Delayed
Due to the super typhoon, I am delayed in my departure by several days.
Of course, I found this out after I went to the airport.
Over lunch (by myself), I read a very cynical, but funny editorial from the Taipei Times.
It read:
"It is likely that the president will convene an emergency typhoon task force. For such occasions, the president and accompanying staff wear dramatically colored windbreakers and have important-looking name plates placed on their desks. This has become a bipartisan tradition as officials attempt to look as if they have matters under control.
But the reality is that prudent preparations for storms of this size — maintenance and testing of floodgates in the week before a storm hits, preliminary evacuations of senior citizens and young children from remote communities and exposed coastal and flood-prone towns — have not been taking place.
This is especially objectionable given the tendency of government officials in recent months to carpet forecasters at the weather bureau for not predicting the trajectories of storms to the nearest kilometer and rainfall to the nearest millimeter.
By and large the squat and ugly concrete structures that dominate rural architecture here serve residents well when typhoons and earthquakes strike, thus relieving the government of a degree of responsibility when things do go wrong. With luck, this will also be the case on this occasion."
Wow!
Delayed
Due to the super typhoon, I am delayed in my departure by several days.
Of course, I found this out after I went to the airport.
Over lunch (by myself), I read a very cynical, but funny editorial from the Taipei Times.
It read:
"It is likely that the president will convene an emergency typhoon task force. For such occasions, the president and accompanying staff wear dramatically colored windbreakers and have important-looking name plates placed on their desks. This has become a bipartisan tradition as officials attempt to look as if they have matters under control.
But the reality is that prudent preparations for storms of this size — maintenance and testing of floodgates in the week before a storm hits, preliminary evacuations of senior citizens and young children from remote communities and exposed coastal and flood-prone towns — have not been taking place.
This is especially objectionable given the tendency of government officials in recent months to carpet forecasters at the weather bureau for not predicting the trajectories of storms to the nearest kilometer and rainfall to the nearest millimeter.
By and large the squat and ugly concrete structures that dominate rural architecture here serve residents well when typhoons and earthquakes strike, thus relieving the government of a degree of responsibility when things do go wrong. With luck, this will also be the case on this occasion."
Wow!