US House of Representatives and Senate has just ended and the result is yet to be concluded. The Democrats are anticipated to win the majority of the House and may even dominate in the Senate since 1994.

Try to recall the previous two presidential elections in the US. The Republicans gained the victory easily. It was one of the prime time for the Republicans. In an economics, an economy is said to fall after reaching the peak. Additionally, an economy or a business is asserted to follow the business cycle - "periodic but irregular up-and-down movements in economic activity" (Parkin and Bade). Accordingly, after the up-period of the Republicans, it is probably the time for the down movement.

Reasonably one may argue the lost of the Republicans are due to many factors. I agree with it. I do not have a deep understanding of the American politics. As an outsider, I find that the victory of the Democratic Party does not mean the people truly support them. If it is put on the above economics theory, it will be only explained by the fact that it is time for the down of the Republican Party. I cannot see outstanding attractiveness of the Democrats.

Before the election has begun, some news reports already revealed that one of the strategies that the Dem was using in this election was to criticize the George W. Bush's administration. In particular, the Dem opposed the Iraq War and the corruption. The Dem did not need to emphasize its proposed domestic policy to appeal its citizens. At this point, it is not hard to suggest that it is not about the real strength of the Democrats that gives this result of the election.

I personally believe that while the stronger power or the greater victory a party gains, the more tremendous loss it will finally suffer. To me it is some kind of balance the world is trying to reach. Thereafter the Republicans are quite sealed to be the loser this time. Reading through many news stories, the Rep did not show a high morale to fight in a bad situation. They did not seem to be keen on a victory. It is ambiguous whether they believed they could win anyhow, or they thought they would lose however hard they worked. As I think they are clever enough, the answer will probably be the former.

Bush's term still has two years to go. Some estimated that the winning of the Democrats would slam the brakes on Bush's agenda. It is almost certain that the policy of the Terrorism War will be reviewed. Same as many people, I think the result of this mid-election is very important to the world. The US aggressive foreign policy will probably switch to be modest. It will be interesting to see how Bush will have to wrestle with the Democrats. As the US has led to some wars and foreign conflicts under Bush's rule, there will be a hard time for the US to modify or adjust their diplomatic attitudes. It is yet to know whether the US will keep its strong and hard world leading role. I hope not, as I am one of the increasing number of people who think the Americans are weirdoes.

On the other hand, I do not see the Democrats are strong and good enough to keep the public support. If the party wins only because of the weakening of its enemy, it will not be able to win the other time when the enemy regains its strength. People will see and judge the Democrats. The only way to maintain its power is to make achievements. The Democrats has to construct a good plan to gradually retreat from wars; it has to improve the country's relationship with other countries, such as Europe and the Middle East; it also needs to keep its prosperous economy. Otherwise the Democrats will lose soon.

ps. As a journalism student, I learnt the unhealthy journalism in the US. It is well-known that the reporting in US is usually unfair and unbalanced, with sensationalism and self-censorship for the Republicans. I am curious what the situation will be when the head is changed.

pps. I did not realize I will spend some time on the US politics, since I do not very much like the Americans and I am not very political.

ppps. I always think the economics theories are very philosophical and very useful in life.

Book review

Authority and the Individual
by Bertrand Russell, 1949, Unwin Brothers Limited

It took me a long time to finish owing to heavy schoolwork. I have spoken about this book before with a high degree of appreciation, and now I think I should be about to tell some more and conclude.

I was wondering who the writer was, thereby I found a brief biography about him from the Wikipedia. You may click on it and have a look about Russell, and then you may have the same feeling as I do - I did not realize that he was a big man during his life. He was made a Nobel Lauerate in Literature in 1950, and his philosophies brought an influence to intellectuality that should not be overlooked.

(Nobel prize winners are chosen year by year. Other than people who are living in the age, a question is whether people in the future generation will remember or realize the people. Like me, I would have never known Russell if I did not check from Wiki. Additionally the case may be even worse - it is a doubt that how many people know the winners in this year.)

To recall the content of the book, I assume it was the transcript of "The Reith Lecture" for 1948-49 delivered by him. I wrote about this book before, as this was very inspiring for me.

Lately many crises are reported. Many of them are about the conflicts between the authorities, and between the government and the people. Russell discussed much about the possible reasons for these, which are mostly about the nature of human. He gave some suggestions, which I think they were somehow too ideal to be worked out, particularly when this is a more perplexed era.

This is my opinion only, and I think he is a great thinker as many of his ideas are still applicable after over 50 years till now. To me one of his provoking thoughts in this book was about the concept of a state. He said,

'"The State" is an abstraction; it does not feel pleasure or pain, it has no hopes or fears, and what we think of its purposes are really the purposes of individuals who direct it.'

(B. Russell, 1949)

Think about the current governments, they are usually very strong despite an apparent democracy. Politics and democracy is somewhat a game for a minor group of people. These people know the rules very well, and thus they can usually keep the power in hands. To this, I want to quote from Russell again.

'When we think concretely, not abstractly, we find, in place of "the State," certain people who have more power than falls to the share of most men. And so glorification of "the State" turns out to be, in fact, glorification of a governing minority.'

(B. Russell, 1949)

There are countless ideas which I think I pretty much agree with. I wish I could state them all here, but this is not a good idea as it has to do with the copyright. Things about public duty, society structures, and arts, science and practises in this book are very useful for my own thinking.

I wish I would do some more readings about this interesting topic. Personally I think the interests of the society and the individuals are usually contradicting. To obtain a peaceful state, they both have to consider and compromise. It has never been an easy thing to do, otherwise we have already had peace on Earth.

The power of the government is increasing in recent decades. Democracy does not grant common people more power than before. Sometimes policies or decisions made by the leaders are not very much comprehended by the public. This involves the political atmosphere, the public discussion, some surveys that do not usually reflect the reality, and the media influence. For instance, the War in Afghanistan was due to the absolute Taliban and the terrorist group Al Qaeda. This may be understood by the September 11 tragedy. Then there is the War on Iraq, which some dominating powers insisted there were mass destructive weapons. No evidence has been shown until this moment, and the war has been claimed to be "War on Terrorism". These are all said by the leaders. Somehow I don't quite understand how these happened.

