Why Aborigines support KMT
Many outsiders coming to Taiwan find Aboriginal support for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hard to understand. Given the suppression of their cultures, languages and even their names during the five decades of one-party rule, one might imagine their disenchantment with the organ of that rule would be as great or greater than that of the Hoklo Taiwanese, and that Aborigines would be staunch supporters, and even leaders, of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Reading the smug post-election “victory” analysis by Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) of the DPP-allied New Society for Taiwan (“Has Ma done anything right yet?,” Dec.13, page 8), helps to explain why Aborigines do not trust the opposition:
“In Taitung County, the DPP closed the gap from 20,000 votes in 2005 to around 5,000 this time. If we subtract the votes of the county’s Aborigines, who are mostly loyal Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) voters, the DPP would have won in Taitung. This result shows how angry people in Taitung are about the performance of outgoing county commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞), who used to enjoy Ma’s strong support.”
Why not go the whole hog and argue that Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) election as president should not stand because of all the women who voted for his “good looks”? But no; thanks to the influence of former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and others, sexism is taboo in the party, at least in explicit terms. Clearly not racism, however.
Ridding itself of such attitudes would help transform the DPP into a truly liberal party and, as a pleasant side effect, increase its chances of electoral success.
MARK CALTONHILL
Wugu, Taipei County
Man-made climate change
Global warming has been a controversial issue for two decades. Some think global warming is caused mainly by carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal, oil and gas, while others think global warming is no more than a normal part of the natural climate cycle.
Some claim that global cooling has taken place in recent years, but that the data indicating this have been covered up by “global warming scientists.” The expression “global warming” has been replaced by “climate change,” presumably because the latter can cover both global warming and cooling. During global cooling, should we emit more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
The US Environmental Protection Agency recently said that carbon dioxide is hazardous to health. If this is true, people should refrain from drinking beer and carbonated soft drinks. Believe it or not, carbon dioxide now joins alcohol and sugar as unhealthy ingredients in beverages.
The US Department of Energy recently announced that it would award US$334 million to American Electric Power in Columbus, Ohio, to finance about half the cost of the first commercial-scale carbon dioxide capture and storage project for a coal-fired power plant in New Haven, West Virginia. Carbon dioxide will be absorbed from a slipstream of flue gas equivalent to 20 megawatts, compressed and injected underground at a depth of 1.5 miles (2.4km) for storage. If the total cost is US$668 million, the interest is 5 percent per year, the plant lasts for 20 years, and operation is 8,760 hours a year, the roughly estimated cost of the carbon dioxide capture and storage would be US$0.38/kWh. Hopefully this cost can be reduced drastically in future plants. The residential electricity cost is typically US$0.10/kWh.
Regardless of whether global warming is real or not, renewable energies should be developed since fossil fuels take millions of years to form and are limited.
CHARLES HONG
Columbus, Ohio
When US budget carrier Southwest Airlines last week announced a new partnership with China Airlines, Southwest’s social media were filled with comments from travelers excited by the new opportunity to visit China. Of course, China Airlines is not based in China, but in Taiwan, and the new partnership connects Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 30 cities across the US. At a time when China is increasing efforts on all fronts to falsely label Taiwan as “China” in all arenas, Taiwan does itself no favors by having its flagship carrier named China Airlines. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is eager to jump at
The muting of the line “I’m from Taiwan” (我台灣來欸), sung in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), during a performance at the closing ceremony of the World Masters Games in New Taipei City on May 31 has sparked a public outcry. The lyric from the well-known song All Eyes on Me (世界都看見) — originally written and performed by Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹) — was muted twice, while the subtitles on the screen showed an alternate line, “we come here together” (阮作伙來欸), which was not sung. The song, performed at the ceremony by a cheerleading group, was the theme
Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised eyebrows recently when he declared the era of American unipolarity over. He described America’s unrivaled dominance of the international system as an anomaly that was created by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Now, he observed, the United States was returning to a more multipolar world where there are great powers in different parts of the planet. He pointed to China and Russia, as well as “rogue states like Iran and North Korea” as examples of countries the United States must contend with. This all begs the question:
Liberals have wasted no time in pointing to Karol Nawrocki’s lack of qualifications for his new job as president of Poland. He has never previously held political office. He won by the narrowest of margins, with 50.9 percent of the vote. However, Nawrocki possesses the one qualification that many national populists value above all other: a taste for physical strength laced with violence. Nawrocki is a former boxer who still likes to go a few rounds. He is also such an enthusiastic soccer supporter that he reportedly got the logos of his two favorite teams — Chelsea and Lechia Gdansk —
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