Feb 02
A good title is half the battle
Written by DJ on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 7:41 pm
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Filed under:-mini-posts | Add comments
I just saw this title from Reuters: China, US shout to be heard in dialogue of the deaf.
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February 3rd, 2009 at 4:59 am
Hmm… the headline writer in London got stuck in the snow on the way to work so they asked the janitor to come up with a title?? 😛
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:36 am
The snowfall in London didn’t keep those loonies from Free Tibetans from jumping the fence at the Chinese Embassy. It certainly didn’t keep that crazy protester from throw the shoe at Wen Jiabao.
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:50 am
Perhaps shoe throwing against a leader is the new mark of superpowership.
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:56 am
@ pug_ster: Tibetans are used to snow, and that shoe throwing guy was German, not English, so also used to snow. What’s with all the shoe throwing lately? First Bush, now Wen. Was that guy a student there?
My favourite quote from all this was “The first one who threw shoes was a genius,” said one comment on Smth.org, a Chinese-language website used by Beijing university students, referring to the Iraqi reporter. “The second one was a pig-head.”
By the way, this incident has not been reported in any Chinese media, so it never happened. 😛
February 3rd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
@Steve
At last the Iraqi reporter who threw the shoe would’ve hit Bush if he haven’t ducked. That protester in Cambridge University missed its ‘target’ by 3 feet. Man, these protesters are getting sloppier and sloppier.
February 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Going back to the topic “US shout to be heard in dialogue of the deaf” is just hilarious. Those ‘wizards’ at wall Streets created this mess and now they are telling China how to help out US. I recall that Obama said that “US must Listen Not Dictate” certainly not applying to China. Maybe that’s why Wen Jiabao is doing his harmony tour in half of Europe and skipping the US altogether.
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Here is a report by China Daily on the shoe throwing and one by the CBC.
I give points to China news for reporting the thing at all but it does need to be more open and give more details. One thing I noticed is that both failed to give information on the shoe thrower; whereas the Iraqi shoe thrower was immediately identified and spread all over the news. So China news is still under tight secretive control but I don’t understand why the Western media did not report the same for the British shoe thrower.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-02/03/content_7440924.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/02/03/china-shoe.html
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Is Wen really a dictator?
I question the British shoe thrower’s true motive.
Does he really care about democracy and human rights?
Why is it that Wen is not allowed to have free speech?
Why does he want to smear Wen like this, does Wen deserve it?
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Steve – we were talking about what people in the West think of China and I asked that you read some of the comments from the media;
Try some of the comments here:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/02/02/china-wen-shoe.html
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
I saw one article that said the guy missed Wen by 30 feet; might have been a misprint. Regardless, he wasn’t very good at throwing shoes. CTalk, I also noticed right away how little information they released about the protester. I’ve read he has a German accent in one article and a strong foreign accent in another, so he wasn’t English. I wonder if it’s part of England’s process that names aren’t released for awhile? I’m sure western media hasn’t been able to identify the guy yet. I wonder how he was able to get inside the hall? I’m curious if the event was open to the public or only to students? Not much has been reported on the specifics.
pug_ster, the Democrats have always been Eurocentric so expect China to be ignored to some extent. Obama’s going to concentrate on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia. Lately he seems to be concentrating on nominating people who don’t pay their taxes. Is this “change we can believe in”??
“Is Wen really a dictator?” Many believe the Chinese system is a Communist party dictatorship. I suppose that was how he made the connection.
“I question the British shoe thrower’s true motive.” That should come out in the next couple of days.
“Does he really care about democracy and human rights?” I’d guess most British would say that a disruptive, illegal protest infringes on human rights. Who knows what his motives were?
“Why is it that Wen is not allowed to have free speech?” In what way was Wen not allowed to have free speech? Do you believe his remarks were censored? Throwing the shoe wasn’t condoned and the perpetrator was immediately arrested. In what way do you feel the English government was at fault?
“Why does he want to smear Wen like this, does Wen deserve it?” How is illegally throwing a shoe smearing Wen? No one deserves to get a shoe thrown at them; it’s illegal to throw a shoe at someone; he was arrested for doing so. Let’s be clear here, the shoe thrower was at fault, not the university, not the British government and not Wen. It is no different than the incident in Iraq.