As a small molecule of this society, I do not have any influences to the governmental diplomatic policies. Most of the time we only know what the government is going to do from the media, whereas the media does not often provide a complete picture. Studying and working journalism provides an alternative overview to the news media. Journalists does not often provide objective news to the audience. Facts are out there, and what influences people is the interpretation. If we choose to read a newspaper over a period of time, we will perhaps follow the standpoint of the newspaper finally. Having said that there is no right or wrong to hold any point of views, I do not want to accept anything without a careful or thoughtful consideration.

Sometimes the government provides some statistics to show they have public support for their discisions. The pro-government news organizations publish reports with similar results with the government; whilst the opposing news publications put a similar survey with an opposite result on their publication. I doubt the truthfulness of surveys, statistics and reports. It is known that the result can be varied through different criteria or procedure of surveying. Same as journalists writing a piece of news in an angle they want their audience to acquire and receive the messages behind, the result of a report can be produced as something the researchers want. Where does the truth lie in? It is getting harder to find out when the information age has blossomed the most ever.

Democracy delivers a chance for us to choose among options, but we do not know well enough about each option. There has never been a "best" choice. We will never be able to attain the "best" level. Here I do not mean we have to find the best, but I question whether we should do something to make it better when it worsens. Probably there are too many constraints to be removed.

I start to believe that a government is like a man that it becomes arrogant and overlooks the others when it comes to be too strong. I do not agree that a government always claims what they are doing is what their people truly want to do, as I consider this as too assertive. I read an article from the Guardian Unlimited today. Inside, Alberto Fernandez was quoted when he spoke in a programme produced by the Al Jazeera, which I think worthwhile to share:

"It is difficult for any politician in whatever administration to admit mistakes, because people in the east as well as the west don't like to admit they have made mistakes or are wrong," he replied. "This is the mentality of the people, the mentality of power, authority, autocratic thinking. This is reality."

(Jonathan Steele, 2006)

As I wrote long before, I do not completely agree that we can always explain everything by saying "This is reality".

Anti-war

I am very annoyed after reading the newspaper the Australian today about the 600,000 deaths of the Iraqis in the War on Iraq. (Sam Knight and James Hider, 2006, Retrieved from http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20567647,00.html)

This is what the greatest U.S. President George W. Bush said,

"I do know that a lot of innocent people have died and that troubles me, and it grieves me. And I applaud the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence."

Originally I post this to somewhere, but I could not stand it and feel I have to share with everyone.

One of the reasons I find it very disgusting is that I did a study about the media coverage of the War in Iraq. When there are 600,000 Iraqi deaths, the CNN reported the number of U.S. deaths in Iraq with the title "U.S. deaths in Iraq, war on terror surpass 9/11 toll" (CNN, 2006, Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/03/death.toll/)

The lead of the article said this was "another somber benchmark". One may then question how many U.S. military deaths there are - around 3,000. The truth of Iraqi deaths five times more than the U.S. is too ghastly to look at. I cannot understand how somber the U.S. deaths are when they are the invaders. They are shouting to the innocent sufferers that they are the victims. I would say it is pathetic.

Perhaps I am too extreme for this, as this is definitely my personal opinion.

The second reason is what Mr. Bush said, and for this I am going to repeat what I have put somewhere.

[Start] Mr. Bush knew a lot of innocent Iraqi dead, but he continued his invasion by saying this is the holy war against terror. He is just a president of a country, but not the judge of the world. I think the death really troubles him because wars always create hostility, and what he has done is bringing more hatred against the Americans. I disdain his speech.

The second statement is even more disgusting. Mr. Bush applauded the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence. I doubt if he knew what he was saying. It is the United States that brought the hardships to most Iraqis. The Iraqis have no choice to do regardless of having or not the courage.

Since 2003, the Iraqis have been suffering from the war in Iraq, terrorist attacks and conflicts. The fall of Hussein Saddam does not bring them the improvement of living. In the beginning of the war, Iraq was accused of keeping or development mass destructive weapons and having contact with terrorist groups. Three years later, no distinctive clue is found to prove both charges.

Three years before, Iraq might be a conservative or backward country, but at least it was stable and safe notwithstanding the harsh political atmosphere. Three years later, it is destroyed by violence. War is always the fastest tool to devastate everything - properties, relationships, health, wealth, mentality and so on. It is the worst measure to punish a country.

A tragedy.

A lot of documentaries have revealed the ambition of the invaders - the interest of the oil and coal resources; a mass condemnation has been against the war; countless reports and programmes have shown the deaths and unfair treatments of the innocence.

Where is the conscience? Is it still the same as the original belief? Is it exactly what people want?

It is too obvious that the conflicts will never end. It is a sadness. [End]

At the end of September, I was doing an essay about the global coverage of the War on Terrorism and its impact. During the research, I found an article concerning the reporting of Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news organization, and the CNN (Chris Suellentrop, 2003, Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/id/2081057). It was entitled "Al Jazeera, IT’S JUST AS FAIR AS CNN" and what it moved me is at the end of the article, the writer asked a question -

"Why must we return to the lie when it's time for peace?"

Russia

Recently, the most famous Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down, thereafter it arose public concern about the freedom of speech in Russia. Here is an article I read from the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1891506,00.html

One of the most fearful facts that the article pointed out was she is already the 13th journalist killed since Vladimir Putin came to power.

"No one believes he personally ordered her execution - but there won't be many tears shed inside the Kremlin."

I do not have much information about the condition in Russia, and I think most people are like me. Inside Russia, the broadcast is said to be under the control of the governmnet. Thus it is said to be patriotic and becomes a promotional tool of the government. To me it sounds like something happened only during the war-time or in an autocratic country, and in fact the Kremlin is autocratic in my impression.

Despite an apparent democratic system and a capitalist country, Russia is not benefited by them. People are still under a strict control, as well as suffer from poverty and starvation. Seemingly there is no big difference after the transformation from the Soviet Union. For instance, some of the rich were arrested and their property was ceded to the government without an evident conviction. Maybe there was, but it was very mysterious in the eyes of the public.

Apparently the Kremlin remains a strong power internationally, but I don't quite understand the reason. I don't know clearly about how people's living there is like, and I think it is not very good. However there seems to be no way to know how the outsiders can help the country.

