!! VIVA CHÁVEZ !!

    

   I'm back!! Back from China, back from Europe... Back from bloglessness... And I have a whole lot of those tattooings you've been deprived of for so long and sending me hate mails about... Yup... Well, nice hate mails... Not like "AAAAA I HATE YOU! I'M GONNA KILL YOU NO I'M SORRY JUST GIMME SOME FUCKIN' TATTOOS TO LOOK AT AAAAAAARGH I'LL KILL YOU!!!"  Nope... Nothing like that, rest assured. But I did get the sense of deprivation some of you might have felt after the 20th e-mail asking me when I would be posting again! Specifically tattoo pictures, I'm not that concerned with... But the fact that people are still interested in this corner, my little corner of the interwebnetworks, well... Is very flattering and I can't thank you enough for it!! So... First I'd like to say, Hi! I'm back with lots to show... 

   But today's not the day... Sadly I'm still mourning one of my idols, one of my true hero's tragic passing... I'm really having a hard time with this and am pretty damn bummed out about it! I won't go out in lengths about it... Totally could though, just so you know... But I'll save that huge chunk of text for another time! I'll just post my "Angry Hugo" I doodled last night... Stickin' it to the MAN like no-one else, anywhere else for longer than anyone else... 

Legends never die!!

   So if you happen to be on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum, that's cool, totally, just be respectful and keep it to yourself for the next few days! I'll truly appreciate it! If however you can't and have to voice your opinion, make damn sure you know what the facts are and what you're talking about because I do!

   Tomorrow I start posting, day to day, tat-a-matic action pics of aaaaaaaaall my last day's doings!! Be ready!!!

   

Ok enough with these ramblings already... Ciao all! You rock!! Post ya tomorrow!

When people care...

It's just so amazing when people care!!

The majority of citizens of most western democracies have a tendency to become quite complacent with their democratic duties... It's very impressive, refreshing and quite inspiring to see so many people care here in Hong Kong!!

This is us a while ago...

This protest is about stopping the local government (HK) from implementing an education shift with a new "nationalist identity" program (China)! And well... Hong Kongers just won't have it! Sadly we don't have democracy here but if these protests continue (been a week now)... It's happened before... Public pressure might force our unelected government to change or cancel this new scary law!!!

The few people who have managed to get a glance at this new school program have had nothing but scary things to say about it!

It's just awesome to see so many people care... About their education, about their identity and about sticking it to the man!!!! 

Ok got to run...

More non-politico-ploggables asap!!!

P.s. I have been working on an epic one for the American elections lately but not ready just yet!!!

::: > EDIT < :::

We won!!! After massive protest in July, a week of occupying the government HQ, hunger strikes and threats of education strikes... Our non-elected government backed off! Now the new Pro-China national and moral education curriculum will not be mandatory!! 

Stickin' it to the MAN!!!

Check it HERE!

The Electric Beijing Show Part 1

After being a vampire, last year... Siu Q is now a Ninja!!! Why not!?


So yeah... I made it back from China!!! Ended up being way busier than I thought on the day's doings front... Like way way busier!! So that was cool but then I guess I only had late nights to go out and check other stuff out! Still I found Beijing to be quite different from my last trip back in 2005! I guess a bit more open? It's so hard to say... But definitely different!! Beijing is a weird mix of awesome and depressing!! It's a weird place! I love it, I really do, but it's hard to feel at home if you're a foreigner, that's for sure!! That air pollution really gets to you too... I guess you get used to it after a while but if you're just there for a week... It just fuckin' sucks! And that damn internet censorship!!!! Holy shit is that ever annoying!!! It really made me realize how important it is for everyone on this side of the free internet to keep it that way and to fight anyone trying to change it! I'm talking about all these laws the US is trying to pass (or should I say, that some people are trying to get through in the US)!! They cannot succeed!! We've all learnt to depend on the internet so much and going to China really makes you not want to take that for granted!!! I mean I know what they're trying to do... China would collapse in a fortnight if people from any given town who were thinking of fighting whatever cause with the local government found out that everyone from every other town is also thinking about the same!! There is one riot a day somewhere in China every year! I guess revolutions are counter revolutionary... Anyways... Don't take your internet for granted!!! And fight these people who want to make crazy restrictive legislation to change it!!!!

