Where’s the beef?

It is one of those Fridays when the South China Morning Post sees fit to insert a weighty slab of glossy magazine called Style into the paper. It forces readers to get some exercise as they carry it to the nearest bin. It also raises revenue for the SCMP, who cleverly convince purveyors of tacky clothing and other exclusive lifestyle luxury tat to buy ads in the thing, as if anyone actually opens it up and looks through it.

Even if they did – it’s hard to see how the weird visuals with unappealing if not repulsive-looking models would persuade people to go out and purchase the products involved. And that assumes you can identify what the merchants are actually trying to sell you. The cover on this edition is about averagely baffling. My guess is it’s pushing some sort of haircare/grooming thing…

I declare the weekend open with the latest specially curated selection of artisanal links.

With the cops devoting hundreds of man-hours monitoring barely existent pro-independence forces, and intimidating-by-videoing even minor demonstrations – a discussion of political surveillance in Hong Kong.

And courtesy of the same author, an updated list of ongoing/upcoming political court cases. This includes the Occupy-related charges against Benny Tai and others for ‘inciting public nuisance’ and, for some, ‘conspiracy to incite public nuisance’ – the trials are scheduled to start in November. As with the Andy Chan HK independence case, these prosecutions are contrived and disproportionate. If they attract similar media attention, Hong Kong officials will again squirm as they are shown to be haplessly implementing the Communist Party’s maximum-overkill policy.

If you wonder how incompetent the world’s most highly paid civil servants can get, try Open Data HK’s description of how very do-able non-crap apps could help relieve Hong Kong’s traffic mess – but the bureaucrats refuse to go along. (Don’t read it if you’re already in a want-to-hit-someone mood.)

Out in the big wide world… With People’s Daily name-checking him dozens of times per page, is this peak Xi Jinping? (‘…autocracy is addictive’). Mainland #MeToo and how officialdom punishes victims. Self-censorship on China in US universities. A Chinese reporter in foreign media. How Belt and Road is primarily a branding exercise aimed at bolstering the CCP’s domestic integrity, while a Kenyan editorial asks whether it is exploiting Africa. And something you probably hadn’t thought about: the challenges of translating Emily Dickinson into Chinese.

 

 

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5 Responses to Where’s the beef?

  1. reductio says:

    I like the Style mag – where else can I read about this:

    https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/watches/article/2154798/urwerk-launches-atomic-master-clock-master-clock-and

    Sadly, the article doesn’t make clear if it works with Casio or Timex watches, so I won’t be buying in this instance.

  2. reductio says:

    @Hemlock

    Unusually, couldn’t log on for ages this afternoon. Maybe you were uploading the article, or were nefarious forces at work?

  3. Mary Melville says:

    Although the number of police officers has been increasing, it now rare to spot any on street patrol. Ten years ago if you waited on a corner of say Nathan Road for a while you would spot one within ten or fifteen minutes, but not any more. Even if you get lucky the response is to tell you they are busy on an assignment and to call 999.
    The promised camera campaign against vehicles parking on zebra crossings etc has been just…… a promise. The most notorious blackspot in my district, well documented and with numerous reports, is business as usual. Yesterday evening around 8pm a large SUV straddling the zebra was forcing pedestrians to all but clamber over it to get across the street.
    Every day idling vehicles block Bank Street in Central while across the street at Cheung Kong Centre there are dozens of vacant parking slots. In Central the police report room never picks up calls.
    Meanwhile any small gathering of citizens can attract a dozen or more uniformed and plain clothes officers busy with notebooks and cameras.
    What indeed is the purpose of all this ‘intelligence gathering’ while the regular duties of the force are being neglected?

  4. Din Gao says:

    Re Arch Conspirator General Benny Tai, are you not forgetting the charge of “incitement to incite public nuisance” which, as his defense council claims, is “beyond the criminal law” and unconstitutional?

    Judge Johnny thought otherwise…

  5. Din Gao says:

    Glad you are back after days off line.

    Thought you might have moved to Xinjiang for a language course.

    Or is this really you and not a stand-in letting a hundred flowers blossom??

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