Sometimes I think it may be better after the end of Putin's term, yet the problem is when Putin will leave the office. To me he is like a head of an elite secret police who could not accept any opposition.

Anyway. It is very sad to see that journalists in Russia are predicted to be more prone to self-censorship. I cannot imagine how they could survive under the pressure and how they write something they may not mean to or may not even agree with. They don't have a choice, and this is the pity. Meanwhile the public is affected as well. If the newspapers, according to the Guardian, is the last place to speak out own opinion and publish the truth, the lost will belong to the public.

People are free to think, but based on what they receive, it is doubtful whether people can realize the real world. Not only in Russia, but in many places like the US, media is always condemned to be subjective, unfair and unbalanced. If opinion of people in the US is already affected by the poor quality of journalism and media in spite of a so-called open-minded nation, one is hard to expect what the people in Russia can think.

The leaders are elected by people, but what's wrong in the whole thing (I don't know how I can call it) when various problems and issues are found? Just because it can never be perfect?

Somehow it is a misery.

A trip of university students

Just back from a trip to Exmouth. People joining the tour were all university students. There were two german girls, a pair of French, a group of American girls and a group of Austrians. I went with a girl from Hong Kong. She is actually on the same exchange programme as I am, and we are classmates in Hong Kong.

Wayne, an Australian man, was our tour guide and driver. He was a good man and he took care of everything including our meals. It was unfortunate that he did not have a microphone in the bus, so he could not tell us so much that he could have told.

When I was talking with him in Coral Bay, he said we were very quiet. He said it might be because we were a group of university students instead of backpackers. Backpackers were usually more sociable and talkative, according to him. We did not even have a cheering leader who could bring the people together. That's why we seperated into groups, and seemingly it was according to our own nationality.

I agreed with him. There are many kinds of university students. Apparently this group of people joining the tour was not very interesting. They did not have the intention to talk with the other people. I mean groups of people were found in our tour and they seldom talked with each other.

I believe one of the key element which makes a tour more fun is the people I am going with. It is always interesting to talk with people from places all around the world and share the experiences of touring or life. This tour lacked this sort of communications. Sometimes I felt people were not very friendly to the others, which was like a kind of self-superiority. Maybe I was too sensitive to this, so I was not very happy with this.

The other thing was the people in the tour were quite fussy. They hardly accepted a relatively poor accomodation, like they were not even willing to go to have a shower despite a sufficient supply of water. In fact some hints were already given by the flyers before the trip started. We were told to bring our sleeping bag, which meant it could be somewhere in bad condition. Nevertheless we did not really need to use it, but only the night with the poorest accomodation that we did not have any bed sheets or cover.

Perhaps I was too extreme about this, yet this was only one of the examples. I told my friend that I think the best people might be found in universities, and probably the most spoiled people as well.

Regrettably I am also one of the university students. *Winky.

McDonaldization

I enjoy my unit of global communication very much. Today there were two groups of presentation. One of them discussed the topic of sports globalization, and another one is McDonaldization. After the tutorial class everyone is required to write a blog weekly about the lesson. I have just done it and feel excited to share my views. The following is not all I want to express, since I can only write a maximum of 250. But anyway I have written around 280 words. *Winky.

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McDonaldization marks the importance of McDonald’s in the progress of globalization. McDonald’s is found in centre, and also the margin like China and Southeast Asian nations. The fast-food restaurant chain has brought its American style countries worldwide. For example, fast food was not popular until McDonald’s has conquered different continents. The clean and user-friendly characteristics attract over millions of customers everyday. Many local restaurants start to imitate Mac’s, such as its way of management as well as its convenient eating style.

It is found that the McDonald’s highest person-time of consumption is located at Hong Kong, which is my city. I think almost everyone in HK has been to McDonald’s. It becomes so popular in this busy city that people have their party there; people have their meeting there; people have their relaxing time there; as well as outliers get the food from the scraps there! This is very amazing since HK is not the only place having this phenomenon. McDonald’s influence is all over the world.

Mac’s is playing a very important role in globalization. It contributes to the globalization of our eating style, managing style and even our social lifestyle; whereas it also helps explaining glocalization. This is characterized by its invention of hybridized food. It combines the local and the American taste, and thereupon produces a new kind of glocalized food. Yet in another way the local culture is affected. Mac’s creates something new, which is not the original of the local anymore. The local culture is in some way being invaded or altered, whereas Mac’s actually develops its culture and has it improved. It becomes part of its culture while the local can hardly preserve its own.

---

My lecturer raised an inspiring question in the class, and this is what I used to think of as well. In terms of the media, or McDonald's, are they reflecting us or shaping us? Mac's is just one of the enormous examples. Mac's maximizes its profit by taking local culture into part of itself, because people want it. When Mac's introduces a new flavour, people accept it. I find it hard to explain. Do people want it? Or do people just buy whatever Mac's produces?

Human behaviour is hard to explain, and unpredictable. Some people are probably stronger in mind, but most people are prone to be affected. In one way Mac's can say they only reflect the choice of customers; in another way Mac's actually shapes our form of culture and lifestyle.

Since I don't like McDonald's, I could hardly say this phenomenon is good. However there are many points of views. We can explore and think more.

ps. I just told my friend that even though all this are thought-provoking, they are not very useful in reality. At least it has no obvious influence with my future. Reality is harsh.

Education

My body is terribly pathetic, as I get sick monthly. Anyway.

Education - there is always an issue in almost every country. For instance, the system does not work well; the syllabus is not appropriate; the teaching staff is not qualified and so on.

I enjoyed a presentation in my tutorial class about the education in Western Australia. I am not very familiar with the educational system, so I can only provide a little information about it. In Australia, most states basically use an approach called "outcome-based education (OBE)". It has just been introduced in Western Australia. Some problems thus arise and lead to discussion and arguments.

OBE, by definition, is "to start with a framework and a set of expectations about the desired learning results. The curriculum and the organisational forms that are appropriate for achieving those results can then be built." (Brian Devlin, 2000, http://www.ntu.edu.au/education/ntier/newsletter/OBE.html)

It is actually quite similar to Hong Kong's previous system, which is target-oriented. This is probably because Australia and Hong Kong are deeply influenced by the British. In Britain the term attainment target’ is said to be a similar idea (Brian Devlin, 2002). However I am not certain whether Hong Kong is still using this system, because it has been criticised seriously.

