NOVEMBER 23, 2019 / 4:06 PM / UPDATED 17 HOURS AGO

Record turnout in Hong Kong local elections amid calls for full democracy

Clare Jim, Felix Tam (reuters.com)

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong residents turned out in huge numbers on Sunday to vote in district council elections seen as a test of support for chief executive Carrie Lam following six months of pro-democracy protests, and polling took place with no major disruptions.

Electoral affairs chief Barnabus Fung said at least 2.94 million people voted, a turnout rate of more than 71% and a record showing that appeared to have been spurred by the political turmoil. About 1.47 million voted in the last district elections four years ago.

First results began to trickle in after midnight.

Jimmy Sham, a candidate for the Civil Human Rights Front, which organised some of the anti-government rallies, won his contest and said the voter numbers should be a sign to the government that it should listen to their voices.

“This election is special because it is a formal confrontation between pro-establishment and pro-democracy parties after months of unrest caused by the misstep of government,” he told Reuters, standing on crutches weeks after he was beaten by men with hammers during a rally in October.

Casting her ballot, the Beijing-backed Lam pledged that her government would listen “more intensively” to the views of district councils in the Chinese-ruled city.

“I hope this kind of stability and calm is not only for today’s election, but to show that everyone does not want Hong Kong to fall into a chaotic situation again,” Lam said.

The district councils control some spending and decide issues such as recycling and public health. A record 1,104 candidates were vying for 452 seats.

If the pro-democracy campaigners gain control, they could secure six seats on Hong Kong’s semi-representative Legislative Council and 117 seats on the 1,200-member panel that selects its chief executive.

The protests started over a now-withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial but rapidly evolved into calls for full democracy, posing the biggest popular challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012.

They have at times forced the closure of government, businesses and schools as police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon in response to petrol bombs and rocks.

The run-up to the election was marked by attacks on candidates, with one stabbed and wounded and another having part of his ear bitten off.

Ming Lee, 26, who works in event production, said she hoped the higher turnout would benefit the pro-democracy camp that is battling some seats that were once uncontested and dominated by pro-Beijing candidates.Supporters of local candidate Kelvin Lam celebrate, after it was announced he won the local council elections in his district, at a polling station in the South Horizons West district in Hong Kong, China November 25, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

“I hope this vote can counter the voice of the pro-establishment, so as to bring in more voices from the democrats,” she said. “The social problems encouraged people to vote and to focus on political issues.”

Restaurant manager Jeremy Chan, 55, saw the elections as offering Beijing supporters a chance to share their opinions.

“They believe they are fighting for democracy, fighting for Hong Kong, but the rioters only listen to what they want to hear,” Chan said, citing vandalism of businesses seen as pro-Beijing. “Freedom of speech is lost.”

UNIVERSITY STAND-OFF

Sunday was also the seventh day of a stand-off at Polytechnic University, whose campus has been surrounded by police as some protesters hid out on the grounds.

“The district council election is almost like a referendum on recent months of social activity,” said a protester clad in a red university tracksuit, his face covered by a red mask.

“My personal liberty to vote has been violated,” said the protester, who said he feared being seized by police if he tries to escape from the campus.

Late on Sunday night paramedics and police were seen escorting a young man in a wheelchair from the campus.

A professor at the university said the man had been found, weak and alone, in one of the rooms on the sprawling site.

Demonstrators are angry at what they see as Chinese meddling in the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. They say they are also responding to perceived police brutality.Slideshow (24 Images)

China denies interfering and says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” formula for the autonomy of Hong Kong. Police say they have shown restraint in the face of potentially deadly attacks.

VOTER COMPLAINTS

Fung said there had been 3,638 complaints on Sunday, mostly related to the long queues at polling stations.

Well-known pro-democracy advocate Alexandra “Grandma” Wong, who was detained in the city of Shenzhen over the border from Hong Kong in August, said this was “the day that we are longing for”.

“Because I was detained in Shenzhen, my ballot has become a wasted paper. This breaks my heart. Please help add oil for me and vote. All the Best!!! Be Safe!!!” she wrote according to a message on the Lennon Wall protest movement Facebook page.

It was not clear for how long Wong, who became a fixture at protests carrying a large British Union Jack flag, was detained.

