中正紀念堂前一小撮人聽演講，演講人聽起來敷衍了事。旁邊很多標語寫大字：PEACE，也有英文標語Blast violence與Fight for rights，還有「修改遊行法」。很奇怪，又說反對暴力，可是用詞：blast, fight，充滿著暴力，而一旁又說PEACE。
演講人坐著，姿態散漫，演講內容也不緊湊，重複一個重點：「民主要法制，要守法。」一旁標語說要修改遊行法。換言之，別人必須守法，臺上大爺不喜歡的法律，怎還不快快修改呢？臺上大爺說peace，意思是你們要和平，可是自身內心的不平衡，必須發洩。

除了那幾個人，場外沒人理他們；其實，這樣就對了。

Here is a story told me years ago by Teacher Lu 國語啟蒙老師，路國棟老師. I'm not sure if this will come across, but let me give it a try.

Once a village was being terrorized by a demon. Crops withered, animals died, children had nightmares, old people got sick. Finally, the villagers sent a delegation to a Buddhist temple for help. The abbot smiled and said, "No problem, I'll send someone to take care of it later today." The villagers went home in great anticipation, expecting a spectacular battle between the demon and a detail of monks with bells and gongs and other dharma instruments. To their surprise, at dusk, a lone monk appeared, and he was only about 8 years old. He carried nothing but a bag slung over his shoulder, but he seemed confident and unafraid. He told the villagers to stand aside, and walked with a firm step to the village shrine, which had been taken over by the demon. He pushed open the door and entered. Moments later, such a piercing, unearthly shriek was heard that everybody's hair stood on end. The demon rushed out of the shrine and raced away from the village as fast as he could go. The little monk came out with a small smile on his face. The villagers surrounded him. "Little Dharma Master, how did you chase away the demon?" "Simple," he said, "I just reached into my bag and got out my Donations book."

從前一個村子鬧鬼，非常嚴重。五穀欠登、畜牲病死、孩提夜夜夢魘、老人害病。村民到佛寺求救。方丈笑笑說，「請施主放心，我就派人去處理。」村民回去，認為一定要天兵天將大打一番，一定會派一群高僧帶著木魚引罄金鋼杵來除夭。沒想到，黃昏來了一個驅烏小沙彌，才八歲而已，手上也沒法器，只背個裲襠。可是小沙彌一點也不畏懼，叫村民站一邊，信步走到厲鬼霸佔的宗祠，把門推開了，走了進去。不到幾何功夫，宗祠傳出一聲令人毛骨悚然的尖叫，只看厲鬼荒張往村外跑，一溜煙，不見了。小沙彌出來，臉帶微笑。村民問，「請問小法師用甚麼高招妙法降魔呢？」小沙彌說，「易耳，我從裲襠拿出化緣簿來了。」

Those who wish to write about the weather in Wulai are well advised to write quickly. Bright sun yesterday morning, followed by a rainy afternoon, a starry night, and steady rain this morning. Whee. That's Taiwan, and especially, that's Wulai.

This blog is temporarily running behind schedule as I race to crank out teaching material for a new course I'm teaching, 聽力無礙.

Since you have so much extra time that you don't have to spend on this blog, I would like to introduce you to a wonderful site (thanks, Abe, for telling me about this): Free Rice. For every English vocabulary word you get right, sponsors donate 20 grains of rice to needy people. You can choose your level of vocabulary, or answer questions in math, geography, or other topics.

Tomorrow reserve a moment to remember JFK, who was assassinated on this day in 1962.

I expect to get my head above water by next Thursday. In the meantime, go play with free rice. And please remember to click on The Hunger Site every day!

Here's a true story that my father loved to tell.

It seems that in the 1930s, ads appeared in many national publications for a guaranteed bug killer. The device was not cheap, but the ad proclaimed that if applied properly, a 100% success rate was guaranteed. Times were tough, but a lot of people shelled out their hard-earned cash and mailed off for this amazing device. (I vaguely recall that the price was $5, no mean sum in those days.)

What they got was two wooden blocks and an instruction sheet. One block said BLOCK A and the other said BLOCK B. The instructions said, "Place bug on BLOCK A. Hit with BLOCK B."

The suckers sued, but the courts decided that no laws had been broken. The ad said that the device had to be applied properly, and if you couldn't get the bug to sit on Block A long enough to hit it with Block B, well sorry that was your own problem.

The inventor laughed all the way to the bank.

