The Foreigner in Formosa

Happy 328th Birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach

"I wonder, did Bach swing like this?"

And of course, Happy Easter to everyone!

(Image from kimchee-icecream.blogspot.ca)

Mmmm...Kimchee ice cream...

Teachers Can Make Such A Big Difference In A Person's Life

I know that I would have stuck with Mandarin much longer if these xiaoxie laoshis had been MY tutors...

Row over saucy language school

(Hat tip to Instapundit)

One Emergency Warning System To Rule Them All

Hungary tests its emergency broadcast systems.

And so's not to alarm anyone, it delivers reports of hail in the Shire, clouds of volcanic ash in Mordor.

Chinese Ask British PM Not To Wear Remembrance Day Poppy

"Politely" for now.  Perhaps not so politely in the future.

Back when I lived in Taiwan, I knew of a few Canadians who wore poppies around this time of year.  Somehow, the Taiwanese never made it an issue.

But then, unlike the Chinese, Taiwanese as a rule aren't ugly bullies.

The Chinese Bill Of Rights

Heh.

(Hat tip to Counting Cats)

Aren't You Forgetting Something?

Taiwan's China Post wrote a pretty good editorial about the trapped Chilean miners a while back, and concluded on this note:

...the Chilean miners' first steps above ground gave us a timely reminder of what can be achieved when there is optimism, ingenuity and an unerring faith in the human spirit.

None of which can be gainsayed, but the editors seem to have missed one key ingredient to the miners' survival:

D-E-M-O-C-R-A-C-Y.

We know now that pretty much ALL of their decisions were made democratically.  This approach wasn't a panacea -- in the coming months, we'll hear more about personal conflicts that occured and even about physical altercations.  But at some point, the miners realized that the best way to minimize the MAJOR frictions existing within their little society was to put matters to the vote.

For them, democracy represented not merely an idealistic dream but a practical neccessity for their own survival.

So yes, "optimism, ingenuity and faith in the human spirit" all had their roles to play in the outcome.  But ponder for a moment how different the conclusion might have been had a small, self-appointed elite resorted to coercion and violence to lord it over the others, all the while cynically trumpeting their own "benevolence".

Thuggish Is As Thuggish Does

Did you think that Beijing would be selective in its rare earth trade embargo, wielding its market position against Japan (alone, among all the countries of the world) as a weapon of last-resort?

Think again:

American trade officials announced last Friday that they would investigate whether China was violating international trade rules by subsidizing its clean energy industries. The inquiry includes whether China’s steady reductions in rare earth export quotas since 2005, along with steep export taxes on rare earths, are illegal efforts to force multinational companies to produce more of their high-technology goods in China.

[...]

Hours later, according to industry officials, Chinese customs officials began singling out and delaying rare earth shipments to the West. [emphasis added]

Earlier this year, Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party signed a free trade agreement with China, all the while insisting that the Benevolent Butchers of Beijing would never abuse their economic power over Taiwan.

That proposition of theirs appears more divorced from reality with each passing day.

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UPDATE (Oct 20/2010):  Daniel Drezner on China's rare earth embargo against the West --

"[This is] going to encourage some obvious policy responses by the rest of the world. Non-Chinese production of rare earths will explode over the next five years as countries throw subsidy after subsidy at spurring production. Given China's behavior, not even the most ardent free-market advocate will be in a position to argue otherwise." [emphasis added]

 

For Unto Us A Panda Is Born, Unto Us A Cub Is Given...

The day Liu Xiaobo wins the Nobel Peace Prize, a "European Affairs" program in China instead breaks the earthshaking news that a panda had been born in Spain.

Hugo Chavez: Let Chinese Dissidents Rot

As is sometimes my wont, I exaggerate.  But not by much.

Nobel Peace Prize Predictions

Damn.  Remind me never to play a game of Machiavelli with Michael Turton!

All kidding aside, Occam's Razor suggests to me that China was sincere in its brutish objections to Liu Xiaobo's nomination and win.  Thuggish is as thuggish does.

But I'll go further out on a limb and predict that within the next 3 or 5 years Liu will have company, when another Chinese dissident will be awarded the prize.  And my reason for believing that is that the Chinese Communist Party REALLY hacked off the Nobel Committee.  So much so, that the committee broke with precedent and leaked the name of the winner to the media a few days before the official announcement.  (Hard to imagine a bigger F U being issued to the Butchers of Beijing.)

Remember how the Nobel committee spent the last 6 or 7 years repudiating George W. Bush?  It was almost a steady stream -- Mohammed ElBaradei...Al Gore...Barack Obama.  (If I'm not mistaken, there were also a couple anti-American authors for the Literature Prize tossed in just for good measure.)

Message received.  Loud and clear.

But one thing cannot be denied:  in response to these rebukes, the American government did most assuredly NOT threaten the government of Norway, nor the livelihood of its people.  Great powers get criticized, and they learn to live with it.  Goes with the territory.

In contrast, the Communist government of China gave the Nobel committee only two alternatives:  humiliating surrender, or honorable defiance.*  One or two more Liu Xiaobo's this decade will drive home to the Chinese what stuff Norwegians are made of.

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* During a conversation with some Taiwanese youths a few years back, one of them announced in all seriousness to me that "Face didn't matter to Westerners." 

(No offence was intended by them.  I think the subject came up when I remarked that I wouldn't feel any loss of face if I offered a last-minute dinner party invitation to a coworker, and they declined due to prior commitments.)

It's a view charming in its naivety when held by the young -- but foolish to the extreme if it's held by the Chinese leadership.

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UPDATE:  An Indian reporter blogs on the Chinese media black-out.

UPDATE #2:  Liu's not hard-line enough, protest some exiled Chinese dissidents.  Sad.

 

8 Historic Symbols That Mean The Exact Opposite Of What You Think

Cool.

Cheese Commercials Which "Hurt The Feelings Of The Chinese People"

After Zhongnanhai watches these Panda's are jerks! ads, can a major diplomatic row between Beijing and Cairo be far behind?

(Those living in countries bordering China will probably see a LOT of subtext in these ads.)

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UPDATE:  The original link, which has a larger player screen.

And Now, For Something Competely Different

Britney Spears' music made infinitely more palatable -- when played by a German oompah band.

