Hate cannot drive out hate
I would like to share with your readers my thoughts regarding the reaction to Osama bin Laden’s death.
Let me be clear upfront, I am a US citizen and I condemn to the fullest extent the sickening schemes and actions of bin Laden on Sept. 11, 2001. Bin Laden deserves punishment without a doubt, and the victims and the families of 9/11 deserve justice.
However, I do not think that any problems have been solved with the death of bin Laden and I disagree with US President Barack Obama when he said that the world is a safer place without bin Laden.
By killing bin Laden, it in a way martyrs him among his many supporters. I, along with many others, would rather see bin Laden brought to justice. That way whatever sentence was carried out (even the death penalty) would be more justified than merely shooting him to death. We also know that with the death of bin Laden, another will rise.
I also find the celebrations of bin Laden’s death outside the White House disturbing.
People are celebrating death. What message is the US sending out?
Let me end with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr: “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
JESSIE LIN
Taipei
A failing grade for Rawson
Mark Rawson’s recent screed criticizing translators who he deems to be inferior to him was funny, or should I say humorous (“Experts better than native speakers,” April 29, page 8).
Mr know-it-all even has the cheek to tell readers of his rant who might write a letter to the editor protesting his, er, interesting, er, observations: “I can see many of them now preparing to fill the Taipei Times mailbag with indignant, linguistically flawed protestations.”
Well, I’ll take the bait, although I am not one to write letters to the editor.
Rawson should know first of all that readers do not send letters to the editor these days by snail mail, but rather by e-mail, and therefore there is no “mailbag” for the letters to arrive in. Instead, letters arrived in an inbox at the Taipei Times.
Rawsom could have done himself a favor by calling it a mailbox, rather than a mailbag, but then again, he’s the expat language expert.
Rawson tells us that “[in] his daily Chinese-English translation work, [he] frequently [has] to request clarification from Chinese clients as to the meaning of this or that Chinese phrase, because, not being an expert in the use of their own language, they have expressed something unclearly or nonsensically.”
Good, Mark, but one thing: this is Taiwan and your clients are Taiwanese, not Chinese. So much for how smart you are.
You don’t even know what country you are living in.
Mailbag? Chinese? I give you a failing grade, sir.
ARRON BECK
Kenting, Taiwan
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