Hong Kong's Mel Lastman

In the first couple of months, I was still checking cbc.ca and the Toronto Star for the latest Toronto and/or Canadian news. But more and more, I have just been grabbing my SCMP (South China Morning Post) at the MTR (subway) station with a beep of my Octopus card and reading it on the way to work.

The front page of the SCMP the other day was a story about the upcoming 4 June anniversary of the Tiannamen Square protests and subsequent killings of student protestors by the Chinese army. Donald Tsang, Hong Kong's Chief Executive Officer, said this in the Legislative Council, "I understand Hong Kong people's feelings about June 4, but the incident happened many years ago. The country's development in many areas has since achieved tremendous results and brought economic prosperity to Hong Kong."

You can imagine that the other members the legislature went ballistic.

So basically he's saying that as long as the economy is doing well, then we shouldn't worry too much about those people who were murdered and their families who want justice. I wonder what the Jewish population has to say about that cuz it's kind of like saying "oh let's just forget about the Holocaust because it was so long ago and look! the Germans have done great things for the world...love their cars!"

And then the buffoon realised that he made a mistake and tried to backtrack and said, "My view represents the opinion of Hong Kong people in general, and the opinion of citizens has affected my view. What I have just said is how I feel about the views of the people of Hong Kong."

What an ass.

I talked with some colleagues and friends here in HK about it and apparently this Chief Executive Officer has a screw loose. There is no social filter and he doesn't think about the repercussions of what he says. I asked my colleagues if he had a speech writer and they say that he does, this very clever woman who writes very appropriate speeches for him but he thinks that he is smart enough not to use them and he ad-libs!

All I want to know is how in hell does people like that get into power?

I wasn't going to go to Victoria Park (a prominent park in HK) for a vigil for the murdered students of Tianneman but we are sure as hell going to go now.