Happy Oktoberfest.

Tom Friedman Throwdown

Dr. Jerome Keating did a pretty good job last month.  But for bust-out funny, Iowahawk's the man to beat:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. For example, some argue that one-party autocracies might not always do stuff Thomas Friedman agrees with. But this risk can easily be avoided if the one party is a reasonably enlightened group of people, such as China, and/or Thomas Friedman. Only through this one party system can we impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward into a thousand-year empire of benevolent, iron fisted enlightenment.

Come to think of it, Iowahawk sounds like Sino-Imperialist Bev Chu over on Lew Rockwell's site.

(Only difference being Iowahawk has tongue planted firmly in cheek, while Bev is dead serious.)

Politics and Economics: Still Kept Miles Apart in PRC

Been meaning to link to this brief (but eye-opening) note on management's decision to light up the Empire State Building to celebrate the founding of Communist Party rule in modern China.

One wonders whether the board of Taiwan's Taipei 101 skyscraper will  be willing to sell themselves quite so cheaply.

Barack Gets Rolled

According to the Washington Post, the Chinese were apparently resigned to the American president meeting with the Dalai Lama in October, but in an act of Picardian sensitivity, Obama called the whole thing off.

Money quote from web page 2:

"We've got the classic case of a Western government yet again conceding to Chinese pressure that is imaginary long after that Chinese pressure has ceased to exist," said Robert Barnett, a Tibetan expert at Columbia University. "The Chinese must be falling over themselves with astonishment at what Western diplomats will give them without being asked. I don't know what the poker analogy would be. 'Please, see all my cards and take my money, too?' "

If it's any consolation, Western governments ain't the only ones doin' that . . .

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UPDATE (Feb 20, 2010):  The Weekly Standard describes the Dalai Lama's visit when it finally went through:

It takes a special talent to aggravate the Chinese government, the White House press corps, and the followers of the Dalai Lama all in one fell swoop. But the Obama administration managed to pull off that trifecta on Thursday with its poor handling of the Dalai Lama's meeting with the president.

State Of California Deprives Phil Spector Of His Constitutional Right To "Look Good"

Story at The Smoking Gun., via Drudge.

For those not living in Taiwan, the title of this post refers to a recent case where a protester snatched a wig worn by one of the county's more contemptible politicians.  Not that I approve of such actions, but I got a kick out of the Taiwanese legal reasoning:

Huang Yung-tien (黃永田), 50, who tore the toupee off Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) last year, was sentenced to five months in jail for depriving Chiu of his freedom to “look good,” Taipei District Court spokesman said yesterday. “The judge thought Chiu Yi had the freedom to wear what he wanted, and Chiu felt the hairpiece made him look better,” spokesman Huang Chun-ming (黃俊明) said. “The judge thinks that to remove it intentionally was to take away that right.”  [emphasis added]

(Phil Spector image from Bob Dylan Enclyclopedia blog.  Just a wild guess here, but if they're not letting him wear this in prison, they're probably doing him a favor.)

Agents Provocateurs And Cover-Ups

Fascinating story about a West German policeman who killed Benno Ohnesorg, a left-wing protester back in the '60s.  That killing (and the policeman's subsequent acquittal) ended up becoming one of the primary catalysts for the creation of the terrorist Red Army Faction.

What if everything we knew about the case was wrong?

According to new documents uncovered by two German researchers, [the policeman] Karl-Heinz -Kurras was not the "fascist" cop of popular indignation, but a longtime agent of the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) and a member of the East German Communist party.   [emphasis added]

[...]

While there is no evidence that Kurras acted as an agent provocateur in shooting Ohnesorg, it is doubtless true that had his political sympathies--and his covert work for the Stasi--been known in 1967, the burgeoning radical student movement would have been deprived of its most effective recruiting tool. As Bettina Roehl, the journalist daughter of terrorist Ulrike Meinhof, argued in Die Welt, the glut of post-Ohnesorg propaganda helped establish "the legend of an evil and brutal West Germany," while simultaneously minimizing the very real brutality of Communist East Germany.

Something to keep in the back of one's mind for future cases of police brutality * towards democratic protesters in Taiwan.  There are some (like myself) who are fairly quick to suspect KMT orders (or more insidiously, unspoken incentives) for such conduct.  Like the West Germans though, we might sometimes be looking for answers on the wrong side of the Wall.  Or the Strait, as the case may be.

With regards to Kurras, there are some unsettling questions.  Was he acquitted fair-and-square?  Or was he, in fact, the beneficiary of a police cover-up?  

If the latter, then West German society certainly paid a heavy price for that single miscarriage of justice. **

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*  The two most egregious incidents within the last year have been the dislocation of a woman's finger in response to her carrying a Tibetan flag last November, and the running down of two elderly protesters at a democracy march last month.  In the first case, no law enforcement officer has ever been held to account.  While in the second, the driver of the police cruiser was slapped with ONE WHOLE DEMERIT on his work record.

One demerit.  For driving twice the speed limit near an area in which a pre-scheduled political rally was taking place.  For crashing into two senior citizens with enough force that one had to have his foot and lower leg amputated, and the other was hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage.

One demerit.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh.  After all, he DID have pretty good excuse:  "Those 67 and 68 year-olds darted out into traffic like a coupla GAZELLES, I tells ya !"

Who wouldn't believe a story like that?

**  Not that Taiwan hasn't paid its own high price for miscarriages of justice.  In reading this account of the 2-28 Massacre, it's hard not to speculate that the entire bloody business in 1947 could have been avoided if the police (Tobacco Monopoly Agents, actually) had been willing to punish four of their own for maltreating a female cigarette peddler.

But then, sometimes it's easier to mow civilians down with machine guns, than admit that you're wrong.

I'm Gonna Be Pretty Disappointed

If the women in the new Trek movie aren't wearing uniforms like this.

Y'know, if the whole Starfleet Academy thing doesn't work out, there's always a brilliant future hawking Taiwanese aphrodisiacs.

Something For The Mean Streets Of Taipei

French scooter-mounted cannon

The One World, One Dream Tower . . . In New York

Hmmm.