The arguments about OBE include the fact that it ignores the processes. It teaches people to achieve the target by means of anything. In my class, some classmates expressed their views after the presentation that students might have learnt nothing. Students are able to promote to the next grade, but they are not actually capable of all the subjects they are doing. Probably some students are doing very well with only one subject, whereas they are not up to the standard in the other subjects. One of my classmates, who has been a teacher, said some students simply could not write a readable sentence. The students have the ideas in their mind, but they just cannot write them down.

This is all I want to talk about the problem of the education in Australia. In United States, there is a debate over the educational policy, despite its model being imitated widely. I read a news article few weeks ago, and it said the long-favoured United States' education is declining in world's position. The younger generation will probably face a problem of insufficient education when they are compared with people overseas. I have just found another article talking about the American education's image abroad in crisis (Business Wire, 2006, http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?
ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060913005261&newsLang=en).

In Hong Kong, education controversies hardly stop. Debates on 3-3-4 secondary/tertiary system, the quality of teachers and what approach is appropriate are endless. It seems that people can hardly invent or develop a perfect system, especially when a reform of education involves politics and the society. Apparently it is quite impossible and too complicated to reform.

I think as well as the aboves, it is partly because the world is always transforming. Education is a long-term project, and thus maybe it can hardly follow the steps of the world. When people start a system for the contemporary world, the world has changed already. We can only maximize our interest and do our best within the constraints.

To develop this more from the issue, I would say this is probably applicable to many social issues. The world is unsettled without a constant form; until people find out solutions, new matters arise. It is interesting - when we are pushing the world to move further, we have to be chasing the world's step. We straighten out troubles, and then we create troubles. Surely it is not only about negative, some positives are brought at the same time.

It sounds like a kaleidoscope. This makes our lifes colourful and exciting. I don't think people can live without big or small troubles, as we will probably feel dull eventually.

Regional broadcast; control

Obviously I am not very organized; when I want to write a blog, usually it includes different things, which can be very different from each other. Besides, sometimes I simply forget what I want to write when I am writing. This is probably brought by my nervous disposition.

1. Regional broadcast

Compared with Hong Kong, Perth, where I am now down under, is a regional city and far less internationalized. It is a very spread-out city, with around 1.3 million people only. It is full of local culture that Billabong and Roxy are everywhere and only a few international brands are found.

This partly reveals how the broadcast here is like. Perth is in Western Australia (WA), the biggest state in Australia, so the broadcast covers I think the whole WA.

Being the Aussie biggest state, however, does not mean having a good quality. I do not mean to harshly criticize the broadcast, yet it is very much different from my home city that is very business-like.

The quality in technical aspect is very considerable. One time when I was watching SBS, a commerical TV channel, I found very interesting that the sound is faster than the action on screen. The presenter was like chasing the action induced by the sound. It made me think that the sound and the action are very seperated from each other. I have never found this in the TV programmes in HK lest it is some kind of comedies or funny shows.

This is not the only discovery. I don't remember what channel I was watching, but it was a news bulletin. The anchor was always watching his left-hand side to read the news. He could hardly look at the camera to face the audience. In HK it only happened very long time ago. I did a course about broadcast journalism in my home university last year and I had the chance to be an anchor in my school's studio. I could just look at the camera because the script was just reflected in front of the camera. I did not have to look at anywhere else. This technique is in my school, and so I expect it is just a simple trick. Thus no wonder I feel strange to have found this in the news programme here.

It is only my opinion, but not criticism.

Then it is the time to jump to the content of the news bulletin. To me it is an interesting finding because it puts more than three quarters of time on regional or national news. In Hong Kong I can have at least two or three pieces of international news; here sometimes I can only watch one piece. I can hardly know from the news bulletin about the war in Lebannon or the nuclear development in Iran. If I were a permanent resident, I would have hardly known what is happening in the rest of the world from the TV. Trivial matters are able to contribute to the news content.

I think this is under the influence of proximity and the nature as a regional city. Perth is definitely not a cosmopolitan city and people are not very city-like. Some Australians told me this is a place where the country is found in the city. A big country part can be found just next to those high-rise buildings.

Just in the beginning of my words I said WA is very localized. It is also shown by the sports news. Much emphasis is put on the Australian football, a kind of sports which is only popular in Aussie. Other sports like basketball or soccer only occupy a short time of broadcast.

Whatsoever, it is quite interesting.

2. Control

My doubt is whether the restrictions we impose on ourselves, for the sake of ourselves, are really doing good to ourselves, or limiting our freedom increasingly.

There is a controversial issue over the ban of junk food. In Denmark, a legislation bans to sell food that contains industrial produced trans fatty acids. It is said that trans-fatty acid does not have any taste and have no influence on the price or availability of junk food. In Australia some people advocate the idea of banning the fat as well. Other places in most countries usually encourage people having a healthy diet and stop eating junk food.

I am surprised to hear that obesity is regarded as a global problem. Last time in my tutorial lesson we discussed obesity. We do not know how the surveys and statistics came out this conclusion. Obesity is a healthy problem, but we are hardly convinced how serious the problem is getting to be. The definition of obesity is too simplified by the health index BMI, but then suddenly many people come out and tell us we are too fat and our life is threatened by obesity. Thus we have to carry out some measures and control it.

It doesn't sound scientific or objective to me. Also I can hardly imagine if the society restricts the food in this way. I can understand some harmful substances or ingredients are banned, but I am not quite sure if it is good to control the junk food market. There is a suggestion in Aussie that the government should control the advertising of junk food.

This is an example of my doubt about control. I am confused about what is good to us -

a. Our consumption behavious is sometimes influenced by advertisments, but this is not absolute.

b. We can choose what we want to eat, and currently we are in fact always told about the negative impacts of junk food. I guess most customers in McDonald's understand before they go into the shop and buy what they want to eat.

c. When we have sufficient knowledge about the harms, I consider we are free to decide what we want. If I choose to eat junk food, that is my own choice because I choose to let my favourite overwhelm the harms.

These are the matters in my mind, and I would say I am objective to make these conclusions. In so-called a free and liberate community, I am not certain whether imposing more and more restrictions like smoking ban contradicts to our philosophy of freedom.