從前，土城承天禪寺某甲比丘跟廣欽老和尚說，「我的我執太重。請師父幫我消我執。」廣老應允了。

不料過幾天後在大殿上，老和尚大發雷霆，說比丘某甲上山這麼久都沒有進益，吃十方也需要用功，而比丘某甲卻尸位素餐，怎對得起諸佛菩薩、龍天護法？老和尚罵了一頓，大眾愕然，比丘某甲愣住了。

過了一回，比丘某甲行囊裹好了到方丈室情辭，沒想到，老和尚很和藹問，「你為甚麼要下山？」

比丘某甲回，「師父在大殿上罵人，我沒面子見大眾。」

老和尚問，「你不是要我幫你消我執嗎？」

If you haven't been eating your veggies, consider this: President George HW Bush, the father, is a junk food junky. He eats chocolate bars with breakfast, and is addicted to pork rinds. One policy he always stood firm on was broccoli. He banned if from Air Force One, because he claimed, "It tastes like medicine." This did not go over very well with broccoli growers, who unloaded ten tons of broccoli on the White House steps. Bush's response: "Wait till the country hears how I feel about cauliflower!" He also announced that he hates carrots, calling them "orange broccoli."

If that's not a good reason to swear off junk food and become a vegetarian, please give me a better one. Just think what your son might be like!


Important link: click here::

Yes, I eat broccoli. I don't eat it every day,

but once a week is ok."

- Governor Jesse Ventura

Overseas readers may have noticed the news that ex president Chen was led off in handcuffs yesterday, crying out that he is a political prisoner. Reasonable readers (the only kind this blog has, I trust) will observe the difference between political persecution and being charged for corruption, which has been a cloud over Chen since he was Mayor of Taipei.

Before you get overcome with sympathy for Chen, note that a poll of over ten thousand people in Taiwan showed 98% "happy" that he is incarcerated. While he was handcuffed, Chen suddenly collapsed and accused the police of beating him. Commentators point out that at the time of the alleged beating, he was surrounded by reporters and onlookers, being filmed by dozens of cameras; not one showed the least sign of any maltreatment, and nobody on the scene saw anything untoward. Maybe Chen thinks that since he supposes everybody believed his ludicrous assassination attempt, they should believe that the police beat him without touching him.

For all his squawking about democracy, Chen fails to realize two points. First, his party has been thoroughly trounced in recent elections; the people's voice is the voice of democracy, not his. Second, the simple fact that an ex-president is in handcuffs, standing at the top of a long list of accusations which will be dealt with by the courts according to legal process, is proof that democracy based on the rule of law is working.

To give an idea of the mood: last month the tycoon 王永慶 Y C Wang died at the age of 91. A shopkeeper in 大稻埕 the most conservative part of northern Taiwan, typically a die-hard bastion of Chen's DPP and hard core Taiwan Independence, was overheard bitterly lamenting, "The wrong person died! Look how much Y C Wang did for Taiwan! Sure he made a fortune, but he helped us all, and now he's dead. We put Chen Shuibian in office and all he did was steal our money. Why couldn't he have died instead of Wang?"

Obama's election promises a new day for the United States. However, now is not the time to be complacent. Danger still lurks, and vigilance is necessary. In his last days in office, Bush is working hard to destroy the ecosystem. He is trying to allow power plants to operate near national parks, to remove wolves from the Endangered Species List, to loosen regulations for factory farm waste, and to make mountaintop coal-mining operations easier to set up. He wants these regulations put into effect before he leaves office on January 20, in which case they will be hard for President Obama to undo.

I have a friend who swears that Bush is the Manchurian Candidate. Could be. It certainly seems that he has done his utmost to undermine the strength of the US. Good bye, sir, don't call us, we'll call youuuuuuu.

I am reading an exceptionally good thriller, The Secret Servant by Daniel Silva. Israeli intelligence works to thwart an extremist Muslim plot to overthrow the United States.

You may have heard the expression, Be careful what you wish for. Extremist Muslims plot to overthrow the United States; if you ask me, they are out of their minds. Nature abhors a vacuum; humanity abhors a power vacuum. In the highly unlikely event that anybody did manage to overthrow the United States, China would be the world's superpower. Speaking as an inveterate Sinophile, I have to say that if the Arabs displeased the Chinese enough to bring Chinese brawn and methods to deal with them, any surviving Muslim extremists would carry photos of George Dubya Bush in their wallets, to gaze at fondly and kiss lovingly. Riling Uncle Sam is not the same as riling Dragon Hua.

Be that as it may, the extremists probably do not really want the overthrow of the US or Israel, because, as Silva points out, the US and Israel provide wonderful scapegoats and whipping boys. If the US and Israel disappeared tomorrow, fundamentalists might have to face themselves and deal with their own shortcomings; far easier to blow yourself up with explosives!

And the fundamentalists need not bother trying to overthrow the US. The US will overthrow its own might through the offices of fast food, tobacco, guns, liquor, and dope.

