Haiku 092009

as I grill
plates line up --
a stray cat

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Recently, we read the following:

Washington Post: "Taiwan's Ex-President Sentenced to Life Term" by Peter Enav (AP)

“A Taiwanese court sentenced former president Chen Shui-bian to life in prison after convicting him on graft charges Friday, a spectacular fall from grace for a man who rode to power on promises to end decades of corruption and expand the island's de facto independence…

“With the 58-year-old Chen absent from the courtroom -- he chose to stay in the suburban Taipei jail where he has been detained since December -- a three-judge panel declared the former leader guilty of wide-ranging graft offenses.

“Chen had been charged with embezzling $3.15 million from a special presidential fund during his 2000-2008 tenure, receiving bribes worth at least $9 million in connection with a government land deal, laundering some of the money through Swiss bank accounts and forging documents.

“The court convicted Chen's wife, Wu Shu-chen, on related graft offenses and sentenced her to life in prison, as well. The two were also fined $15.2 million, a Taipei District Court spokesman said…”

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And we thought:

…The Taiwanese people must be pleased that justice has been swiftly served on their former President.

Fast forward to 2010, sometime after the Philippine presidential elections: Would the former Philippine President, Gloria Arroyo, be finally charged with graft and corruption and held accountable? Unfortunately, it seems like a tall order. The Filipino people can be so maddeningly forgiving. Remember what happened – or did not happen – to the Marcos family after their 20-year plunder of the Philippines?

Still, we cross our fingers. History teaches us that cultural change is a protracted process. But when the time is ripe, it does come in a gratifying rush…

Haiku 091009

over water
cellophane drifting
a dragonfly

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Recently, we read the following:

New York Times: “Tucked Away in Shanghai, Hidden Lives” by Howard W. French

“For the last couple of months I have spent the first part of each day either teaching at a Chinese university or writing.

“Nearly every afternoon, though … I have set off with camera in hand by motorcycle and subway to some of the fast-disappearing old neighborhoods of this city, to knock on the doors of hundreds of ordinary, working-class people…

“Through the time spent in the cramped, dimly lit homes of my subjects — people whose portraits I’ve taken for a long-term photographic project about the city’s oldest neighborhoods — I may have learned as much about Shanghai and about China as I did in five busy years as a correspondent here…

“… I had not expected to find so much evidence of China’s thriving quasi-underground religious culture here. In house after house, I found people worshiping privately as Christians or Buddhists…

“I think … of the poor and jobless Shanghainese parents in the old garment district who told me of their eagerness to be relocated across the river to Pudong, where the environment would be better…

“Inevitably, the theme of relocation comes up often in encounters like these, given the frantic pace of redevelopment….

“ ‘What they are doing here is simply unfair,’ he said, telling me how thugs had been dispatched to beat up residents who refused to quietly make way for the demolition.

“Others told me the stories of corrupt local officials, whom they said offered higher compensation for relocated people who were willing to pay bribes...”

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And we thought:

…In China government corruption, state arrogance, and unequal opportunities appear to remain a way of life – despite having, for more than half a century, a supposedly proletarian and pro-people party at the helm.

Openness and transparency, the capacity to listen to constructive criticism and to engage in dialogue, are necessary to the process of social change. Unfortunately, the Chinese people themselves confirm that their leaders don't practice what they preach. Remember the Tiananmen Square massacre, the repression of the Uighurs...

Haiku 090209

on the wall
still shadows of leaves
a blackbird cries

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Recently, we read the following:

New York Times: “Former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert Indicted” (Associated Press)

“Israeli authorities indicted former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on corruption charges Sunday, the first criminal indictment ever filed against a current or past Israeli prime minister.

“Olmert, who stepped down earlier this year over the corruption issue, is accused of illegally accepting funds from an American backer, double-billing for trips abroad and concealing funds from a government watchdog.

“He faces charges that include fraud and breach of trust.

“The charges filed in a Jerusalem court on Sunday first surfaced when Olmert was still prime minister, although Olmert allegedly committed the offenses while serving as mayor of Jerusalem and later as a Cabinet minister, before being elected prime minister in 2006…

“Two former Cabinet ministers recently sentenced in separate corruption cases have received multiple-year prison sentences. Avraham Hirchson, a former finance minister and an Olmert confidant and appointee, was sentenced to five years for embezzlement in June, and another former Cabinet minister was sentenced to four years for taking bribes…

“In addition to the charges against Olmert's finance minister, another Cabinet minister was convicted of sexual misconduct and the country's former ceremonial president, Moshe Katzav, was charged by several women with rape and sexual harassment and is currently on trial.”

And we thought:

…If former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and his errant cabinet ministers were Filipino government officials, they would be folk heroes of a sort – for committing relatively minor indiscretions while in office.

The current Philippine president, her family and cronies have reportedly raised so high the bar of corruption and abuse in the Philippines that, in comparison, Olmert and his friends would be likened to petty functionaries.

Of course, we're talking about two completely different cultures. The extreme greed and arrogance of Ms. Arroyo and her ilk are of the virulent Marcos strain...

Haiku 052109

heat rising
from the blacktop --
spring afternoon?

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Recently, we read the following:

New York Times: “In Britain, Scandal Flows From Modest Request” by John F Burns

“It began modestly enough back in 2005, when an American freelance writer and journalism teacher living in London, Heather Brooke, entered a request under Britain’s newly promulgated freedom of information act for details of the expense claims of British members of Parliament. Ms. Brooke’s initiative to expose the politicians’ greed, now led by one of the country’s principal newspapers, The Daily Telegraph, has led to the biggest scandal to hit the House of Commons in decades. On Tuesday, the affair claimed its biggest victim yet when the speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, became the first man to be ousted from that job in more than 300 years.

“At one level, the scandal is a rich tale of politicians exploiting a lax system of expenses to claim a mind-boggling array of benefits. The claims have centered on so-called second-home allowances, which have allowed some members of Parliament to use nearly $40,000 a year in taxpayers’ money to renovate and even sell properties for profit, while others have claimed monthly payments for mortgages that had already been paid off. Still others claimed ‘necessities’ like the clearing of a country house moat, an electrical massage chair and even a Kit Kat bar….

“In response, they have made groveling apologies, waved reimbursement checks before television cameras and pledged to restore 'respect for Parliament'....

“For readers of The Telegraph, many of them staunch Conservatives, the revelations have carried an irony of their own. The day-by-day exposures have raised questions about the integrity of many Conservatives, as well as members of Labor and the Liberal Democrats, the third major party in the Commons, making for what some commentators have called an ‘equal opportunity’ scandal....”

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And we thought:

…. In the face of such greed and arrogance, Ms. Brooke’s expose appears a proper public flogging of these so-called proper members of the British Parliament. These errant politicians -- representa-thieves -- brought this scandal upon themselves and deserve the heat they're getting from the public. Expense claims for "KitKat" bars?...