All in all, what is the genuine utopia we are seeking? From absolute to democratic rule, from communism to capitalism, what is our society actually transforming to?

---

Originally I want to discuss sex and prono as well, but this is such a soft topic that I lose my interest to express my view after the above interests. However that is also very interesting that I may do it next time.

Many things.

I've got a lot of ideas at this moment, but I wonder if I could write them all before I have already forgotten them.

Environmental issue - there are many storms this year. My friend in Hong Kong told me there were three typhoons in a week or two. Hurricane Ernesto and John are now in the America, despite one in the East and one in the West. Flash floods, mudflows and landslides are found in Nepal and Cambodia. I know there are many natural disasters in other parts of the world, but the aboves are what I realize by now.

I was talking with my friend few days ago about the end of human life. Long time ago I read a news that our power resources could only provide us for 30 years more. Then we talked about how man might disappear from the history. My friend said it might be like some disaster movies. I do not want to elaborate much, yet the fact is now out there - we have increasing storms every year. We also have frequent volcanic eruptions, tsunami and earthquakes. We then have desertification whereas floods happen in many places. Global warming is well-known and is obviously affecting our life and our environment. All this looks a signal to us that we are in serious danger.

What can we do for it? We are talking about sustainability and are always discussing what we should do, but we do not often work out - or when we attempt to some people withdraw. California passed a law to restrict the gas emission; my city signed an agreement with Guangdong government to control the air quality. Some people are doing, but it is not enough. California is part of the US, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California said the president did not carry out any policies to preserve the environment. It sounds like Arnold is working alone and the state is not very supportive. My city tries to reduce the air pollution from the factories in South China, but it does not cope with the problem of air-conditioners. This city has too many air-conditioners that heat the city. My view is not board enough to tell the things happen all around the world, but they are enough to reveal part of the truth, at least for me.

However the problem is too complicated that it's like impossible to have it solved. It involves social, political and other factors. Our technology is not enough for us to survive. It develops everyday, but our pace of destroy is much faster than the possible solution invented. Notwithstanding pessimism, the conclusion of my friend and I is we cannot help our death at all. I do not want to say this and I hope it would not be like this. Meanwhile I think everything has their end. Human would be gone someday, as most things cannot survive forever.

Religion issue - this is really my personal opinion that does not mean to harm anyone. Wars persist, partly due to the conflicts between races and religions. A piece of news said the Islamic called for an embracement of them by Christians. Then I think of the facts - some Muslims struggle for their interest and freedom by means of terrorism; the US suppressed them by invasion of Iraq and declaration of the Terror War. They use violence to solve the "problem", and I do not understand they cannot accept or tolerate the others. There may be many reasons - the temptation of power, the interest of profits, or the genuine liberty and freedom.

Nonetheless, what is liberty and freedom? Can we have them genuinely? We impose laws and regulations, and so we have to follow. In other words, we limit our freedom. We claim they are for the sake of ourselves, yet it is also really limiting ourselves. We need these rules to maintain stability. Most of the time what we call freedom or liberty is more like to happen only in utopia or heaven. And if it truly exists, people may find it bored. Man are sometimes contradictive.

My "intelligence" is not able to help understand the war philosophy anyway.

The book - I am still reading The Authority and the Individual. I have just read about the discussion of self-respect. Russell, the writer, said it is a virtue of minority. He talked about something I am very interested as well - "one of the most revolting features of tyrannies is the way in which they lead the victims of injustice to offer adulation to those who ill-treat them." He quoted the example of the Czar Nicholas period. What I think of is the 1937-1945 Japanese invasion of China. Millions of Chinese were killed. I read something before and it told me there was such a horrible case: in a place four Japanese soldiers killed 25 Chinese (I am not sure about the number of Chinese, but this is the number I remember anyway), and the Chinese did not try to fight or resist. They kneeled to wait for their death. Under certain degree of fears, people tend to stop asking or resisting. Instead they follow all rules blindly. I am not sure if it is true, but I have such a thought.

Now I turn into quite different subject discussed in the book. It is about managerial issue in an organization, such as a big company, the government or a society. And the frustration is very simple - the opinions down can hardly get to the top. When people in the low strata have complains, they have to pass through all the stratas to the top. It takes a long time, and the complains are usually supressed in the middle before it can reach the top. The writer suggested that small groups and small companies can help solve the matter, since everybody in small groups know each other and they are able to talk with each other directly. Opinions reach everyone and things get easy.

Apparently it is a good idea, but it is also idealistic.

I think of the optimum in economics, and in reality we can never know what optimum is. It is hard to control things to optimum. Similarly it is hard to realize the writer's idea. Man is very unpredictable. Even if the small-group idea is realized, some new problems will arise. Like we could never know what the best is.

I think that makes life interesting. We are not perfect.

I almost forget one interesting thing in the book (This book really has many interesting things). It says equality by itself is not enough to make a good society. A little demonstration - it does not mean good when everyone is a slave. Everyone is a slave, which means everyone is as low as one another, but it is not good despite the equality. The following is thought-provoking:

"...if liberty is as much valued as democracy, and it is realized that a society in which each is the slave of all is only a little better than one in which each is the slave of a despot. There is equality where all are slaves, as well as where all are free."

I have never thought about equality deeply. It is important but I have never thought whether it is enough to make a good society.

I guess it is interesting to think about how a good society is like, and I wonder whether it would exist one day before the human history comes to the end.

A new law in Cambodia - the last issue I want to talk about. I would make it brief as it is too obvious to find it ridiculous.

This is the piece of news:

Cambodia votes to pass adultery law; opposition walks out

2006/9/2
PHNOM PENH, Reuters

Cambodia's parliament passed a law on Friday which could send adulterers to jail for up to a year.

The vote prompted a walkout by opposition lawmakers who said the law carried echoes of the Khmer Rouge and the Taliban in a country which should be tackling poverty and corruption instead of legislating about morality.

But the government argued the law would help reduce pervasive corruption by removing the temptation for officials to steal from state coffers to maintain mistresses as well as halting what it called a decline in morality.

"This law is also aimed at reducing corruption, because when government officials have more women, they seek more financial sources to support their girls," National Assembly Chairman Heng Samrin said.

Sam Rainsy, chief of his eponymous opposition party, was not impressed.