我以前認識一對夫妻很奇怪，天天吵架，吵的很凶，常鬧到附近的景美派出所，兩個女兒恨不得早一點離開父母的戰場，草草嫁人去了。我不懂他們為甚麼不乾脆離婚了事？兩個都已經退休了，幾十年來不好好過生活，卻在忿怒中過日子。對誰都沒有好處。不懂，他們這是甚麼型態的愛？

後來我想，他們的關係一絲一毫的「愛」也沒有，純粹是「佔有慾」：這個東西我不珍惜，可是因為是我的，所以我寧可糟蹋它、寧可糟蹋我自己，可是我就是不放手，因為我佔有它。就如一些心理不健全的人，與對象關係不好，因為心裡沒有愛所以不能祝福她、希望他另找個美好歸宿，反而潑硫酸，寧可毀掉她，不容許他過快樂的生活。這，不能說是健康的情緒，更何況，連「愛」的邊緣也談不上。

最近有人說「愛臺灣」，我覺得他們只有佔有慾，心裡沒有愛；寧可局限臺灣的發展、甚至寧可斷送臺灣的繁榮，可是不能祝福臺灣快樂自在。

如果說愛一個地方，照理應該疼惜這個地方養育的人；可是有人說是為了「悍衛臺灣」所以要打臺灣的警察；難道臺灣的警察不是吃著臺灣的米、喝著臺灣的水長大的嗎？難道臺灣的警察沒有父母嗎？

這群人，IMHO，思想已經錯亂。為了「愛」臺灣打我們的警察、擾亂社會的秩序、窒礙市民的交通，到底受苦的是誰？還不是臺灣的人民！看倌或許沒看到現場，剛好我在臺北，「抗議」人群平均年齡大概六、七十，都是從中南部免費坐遊覽車來玩，送便當吃、還有T shirt、帽子可以領；只有一小群人鬧事，場外民眾盡量不理他們；少數一群人，發洩心中無法平衡的矛盾，我們納稅人要為他們埋單，我看不出他們對臺灣有甚麼好處。說反共，很好，那麼反共義士頭一號大英雄不是蔣中正是誰？說悍衛臺灣，很好，那麼悍衛臺灣頭一號大英雄不是蔣中正是誰？搖國旗的是他們、升五星旗的也是他們。一波又一波自打嘴巴聲響起。

我個人認為，民主的基礎是法制；國民有義務守法，法律之下，每一個人平等，沒有特權。可是聽說一位臺獨立委說，如果「圍陳」有事，他負責。這種說法完全藐視民主法制、徹底違反民主精神。

臺灣民主不能進步，「圍陳」的人數雖然很少，可是要負很大的責任。我剛收到一個右派美國朋友的email，他說，「我們落選了。好了，事情過去了，現在大家要全力支持我們的新總統。」街頭鬧事的人沒有這種民主素養。

陳雲林為甚麼要來臺灣？還不是因為陳水扁執政八年，沒有確立臺灣獨立的基礎，反而讓鄰近國家看不起；如果陳總統八年誠心努力為臺灣好，團結、外交、教育、經濟不要說進步，若能維持原有的水平，臺灣的立場就堅定，說話很大聲。現在只有街頭亂吼的那少數幾個人大聲，可是這個聲音，在世界上，實在太薄弱。二十多年前，民進黨本來就以「暴力團體」聞名，所以當時很多人叫他們「氓進黨」。但其實，說「悍衛臺灣」，大概隨便說說算了，因為他們聽警察局長泣求和平，知道警察應該不會還手。如果臺灣被他們搞亂了，人民解放軍來了，他們大概跑的比誰都快。不要說解放軍，遇上美國警察的話也鐵定不敢這樣鬧；可是臺灣警察比較文明，所以才敢這樣撒野：我們愛臺灣所以要打臺灣人！加上，聽說陳雲林要簽的四項協議，民進黨也贊成，那麼何必鬧？簡直是思想錯亂。

如果真的愛臺灣，應該付諸行動：增強臺灣的團結、復興臺灣的教育、確保人民的健康、促進生態的完善、恢復經濟的強勢。這樣作，若心有餘力，也不妨請陳總統把公帑還給人民也不錯。總勝在街頭打人。

classic

Angry suit: When is this flight going to take off? I have a very important meeting to get to!
Flight attendant: The incoming plane is delayed, sir, there's nothing we can do at the moment.
Angry suit: Well, are you going to make arrangements for me to get on another flight? This is urgent! Do you know who I am?
Flight attendant (over loudspeaker): Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, there is a gentleman at the desk who does not know who he is. If anyone has any information about his identity, please come forward.
Overheard in Midway Airport, Chicago
From Overheard Everywhere, Nov 2, 2008

A glorious day for the United States! The country has finally managed to get past gullibly ignorance and fear, and move towards hope and ideals. Again we have a president we can look up to and admire.

