Hey there.
Bunch of random thoughts this week, and I'll try to stay off of my political soapbox.
Some real progress is being made by the local government and I feel partially responsible. First, a new law is now on the books and being enforced regarding bicycles. All bikes are now required to sport front and back lights...not just reflectors. Still no requirement that riders wear helmets, but it's progress. What still seems incredibly stupid is that that the scooter riders, who are required to wear helmets, are still allowed to have their children passengers ride without them. I don't know, but would have to think that the law is for helmets to be worn by all passengers, but the sheer number of kids, and I'm talking toddlers, out there without them means that this law is not being enforced. Do these parents and police have any sense of shame?
The big news is that they have taken up my suggestion to start using their precious traffic cams to start ticketing buttholes that run red lights. Going through intersections 2, 3, sometimes 5 seconds after the light turned red was epidemic. I had been noticing that cars were inexplicably stopping when the light turned red recently when someone told me they started giving tickets for this infraction. Savvy scofflaws (most notably the taxis) are figuring out where these ticketing cameras are and will still blow through those, but again...progress. And you're welcome.
A friend related a story about these cameras that I found both positive and disconcerting. She told me that a few days ago, she lost one of her favorite and expensive earrings, and determined that it must have fallen off in a cab ride home. All the cabs look alike and she had no idea the number. She went to her local cop shop and they accessed the network of these cams. Estimating the time she got home, they pulled up one from her street and saw her getting out of the cab, but the angle was not good enough to discern the license plate. As they backtracked her route over the course of three hours and a dozen or so feeds from her 2 mile journey, they ultimately found the right one and the company ended up having it in their lost and found. Amazing that they would devote that much time to this effort, and happy for her reuniting with her favorite piece of jewelry, but a bit disconcerting that a person is constantly being filmed. Does help explain the low levels of street crime.
Was asked the other day if I could help out with a local orphanage from time to time and got into discussing the demographics of the kids at it. I was surprised there were so many orphans here as they feel like a society that is Western in their low birth rate and wouldn't have a glut of unwanted kids. A quick check of world birth rates proved that assumption, with Taiwan ranking just ahead of Japan with the fifth lowest rate in the world. Naively, I did not consider that the children would be non-Taiwanese. Legal foreign nationals (like us) totaled 640,000 in 2012 (2.7% of the total island population of 23 million), with the three primary origins of those being Indonesian (41%), Vietnamese (23%) and Filipino (19%). Found it interesting that just six years earlier, the largest foreign population was Thai at 27%.. The orphanage lady said that all of her children were not Chinese, but were exclusively from these other populations. Most of them were children on non-legal foreign nationals that were caught and returned to their home countries. It was not clear whether they were left here by parent choice or that the parents were deported without being able to take their children. I said that I found it strange that with the demand for adoption in many countries, that they are not able to find homes for some of these kids, but was told that they are unable to be adopted due to their illegal status and that their only current prospect is to remain in these orphanages until they are old enough to be deported. My heart sunk for them...I will be reaching out to see what I can do to help and hopefully elaborate more positive news, but simply a tragic tale.
Local government elections, or as the locals call them, erections, are coming up
in a couple of weeks, and campaign signs are omnipresent around town. Have a collage of hilarious ones to share, but this site is not allowing photo uploads today, so will have to wait till next time. Stay tuned for my election, pardon me, erection night coverage.
As for last weeks US midterms, I have watched every election closely since 1976 and some confound more than others. Have ranted and raved my reaction to them out of my system and won't bore you with any of that today, but I will direct you to this
analysis that gave me hope. If you have 3 minutes, would love for you to read it and tell me if you find any flaws in his rationale.
Finally, have you ever met this guy? Was at the November Beefsteak and Burgundy lunch and we had a couple of prospective new members come as guests. One of them (let's call him Henry as that was his name), another member and I were talking during the welcome wine and canapé portion of the lunch. We were describing the club and some of the stuff that goes on and we say that before we sit down for lunch, we make a toast to the Queen (it is an Australian club in origin), and Henry, who has been nearly mute for the entire conversation says, "Good, just as long as we don't have to toast that scumbag Obama." By using such a polarizing statement as your opening salvo, it tells me all I need to know about you. I was not proven wrong that my immediate assessment of him as being a shallow moron as I got to listen to him in action over the next couple of hours. Look, nuance might not be my forte in a lot of things, but regarding politics, a complete lack of it is dangerous and counterproductive.
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