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Hi CTalk: I read the cbc article (does that stand for Canadian Broadcasting Company?) you linked to and it seemed pretty straightforward. Are you referring to the article itself or the comments posted below?
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:30 pm
@Steve 10
Actually, I think the situation is different in the University is different than in Iraq. The Reporter who threw the shoes at Bush have some personal grievances as he lost some of his relatives as a result of the US invasion of Iraq and this guy is probably going to be in Jail for a few years. I doubt that this protester at the university have the same grievance as the Iraqi reporter. This guy will be seen as a hero and will probably get a slap on the wrist.
I do think that Chinese officials should take a more dismissive tone toward this incident and shouldn’t be more critical about it. The Chinese media should portray the protester as a loser who throw shoes like a girl.
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Steve – ““Does he really care about democracy and human rights?” I’d guess most British would say that a disruptive, illegal protest infringes on human rights. Who knows what his motives were?
“Why is it that Wen is not allowed to have free speech?” In what way was Wen not allowed to have free speech? Do you believe his remarks were censored? Throwing the shoe wasn’t condoned and the perpetrator was immediately arrested. In what way do you feel the English government was at fault?
“Why does he want to smear Wen like this, does Wen deserve it?” How is illegally throwing a shoe smearing Wen? No one deserves to get a shoe thrown at them; it’s illegal to throw a shoe at someone; he was arrested for doing so. Let’s be clear here, the shoe thrower was at fault, not the university, not the British government and not Wen. It is no different than the incident in Iraq.”
I was questioning the actions of the shoe thrower and not the British government.
What I am saying is that you see these so called human rights activists who purport to fight for human rights yet they have no problems infringing on other’s rights.
If you want to do another experiment on the matter of censorship and anti-Sinoism in the Western media. Try to observe that in the CBC, CTV, the Globe and Mail, etc, on the comments section, if there are a lot of pro-China comments, the section will be closed or the column itself will disappear. Try it. Next time when there is a discussion on things Chinese, put lots of pro-China comments, they should be all true and you don’t need to defend China or anything, just tell the truth, but propose better understanding of China or something like that, you will see that soon the comments section would be closed or the whole article disappeared. This is what irates me about the hypocrisy. There is unfair support for the inappropriate actions of the West and it is the reverse for China. China gets all the condemnations but never any fair evaluation.
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
@ pug_ster: I agree with you that the circumstances underlying the Iraq shoethrower and the one in the UK were different; this new guy is just a “copycat”. Even the meaning behind the act was different; in Muslim countries it is a much bigger insult to throw a shoe than in the West. I was kidding around earlier but to be serious now, this guy is an idiot and I hope they throw the book at him. I’m a very strong believer that when you are a guest in someone’s country, you obey their rules and when someone is a guest in your country, you treat them with respect, no matter whether you agree with them or not.
The guy in Iraq was seen as a hero by a lot of people but I doubt anyone will see this guy in the UK as a hero. I certainly hope he gets more than a slap on the wrist. I wouldn’t expect either guy to get more than 30 days in jail, but it’s always hard to predict a sentence in a foreign country. I don’t fault the British in this; they immediately arrested the guy and got him out of there, then apologized for the incident. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of sentence this guy gets.
As to the protester being a total loser, on that we both agree. 😛
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:00 pm
@ CTalk #13: I completely agree with you about a lot of these “human rights” activists. They feel they have some exclusive right to break any law to push their agenda. I have no sympathy for them at all. There are certainly ways to peacefully protest without having to act this way.
“If you want to do another experiment on the matter of censorship and anti-Sinoism in the Western media. Try to observe that in the CBC, CTV, the Globe and Mail, etc, on the comments section, if there are a lot of pro-China comments, the section will be closed or the column itself will disappear.”
Aren’t these all Canadian media outlets? I don’t live up there and don’t access any of their media, but why do you say “Western media”? Why don’t you say “Canadian media”? For all I know, Canadian media might be horribly biased against China. It’s not my country. But I live in San Diego and haven’t noticed anything particular biased towards China in the media. I read the NY Times and Washington Post online on a daily basis. When Pomfret writes a column, he gets comments both ways but the majority are pro-China. To be perfectly honest, I rarely read anything in the comments section when it comes to China. Most of the comments, both pro and anti-China, are superficial and if anyone writes something reasonable in the middle, they get ripped from both sides. That’s why I enjoy FM; the comments tend to be more in-depth and reasonable.
