Happy lunar new year, the year of the rooster begins tomorrow… ‘Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái’ which means ‘respectful happiness become wealthy’ or ‘happy new year’ in Chinese. It’s a massive event here in Singapore, a few days of public holiday and a unique thing called ‘lo hei’ or ‘harvest fortune’ where together with the people you are celebrating with you toss food with chop sticks. The food elements representing various things including wealth of course.
Month: January 2017
Truth
Alternative facts are not a genre of facts like alternative music. A victim of the US election has been fact, the truth. Indeed media has reported facts that have been challenged by Trump. A hallmark of western democracy is independent media. In some countries media is controlled, Russia and China come to mind. CNN now says people should Google it to check facts for themselves. The White House press secretary clearly lied when he said that Trump’s inauguration was attended by the most people ever. Obama’s inauguration in 2009 was attended by more people by some estimates. The figure for Trump was around 550,000 and Obama 1.1 million. A Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway said the press secretary’s statements were ‘alternative facts’, a new type of fact, perhaps ‘false facts’ would be more accurate. Google it, so much for freedom of the press… better for a US president to be an ex actor like Ronald Reagan rather than an ex reality TV star like Trump… not to mention Trump is a billionaire which is a very different world from the average person…
Bangkok
Back at one of my favourite places in this world, the airport, next stop Bangkok. A great opportunity to test my memory again having been there about 20 times starting 30 years ago. It was one of my first international destinations after Germany when a child. I will definitely return to Khao San road having been there many times. Just a couple of days in Bangkok now for my wife’s work. I feel traveling and observing other cultures is one the most important things we can do.
Dictator
The US government itself sounds more like Nazi Germany than the media Donald. Indeed you are transforming US politics into a dictatorship. You are acting like a dictator by trying to control the media as you say the Nazi’s did, and Russia, China today. So much for the 1st amendment and freedom of speech. Let’s start World War 3 then, you just need to tell me who and what to fight for. Perhaps there will be no need for soldiers anymore and we will just use the atomic bomb.
Constitution Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Time
I suspect that for all humans, not just coma victims, time is important. For us it takes time for our brains to build new pathways. I’m beginning to accept that there is no magical cure for coma. For people at large I think time offers both change and experience, two extremely important commodities. To reflect on a social media comment to a post a while ago, perhaps the most important feature of time is now. It is true that I might consider events of the past but I can only consider them from now. Perhaps through this limitation our judgement might be flawed. Indeed we don’t always have access to the truth. Perception is only given to us through the now and our personal inclinations, choices. When considering an event past or present what is fact? For me the only fact is that I can’t walk properly. I think I can remember a time when I could. As the song goes, ‘time has got nothing to do with it’. The author Pete Murphy clearly had something different in mind, I would instead write ‘time has everything to do with it’. As the comment from our old band manager David suggested time is a series of now’s, but it was a great ‘then’ Dave. And science suggest we will soon be able to travel time.