Ok ok... This post is not about any of that... It's about the first day's doings I brought back from Beijing!!!

Here's day 1's worth!! It starts small but it'll get more interesting in the next few days!!!



Quickie number 1...




Quickie number 2...


More tomorrow... Oh yeah!

Take it light out there!!

VIIV

23 consecutive years of denial and counting...








I just landed this morning straight from Beijing and made damn sure I was back home in Hong Kong for tonight!

If you're in Hong Kong on this very special night, whether you're just visiting our little part of the world or live here permanently, whether you're a local or an immigrant to this town, don't be a tourist tonight, come out and be counted! Whether to listen and stay the night with the thousands of other Hong Kongers or just to do your quick round, come out and be a part of what makes Hong Kong not just another city in China! Making sure, year after year, that the numbers of people who care never dwindle too low and that there is one place in China where people remember and still demand that those who commit horrible crimes against their people must be held accountable! The victims of the Tiananmen square protest 23 years ago today, in Beijing, are not forgotten!!!



Victoria park in Causeway Bay from 8 till late!!


P.s. If you live here and don't show up tonight... You can't really complain about people not caring!




2011

2010

2009

Wiki

visuals +++

Deux sur dix

Dans cette tempête de médiocritée politique, je souhaite bonne chance a tous mes compatriotes, prisonniers géographique de la République!

Mzungu!

Please forgive me this rant… I just CAN NOT help myself… It's been a while since I've ranted anyways so I'm letting loose on this latest intellectual atrocity, this social grey matter killing field, this latest fast-food disinformation video campaign that is "KONY 2012" !!

I spotted the headline on Aljazeera 3 days ago about an online video campaign against the LRA's leader (Joseph Kony) going viral on YouTube and getting a lot of attention. I have been reading about this decades old regional struggle for years now and was really impressed to see this story in the headlines. Like in many other cases, it is not the degree of importance of a story that necessarily makes it important enough for a front page… Or sometimes any page at all! I was really impressed and hurried through the link and to the said video. I honestly had a skewed opinion from the start and wanted nothing more than to post that video on my blog to help promote it! Here was a story I truly believed, desperately needed more attention! To my greatest disappointment and disillusionment, I couldn't bear viewing past the 7 minute mark. Within seconds the disappointment turned into anger! And for the last three days I've been writing and writing, trying to vent out of me the indignation about how horrible this attempt was, how misinformed, how dangerously simplistic and so very naive everything about this disastrous piece of media was!! As much as the initiative is well meant and the proliferation impressive the actual simplistic information in this piece is disgraceful and socially harmful to so many! One just cannot, for the "greater purpose of wanting to change the world for the better", engage in such dangerously simplistic, ill informed, narrow minded explanations! This "KONY 2012" video campaign is a disgrace to all who are involved in this conflict, it borders dangerous dis-information for those interested and serves no one's interest but the egos of the makers, "Invisible Children" ! I cannot imagine anyone short of FOX News doing any worse! It just got under my skin and absolutely fuming for the last 3 days!

Promotion of ignorance is, in my opinion, a very serious crime! Dis-information of that stature can serve no good, to anyone and apart from putting this story under the spotlight of the online community (which could have been a good thing if they had stopped at that and simply introduced the subject neutrally as opposed to try to explain what they obviously couldn't understand) it is horribly demeaning and an other grand example of the West's firm belief in it's moral high ground on humanity's problems, in this well too common case of the poor black people of Africa's need for the West's helping hand to civilize them!

Sure there are literally millions of uninformed people screaming their opinions about subjects that obviously surpass them all over the world wide web, but this one touches me more! For one, because I've personally been reading and researching a whole lot about the facts about the complexity of this story for the last few years but secondly, the obvious fact that it has been getting so much attention!


Like I said, I've been writing away my anger about this for a few days now and came up with, what I can only now look back and describe as a short novel… On the one side I just can't do that to ya… Post a massive chunk of text with nothing to look at! But also, being interested in this story and searching for more educated opinions, I stumbled on a few articles who describe my ills with the said video campaign in words far better than the ones I could ever come up with!