"The government wants to distract the public from the important issues of poverty and the culture of impunity," he said of a country where 35 percent of the 14 million population live on less than US$1 a day and the powerful rarely face justice.

Many married Cambodian men keep mistresses if they can afford them and the government argued that making adultery a criminal offense would help shore up the family.

Some wives resent the unfaithfulness of their husbands to the point of violence.

(Source: The China Post http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asiapacific/detail.asp?ID=89467&GRP=C)

A law about adultery is used to reduce corruption. Does it make sense? It is very unbelievable. The news revealed how backward, illiterate and conservative the country is.

Yet it is still a good country, despite the people at the top. Well the "low" people can hardly reach the "top" - sounds familiar.

ps. I hope my English would not be too poor to understand. I want to improve but I always fail. I am very frustrated.

Authority and the Individual

By Bertrand Russell, 1949

I am still reading the book, but one of the things which really inspire me push me to drop some notes first.

It is under the chapter of "The Role of Individuality". It talks about the value of individuality, how it changes through evolution of human.

In the beginning of human history, we considered the usefulness and how we struggled for basic living. At that time, our art was found in the tools, which meant they were dependent.

After several centuries we stepped into the Renaissance. We started to do something on an impulse. We started to appreciate art and the intrinsic value of things. We built up the art of life. For sure there were slaves, serfs and peasants, who were unable to have those luxuries - luxury was for aristocrats, bureaucracy and royal families. Yet many of us started to learn appreciation.

Time goes fast. After Industrialization and when we come to now, we have mass production. Primitive production, handicrafts or fine works have been substituted by mechanized products gradually. Capitalism slowly expanded to most countries - one could not deny that the so-called communist country China is now growing to be one of the largest capitalists.

We have started to forget the intrinsic value of a product, say a car, but we concern its monetary value. We have started to forget how it was made, how amazing the technology was involved during the production and how many people were involved to make a car - in fact most of the steps were now done by machines. We concern about how much the car is cost - the more expensive it is, the more precious it is.

Not only a product, but similar case is also applied to man. How much does one earn monthly? Does he/she have to work very hard to make money? How many hours per week does he/she have to work? People become materialistic. This change is obviously miserable. Money determines.

The writer gave an example about a scientist. He might have wanted to do a research on something, but owing to insufficient capital he had to do something else, which was sponsored by a company/the government/someone. He was no longer to be able to work independently, "but essentially part and parcel of some large organization." I agree the change is "very unfortunate". The writer said "for the things which a great man could do in solitude were apt to be more beneficial than those which he can only do with the help of the powers that be." Very pathetic. It becomes difficult to succeed in influencing human affairs, as we are now slaves as well by means of money. Slave of money, sounds like a shame.

The most impressive part in this chapter is what the writer said - "we know too much and feel too little. At least we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs."

We become realistic, materialistic and merciless. When the modern world brings us enormous things, we lose or forget probably the same amount of things. The writer Russell continued - "in regard to what is important we are passive; where we are active it is over trivialities." I think of Le Petit Prince. The prince said most people forget the meaning of life, the importance of manner and the essence of heart. They are the same. Russell talked about life - "if life is to be saved from boredom relieved only by disaster, means must be found of restoring individual initiative, not only in things that are trivial, but in the things that really matter."

One of the things I think that make man differ from most animals is we know appreciation. We feel, we think and we control. Certainly we have no choice to earn our living, yet I guess this is not the only meaning. Even we have a beautiful vase, it is valuable only when we really know the value.

Nevertheless after all this, I inevitably think pessimistically. However hard we insist on our faith or our beliefs, it seems that we are always unavoidably worn by time and experiences gradually.

Oil reserves

Recently I read some news about discovery of oil reserves in Australia and Cambodia. The latest piece is from Bangkok Post. (http://www.bangkokpost.com/
breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=112371)

Long time ago a piece of news said the Earth only remains enough coal and oil for us to use 30 years more. After that we will have no resources of those.

After knowing the new oil reservoirs, I am thinking that it is probably good to find new oil owing to the insufficient supply, but on the other hand we speed up the exploitation of the Earth resources.

I wonder, whether we are accerlating the progress of using up all the reserves in our planet, or we are discovering more potential reserves for us. Doubtlessly we are using the reserves much faster than the nature can build. It is out of the capacity.

In recent years, sustainability or sustainable development is advocated. If we search in Wikipedia, it will tell you "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" according to the Brundtland Report, a 1987 report from the United Nations.

Sometimes man tends to be contradictive. We know we have to save for the future, whereas we try to find more resources for us. When we discover, we use them; we do not often save anything. We have not really left time for the nature to recover - clearing large piece of forest, getting as much water as we can, digging as much oil or coal as we can and so on.

Definitely some scientists are developing new technology to meet our needs, and I believe they are doing their best. Nevertheless their pace is far slower than people consuming. That means before a solution is invented, we have already used up all we have and are starving.

The contradictory inspires me to think philosophically. Man tends to understand what it should or should not do, but it does not often follow. We blame ourselves, and sometimes we forgive our faults at the same time by saying this is our nature that we cannot vary. I am not very clear about this - some say we cannot vary our character, so we have to forgive and accept some of our faults, but sometimes we punish the wrongdoers; some say we know our character and defects, that's why we have to improve.

People probably have their own way to cope with their lives, yet there are still some general patterns. It is very interesting to acquaint these patterns, but sometimes it is those patterns that create questions, doubts, matters and problems.

Very hard to understand, yet I still have one question - can we just leave it to an explanation - "this is life"? Does it sound rather irresponsbile and dispirited if we always explain in this way?

Or, in fact we should not think that much, which is even more negative?

I do not think so, when we still have the capacity to go further, do more and discover more.

Child sex

I've read a piece of news about predators seeking child sex. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?
pid=20601080&sid=a6RbY.ZKJ3CE&refer=asia)

It is estimated that "50,000 children below the age of 18 work in Thailand's sex industry, and many more in neighboring Cambodia." There are many NGOs working on this issue, yet the problem still exists owing to the lack of law enforcement. Probably the government does not take it as a serious matter, or the government in fact could not help. The vicious power behind is probably so strong that the government could not supress, or even worse that the government is part of them.

There are countless ties behind.