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
@Ctalk –
Yes.
How can you question it when you don’t know what it is?
I’m sure he thinks he does.
Random shoe throwing intrudes on one’s personal space, and one’s personal safety, but not really on one’s right to free speech.
A dictatorship smears itself, it needs no help from two-bit hooligans. This was a stupid act, the Iraqi incident was more understandable given that it appeared to spontaneous and was certainly original – this is just a copycat.
Finally, there is no such thing as “Anti-Sinoism” (any more than there is Anti-Hispanoism or Anti-Americanoism), it is “Anti-Sinism” if you have to use the Latin, but “Anti-China” if you’re happy without.
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:13 pm
@Steve – The maximum sentence for assault and battery in the UK is six months, but given the fact that this was politically motivated, and that the student involved probably has not previous convictions, I wouldn’t think he’d serve a sentence – especially given that he did not actually hit Wen. Wen is also likely not to want to press charges, meaning that nothing would happen except a police caution.
A similar incident happened at my university when a group of students cream-pied Cherie Blair (Tony Blair’s wife) in protest over tuition fees, they were expelled from the university, and this is more the kind of thing I would expect.
The police in the UK will usually announce that they have arrested a man/woman on charges of X, without identifying the man/woman until charges are brought, but I do hope that when and if the name is released people do not try the same kind of idiot internet vigilantism that they did with the Tibetan torch-grabber in Paris, especially as they are given to finding the wrong guy. However, given the lack of publicity that this has received in China, that seems unlikely.
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
FOARP #16
“Finally, there is no such thing as “Anti-Sinoism” (any more than there is Anti-Hispanoism or Anti-Americanoism), it is “Anti-Sinism” if you have to use the Latin, but “Anti-China” if you’re happy without.”
Well, FOARP, “Anti-Sinoism” is used and to me it is legit. Looks like you should keep updated with your English. Since when is English a dead language.
http://orientem.blogspot.com/2006/10/anti-sinoism-or-anti-globalization.html
http://www.xanga.com/Sinoism
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=anti+sinoism&meta=
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
@ FOARP: Was it a student? I was wondering about that. Sometimes on college campuses, they only allow students into events like this but sometimes they open it up to a wider audience.
Events like this puzzle me; the person being attacked always comes out as the victim so the act is self-defeating.
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:37 pm
@Steve
You might be right about that the shoe thrower missed by 30 feet and not 3, according to NY Times. I think they have to throw the book at this protester to save face. Then again, UK might not have any shame….
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:49 pm
@pug_ster – Yeah, that’s right, whether or not we actually punish someone is entirely down to whether we ‘have shame’ or not, nothing to do with whether the person wronged actually presses charges, or the actual wrong committed.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:24 pm
@Steve #4,
I think the shoe incident has been reported in China (I saw it on my satellite delayed news from China)…
Businessweek also reported that state media did report the shoe incident (see, e.g., http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9645UU00.htm) – although I think parts of the commotions (shots of the audience) were censored out.
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:47 pm
@ Allen: Apparently they originally suppressed the story but later allowed it to come out in full. I read the initial reports on the official China websites and it just talked about an incident without any specific details. I’m glad they are letting people know what happened. It certainly is no reflection on Wen, who handled it well.
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Hey, I’m not supporting this shoe-thrower. But if the Chinese want their country to be a superpower, they ought to get used to stuff like this. Nobody treats the US with kid gloves. People around the world say awful things about the US all the time. Now people around the world have finally started to pay attention to China; some people just don’t like what they see. You can’t expect everyone to agree with you.
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:56 pm
To Pugster #20:
“I think they have to throw the book at this protester to save face” – unlike China, I don’t think saving face is the ultimate motivation for the UK, or the British people. I’m not saying that it serves as no motivation, but I don’t think it’s the be all and end all. I agree that the “book” should be thrown at this protester, and maybe the authorities will have better aim than he did. But let’s see what this book should entail. He used a shoe, not a lethal/banned weapon. I presume he was legally entitled to be in possession of said shoe in the venue where the incident took place (ie he wasn’t carrying a concealed shoe). I’m also assuming it was his shoe, and not a stolen one. He never actually connected with the target. So really, he’s guilty of “attempted” assault and battery with a non-deadly weapon. I’m assuming Brits don’t get locked up and have keys thrown away for that. He’s also guilty of public mischief and causing a disturbance. I do hope he gets the book tossed his way for that. I’m also hoping this will all pale in comparison to his own sense of shame for acting like a bonehead.