I share these opinions almost integrally, just sadly for me, not their far better vocabulary and knowledge about the facts. If you are at all interested in this whole subject, do yourself a favour and read these two pieces! Even if you disagree, finding out different opinions about anything can only really help you understand something even better!


-Adam Branch's,
Dangerous Ignorance: The hysteria of Kony 2012. Absolutely great piece of rant/real information about the greater story!!!


-Q & A with Firoze Manji,
Does "Kony2012" do more harm than good? Clear explanations about the deconstruction of the video with once again, more actual facts!!!



::: EDIT :::

Since then, there has been so much attention on this story that it just received it's own page on AJ... Check it out if interested!






Enough about this now…

I don't do these rant posts to push my opinions on people, I just found out over the years that posting these rants really helps getting them out of my system!
And well… I do have opinions!



Tomorrow? Red Box day with more images than words and most probably no relation to any sort of current event whatsoever!

Behind the wall... Deep in the drain!

Dictators tend to forget that no despot can stand and defy the force of the oppressed mass. No matter the time they manage to stay on top, no matter the means they use to repress, at the end of the day, the man on top is just that. Another man. As fragile as any other.

Congratulations to the people of the new re-liberated Libya, who against all odds grabbed their own fate by the horns and took back their lives after 42 years of oppression. A wonderful example and life lesson for all of us around the world who are too afraid of looking directly into the MAN's eyes!

All my hopes and wishes now go to a successful and peaceful transition, a new Libya that will be better than the old where less blood will need to be spilt.






In other news....

Thanks so much to all of you for some awesome birthday wishes e-mails and comments!!! You guys all pretty much Rock!!

More updates of "Road Runner" in the next few days and even some more of that tattoo thing I sometimes do!! Take it light and stay street!!

9/12

The day after the day! The first day of a new era. The day everyone realized what had just happened the day before and the day we were all faced with the civilization divide between the West and the Middle East! As Americans cried, and American haters rejoiced, the whole world knew it was in for some rough times! Inevitably, this decade that redefined the post cold war era, from both sides of the spectrum, absolutely and without remorse exceeded all expectations in inexcusable horrors, useless waist of life, and all around inhumanity!

10 years and absolutely nothing to be proud of!


Hoping the next 10 can only be better and ran by smarter people!

HOME STRETCH !!

The final push!!



No one thought this day would come! But the world watches in awe as it is reminded that all dictators, all irresponsible governments, all despots will one day inevitably fall! For even the toughest regimes, the most hard-line repressors, the worst enemies of man, even ultra capitalism itself has no weapon against the angry mob ready to take responsibility for itself! The 7.62 is a heavy round indeed!

The best of luck to everyone in Tripoli tonight! Keep your heads down as the world watches and hopes this breath of fresh Gaddafi-less air will bring a new and bright future for this forgotten and too long repressed part of the world!!!




More news tomorrow!!
Now forgive me but I got to pack... Am on the move myself! Catch ya on the other side!



(Shots from REUTERS)

The power of Hate .02

Dispatch from the foreign office…

Forgive me but I have no choice! This whole story has been boiling up in my head since I first read about it, yesterday morning! Trying to explain it has brought me to this only conclusion…


I sincerely hope that the extremity of the tragedy of yesterday's horror, if anything, manages to, at the very least calm the growing popularity for xenophobia and racism in the tolerant-troubled part of the world which is the Scandinavia of today and teaches a lesson to all the European politicians on all levels of the right side of the spectrum who promote these ideas of intolerance and hate for their own political benefit! I can't help but to personally see a very very direct link between this massacre and the growing social political anti-tolerance climate it happened in! Racist, nationalistic populist rhetoric is a dirty box of parasites indeed, once opened it is very hard to contain! All who dare promote these ideas, however subtly or bluntly, are responsible for what happened yesterday! It's easy to point and say "this was the work of a lone crazy" but look closer at the social climate promoted around you! His actions are in no way to be forgiven or even relativized but the one's of the society around him aren't either!

I can't help to notice that more than half of the interviews from reactions are of people who are shocked that this could have been done by "one of their own"! Why is his nationality, once again so important?

