Science!
Everything is better when prefixed by the word "space." Pope? Good. Space Pope? Crocodylus Pontifex! Fog? Pretty great, but "space fog"? Dazzlingly cataclysmic! Foglink. Also, even though Smith's Cloud won't properly collide with the Milky Way for millions upon millions of years, I'm glad the fireworks are going to occur ninety degrees distant around the galactic circumference. Star formation is a wonder of the heavens, but there is no safe way to be proximal to such titanic forces. Best to observe indirectly and from a mind-boggling distance.

Science!

As a side note, fog is one of those things that I find bizarrely fascinating. It's essentially a cloud, but hewing closely on the ground? Byeh? Plus, "fog" is one of the better words in the English language. Fog... monkey? Fog Monkey, Fogmonkey, Fog-Monkey, Fog-monkey? (Because "monkey fog" sounds like an obscure, equatorial disease.)

Beware the fury of the Fog-monkey!

Fear and Loathing in the Strait of Taiwan
Electionlink. What I find particularly interesting about this piece is the B.B.C.'s use of the "Kuomintang" spelling of the name of the K.M.T., commonly known here in the West as the Chinese Nationalist Party. The K.M.T. was the governing power in China until it lost the civil war to the Chinese Communist Party and quit the mainland in 1949. The Mandarin Chinese name for the Nationalist Party is transliterated into English as "Kuomintang" using the 19th Century Wade-Giles romanization scheme. However, Wade-Giles has been superseded by the pinyin romanization scheme virtually everywhere but in the Republic of China (Taiwan). Under pinyin, the name of the Nationalist Party is rendered slightly differently as "Guomindang," but still shortened to K.M.T.

Now, why use Kuomintang instead of the Guomindang? Yes, Guomindang is not as widely recognized, but only because Kuomintang has persisted as an anachronism. For example, which version to you recognize, the Wade-Giles Mao Tse-tung or the pinyin Mao Zedong? The Wade-Giles Pei-ching or the pinyin Beijing? During first the Falklands War and now the ongoing liberations of Afghanistan and Iraq, the B.B.C. refused to use "our troops" to describe Her Majesty's Armed Forces, instead using "British troops." This was done, it has been claimed, so as to maintain journalistic objectivity. While I disagree with this reasoning as pompous and indefensibly disloyal, I respect the B.B.C.'s moral stance, however misguided. They don't want to take sides? Fair enough. But then why Kuomintang over Guomindang? Yes, Guomindang is preferred by the bloody-handed dictatorship of People's Republic of China while the democratically-ruled Republic of China prefers Kuomintang, but Guomindang is also consistent with the accepted pinyin system, the accepted international standard.

So, what if any point is the British Broadcasting Corporation attempting to make? While I strongly sympathize with Taiwanese aspirations of formal independence, such favoritism would be unbecoming for such high-falootin' neutrals. Sentimental attachment to the begone era of the Empire represented by Wade-Giles? Disdain for the P.R.C.'s systematic repression of journalists? Or is it that Kuomintang and Guomindang are no more different than to-may-to and to-mah-to?



Well, you all know me, I long for the day that the Chinese people will, to use Mao's own words against him, "stand up" and throw off the shackles of the P.R.C. So, if Auntie Beeb is using "Kuomintang" to undermine Beijing, then she and I find ourselves in accord and in common cause.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Dance Hall Crashers, "Setting Sun" from Purr (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: D.H.C., The Hippos, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Potshot, so many great ska/ska-core bands either officially gone or on interminable "hiatus." Thank Bog for the persistence of The Aquabats!, Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, Mustard Plug, and a few, far too few scattered others.

Freitag, 11 Januar
The Dickies, "Howdy Doody in the Woodshed" from Short Music For Short People (T.L.A.M.)