Rod Blagojevich and Chen Shui-bian

A couple weeks ago, David Ting (of Taiwan's China Post) wrote a column which invited comparison between the Blagojevich case in America with the Chen Shui-bian case in Taiwan:

Chen Shui-bian's frothy-mouthed drivel in court, defiant and unchastened, evokes images of Ron [sic] Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois who was impeached and ousted from office two months ago for "plotting to sell" [an] Illinois senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.  "Blago" too, denied he had ever done anything wrong.  Yes, if by A-bian's standard.  The youthful-looking Serb descendant was only guilty of "plotting to sell the plum position, and had his political career ruined.  Was Blagojevich aggrieved?  The international media showed no sympathy for him.  It seems, therefore, our ex-president may have made the wrong bet by trying to politicize his case with the help of foreign media, which may cut both ways.

The issue of Blagojevich's and Chen's innocence or guilt is completely separate from the question as to whether their treatment by the justice system has been politically-neutral.  Compare and contrast:

1)  After Blagojevich received his bail-bond hearing, police escorted him out of the courthouse through an underground tunnel so the media could NOT take any "gotcha!" perp-walk footage.

Taiwan's former president was treated with far less discretion.  Police paraded him in handcuffs in full view of media cameras.

2)  Blagojevich was granted bail on the very same day he was arrested.  Bail was set at a paltry $4,500.  In addition, his passport was confiscated as a precaution against flight.

Taiwan's Chen Shui-bian was not granted bail -- he was instead thrown into pre-trial detention, where conditions are apparently worse than Taiwan's regular penal system.  No hot showers, even in winter.  Bread and water for lunch.  That sort of thing.

(Chen's most recent request for bail was denied, partly because the current judge said the former president has not shown REMORSE for crimes he has not yet been tried or convicted upon.  This court will not grant you the presumption of innocence, sir, unless you first admit to us that you are GUILTY!)

3)  Blagojevich is at liberty to publicly protest his innocence on CBS' Late Night with David Letterman, NBC's Today, CNN's Larry King Live and Fox's On the Record with Greta van Susteren.

Taiwan's Chen on the other hand, was held incommunicado to all, save his lawyer.  In fact, when Chen's lawyer relayed to the public a POEM the former president wrote in detention to his wife, the KMT government began exploring options for legal sanctions against that lawyer.

(For purposes of completeness, I should also mention that Chen WAS briefly released by a judge, after which a KMT legislator threatened to have the judge investigated.  When the judge was duly replaced, the new judge sent Chen back to detention.  Chen is, however, now permitted at least SOME contact with the outside world, I understand.)

4)  To my knowledge, no Republican politician has ever publicly gloated over Blagojevich's fall.

In Taiwan, KMT legislators openly remarked that Chen's arrest was a joyous event.  Some of the rank-and-file agreed, setting off firecrackers in celebration.

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Postscript:  The treatment of Bernard Madoff, the man accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, is also instructive.

Bernard Madoff was initially offered bail at $10 million.  When he couldn't come up with the money, he was offered an ankle bracelet and house arrest:

The new conditions require "round-the-clock monitoring at the defendant's building, 24 hours a day, including video monitoring of the defendant's apartment door(s) and communications devices and services permitting it to send a direct signal from an observation post to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the event of the appearance of harm or flight." Both Madoff and his wife, Ruth, have surrendered their passports as a part of the bail condition, and Ruth Madoff has signed confessions of judgment on the multi-million dollar properties in her name in Palm Beach, Florida and Montauk, Long Island, two of the nation's most desirous luxury retreats.

Now, Madoff's crimes are truly despicable.  A $50 billion Ponzi scheme.  Some people say $17 billion -- whatever.  Charities -- including Elie Wiesel's -- plundered of their assets.  People's life savings wiped out.  Two or three suicides, so far . . .

And yet, despite public opposition, the American judge decided that house arrest in this case was preferable to incarceration.  Preferable, that is, until the defendant had been found guilty in a court of law.  There was no rush -- society could surely wait 6 months or a year before sending Madoff to the big house.  (And as it turned out, it only took 3 months for the guy to plead guilty.)

What I've tried to demonstrate is that the Taiwanese judicial system has always had a whole spectrum of legal instruments to wield against former president Chen, and has at almost every turn chosen the harshest and most punitive.  Bail (be it  $4,500 or $10 million), passport confiscation, ankle bracelets or house arrest -- all these things were options for dealing with the POSSIBILITY of Chen's flight prior to trial.  Yet the court scorned them in favor of pretrial detention in which the suspect was held incommunicado.

I think it's fair for the international media to wonder why.

Ma Ying-jeou, Meet Vaclav Klaus

Klaus would be the president of a country that DOESN'T hide its national symbols -- and gets a mite tetchy when members of the Empire trample his nation's sovereignty:

The Czech Republic becomes the first former Soviet satellite to run the European Union today, as it takes over the EU presidency from President Nicolas Sarkozy after six months of dynamic crisis management.

[...]

In Prague Castle, the presidential seat, Klaus is refusing to fly the European flag for the next six months. He came face-to-face there with another verbal brawler, Danny Cohn-Bendit, the Franco-German Green. The encounter pitted the arch Eurosceptic against an ardent Euro-federalist. Cohn-Bendit accosted Klaus, unfurled the European flag and demanded to know why it was not fluttering over the castle.

"No one has ever spoken to me here in this tone. You aren't on the barricades of Paris. I have never heard anything so insolent in this hall . . . The way Cohn-Bendit speaks to me is exactly the way the Soviets used to speak."

Some nations are blessed with presidents who've got guts.  While others have presidents who are so lacking in that department that they order THEIR OWN COUNTRY'S FLAGS CONFISCATED to placate visitors from neighboring tyrannies.

(Hat tip to Ezra Levant)

Music For A Skull-Busting New Year's Day Hangover

Don't usually go for the mellow stuff, but mmmm --  this is nice.  Chet Atkins playing Fats Waller's Jitterbug Waltz:

And here's the original, with the harmful little armful on organ.  From the early '40s, I think.

Happy New Year, all.

Merry Christmas From The Foreigner

Something I found under the tree last year.  A psychobilly version of Frosty the Snowman, by Reverend Horton Heat.

Enjoy.

The Daily Gut On Chiu Yi

Heh.