Why would a bank robber's race be so importantly specified on a paper's front page? Is the problem of his situation caused by his bank robbing or his origins? Can a local not rob a bank? Does it make it better when it's a local who robs a bank? Does it make it better when a local kills a hundred innocent people for his political beliefs?

Europe is steadily falling in a dark place… Again! Northern Europe at it's helm! As with all economically unhealthy times, people's ideas slowly regress to a more medieval mind set, returning to religion for answers and blaming anyone from outside their borders for all their troubles! You can bet there will always be a lot of attention seeking politicians and headline desperate tabloids out there who will be ready to take advantage of that mental complacency and let the masses hear what they want to hear and therefore very directly promote these ideas! The atrocities of yesterday where done by an extremist who was unable to stay civilized and not contain these radical ideas promoted everywhere around him! The contemporary Scandinavian political and idealogical environment, to different levels but evenly distributed throughout, from Denmark to Finland through Sweden and Norway is dangerously leaning more and more extremely to the right to such an extent that it has become acceptable to publicly be racist in everyday society, one that inevitably not so subtly promotes these ideas and actions of intolerance! Where there is obviously a definite physical difference between telling someone to go back to where they come from at a corner shop because they're not quick enough with the local language and actually killing scores of immigrant sympathizers, not so much mentally and socially!


All these argument of mine are simply proven by the fact that everybody in Europe knows very well that the situation and thoughts in everyone's mind would have been very different indeed if the assassin had been foreign, had not been white or even worst, had been muslim!

Europeans have to stop thinking they're better than everyone else because they are white!

For a people that is so proud of it's history, we seem to mindlessly forget about it's more important lessons quite easily!

It's always tragically sad however, that for mankind to learn any lesson, many innocent people must always die!





Please don't hesitate to leave a comment if you have anything to add, which ever way you lean with this situation and towards my opinion of the said situation! I believe it is very important for any intelligent dialog to happen and proper understanding of any situation that all opinions must be expressed! We all see things differently and that's a good thing and understanding other peoples opinions is what helps us understand any situation better! I'm afraid, witnessing current political events of the last few years in Europe is making me more and more of an anti anti-tolerance extremist myself!

The power of Hate

I have many things to say about this, many things indeed but not today! Today just this!


More Ploggings tomorrow!

VIIV

22 consecutive years of denial and counting...



The sad reality of the violent and murderous repression of people by their own governments has never been so relevant!



Tomorrow in Hong Kong, the only place in China where you don't get arrested for remembering, we remember how despicable this government has been and those it remorselessly took with it 22 years ago in Tiananmen square!

If you're in Hong Kong tomorrow night, make it to Victoria park and be counted, same as last year and all the years before! Remind them this will not just go away! Remind them we hold them responsible!







For a people to be able to turn the page on such a dark and disgraceful moment in their history, the responsible parties must be held accountable. One day inevitably they will, for no one can escape the truth!

And in the end there will be nothing left.

The "higher moral standards" of the West can easily be confused with the enemy's "careless need for destruction". It all depends at which end of the dropping bomb you're standing...

Too much careless killing these days in the news! Just got saturated in the last few days! Too many bombs, missiles and rounds fired, all for the supposed "good cause" and all for nothing achieved! I wonder what the people who actually make bombs, missiles and bullets think and feel when they watch the news!!

Ok ok ... Sorry about the bummer post! Just one of those days where I should have played Robots at the arcade all day instead of reading about the world! Just for one day!

However, I did read something that made me happy lately! You might have heard but the head honcho of the IMF, the square boss of the squares, the "M-A-N" indeed, Mr.D.S.K. had a hard time keeping his dick in his pants 2 days ago! Now I have no idea what can go through someone's head to decide to try something like that but he did! Then he ran away! Then the poor maid called the Five-O! And this is the part I like, the part I was truly impressed about but in these cases there must be a long line of calls to make for the inspectors concerned. I mean the dirty old man in this case is the head of the IMF and has most obviously enough red tape around him and diplomatic immunity to make even Obama shy! So the calls must have been made all the way up the food chain of people to call when you need to know what you can do against someone like this! And all the way up the calls went until someone... All the way a the top of this ordered ladder of telephone calling food chain said "Bust that motherfucker!" And that makes me happy! I have no idea what kind of person Mr. Strauss-Khan truly is, but no one should be able to run away from the responsibility of such serious deeds! We all know how "important people" get away with a lot of shit too often, how diplomatic immunity can help you get away with murder, how being a government official means the rules you impose on others don't necessarily apply to you! Well in this case they did! I like that!

