No judicial integrity
I read your report ("Hualien prosecutor has poor record, lawmaker charges," Jan. 9, page 1) regarding President Chen Shui-bian's (
I was surprised by Justice Minister Chen Ding-nan's (
I think the minister has double standards.
I have recorded many statements he has made,
publicly and privately, about the legal case involving my husband, [former Tainan Mayor] George Chang (
The minister totally ignored our appeals to him that the overwhelming amount of pretrial publicity was orchestrated by the prosecutor, Chen Chih-ming (陳誌銘), who himself had failed on two occasions to pass examinations to be a prosecutor.
He eventually passed and was appointed through the recommendations of his superiors. Apparently, his superiors didn't want any disqualification to affect the investigation and indictment of my husband and other people in the Tainan City government.
The minister was quite a different person then, not the one arrogantly speaking today in support of a certain individual merely because of a prosecutor's summons.
I do not believe judicial practice in Taiwan has any integrity. It is all personal and political. It is all for the sake of power.
Tina Chang
New York
The need for `original sin'
Michael Ruse did not mention the real bone of contention between Christianity and evolution, the matter of "original sin" ("Settling the dispute between Darwinism and Christianity," Jan. 10, page 9).
This concept, central to the Christian doctrine of salvation, originated with the apostle Paul (Romans 5:12), and says that all men are inherently sinful and in need of salvation through Christ's death on the cross.
If Charles Darwin was correct that humans evolved from previously existing life, then there was no Garden of Eden in which the freshly minted Adam and Eve could have transgressed the command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thus bringing sin into the world.
If this little drama was not acted out at the beginning of mankind's existence, then Christianity has no meaning and has no value.
The conflict between Darwinism and Christianity is deep, and the Creationists understand that if the claims for inherent human sinfulness and depravity are seen to be baseless, then Christianity could well disappear.
Kenneth Bonnell
California
Forcible Romanization
It would appear that Andrew Hokanson wants a job with Taipei City Government, otherwise he would not be so fervently kowtowing to Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Hokanson first defends the right of local governments like Taipei City to find their own way in regard to a Romanization system.
But immediately after this he asserts that Taipei City has a right, as "the most `international' city in Taiwan," to force its Beijing-backed system upon the people of Taipei County.
That system was not meant for Western speakers, since it borrows from the Russian phonetic alphabet. There is no pinyin "x" sound in English, for example, and as a result, English speakers would have difficulty knowing how to pronounce, say, "Xinyi Road."
If Hokanson sincerely wanted to use the easiest method of Romanization, he would opt for the Yale system.
But Hokanson ignores an even larger problem, namely that this language policy is only one of many cultural policies that Ma has used to arrogantly and dogmatically force Chinese culture upon Taiwanese and others.
Curtis Smith
Taipei
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