Just to flesh out the story a bit:  Chiu Yi tries his damnedest to get a former president's secret service protection revoked --  a president who was shot at in 2004 and physically assaulted in 2008.

But suddenly Chui Yi gets his rug snatched, and he appears on national TV.  Cries about it like a little girl.  Oh, and he won't step foot out of the house now without police equipped with riot shields and helmets and batons and everything.

The Arquette Sisters are right, though.  "Yakety Sax" DOES make everything better.  Even "The Phantom Menace".

(ESPECIALLY "The Phantom Menace".)

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UPDATE:  Fixed the links.

I Should Have Expected To Find You Holding Vader's Leash

"You don't know the POWER of the 'Dog Side'.  I MUST obey my master."

(Image from BuyStarWarsCostumes.com)

Canucks Approve New Porno Channel Start-Up

Brief write-up in today's China Post.  Which lends further credence to something Bogart said long ago in Across the Pacific:

"Ah, there's a Canadian for you!  Let them take their clothes off, and they're happy."

Send That Lad Off To The Happy Death Camp Of Tolerance

15 year-old in Britain issued court summons . . . for calling Scientology a "dangerous cult"

UPDATE:  Authorities drop the case.  Thoughts from Counting Cats.

Welcome To California

Or as I call it -- Nazi Germany.

Next stop:  Manchester, England.  Where the girls on page three may be topless, but least the mummies in the museum are all decently covered-up.

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UPDATE (May 29/08):  A post on the legality of the proposed California porn-tax.  (Hat tip to Instapundit)

Remember Little Wednesday Addams?

Sunriiise, sunset . . .

Star Wars Trivia

The segment in Return of the Jedi where Leia strangles Jabba the Hutt was inspired by Luca Brasi's death scene in The Godfather.  (From Laurent Bouzereau's Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, p 259)

Use this knowledge wisely, my son.

(Image from Joker.si)

Grammy-Time!

If this doesn't win next time 'round, then there's no justice in the world.  The theme music from the old "Quincy" TV show - now, with added lyrics.

Because sometimes, pure idiocy transmutes into genius.

(Hat tip to Neatorama)

Hillary Clinton's Tête-à-Tête With Richard Mellon Scaife

Wow.

If Only Robert Palmer Was Still With Us

The incredible video he could have done with these Ukrainian soldierettes as inspiration.

Excuse me.   I need to spend some time, uh, contemplating an invasion spearheaded by these long legged beauties.
 

(Hat tip to Jonah Goldberg at The Corner)

Gary Gygax Fails Final Saving Throw

As will we all, eventually.  The Cimmerian has an obituary on the co-creator of D&D.

Elsewhere, the National Review still has John J. Miller's great piece on Dungeons and Dragons from about four years ago.  Reading it, I can't help but smile from self-recognition.

Who Do You Love?

Searched high and low in Latveria for a Valentine's Day card, but this was the only one available in shops.  Bah!

You're such a showboat, Victor von Doom.

How Caesar Augustus Helped Colonize Taiwan

(Indirectly, of course!)

Finally started reading Forbidden Nation, Jonathan Manthorpe's book on Taiwan.  The opening chapter is a little sad to read now, brimming as it is with statements like "[The Taiwanese] have only recently extricated themselves from the coils of the corrupt and dictatorial one-party Kuomingtang state, and see no reason to jump into the arms of another one..."

Well, we were ALL a bit more optimistic back in 2005.  But getting back to the question:  What's the Augustus-Taiwan connection that Manthorpe suggests? I'll just briefly summarize his argument (from pages 32-33).

In 30 B.C., Marc Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide, and Octavian conquers Egypt.  Within the next 50 years, a lucrative trade between Rome and India apparently develops, via Egyptian ports on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.  Merchants from India travel abroad, scouring Southeast Asia for ever more exotic goods to ship to the Roman market.  Hindu missionaries follow those merchants, as do Indian colonists.  Ethnic Malays wind up being displaced from their land, or leave when they find conditions in the new Hindu monarchies are not to their liking.

And where do these Malays go?  Well, at least a few of them find their way to Taiwan.  Where they end up founding some of the aboriginal tribes that continue to exist on the island to this very day.

Way cool stuff.

(Brian Blessed as Emperor Augustus from I, Claudius)

Commentary: 

First off, I'll admit I know nothing about Indian imperialism two thousand years ago.  But I'm somewhat sceptical of the notion that absent the Roman conquest of Egypt, India wouldn't still have been tempted to establish colonies abroad.

Now, if someone tells me increased Roman-Indian trade sweetened the pot, further fueling India's colonial ambitions, then sure.  I'll buy that.

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Correction (Feb 8/08):  Egypt, of course, has ports on the Red Sea, not the actual Indian Ocean.  The correction's been made to the post.

A further boost to Octavian's reputation came from his reception of envoys from India, seeking to negotiate a trade agreement for the spice route via the Red Sea and Egypt.

(from Richard Halloran's Augustus: Godfather of Europe, p 304)

Puttin' Away The Christmas Music

As is my wont, I picked up another boatload of Christmas CDs again this year.  Favorites were:

#1.  We Three Kings - Reverend Horton Heat

Christmas tunes done in Southern Rock style - wow!  Highlights include Frosty the Snowman, as well as instrumental versions of Jingle Bells, We Three Kings, and Winter Wonderland.   But best track would have to be What Child is This - a bizarro musical cross between Greensleeves and Ghost Riders in the Night.

#2.  Dig That Crazy Christmas - Brian Setzer

There's no dishonor in placing second after the Rev.  Great jump blues versions of Angels We Have Heard on High, Let it Snow! Let it Snow!  Let it Snow!, My Favorite Things, and Jingle Bell Rock.  In addition, Gettin' in the Mood (for Christmas) has some very fun lyrics set to Glenn Miller's In the Mood.

(Didn't much care for Setzer's version of You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch, but on the other hand, his 'Zat You, Santa Claus? hits the spirit of the song a bit more precisely than Louis Armstrong's.)

#3.  The Venture's Christmas Album

Instrumental Christmas music - 60's surf style.  Nice versions of Sleigh Ride, What Child is This (titled Snowflakes on the album), Blue Christmas, We Wish You a Merry Christmas as well as White Christmas.