There's no official way to ever find out who exactly was at the top of that decision making tower on that night but if I ever find out, I'd like to offer that person a free Tat! That's right! ...

In other news... Good night awesome Plog followers!!!! More visuals tomorrow!!

Through any wall

Congratulations and much respect on this, your special day, mister Liu Xiaobo!!
The world is paying attention!

With all my hopes that your jailers will realize very soon that even the walls of the darkest corners of the darkest prisons, over time, are no match for the power of free expression!

Smarts is a given !

What better way to start the work week than with a "one-shot", I ask ya? Well , there are a few better ways to start the week actually (not working is one, finally getting those prints you ordered a month ago and had completely forgotten about, or even cake! Cake is an awesome way to start the week too) but anyways... In EPK-tattooland today, an awesome "one-shot" is a great way to start the week!!

Ladies and gentlemen .... I present to you the Thinking Hat!!
Some people out there might be interested in such a device (I now know a whole lot of American diplomats who should really look into getting one of these)!! Here's the original thinking hat, worn by it's inventor, Dr Thinky Van De Thought, on one of his many demonstrations! The thing is, however, that soon after inventing the said "smart-hat", Dr Van De Thought realized the full potential of the amazing device he had just created and decided not to share it with the rest of the world anymore and to keep it for himself! Therefore vanishing never to be seen again (which is directly linked to why the very existence of the wonderful "brain helping helmet" is mostly unknown to most commoners)! But for your eyes tonight, unveiled in all it's glory .... The myth, the legend ... The incredibly awesome Thinking hat >>>


Red/Black you know the drill ...





















A few hours later ...



AWESOME !!!!!
Once again the magic of Orange+Purple (the new Bluegrey) has proved unmatchable!!! Hope you like!





-However also in the news of the day >>>> Sadness ... Much sadness!




















Thank you so much for all the awesome times and the ever lasting laughs growing up, Mister Nielsen! I never got to tell you this but you were in many of my childhood classics! You will be missed very much!






Now if you don't mind... There are only 16 hours left before I have to start work again tomorrow and I have about 150 000 pages of Wikileaked awesomeness left to go through!!!

You can say what you want about that but never ever in our history have we ever been able to find out and learn so much, in such up to date and in depth secret information about how the people who rule this world for us work and function! For anyone who likes to know things, for anyone who likes to understand how the world functions, for anyone who doesn't like to be lied to by the people that decide for them, for anyone interested in the truth about things in the world that surround us, Wikileaks is a never before seen amazing opportunity! The Afghanistan and Iraq war files were incredible but these American administration foreign relations cables are pure gold!! This IS full democracy of knowledge!

So, dear Mister Asange: Even though you kinda sound like a douche, I thank you profoundly for making our world a lot clearer and helping uncover the stupidities and lies of our governments!! The very best of courage to you right now!! Having everyone's secret service desperate to find and stop you must be very stressful and well, just really suck!! But please don't stop and keep doing it as long as you can! The world desperately needs this more than it knows!!

And now my final yet huge thanks to Pfc. Bradley Manning who destroyed his career, will most probably end up cleaning toilets with a toothbrush for the rest of his life in a place probably much darker even than the Guantanamo bay "detainment facility", have a substantial amount of his countrymen call him a traitor and hate him forever and all of that for the sole purpose of giving us all the possibility to know!



















Thank you Mister Manning! If you make it out alive one day, you can get a free tat from me anytime!

The tiny paranoid kingdom Vs the imaginary dragon!

KIDS WHO DON'T LIKE TO SHARE THEIR TOYS END UP PLAYING ALONE!

I got some news a few days ago and have been regularly thinking about it ever since. I seem to be unable to shake it out of my head and just blindly go back on about my own busyness. So forgive me this outburst for a brief post but I find myself with no other choice than to have to rant this situation out of my system.

The story: My friend's husband is being deported from the said kingdom of Denmark!