IMHO, I found nothing admirable about Dubya. Nothing. Clinton was a good president, but he was not admirable. Father Bush, cipher. Reagan, the tobacco industry’s actor (see endorsement in Monday’s post). Carter the peanut farmer. Nix on Nixon, nobody admires Nixon, not even the “new” Nixon. LBJ was a good president. He inherited a war he probably didn’t want and did as best he could. More important, he worked for civil rights and against poverty. Kennedy was a president to admire. Over 40 years.

But even forty years, we are lucky. I never thought I would live to see an African-American President.

宣佈Obama當選，他馬上讚美McCain，說他是民族英雄；McCain宣佈落選，馬上讚美Obama，說大家要一心一意效忠新總統，是大家的總統。相比之下，臺灣要民主，還有很長的一段路要走。不要講甚麼民主的火炬、不要說甚麼影子政府(然後跑去推銷證券)。應該學習尊重選民的決擇；換句話說，不要喊空洞的口號謀自己的利益，要學習民主。

Roger Cohen put it very succinctly: Beyond Iraq, beyond the economy, beyond health care, there was something even more fundamental at stake in this U.S. election won by Barack Obama: the self-respect of the American people.

如果我是藍色系的人，陳雲林來臺，我會希望臺獨派人好好鬧：如此可以向中共說，看吧，我們中華民國有這些人在，我們的立場必須額外謹慎，你們該讓讓步吧。

如果我是中共的人，陳雲林來臺，我會希望臺獨派人好好鬧：如此可以向世界說，看吧，這些人不講理、不尊重使節，臺灣很亂，能不用重典嗎？
在朋友家看到電視新聞報導一位臺獨派人想闖進圓山大飯店，被警察抓住；我不免想一想，如果在美國、歐洲示威民眾這樣突闖，早已被警察打成肉醬。臺灣還是很文明。

臺獨派人若誠想為臺灣好，大不如花那時間捐血去吧。

Tomorrow is the big day, the day that if enough American voters have sense, the US will elect its first African-American president, a vote for toleration and hope conquering racism.

An interesting site is www.iftheworldcouldvote.com providing a place for people around the world to express their preference for US president. Obama is getting about 85% of the international vote, which seems a bit low, if anything.

Environmental history professor: Look at some of the items on this menu from a hotel of Chicago Thanksgiving dinner from 1872: loin of buffalo, antelope steak in mushroom sauce, ham of bear, black tail deer, leg of mountain sheep, buffalo tongue... Miss Palin, your table is ready.--

Classroom, Fordham UniversityOverheard by: Martin Van Nostrand
From overheard in new york

My good friend Qalux is going to be a grandfather in a few months, so to formalize things, his son Qoyaw (the forthcoming grandchild's father) married said forthcoming grandchild's mother this evening. As luck would have it, I had class all day, and missed the wedding feast. Qalux is well liked and widely respected, so most of Wulai must have been at the feast. By the time Sabiy and I returned to Wulai near midnight, the wedding was long over, but as we passed Qalux's home, we saw a considerable number of revelers continuing the celebration. As I have known Qoyaw, the groom, since he was about eight, I was very happy to stop in to offer our congratulations. A large number of Tayal from the Tribe where there, who immediately began to slander me most mercilessly to Sabiy. There was also a contingent of Lukai / 魯凱, as Naluwan, Qalux's wife and Qoyaw’s mother, is from the Lukai tribe.

In this photo you see me with a young Tayal from the Tribe, Qoyaw's little brother Qosun, and on the left Alu, an old chief. Traditionally, Tayal chiefs do not occupy a hereditary position. Rather, the situation is somewhat like that described by Francis Parkman in The Oregon Trail concerning the Dakotas and Sioux in the 1840s: "Each village has a chief, who is honored and obeyed only so far as his personal qualities may command respect and fear. Sometimes he is a mere nominal chief; sometimes his authority is little short of absolute, and his fame and influence reach beyond his own village, so that the whole band to which he belongs is ready to acknowledge him as their head." A Tayal (Sateq) example of the latter would be the great Mona Luto 莫那魯道 who lead an uprising against Japanese imperialists in the 1930s.

Such a situation indicates a society which has not yet developed political institutions. 或許堯舜禹湯相禪，非不家天下，而上古華夏為王為帝，制度未凝。

Be that as it may, tomorrow morning most of Wulai is sure to be hung over.