Thursday, August 17, 2006

Incommunicado at Media Central, Central Taiwan


Linda posing with my son.

Apologies for not posting or communicating, but its been a wild time here with a steady flow of visitors. Tuesday Linda Arrigo, the longtime democracy activist, anthropologist, and scholar, stopped by in the evening to overnight with us. Linda had just released a statement to the media that afternoon about her former husband Shih Ming-te, once one of the island's most important democracy activist, but now apparently working with the Blues against his former friends in the DPP.


Linda in the media.

On Wednesday we we bombarded with calls from local media about her statement.....


Linda on the phone. Again.

.....and Linda spent the morning fielding questions from the media. Min Shih, Dongsen, even TVBS (TVBS. Ugh. Will our phone ever be clean again?). Thanks to everyone who spotted my blog surfacing in the Chinese-langage press for a moment.

If you get the chance to talk to Linda, bring up her dissertation. She's developed an insightful quantitative model that shows how land productivity, population density, class structure, and female infanticide interact in agrarian economies with partible inheritance. Absolutely fascinating, and a welcome change from Taiwan politics.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Michael:
"(TVBS. Ugh. Will our phone ever be clean again?)"...The only "clean media" to you on the entire planet earth is the Liberty Times, you jackass!!!!

Anonymous said...

michael:
You can monitor, filter, and moderate the message going through your blog as much as you want, but I will continue to haunt you!!!!

Anonymous said...

See, you do exactly the same thing. You are exactly like those on the other side: you make accusations without evidence.

Is there any evidence that Shih took money from the KMT? There is none. Ms. Arrigo failed to even allege any specific incident. Is there any evidence that Shih is working with the pan-blue? The pan-blue stopped their movement after the unsuccessful recall attempt. Shih is doing this on his own initiative. He made it very clear in his own statements.

But of course, accusations of conspiracy toward Shih begin to flow, even when there is no evidence whatsoever to support such accusations. Shih's motive and financial resources are examined, and a defamation campaign follows. This only shows one thing: you are exactly like those people you accuse.

Let me also say this: I am not in favor of Shih's actions, and I don't think A-bian should resign (as for now) although I do support Shih in spirit.

Michael Turton said...

Is there any evidence that Shih took money from the KMT? There is none. Ms. Arrigo failed to even allege any specific incident. Is there any evidence that Shih is working with the pan-blue? The pan-blue stopped their movement after the unsuccessful recall attempt. Shih is doing this on his own initiative. He made it very clear in his own statements.

Huh? Are we talking about the same Shih Ming-te? Arrigo's statement pointed out numerous instances of apparent cooperation between Shih and the pan-Blues. Linda was careful to talk about Shih's finances, simply calling for Shih to make his own finances plain. Since he is engaging in political operations presumably aimed at corruption, that should be the first order of business.

Michael

Anonymous said...

Sorry to see your site being harassed. These Pan-Blue supporters are pretty much into role-playing these days, sigh.