The stats: She's Danish, he's American. They have been married for 8 years. Living in Denmark as an immigrant he has had to prove himself regularly, like in most other countries, to the said kingdom's local authorities and seems to have done an exemplary job at it. No criminal record, no involvement with anything that could potentially jeopardize his stay. Strictly abiding to all the requested demands. Got himself a good job and has been fulfilling his local economic contribution obligations (taxes) and cultural ones (obligatory language lessons) without any problems whatsoever. Pretty much an example of integration and a model immigrant. Except for the fact that this last week, he made the crucial mistake of completely forgetting, for the first time, about a regular check-up appointment with the kingdom's immigration authorities. The penalty for such an offense here in Denmark -Pack your shit, you have 48 hours to get out! We don't wanna hear about it! Ciao!

After so long. After such a good score sheet. No possibility of compromise (in this case re-scheduling the appointment) possible.

I've done my research in the last few days and the truth is that this shit happens pretty much on a regular basis over here. This one situation touches me more because it's about my friend but very similar stories keep popping up. Last month's top score was a family with kids being split up. I can't help but think (as a human being with a personal moral code and not as a box on a shelf) -Throwing out a mother and separating her from her kids within 48 hours for a missed appointment -Who the fuck does that?


So here's my rant, my outrage in words, my finger pointing, my immigrant's slap in the face not to the Danish citizens by birth who voted for Pia and her DF (the local protectionist xenophobe extreme right party which is actually part of the governing coalition here) who came up with these, and many other non-thought through, immigration laws. For they voted for what they believe in, whether what they believe in is responsible, an educated choice or politically relevant at all in today's world, is, sadly, the inevitable shortcomings of democracy and their birthright. But no! My rant is directed at all those (and I speak from experience knowing many) who would have leaned left, but who take their everyday luxurious pampered Danish way of life for granted and had better things to do than to go vote on the last election day (and probably other election days before that). Who by not voting allowed the crazies' votes to count more than they should have. Allowing the crazies seats in parliament. Not really caring much when the majority craving leading party struck an alliance (for the second time) with the said crazies enabling Pia and her posse to access power, to hijack the country's administration and the possibility to make up and push through ridiculous and nationally self destructive immigration laws such as the one above explained.

It's easy to say that it's Pia and her paranoid friends' fault but truly it's not! Every society has it's crazies, every society everywhere in the world has people desperate for attention who need to shout their opinions about political realities they obviously can't quite entirely grasp! These people are everywhere but it is who listens and agrees with the shallow populist speeches, who votes for and who doesn't vote against that enables these people to acquire positions where they're actually paid to come up with new laws such as the one above witnessed!

Given, this is my personal opinion. It is, however, backed by numerous facts about today's global realities, the facts that in every European country the population is aging rapidly and that to continue to secure today's quality of life, Denmark like many other European nations will have to accept very quickly the cold hard fact that it is actually desperate for immigrants! Right-wing populist anti-immigration rhetoric is, ultimately without foundation and inevitably nationally destructive.

If however, I'm horribly wrong, 100% of voters voted and the outcome of the last election represents exactly what today's Denmark wants in a rare show of democratic success! Then please forgive my mindless uneducated ranting and start fucking and making lots and lots of Danish babies quick cuz if you only want to be around your own, you're gonna need a lot more of your own very very soon!

My advice to my friend however is: Get the hell out of here as soon as you can! Why would one fight to stay somewhere where they're not wanted. There are so many other wonderful places in the world where the local authorities would be willing, with a slap on the wrist perhaps, to re-schedule an appointment!






Rant >>>> Over.

92 years ago ...

We finally ended, here in Europe, our disproportionate and never before seen atrocities... For a while at least!

Today is for those who fell then and ever after!

65 years ago ...

Round 2...







80,000 People




Cuz once wasn't enough ?

65 years ago ...

140,000 People








And if you have 5 minutes to waste ... Check this out !!!!! Absolutely mind boggling !

21 years ago , tonight !

Many innocents fell !


I'll skip the endless political Ploggings for today ... You know what I'm talking about !!
Today , in Hong Kong (the only place in China where people are allowed to (or at least can't be stopped for)) we remember !




Regular Ploggings tomorrow ... Promise !!