#4.  Cool Yule - Bette Midler

Pretty good stuff.  The title track bops along cheerfully - but it's Midler's very fun Mele Kalikimaka that really knocks me out.

#5.  A Perry Como Christmas

Taken as a whole, this album is far too slow for my taste, so it's stretching things to call this a favorite.  However, some tunes will sound great on my compilation CDs, including Christmas Dream, My Favorite Things, (There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays, Here We Come a-Caroling and O Holy Night.

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Postscript:  Purchased A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra at the last minute, and only had time to listen to it once - so I can't honestly rate it.  Only mention it at all because there was this interesting bit of trivia in the liner notes:

The stirring music [to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing] is by composer Felix Mendelssohn, who originally had it written as part of a choral work commemorating the Tercentenary of John Gutenberg's invention of printing.

Wikipedia confirms the melody was never intended for Christmas use.  Well, I'll be!

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas this year.  And if you're living in Taiwan and you didn't get any turkey, cheer up.  Your local 7-11 might still have some of this DELIGHTFUL poultry-flavored substitute in stock:

(Photo by The Foreigner)

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UPDATE:  There were other Christmas CDs I could've said good things about, but I'd hardly consider them favorites.  (While at the opposite end of the spectrum, The New Andy Williams Christmas Album was just about the only purchase I completely regretted.  Sorry - didn't do anything for me.)

One final note: am I the only one greatly disturbed by the sight of Billy Idol singing Jingle Bell Rock?

Christmas At Sea

by Robert Louis Stevenson

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seamen scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.

The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every 'long-shore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it's just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard's was the house where I was born.

O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves!

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.

They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
"All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the captain call.
"By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first mate Jackson cried.
..."It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson," he replied.

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.
As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

Citizen Journalism In Taiwan

Funny, I spoke with a friend of mine about citizen photojournalism about a week ago, and I've seen two stories on citizen journalism since then.  The last one, from Monday's Taipei Times, I'll mention first:

Wu Ping-hai (吳平海) has neither a journalism degree nor experience working for newspapers or TV news programs.

But Wu's video camera has recorded a footage from a wide range of events, documenting the personal stories of ordinary people and the issues that concern local communities.

Wu posts short documentaries on peopo.org, an online citizen news platform started recently by the Taiwan Broadcasting System.

Two of his films document the study of farmland tree frogs, a species only found in Taiwan, and the experiences of foreign spouses learning Mandarin in Meinung Township (美濃), Kaohsiung County.

Wu was one of more than 700 citizen journalists who have contributed to community news coverage since the creation of the platform in April.

They have generated more than 2,200 news stories over the past three months.

[...]

To ensure the quality of stories, the Web site's administrators have asked would-be contributers to submit a formal application before posting reports and footage.

Over at The Belmont Club, Wretchard speculates where this is headed:

Here's what I think people will see in the next decade. Big news won't go away but readers will be able to drill-down on news stories in a way impossible before. For example, suppose new riots break out in the banleius of Paris in 2017. The reader will be able to drill down into every greater detail. Was a man burned on a torched bus? Click and find the micro-journalist who is following the recovery of the victim in a hospital. Or discover how the riots have affected a particular suburb in northern Paris. Not only will you be able to drill down, but you will be able to interact with the news. With online payment systems I believe readers will be able to support micro-journalist efforts to find out more details about an story, in a miniature version of the way readers support Michael Yon in Iraq today.

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UPDATE (Jul 26/07):  Might citizen journalism be a way for Taiwanese nationalists to circumvent the stranglehold that Chinese nationalists have on Taiwan's mainstream media?  Apparently RCTV in Venezuela carried on in reduced form on YouTube after their license was pulled, so there is some kind of precedent.

Conform!

Over at The View from Taiwan is a post about falling afoul of unwritten rules here.  The examples are new to me, but they brought to mind an amusing description of the medical football players have to take before they are ever considered for the NFL.  What follows says nothing about Taiwan, but maybe something about human nature:

     When you get to the hospital, you are herded with the others into a long hallway to wait.  Chairs line the way and at the end of the corridor is a door.  A woman pops her head out the door every so often and beckons to the body filling the seat nearest the door.  In the true spirit of the thing, the masses have somehow determined that the correct way to proceed is for all forty remaining bodies to lift their carcasses up, only to drop them immediately in the remaining empty seat.  It's a truncated and ridiculous version of musical chairs without the music.  At that rate, you will get up and sit down seventeen times before you are beckoned.  You revolt.  You decide to sit and not move.  You'll wait for ten or so spaces to open up before you shuffle on down.

     When four empty chairs are between you and the next guy, those behind you start to shift uncomfortably in their seats.  Someone is not obeying the rules.  That's not a good thing.  You start to feel like the grandpa snaking through the mountains on a single lane highway with twenty cars crawling up his back because he's going five miles under the speed limit.  You surrender and take up your role in the mindless shuffle.  Despite your sense of the absurdity, you feel much better.

-Tim Green, The Dark Side of the Game, p 8-9

55 Days At Peking - Quotes

Just saw the 1963 movie on DVD.  I may comment on it later, but here are a few quotes which caught my interest:

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Dowager Empress:  The colonel's death is of no consequence.  But his life has set my prince against my general.  And this disturbs the tranquility of the morning.  Let him die for this offense.

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Major Lewis:  (to his troop of soldiers)  Remember, it's just the same here as anywhere else in the world.  Everything has a price.  So pay your money, and don't expect any free samples.

(As one commenter at IMDB notes, "you can bet the commodity he is referring to isn't pork fried rice.")

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Maj. Lewis:  (tossing 6 months of mail into a wastebasket)  Open a letter, you have to read it.  Read it, you may have to answer it.

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Baroness Ivanoff:  Are you always this direct?

Maj. Lewis:  I'm a marine, ma'am.  I don't have much time.

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Baroness Ivanoff:  Have you found this approach very successful?

Maj. Lewis:  Not really, no.  But it's the only one I know.

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Baroness Ivanoff:  (about sharing a hotel room with Maj. Lewis)  It's a very small room.

Maj. Lewis:  Well, I've been in tight places before.

(Pretty racy for 1963!)

