Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Friedman Leaves Me Cold, Flat, and Disgusted

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Between the known and the unknown, falls the shadow. Between the surface and reality falls the guess. Between what can be controlled and what cannot, falls the wish. Between the shadow, the guess, and the wish, comes the consultant, a shadowy seller of guesses striving to say truisms that the wishers want to hear. Thomas Friedman, "The World is Flat" (2005) and the World is "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" (2008), recently graced the shores of Taiwan, and demonstrated this process. Unfortunately the more one listens to him, the more one wonders how he ever became a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Or better yet, what judgment standards does the Pulitzer Prize Board have? In the 14 Journalistic categories awarded only to paid entrants, does cleverness trump content? Does style trump substance?

New KMT scheme to keep local power in Taiwan

Taiwan News Editorial

Many Taiwan citizens may be perplexed by the the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) declaration Wednesday of "absolute opposition" to revisions proposed by the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) to the Local Government Law.

During a meeting of the rightist ruling party's Central Standing Committee Wednesday, President and KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou demanded that the KMT legislative caucus petition for a special legislative session next week in order to pass newly proposed but highly controversial changes to Article 58 of the local government act.

Referendum law needs to be reformed to be useful

Taipei Times

Last Thursday, the Cabinet’s Referendum Review Committee approved the Consumers’ Foundation petition for a referendum on US beef imports by a vote of 16-0.

The proposed referendum has now entered the second stage, which requires 860,000 valid signatures.

Selling snake oil to the electorate

Taipei Times

In recent weeks, the government has begun to resemble a snake oil salesman in its frantic efforts to promote a so-called panacea for Taiwan’s economy — an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) that it is determined to sign with China.

In the months since the agreement was floated, the government has used a number of tactics to promote the pact, including an ethnically stereotyped cartoon, sleep-inducing public forums and, more recently, talk of enlisting the help of a thug politician to preach the ECFA gospel to a population that remains unconvinced.

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