One of the terrible things according to the news is the oldest prostitutes are teenagers. It means the other younger ones are only children. It is very hard and painful to imagine their tragic life.

Many social problems exist in contemporary world - especially in less developed countries, and most of them have been lasting for over decades. We all know the problems, yet we are unable to solve them.

Why? In man's world it seems never be possible to live peacefully. This makes something exciting, something interesting, something terrible, something gloomy and so on. I wonder this means life. C'est la vie.

Cambodia is the "worst country" for such crimes. It is one of the least developed countries in South-east Asia. Notwithstanding all those tragedies in this kingdom, this is my dearest lovely country.

Perhaps because all these countries like Cambodia are less developed, everything is more simple, decent and lovable.

Cambodian government withdraws permission to hold beauty pageant

(http://www.canada.com/topics/news/oddities/story.html?id=
a98430fe-5c82-47ca-896f-f271ff1dce83&k=44054)

Cambodian government withdraws permission to hold beauty pageant

Canadian Press

Saturday, August 19, 2006

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Cambodia's government, which earlier agreed to allow a Miss Cambodia beauty pageant this year if the contestants did not bare themselves in swimsuits, has now decided that the event will not be held, an official said Wednesday.

Sim Sarak, a director general of the Culture Ministry, said his ministry has withdrawn permission for the contest after taking into account the views of those opposed to the event.

He said many opinions had been received questioning the propriety and taste of the contest, but he declined to elaborate, beyond stating that critics regarded it as contrary to Cambodian culture and tradition.

Cambodia is predominantly Buddhist and socially conservative. People normally do not talk openly about sex.

The ministry last week informed Planet Communication Ltd., a Cambodian events management company that had planned to organize the Miss Cambodia 2006 pageant, that it was withdrawing permission for the event, said Sim Sarak.

Kem Tola, the company's marketing manager, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Last month, before the contest was banned, he said that the company had reluctantly agreed to comply with the requirement that the contestants be modestly attired at all times.

Had the contest been held, the winner would have received a prize equivalent to $1,100 Cdn and likely be nominated to take part in next year's Miss Universe.

Miss Cambodia competitions were held in 1993 and 1995, but not in the intervening period, as the government thought it was a waste of money, said Sim Sarak. He added that swimsuits were also banned from the earlier contests.

© The Canadian Press 2006

The reason of banning beauty pageant may be that discriminate female, and in fact it is understandable for the reason of being a conservative country. Yet the problem is the government changed its mind completely. It is not a kind of child's play, is it?

Counter-terrorism Law

Last night when I was doing an assignment, I read a refereed article about the counter-terrorism law in Australia. The authors compared it with British Terrorism Law and pointed out some terrible findings.

The first finding is Federal and State police are given the power of shooting to kill when they are arresting or detaining the person for an offence. Another finding is control orders can be issued for up to 12 months for adults and three months for children between 16-18 without being charged, tried or found guilty of any offence. The third finding is preventative detention needs judicial review, but the former Chief Justice said it was not more than window-dressing and the judge was "little more than a rubber stamp." - AltLJ Vol. 30:6 Dec 2005

For me one of the things is paradox. While terror is said to doubtlessly harm the peace and be cruel, the power granted to the authority is so large that seems to be out of control. A person can be detained for 12 months in Australia and three years in the US without any obvious evidence of guilty. It is not about violence, but this is like a kind of white terror. The psychological effect that will impose on that person detained for a year or three years is not measurable. If the person is innocence, its whole logic might have been changed during the year of being locked in somewhere. It is not much better than direct violence by the real terrorists.

Peace is not only about stop fighting or stop terror, but it should be truly staying in everyone's mind. We don't have to fear of anybody because no one is going to harm us. Now the authority creates another kind of scary.

That's it.

A leader of Iran's Supreme said, "Your victory was a victory for Islam. With God's help you were able to prove that military superiority is not (measured) in the number (of soldiers), planes, warships and tanks.

Rather, it depends on the power of faith and holy war."

(Source: http://www.thestar.com/)

Victory brings damages, deaths and pain as side effects. There're always winner and loser in a war. While the winner is chosen, the negative impacts are ignored. Innocent common people are ignored. They are affected badly in both physical and psychological aspects. We are all man and should be equal. No one deserves these effects.

Yet, war has never been truly over.

Culture

Before going to the topic, let me introduce myself - I am a Chinese come from Hong Kong (It's not hard to figure out owing to previous entries). I am studying journalism in Hong Kong Baptist University, and currently I am in an exchange programme to Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia.

This gives a little hint why I start to think about culture.

What do you know about Hong Kong? I went to Cambodia in May and stayed there for almost two months, and then I come here. During these days outside my city, I was asked for many times about the handover of Hong Kong sovereignty from Britain to China.

It happened in 1997, which was almost ten years ago. British rule is very far away from me. I was 12 in 1997, not very little that I could remember most things, but ten-year is a long time for most people I think.

Whatsoever. My city's history gives a special feature of many people here - ambiguous identity. After ten years the condition is improved, particularly the new generation. The matter is, we often say we are Chinese, but we would also say we come from Hong Kong instead of China. Simultaneously Hong Kong is part of China. We actually come from China.

The feature, at least for me, leads to another point. We don't very much care about the others' identity. I may know where you are from, but it doesn't very much matter for me. I don't stress on what nationality you are of. I want to know about your country, but I don't regard your origin as very important. I don't always say "a Chinese girl is ...."

I do not often catergorize people as well.

Our culture may bring us certain characters, such as my ambiguity about my identity. However our childhood, our family, our education and our life experience construct our disposition. I guess I ought not to easily think people from a certain origin always do the same thing.

Hong Kong has less wide range of origins than Singapore I think, but still there are many people from various countries. Our history also leads this city to mix up western and eastern culture. Some say Hong Kong is a cultural desert, yet in other way blank means something as well. Desert is also a kind of cultures. Anyway.

People in Hong Kong tend to be easier to accept different things. I enjoy various cuisines, various musics or art. This is an advantage.

Some people stick to their own culture. They probably accept the others, but they may not want to try, may not want to understand and may not even want to know. There may be numerous reasons. They may think themselves superior. They may not be able to understand as they do not have the curiosity. They may not be very adaptive and have inertia. They may not dare to try. Whatsoever, they probably miss the chance to experience some interesting or exciting things.