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Sir Arthur:  If all Hell is going to break loose, it will not be because we have provoked it.  So we'll all just...walk softly, and hope for the best.

Maj. Lewis:  Even if we walk on our knees, we can't stop this.

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Sir Arthur:  The Boxer bandits have been with us for years, major.  It could be that you're unnecessarily alarmed.

Maj. Lewis:  Well, the next time I see some...bandits murdering an English priest, I'll try not to be alarmed.

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Prince Tuan:  You must be the American who had the unfortunate encounter with the Boxers this morning.

Maj. Lewis:  I'm afraid it was the British missionary who had the hard time, sir.

Prince Tuan:  The Chinese government is most distressed, but you must not conclude that all Boxers are bandits.  Most of them are harmless vagabonds.  Entertainers in the marketplaces (nodding toward Baroness Ivanoff) - much like the gypsies in your country.

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Sir Arthur:  You must forgive us, your highness, but the major does not seem to understand that here, we must play the game according to Chinese rules.

Maj. Lewis:  I apologize, Sir Arthur, but I don't think his highness came here tonight to play games.

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A Few Links

1)  Never realized naval mines were so effective

(The story focuses on Chinese vulnerability to naval mines, though I suspect Taiwan isn't much better off.)

2)  China arming Islamofascists in Iraq & Afghanistan via Iran

The weapons were described as "late-model" arms that have not been seen in the field before and were not left over from Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq

[...]

The arms shipments show that the idea that China is helping the United States in the war on terrorism is "utter nonsense," [a defense department] official said.

3)  America preparing for possible cyber-war with China

(Favorite quote:  "The Chinese foreign ministry rejected [last month's Pentagon] report as 'brutal interference' in internal affairs and insisted that Beijing's military preparations were purely defensive.")

A hat tip to the Drudge Report for items 2 & 3

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UPDATE (Jun 17/07):  The ten worst jobs in science, according to Popular Science Magazine.  Lowlights include:

#10: Whale Feces Researcher

[Whale feces pioneer Rosalind Rolland] began taking along sniffer dogs that can detect whale droppings from as far as a mile away. When they bark, she points her research vessel in the direction of the brown gold, and as the boat approaches the feces—the excrement usually stays afloat for an hour after the deed is done and can be bright orange and oily depending on the type of plankton the whale feeds on—Rolland and her crew begin scooping up as much matter as they can using custom-designed nets.

#5:  Coursework Carcass Preparer

Remember that first whiff of formaldehyde when the teacher brought out the frogs in ninth-grade biology? Now imagine inhaling those fumes eight hours a day, five days a week. That’s the plight of biological- supply preparers, the folks who poison, preserve, and bag the worms, frogs, cats, pigeons, sharks and even cockroaches that end up in high-school and college biology classrooms.

#3:  Elephant Vasectomist

What’s one foot across and sits behind two inches of skin, four inches of fat and 10 inches of muscle? That’s right: an elephant’s testicle. Which means veterinarian Mark Stetter’s newest invention—a four-foot-long fiber-optic laparoscope attached to a video monitor—has to be a heavy-duty piece of equipment to sterilize a randy bull pachyderm.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

UPDATE #2:  Rock / Pop group Fountains of Wayne with a wry description of life on the road.  A sample:

Anyway, about a week ago, we started our first tour in several years in typically grand fashion, playing at a computer store in New York City. We had to cut down on the pyro effects for this show, due to the low ceilings. But I think it was a nice way for people to get to see us up close and check their e-mail at the same time. We played a short set which was billed as "acoustic" because at least one of us played an acoustic instrument. The after-show debauchery included intense discussions with the sales staff about the upcoming release of the Apple phone.

[...]

And then we have a short break from "the road" before heading off for a few shows in Europe, which has become overrun with Europeans in recent years.

Hat tip to The Corner.

UPDATE #3:  Never knew that Jude Law had a Rorschach tattoo.  And that he really covets the role of  Ozymandias.

(Rorschach and Ozymandias images from Weird Space.)

Victims Of Communism Memorial

Thursday's Taipei Times revealed that the unveiling of the memorial provided a rare opportunity for Taiwan's representative in Washington, D.C. to meet with the American president.  Careful, Mr. Bush, China might accuse you of PROVOKING it:

US President George W. Bush shook hands and chatted with Representative to the US Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) on Tuesday while attending the dedication of a memorial to those killed by communist regimes around the world.

Actually, that's not why I brought the subject up at all.  The real reason is that one line in the story reminded me of something I wanted to write about a month ago:

The VOC Memorial was more than a decade in the making. The US Congress passed an act in 2003 on the establishment of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to raise funds to build the monument in memory of the more than 100 million people killed by communist regimes -- from China and Soviet Union to Cambodia and North Korea.  [emphasis added]

Recall that a month ago, cost was one of the major complaints raised against renaming the Chiang Kai-shek memorial in Taipei.  It seemed to me at the time that one of the best ways to counter that argument would have been to call for the establishment of a private charity to raise funds for the renaming.  After all, "It costs too much," can hardly be said once people OTHER THAN YOURSELF voluntarily commit to paying for it.  Pass the hat around, and see just how much the Taiwanese value the re-dedication.  Those who hate the idea would be free to give nothing.  But I'll bet those who WERE committed would've given, and given generously.

Both the World War II Memorial and the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington were funded chiefly by private donations.  While I'm sure their respective foundations encountered the problem of free ridership, I note that in the end, the memorials DID manage to get built.  What we have here is a nice, small-government approach to the problem, which has the additional virtue of helping build civil society at the same time.

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UPDATE (Jun 21/07):  That was predictable.  The Butchers of Beijing threaten war over Wu's handshake with George Bush:

[Chinese officials] expressed stern-faced concern and spoke of dire consequences during a press conference as China made clear its fury that Bush had even chosen to acknowledge Wu’s visit.

“We insist to keep the current peaceful relations as we promised Taiwan’s citizens. We have prepared to stop (prohibit) any activities, conduct and any excuses to divide Taiwan away from China in whatever cause, the activities are going to cause serious harm. Chenshuibian’s (President of Taiwan) conspiracy of an independent Taiwan causes serious harm in our peaceful relations. We will resort to military action if they continue these irresponsible actions,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yang Li. (rough translation).  [emphasis added]

Hat tip to The View from Taiwan.

