Trying to make sense of a weird world - and maybe make it a little better. If that's not possible, then laugh at it. Those with shorter attention spans may enjoy us on Twitter at Private Pebble.
Now, where else in the world does this remind me of?
Few people in Hong Kong take the South China Morning Post seriously as a news source any more, but one of the few remaining points of excellene in the paper is Harry's cartoons. With the Victoria Park candlelight vigil banned for the second consecutive year, the June 4th Museum closed on the bureaucratic pretext that it requires a public entertainment licence (massacres are so entertaining, aren't they?), and organisers of the vigil being arrested or already in prison, today's cartoon is particularly poignant:
The Hong Kong Free Press also has a number of articles marking the date. And Hemlock is incisive as usual - pointing out that the aurhorities' clumsy efforts to suppress remembrance of the 1989 events are merely bringing more attention to them (the Streisand effect at work).
P.S. A valuable resource: How to Respond to Tiananmen Trolls.
It's puzzling that Carrie Lam is spending so many days hobnobbing with Chinese officials over the border to discuss the content of her delayed Policy Address, when all she has to do to surprise and delight the people of Hong Kong is to condense it to just two simple words: "I resign".
What I do wonder is whether any of the numerous test subjects pictured in the constant stream of propaganda pushing the scheme have given permisision for their depiction in this situation. Surely one time you are entitled to expect a degree of privacy is when undergoing an uncomfortable and unsightly medical procedure probing one's oral cavities?
Given this, I wonder how it is that Chief Executive Carrie Lam (or her body double; it's impossible to tell from this angle) managed to get her own test photographed from behind?
As in past years, the Hong Kong government is conducting a public consultation exercise on what should be in the Chief Executive's annual Policy Address. This seems a particularly pointless exercise this year, as what the majority of people want is not only clearly unattainable under the current regime, but even to demand it is probably no longer legal. Still, I am wondering what would happen if a million Hongkongers wrote in to say they wanted this year's address to consist of only two words: "I resign".
