Priorities

This weekend was the Chinese Middle Moon festival. It marks the first day of Autumn int he Luna year. I imagine that means it's also exactly half way through the luna year. The moon was full and everyone was bar-b-que-ing. It's apparently a tradition to bbq at middle moon, though the Dragon claims it's really only a recent thing.

It's strange to see people in the city squatting outside their homes and shops, by the side of the road, around a small gril. But everyone does it. The air is thick witht hte smell of charcoal and various meats. The plethora of typhoons this year has pushed up the price of vetetables and meat was the thing to throw on grill. We went to the roof of our building to look at the moon. It was full of course, and very bright. And we could look down intot he street and see all the people bar-b-que-ing.

Apart from the fact that it was middle moon weekend, not very much noteworthy happened since my last entry.

I read something in one of the papers here this weekend that I think was reprinted from the New York Times. It was an editorial titled somethign like, "What do you call an American displaced by Katrina?". It was a long and serious piece about whether victims of Katrina should be termed "refugee", "displaced persons", "homeless", or something else. It went into great detail about how "refugee' was technically correct but had negative commotations, that "homeless" inferred permanently without home, and that "displaced" was also incorrect for reasons I can't even remember. My thoughts on this; YOU DOUGH HEADS! DOES IT REALLY MATTER? Talk about getting your priorites wrong. I wish I could find the article to link it, but I'm afraid I can't.

Ronnie Biggs is threatening to go on hunger strike because the Home Secretary won't make a decision about releasing him on compassionate grounds. Well I agree that he should make a decision and stop prevaricating. That decision should be that he stays in prison. He was sentenced to 30 years and he spent most of that time living it up in various tropical destinations.