Spiderman

Picked up the old Spiderman animated series on DVD a couple years ago after seeing Spiderman II.  Remembered loving the series as a kid, and thought I'd check it out again.

Big mistake.  Those paper-thin plots may have been easily comprehensible to children, but they sure don't hold much interest for adults.  Just to give you an idea, episode in, episode out, the villain of the week cackles that soon - very soon - he'll "rule the world".

Sorry, Rhino.  Bone-head like you ain't never gonna rule the world.

Still, there were a couple of bright spots.  That jazzy late '60s superhero music is cooler than ever. And J. Jonah Jameson - boy, is HE a hoot.  Each week, no matter what Spiderman does, no matter how he saves the city, ol' Jonah can be counted on to twist the facts in his efforts to portray Spidey as Public Enemy #1.

You just gotta admire the man's consistency.

I only managed to get through one of the discs, but while watching it occurred to me that kids viewing the show everyday after school were actually being taught an important message from J.J..  Namely:  Don't believe everything you read in the papers.  The people in charge of the mass media sometimes have their own agenda.  Be skeptical.

Not a bad lesson for young folks, I'd say.

I mention all this because I recently saw Spiderman III a second time on IMAX at Miramar Village.  Good fun, though I don't think I walked away with anything deeper from it.  It kind of is what it is. 

Well, I did walk away with ONE thing.  The thing that really struck me was the continuing presence of Uncle Ben.  Usually with movies like this, the death of an important character serves as little more than a plot device; it's there simply to provide motivation for the hero to become the HERO.

Consider Luke Skywalker.  Did he give much thought afterwards to Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru or Biggs Starlighter?  Maybe he did, but he sure looked happy at the end of A New Hope, considering that within the last few days he'd lost (1) his kindly mentor, (2) his foster parents, and (3) his best friend in the entire world.

Dunno about you, but I think I'd be a mess after all that.  Even if I WAS getting a medal for blowing up the Death Star and saving half the galaxy!

The Parkers' reaction to the death of Uncle Ben is quite different.  Uncle Ben may have died three  movies ago, but we STILL see him in flashbacks.  Aunt May still talks about him.  We get the sense that his tragic death has cut the heart out of this family.  This character was important to them - he was loved.  Uncle Ben's gone, but not forgotten.

I expect some amount of silliness in a superhero movie, and Spiderman III did serve up its share of that.  In its treatment of death however, I think there's a certain maturity there that isn't always to be found in movies of this genre.

Strike A Pose, There's Nothing To It

Any particular reason why the mainstream media is showing us the photographic self-portraits of a mass murderer, depicting him as some kind of kick-ass comrade of Neo and Trinity aboard the Nebuchadnezzar?

Oh, we all know why you do it
Sometimes you even slow it down
You're giving out some bad ideas here
I can't believe that you don't realize

You must be evil
You must be evil
Evil...

-Chris Rea, "You Must Be Evil"

Hats off to the local English media, which has thus far declined to be the propaganda organs of a publicity-hungry killer.

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POSTSCRIPT:  Jim Treacher at the Daily Gut expresses irritation with some of the reaction:

According to MSNBC: "South Korea's Foreign Ministry expressed its condolences, saying that there was no known motive for the shootings and that South Korea hoped the tragedy would not 'stir up racial prejudice or confrontation.' "  You know what?  How about just expressing your condolences?  If a white American guy shot a bunch of people in South Korea, would we tell the grieving families that we hoped it wouldn't stir up racial prejudice?

On a personal note, I've been approached by a couple of Taiwanese within the last few days and asked if I know how to distinguish between Taiwanese and Koreans.  I admit I probably can't, though I make sure to ask the questioners in turn if THEY can tell the difference between Frenchmen and Poles.

I tell them that I can't, either.  But most people ARE able to distinguish between dead homicidal maniacs and people who, by a sheer accident of birth, happen to share the same nationality.

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CORRECTION:  It was Jim Treacher and not David Gutfeld at the Daily Gut who was unhappy about the South Korean government's initial response to the Cho Seung-Hui shootings.  Apologies for that; the error has been corrected.

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UPDATE:  Maybe I should have read today's papers before writing this post, because two local English papers DID print Cho's pictures.  The Taiwan News printed the one with Cho raising a claw hammer with two hands - which isn't that objectionable because it just makes him look demented.  Taiwan's China Post on the other hand, printed the one where Cho looks like an Asian gangsta-rap version of the Shadow.  Fortunate that they're not trying to glamorize him, or anything...

Meanwhile, a couple of lawmakers with mental-health issues of their own showed up at Virginia Tech's sister university in Taipei with the local media in tow, and staged an impromptu terrorism drill by reporting a false hostage-taking incident to police.  Needless to say, much hilarity ensued:

At a classroom where students were studying, [one of theTaiwanese nationalist lawmakers] walked in and held up a fork, saying it was a submachine gun, and pointed it at the students while asking them if they knew how to deal with such a situation.

Several minutes later, the legislative duo [and class-full of students] were confronted by dozens of police officers wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying 9mm pistols and M-16 assault rifles, who had been sent from nearby Daan Precinct.

Teach-errr, can we do the midterm NEXT week, instead?

Closing this little round-up, it looks like the Taiwanese who talked to me aren't the only ones concerned about being mistaken for Koreans:

...some Taiwanese students in the US had asked Taiwanese compatriot organizations or their families to send them clothes or hats with the word "Taiwan" or "Taipei" or stickers of the national flag in a bid to help distinguish them from South Korean nationals after Monday's killings.

I don't mean to belittle other people's concerns or fears, but I don't for a minute believe Southerners are going to lynch ANYBODY over this.  Frankly, I think it's a little little insulting to suggest that they might.

UPDATE (Apr 21/07):  The View from Taiwan has a more in-depth discussion of the phony terrorism drill at National Taiwan University in Taipei.

UPDATE (May 15/07):  South Korean newspapers apparently indulged in some schadenfreude immediately after the killings, printing editorial cartoons slamming American society. After learning that the shooter was Korean, however, they quickly pulled the cartoons.  (Hat tip to AsiaPundit)

Sorry, Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan

The boys in the lab say you don't exist:  Alien plants unlikely to be blue in color.

