Miljenko's Blog

With a few days to gain some perspective and observe the reactions, I will "go there" about the phone call from Taiwan's President to Trump. I realized that everyone's reaction to it was first and foremost motivated by fear. Fear of China that is. It is kind of like that "problem Uncle" at Thanksgiving who gets smashed and then you never know which uncomfortable behaviour he is going to engage in next but there is always something. My own first reaction was the same - "Oh, shit, what will China do." And it is the same with other things about China - when I see 1 Million protesters on the streets of Seoul protesting against their President, I am not concerned that there will be some massive world altering blow up. If that happened in Shanghai, I'd be booking next available SpaceX ticket to get off this planet 'cause that wasn't gonna be pretty. I get nervous when 2 legislators in Hong Kong "behave badly" in a way that w...

With proliferation of protests of all kinds I think it is time to have some basic rules about them that everyone can agree on. The first is that if you are holding up a sign, you are required to be able to explain what the sign says. If it says "Climate Justice", in 3 minutes or less explain what that means. And the same for "#notmyPresident" or "Love Trumps Hate". The second would be that you absolutely cannot protest something where you had the opportunity to change something and you ignored it and now you don't like the result. Such as "#notmyPresident" protests where each protester should be required to say that they voted, and voted for Clinton. Some will lie but just being made answer the question will discourage many from showing up at all. Third, your protest has to be in "designated protest area" in the great tradition of ancient Greek public squares or the Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. You absolutely cannot ride skate...