Yesterday’s step on the road to serfdom: the banning of satire on RTHK. The broadcaster’s sin was to hurt the feelings of our hypersensitive police. To get the point across, the government is forcing the station to kneel on broken glass and apologize.
Criticism of the HK Police – in case you didn’t hear about the IPCC whitewash-report – is now officially forbidden.
As Voltaire, George Orwell, Winnie the Pooh and countless other cultural giants throughout history showed, dictators can’t handle mockery. It bursts a bubble of pretence and exposes their ludicrousness. (For some vivid and brutal ludicrousness-exposing, watch these lip-synching comediennes do Donald Trump and UK Home Secretary Priti Patel. Can someone do a Carrie Lam?)
Thus Beijing insists on a law criminalizing parodies of the national anthem. Commies can’t withstand satire. You know what to do…
Who would have thought a humble trade publication could be such a source of entertainment? PRovoke dishes up more on the Hong Kong government’s attempts to hire a public relations agency to improve the city’s image. This time, an outfit called MSL have pulled out of the tender.
It seems MSL were providing the required local presence in conjunction with Washington DC sister company Qorvis, who have what the MSL HK boss calls ‘similar experience’, which may or may not refer to one of the scummiest clients imaginable – Saudi Arabia. PRovoke hints that perhaps reaction here in Hong Kong, not only online but among MSL’s own staff, convinced the firm to back off.
Interesting: PR agencies are not democracies, but employees have a veto if they consider a potential client obnoxious enough. (Which reminds me: how’s the Hong Kong government’s campaign to nurture a creative-industries hub-zone going?)
At the other end of the PR challenge-scale… Can you imagine a country so cool that the front-man for a rock band is also an elected lawmaker, and they played a concert in front of the Presidential Palace as part of the last election campaign? Well, the official video of the concert (which was last December) is released tonight to celebrate Tsai Ing-wen’s inauguration. It’s at 10.00pm here. The bad news is that Chthonic – for it is they – is a death metal band, so adjust volume according to taste.
The point about the HK Police is well taken. However, the pro-democracy/pro-independence camp are also lacking on the sense-of-humour front. In fact they trigger super easily. If you disagree with them they’ll have a tantrum, call you names and quite possibly douse you in paint. If you are really unlucky, they’ll set you on fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HdOHrc3OQ
@Reactor #4
They might also kill you by stoving your head in with a brick.
@Reactor #4
At least you won’t have to worry about brain damage
Douse you in paint like the CCP stooge who threw red pint on the hk bookseller in Taiwan? sure.
Taiwanese MP Freddy Lim is not the first lead vocalist of a rock band to be elected to Parliament, as fans of Australia’s Midnight Oil will know. Sonny Bono (of Sonny and Cher) was also a Congressman in the US.
Reactor
I think you’ll find that the full infinitive of the verb is “to stave in”, and that, accordingly, the present participle thereof is “staving in”.
“To stove in” does not exist and, accordingly, you cannot kill anyone by “stoving in” their head – with a brick or otherwise.
You really aren’t very bright, are you?
Reactionary #4: So it’s rank whataboutism now, is it? Ah, yes, the rhetorical flourish of the truly desperate. As if everyone and her dog don’t understand the principle of proportionality here: Sure, the few really bad things done by protesters are legitimately prosecutable, but do you have the countless hours needed to document the verbal and physical assaults, the beatings, the breaking of bones, the gushers of blood, the poisoning, the intimidation of children, the….oh, etc., etc. committed by the police? Who are then taken off the hook for all of their crimes by a corrupt and transparently phony investigation?
Regrettably, a stove upside the head probably wouldn’t bring you to your senses.
Let’s hear it for Steve!
My point about the rabble and the rabble’s supporters is now proven – totally devoid of humour. I cannot imagine how terrible it would be being sat next to any of you lot on a long-haul flight. You’d probably all squirm if I asked for an extra G&T, or thought that I was dreaming about dragging on a fag in the toilet.
@ R-4
It’s lucky we have you then to give us all a laugh a minute. WAFI
Rectum no 4
As someone sufficiently addicted to smoking to “dream of dragging on a fag” in a plane toilet, you clearly (literally) smell, most unpleasantly.
R4: It’s all just a joke, just a lark, just a troll to you? God, what a hollow shell of a sentient being you are.