“Then again, UK might not have any shame….” – huh? What’s there to be ashamed about? If the guy got through security with a gun, that’d be shameful. If a British Member of Parliament threw the shoe, that’d be shameful. But should the entire nation feel shame for the idiotic actions of every last one of its citizens? That, as Allen would say, is a pretty high bar. Besides, and as an example, do 1.3 billion Chinese feel shame because one crazed Chinese national beheaded another CHinese national at the University of Virginia a few weeks ago?
February 4th, 2009 at 2:26 am
Wow I must be out of the loop because I wasn’t aware of the Chinese International student beheading another Chinese Exchange student. Was it on the major news media? like the Tech shootings?
February 4th, 2009 at 2:42 am
miaka9383, I also hadn’t heard of it but unfortunately it’s completely true. The murder makes no sense at all. There was no argument, they seemed to be friends and both were from China. How sad for this poor young girl and her family.
February 4th, 2009 at 2:46 am
I just finished the news article on fox news… that’s what google came up with…
It is shocking and sad for virginia tech…….
Maybe the ghost of the students that got killed by the shooting possessed him …
February 4th, 2009 at 6:05 am
To miaka9383:
I guess Canadian news outlets aren’t so bad after all. 🙂
My mistake, however. It was VT, and not U of V. I should’ve said a “university in Virginia” instead of the “University of Virginia”.
I think you also just provided him with the insanity defense.
February 4th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Hey, here’s something else from the Canadian media today.
Sourced from the Daily Telegraph (yeah, I know, biased UK drivel), questions have been raised about the Zipingpu Dam being a potential cause or contributor to last May’s Sichuan earthquake. Apparently, the theory is that the dam, which was located near a fault line, held back water whose enormous weight exerted direct effects on the fault line itself and may have resulted in the earthquake. It should be noted that this theory is espoused by some Chinese geologists (and I believe they’re actually in China). I wonder how much play a theory like this will get in the PRC blogs…probably will be commensurate to Charter 08 levels, since I would guess this theory would be similarly popular to the CCP as the Charter.
February 4th, 2009 at 9:38 am
@SKC #30
See this for a rebuttal (sorry, in simplified Chinese). 😉
February 4th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
@ SKC #30 and admin #31: The original paper is restricted but I found a synopsis here and some interesting comments here.
The key element is that this is only a theory so it’s being batted around the geological community for speculation and review. In the summary was this paragraph:
“Still, no one is near to proving that the Wenchuan quake was a case of reservoir-triggered seismicity. “There’s no question triggered earthquakes happen,” says seismologist Leonardo Seeber of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. That fact and the new evidence argue that the quake-dam connection “is worth pursuing further,” he says, but proving triggering “is not easy.” And the Chinese government is tightly holding key data.”
Will that key data be provided in the future? Until that time, it seems no one can prove much either way.
February 4th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
@admin
The rebuttal isn’t convincing because it made personal attacks on the person not the research
@S.K
I really don’t believe that the water resevoir would cause stress on the fault line, for me, ze commoner, it is a bit of a stretch.
Back in High School, we learned that the natural movement between plates and fault lines are the causes of Earth Quakes. So I don’t know about that theory….. it is a bit too conspiracy sounding to me…
February 4th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
@CTalk – ‘Sinoism’ is not a new word, but a corruption of a pre-existing English word coming from the Latin word “Sin” by people who don’t know better (the sources you posted are, to put it mildly, not authoritative). “Sino-” is prefix, not a noun, “Sin” is the noun, you cannot combine a prefix with a suffix – prefixes and suffixes are used to modify nouns and are meaningless by themselves. Sinoism isn’t a word any more than “Americanoism”, “Germanoism”, “Communoism” , because “Americano-” is a prefix used to modify the following noun.
