Posts by Russell Brown
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Going in to the trade fair as a homesick Kiwi, I made a point of buying several bottles of each (even at 500 yen per bottle ... i.e. twice the price of the local brands).
$75 a dozen for takeaway beers!
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t both Monteiths were at least comparable with Asahi Super Dry or Kirin Ichiban, and I'd have no hesitation getting more of either provided they were equivalent in price.
I think the NZ Lager is well compared to those beers. And Tui is awful. Unfortunately, it's the only one you can get in a bottle at the rugby.
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My point is this: the two main govenments involved in this debacle (Britain, US) have shown a lack of planning and preparation that in my opinion amounts to criminal negligence. Because of this lack of planning, lack of foresight, and unwillingness to learn from past mistakes, they have actively damaged their stated cause (reduction of global terrorism), and made the world a far more dangerous place.
Independent of its justification, the prosecution of this war will be damned by history. The failure to plan, the sidelining of expertise through agency rivalry and cronyism, the frankly bizarre absence of normal accounting, the lying, the sheer, crack-smoking craziness ...
I've seen two of the Channel 4 Dispatches documentaries on Iraq -- it's a fifth anniversary series -- and they're worth getting hold of if you can.
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Here's the YouTube clip Jamil mentioned:
I think I said something upthread about young Chinese men and nationalism. This one's Canadian-based. It is actually worth looking at. The guy has 1400 subscribers.
He also has has a Facebook page, which features extended video from Llasa TV (state-controlled, of course, but it's interesting to see what pictures people saw -- serious damage, basically) and a cross-cultural shouting match or two.
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Just to show there are actual humans inside those big media brands, Jamil Anderlini emailed to note his piece from last week on Chinese public sympathy for Tibet, or, rather, the lack thereof:
One intellectual from Beijing, usually vehemently opposed to the party, said Tibetans had been "slaves" before China "liberated" them, an act repaid with ingratitude and violence. "How could Tibet be a country without China?" this person said.
"They didn't have anything to eat before they were liberated."
The issue of sovereignty goes beyond support for the party and touches the core of national identity. To suggest to most Chinese that Tibet should be independent from China is like telling an American that Texas should secede from the Union.
A profanity-laced video posted on YouTube, the video-sharing website, entitled "Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China" angrily tells viewers that China will not leave Tibet until all Europeans leave Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States and return it to "the natives".
And Phil O'Sullivan at CNN emailed to note that they're not seeing video of security force brutality: "even when Yangon was totally locked down during the monks uprising last year, footage was getting out of army and police violence against the people. Interestingly we have seen very little, if any, from inside Tibet, of Chinese troops behaving badly. Admittedly there is a media lockdown but with technology these days, something generally gets through."
He doesn't see China bending, lest the Uighurs in Xingjiang and some of the other hundred or so ethnic minorities get ideas.
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China could sort this by giving Tibetans basic human rights and a plebiscite on whether to become independent, have autonomy within China or remain as today. Instead, they shoot 17-year old kids.
Depends what you mean by "Tibetans". A referendum of all citizens of the Tibetan Autonomous Region would probably -- especially after the recent conflict -- wind up with an endorsement of Chinese rule.
A referendum amongst ethnic Tibetans, who work largely in the rural economy and tend not to get the good jobs, would come up differently. But then what would you do with the more than 50% of the population who are Han Chinese or Muslim?
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Penn and Teller treat the Dalai Lama with the particular sensitivity they reserve for religious figures. I didn't know he'd taken CIA dollars. OTOH, their assumption that given the chance to return home he'd bring back vicious feudalism is fatuous.
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Ed Douglas, the climbing correspondent of the Guardian helps sort out our views on the Tibet situation.
Actually, I think the debate in the comments below the column is is the best part. It's vigorous and interesting.
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More interesting writing on Tibet:
The NYT has a piece by author Patrick French that explains the many deficits that ethnic Tibetans face, and frankly doubts that 20 years of Richard Gere-style Tibet lobbying has done them a blind bit of good.
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How about Kiwibank promote itself on the basis that it offers better services and lower fees?
Quite. I think their desire to to move the brand upscale a bit -- it's seen as a bank for people who don't have money -- and they actually have a good story to tell on that score.
A little soft, pragmatic nationalism in the midst of a global banking mess would also go down well, but that's not what they've gone for.
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