(Zhaan image from Ambrosiasw.com/~jchamplin)

A Woman Named Taiwanna

The  China Post featured this Dutch woman's story.  Which reminds me:  Ever since I, Claudius, I've been kind of partial to the name, "Germanicus."

Probably a good thing I don't have any kids.

300 - Movie Commentary

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.

-Dream, in Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

[Spoiler Alert:  If you're looking forward to seeing 300 for the first time, you may not want to read any of what follows.  If however, you're reluctant to go because the trailers make it look like a bit of a freak show, then this post may change your mind.]

Read a lot of reviews about 300 before seeing it a week ago, many of them rather foolish.  Frank Miller, writer of the graphic novel, is on record as saying that he was trying to mythologize the battle, rather than retell it in a historically-accurate manner.  On that basis, it seems a bit besides the point to complain about historical inaccuracies, gargantuan rhinos and Persians by the way of Mordor.

And yet, when I first saw the movie a week ago, my feelings were mixed.  Sure, there were a lot of great images and battle sequences, but the rational mind still couldn't help but get in the way.  What ABOUT all of those historical inaccuracies, gargantuan rhinos and Persians straight out of the land of Mordor?

My reaction was quite different upon a second viewing last night.  Because it was then that it sunk in more clearly that the events were being narrated by a one-eyed man in front of a campfire.  The narrator is Dilios, the sole Spartan survivor of the battle.  King Leonidas has chosen him to return to Sparta as a messenger of the battle's outcome - not because of any ocular injury, but because Dilios is blessed with a gift with words that is almost unique among his people.  (Spartans were so well-known for their curt manner of speech that our word "laconic" is derived from the geographical part of the Peloponnese in which the Spartans lived.)

By the film's conclusion, the last piece of the puzzle falls into place.  The entire movie is nothing more than Dilios' speech before the Battle of Plataea.  So what we, the audience, have just witnessed for the last few hours is not a literal account, but Miller's attempt to imagine how a Greek storyteller, circa 479 B.C., would have told it.  It's a fish story, a tall tale, a wildly-exaggerated war story.  As Greek myths usually are.

No self-respecting Greek storyteller would ever tell of a hero-king who as a boy once killed a mangy wolf half-starved with hunger and injured from being driven away from its pack by the others.  No, it's got to be 8 feet long, with fangs of black steel and eyes that glow like hot coals.  That's the way myths work.

Whether it actually happened or not is completely irrelevant.  What matters is that it's an allegory that foreshadows the main event that follows.  Storytellers love that kind of stuff.  Even baby Hercules got his start by strangling Hera's serpents in his crib.

Likewise, the priests responsible for not giving the hero-king the aid he needed can't be otherwise decent, ordinary clerics.  No, they've got to be grotesque, misshapen mutants from the Forbidden Zone, who satisfy their obscene desires with the beautiful, drugged-out maidens entrusted to their care.  Moreover, their opposition couldn't have been because of an honest, yet benighted, zeal for religious law and custom.  No, they were black-hearted traitors - in the pay of the Great King himself!

I could go on.  The movie's name should have been 1000, since 700 Thespians (not actors, but inhabitants of the democratic town of Thespia) were present.  But our Spartan storyteller can't resist the urge to claim the glory - ALL the glory - for his fallen comrades.  In fairness, a Thespian bard might have jealously done the same.  Because to the ancient Greeks, winning eternal glory for one's name was everything.  Rally round boys, and dream of the fame you may win in the battle to come!  If you're lucky, you might meet and kill a strange behemoth from a foreign land.  Don't think it can't be done.  Why, didn't I tell you that one of the brave 300 even felled a gargantuan rhino (remember that improbable creature?) with a single throw of his spear?

The enemy's number is vast.  They're fearsome, but not immortal.  At their head is the Great King, who commands and ensorcells them with his spell-binding voice, which is almost supernaturally compelling.  He's more than a man - 10 feet tall - I saw him myself.*  But he may also be...LESS than a man, if you know what I mean.

You may have heard before that he fancies himself a god.  Funny thing though.  He bleeds just like the rest of us.

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* Our Spartan storyteller of course exaggerates much, though it's not clear if he's even aware of it.

I experienced a similar phenomenon once several years ago, while driving through a rural area at 55 mph late at night.  In the darkness, a huge ghostly grey wolf, or giant dog, suddenly appeared in my headlights.  Its eyes glowed, though my 20th Century mind knew that was merely because the light was reflecting from the back of its retinas.

There was no time to react.  To my horror, it was run down instantly with a sickening thud.  There was nothing I could have done.  Pulling off the road, I weighed the possibilities.  If it was a wolf, I had just killed an animal that was endangered or threatened in the part of the country I was in.  On the other hand, if it was a dog, then I had probably killed some farmer's poor animal.  (Sorry environmentalists, but the thought that I might have killed some child's beloved pet is what distressed me the most.)

Fetching a flashlight from the glove compartment, I walked up and down the section of road I had just traveled.  But the carcass of no wolf or great dane could I find.  In its stead was only the bloody, lifeless body of a small red fox.

My imagination, in that split-second in the car, had inflated a puny little fox into a huge, preternatural wolf.  So it doesn't surprise me that that in the frenzy of combat - with spears stabbing, weapons slashing - that a Spartan fearing for his life might perceive an attacker as a needle-toothed goblin instead of an ordinary, all-too human, man.

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POSTSCRIPT:  It was telling that during one of the final scenes, when the Persians have surrounded the brave 300, and are drawing their lethal arrows upon them, that a Taiwanese sitting beside me blurted out, "Zhong guo ren" (The Chinese).

Interesting.

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UPDATE (May 30/07):  On the subject of fish stories, I was recently reminded of "The War of the Simpsons," episode, which concludes when a bait shop owner is asked if anyone has ever caught a giant local catfish nicknamed "General Sherman":

Well, one fella came close.  Went by the name of Homer.  Seven feet tall he was, with arms like tree trunks.  And his eyes were like steel, cold and hard.  Had a shock of hair - red.  Like the fires of Hell.

(Images from Filmthreat.studiostore.com and Devir.com)