Last time when I had dinner in a restaurant with the others international students living in the student village, some people talked about the music they have in radio in their countries. Some told the others how wide the music they have in radio, like coming from America or other countries. They are proud of playing American music because it probably means they have a boarder horizon on music.

Sure I understand as it is not a bad thing. I did not join that topic very much that I told only a girl about my city. When they have American and certain European music, in Hong Kong there are musics from all over the world - America, Britain, Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore and local music.

I don't know if I am proud of this, but I didn't try to tell everyone. I have been living in such a city for 21 years, and so I cannot think of any special with this. When people or I think something is already good enough, there must be something better elsewhere. I could never know how wide the world or the view could be.

When we are adapting the others' culture, shouldn't the others adapt ours as well? It may not be compulsory, nevertheless we should confront the others. I am not stressing, but isn't it fair that before we ask for something we need to do something first?

An adaptive quality is a merit, isn't it?

Additionally, there are many cultures. It is always good to know and experience the others on one hand and keep our own culture on the other hand.

The fake leg of Ta Mok

Again, read the followings.

(http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060803-125325-1749r)

Rebel leader's fake leg to go on display

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- The artificial leg worn by a deceased Khmer Rouge military commander will be put on public display in Cambodia by his family.

Ta Mok, who was known as "The Butcher" by the ultra-Maoists during the civil war, died last month at the age of 82 before he could be tried for crimes against humanity.

His lawyer, Benson Samay, said Ta Mok had instructed him to keep his leg to take to court if the trial came up after his death, a correspondent for The Telegraph reported.

But Ta Mok's family demanded it back so it could become part of a propaganda museum, and the lawyer agreed to hand it over this week, the report said. The family was reportedly repairing and decorating it for display with other relics of the war that killed an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.

Ta Mok lost his own leg in fighting in 1975.

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved



The problem is, whether there will be people who want to see a fake leg of a butcher.

I cannot understand how inhuman this guy was and how he could do this. I could hardly imagine how people respect this leg.

It is really annoying... and also very sad as well.

Accurate reporting

I've just read a piece of article in somebody's xanga. He said Hong Kong needs a newspaper like the Apple Daily because it has a "constructive" and "accurate" reporting.

There is no genuine complete independence in media. Media is always influenced by various parties - publishers, investors, advertisers, pressure from the government and the mass audience. Then probably no report is "accurate" or "objective" enough to tell everything happen in an incident.

Maybe we all tell the truth, but what makes different is the way we interpret it. Nobody is really wrong, otherwise we are blamed or said to commit defamation. If we want to see the truth, perhaps we have to see ourselves. Find the truth ourselves, look at all the things with our eyes; otherwise you have to consider very much the articles you are reading.

Certainly journalists get the first-hand information, yet when the audience read/watch/hear the report, it is SECOND-HAND.

Another piece of news about KRT

Here is another piece of news about Khmer Rouge Tribunal

Khmer Rouge 'butcher' Ta Mok dies

Ta Mok, one of the main leaders of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime, has died in the capital Phnom Penh.

Nicknamed "The Butcher", he was the regime's military commander and linked to many atrocities of the 1970s.

About 1.7 million people died under the Khmer Rouge, through a combination of starvation, disease and execution.

Ta Mok was expected to be one of the first people tried for genocide and crimes against humanity at UN-backed hearings due to start next year.

He was one of only two surviving Khmer Rouge commanders in detention, and with most of the remaining figures from the regime in poor health, some analysts question whether the trials have been left too late to see justice served.

Brutal legacy

"Ta Mok passed away this morning," military doctor Tuoth Nara told reporters. "He was an old man and died of natural causes, given his poor health and respiratory problems."

We are saddened by his death Morm Mol, Ta Mok's nephew

Ta Mok, who was in his 80s, had been unwell since last month, suffering from high blood pressure and tuberculosis, and slipped into a coma last week.

"We are saddened by his death," said his nephew, 33-year-old Morm Mol, as he announced the news to reporters outside the Phnom Penh hospital.

Of all the Khmer Rouge leaders, Ta Mok was regarded by many as the most brutal, the BBC's Guy Delauney reports from Phnom Penh.

He played a key role in a series of massacres and purges, which started even before the Khmer Rouge took power.

Ta Mok was in charge of the forces which destroyed the former royal capital Oudong in 1974, expelling civilians and killing officials and government soldiers.

Later he instigated purges as the Khmer Rouge went to war with itself.

He eventually became the overall leader of the organisation in 1997, but he was captured two years later and spent the rest of his life in jail.

Evading trial

Ta Mok's death leaves a Khmer Rouge prison boss, Kaing Khek Iev, more commonly known as Duch, as the group's only surviving leader in detention.

Pol Pot died in his jungle hide-out in April 1998 from an apparent heart attack.

Many Cambodians fear they will never get a chance to see justice, because ageing Khmer Rouge defendants are dying before they face trial.

Earlier this month, judges and prosecutors from both Cambodia and other nations were sworn in for the UN-backed tribunal, which is due to start in 2007.

A spokesman for the tribunal, Reach Sambath, said on Friday that a "key resource of information" had passed away.

When he heard of Ta Mok's death, Youk Chhang, the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group researching the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, said: "It's sad news - it's outrageous."

"Some people may be happy with this, but not the victims who have been waiting for justice for a long time," he told the Associated Press.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/5201770.stm

Published: 2006/07/21 04:56:25 GMT

© BBC MMVI


-----

On one hand the retired king questioned the necessity of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT); on the other hand one of the most important criminal, I would say, Ta Mok passed away this morning.

I was told in this morning by my former colleague, and I was not happy with his death because he just passed away naturally. In my mind he should be put in judge finally and get his punishment before he's gone. Now he just rests in peace and I am not satisfied at all.

I know the KRT in fact is not going to heal people's pain, but at least the people who suffered deserve justice. Everybody deserves so why do they have to wait for this long time and can only look at all the important Khmer Rouge people died peacefull?

There only remains Duch now, and I really wish he would not have gone so soon before he faces the trial. It is hard to accept that if he would have gone like Ta Mok.

I am still loving this country, notwithstanding all of these frustrating facts.