If we follow your logic, every time some hopelessly un-educated group of people decide to use an incorrect spelling or pronunciation (and I’m thinking particularly of those people who say ‘nucular’ for ‘nuclear’ and ‘pronounciation’ for pronunciation) then the rest of society has to adopt it, instead of simply pointing out that the usage is a deviation from the English language as we know it.
February 4th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
FOARP#34
Your point of view is well taken.
But I like to point out that “sino” is not exclusively used as a prefix but also could be used as a noun. As per the reference below:
http://www.reference.com/search?q=Sino
“Sino” often means “Chinese”
Sino may refer to:
Sino-, a prefix used to refer to China.
Like I stated in #18
“Well, FOARP, “Anti-Sinoism” is used and to me it is legit. Looks like you should keep updated with your English. Since when is English a dead language”
I think you can read into the above that I have already researched into what you have said, and I was hoping you would get the hint and try to look into what I am saying.
“sino” could be used as a noun since it is generally accepted to mean “chinese”.
I prefer anti-sinosim which refers to Chinese rather than anti-China.
February 4th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
@miaka9383 #33,
I don’t like personal attacks but the rebuttal did make solid scientific points. If someone said Bush’s policy was wrong and then said Bush was stupid, does the personal attack make all his criticism invalid?
BTW, I have the full text of both the Science news piece and the Chinese paper mentioned in it. If anyone is interested in getting them, just send me an email.
February 4th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
@Admin
I glanced through the article, there was not sufficient points to back his argument up.
And if someoen said Bush’s policy was wrong (here’s the reason why) I may be inclined to read and listen versus
Bush’s Policy was wrong because he is a stupid person. (He is a stupid person)
I am interested in the full text of his paper, but I won’t get to it until this summer…. so send it to me plz…
February 4th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Here is what was shown about the incident yesterday (Tuesday) by CCTV 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVufr_pwcF8
February 4th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
@ Steve,
The full text of the Science News article is here
http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=212112
@miaka9383,
I emailed you the Chinese paper (about 10MB)
February 7th, 2009 at 11:24 am
ESWN has a detailed coverage of the dam-earthquake story.
http://zonaeuropa.com/20090207_1.htm
February 5th, 2009 at 12:17 am
@Ctalk – Okay, I ran this past some folks in the know (dictionary/newspaper editors – no, I still don’t trust them!), and they don’t love your usage and wouldn’t use them in print, but they say it’s fair because a) it distinguishes it from ‘sin’ as in doing bad things and b) it sounds better.
Myself, I don’t like the idea of Chinese people being called ‘Sinos’ (kind of like ‘Anglos’), and won’t use the phrase, but I guess I was being a bit of an arsehole up there.
February 5th, 2009 at 7:26 am
To Admin/Steve/Miaka #31-33:
thanks for the links. Absolutely agree that it’s only a theory, in an area of expertise in which I have none, so I don’t even know if it’s worth exploring. But yunno, in the spirit of openness etc, I hope the Chinese government is exploring it, even if it’s in secret and no one will ever know. Cuz maybe it’ll inform them the next time they go and build a dam.
One thing I would assume, though, is that few people in China will ever hear about it. It’d probably be bad for “stability”…maybe of the fault lines themselves.
February 5th, 2009 at 8:29 am
SKC,
The theory of this water reserve causing the earth quake was brought up in Chinese media as early as 10 days after the disaster in May 2008.
February 5th, 2009 at 9:23 am
To DJ:
thanks for that. Man the simplified stuff is tough slogging. Maybe when CHina’s level of education reaches a certain point, then everyone can go back to the full-on version. Didn’t realize the use of homonyms until now though. In the two word phrase for “later”, for instance, the simplified seems to use the word which also means queen, just because it sounds the same (or is that only true in Cantonese?)
Anyway, glad that a newspaper reported it so early on. I hope the ND Daily has good readership. THe last 2 paragraphs is key…I wonder if this “earthquake commission” has taken the data from the actual event, and compared them to their seismic projections. Hopefully they learned something scientifically that will come in handy for the next time. And hopefully they’ll feel gregarious enough to share such insight at some point.
February 7th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
@miaka9383,
You may want to read Prof. Stephen Jin’s comment on the paper I sent to you (simplified Chinese).
http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=213364