Speaking to supporters outside a polling station shortly before it was announced that he had lost in his challenge to a long-time incumbent, pro-democracy candidate Leung Kwok-Hung, known as “Long Hair”, said he was touched by the high turnout but that the political problems were far from solved.

“After the election is over, there is still a long road ahead… Hong Kong people need to continue to fight hard,” he said.

Reporting by Greg Torode, Sharon Tam, Sarah Wu, Scott Murdoch, Poppy McPherson, Clare Jim, Joyce Zhou, Jessie Pang, Twinnie Siu, Jessie Pang, Athit Perawongmetha and Aleksander Solum; Writing by Jamie Freed, Anne Marie Roantree, Nick Macfie and Josh Smith; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Frances KerryOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

‘The monkey is trapped not by anything physical, but by an idea, unable to see that a principle that served him well has become lethal’

Oliver Burkeman @oliverburkeman

19 Jun 2018 (theguardian.com)

In Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig’s bonkers-but-brilliant philosophical novel that turns 40 this year, he describes “the old South Indian Monkey Trap”. (I’m pretty sure it was never used to trap monkeys, but that’s par for the course with Pirsig; he doesn’t teach you much about motorbikes, either.) The trap “consists of a hollowed-out coconut, chained to a stake. The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole”. The monkey’s hand fits through the hole, but his clenched fist can’t fit back out. “The monkey is suddenly trapped.” But not by anything physical. He’s trapped by an idea, unable to see that a principle that served him well – “when you see rice, hold on tight!” – has become lethal. I’m not the first to note what a great metaphor this is for our paralysis in the face of climate change: we’re so rigidly attached to a certain notion of progress that we can’t let go when it turns against us. “The difficulty,” as Keynes put it, “lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.”

One striking example of Keynes’s point is what psychologists call the Einstellung effect, describing the way preconceptions can blind us, in almost a literal way, to better ways of doing things. In clever experiments by Merim Bilalic and his colleagues, chess masters were presented with a board arranged to offer them two paths to victory: a well-known five-move option, and a more obscure one, requiring three moves. Even these superb players often couldn’t see the best way to win, because the one they knew better colonised their minds. Later, those who’d missed the three-move solution were shown a similar board on which it was the only way to win. Now none had any problem seeing it.

The Einstellung effect seeps into every corner of existence, with potentially grave effects. When doctors make errors, it’s been demonstrated, it’s likely to be because they jump to conclusions based on past patients, not because they lack medical knowledge. If you were choosing between doctors, you’d surely never choose the less experienced one. Yet sometimes it’s precisely experience that gets in the way.

It’s tempting to despair. If amateurs make mistakes, and experts just make different mistakes, what hope is there of eliminating mistakes? But those chess experiments suggest a different conclusion. “At the highest level of expertise – Grand Master – it gets much harder to trip players up with the Einstellung effect; you can do it, but the less obvious solution has to be really difficult to find. It’s as if there were two kinds of expertise: one in which people are simply guided by experience, and a superior kind in which they’re hyper-aware of the limits of expertise itself. Zen Buddhists famously speak of “beginner’s mind”, and it can sound as if they’re recommending a state of dopey ignorance. But perhaps beginner’s mind is better thought of as this expertise that sees past the edges of expertise, to the ignorance beyond – which, if we don’t stay aware of it, can make a monkey out of any of us.

• oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com. Follow Oliver on Twitter.

Listening with the Third Ear

by Theodor Reik  ·   Listening with the Third Ear: The Inner Experience of a Psychoanalyst Book Description

Case histories are used to show that a psychoanalyst’s ability to understand and relate to his patients reflects his skills of self-observation and self-analysis

(Goodreads.com and Amazon.com)

Translators:  Mike Zonta, Melissa Goodnight, Richard Branam, Hanz Bolen

SENSE TESTIMONY:  Holding tightly to anything of value may prevent others from partaking of it.

5th Step Conclusions:

1)  Truth is all the same Consciousness holding onto Itself effortlessly, realizing It is the only Subject, the only Object, of infinite utility, all partaking of all without opposition.

2)  The Truth of all being, is One Infinite Consciousness — the limitless Singularity that is the Heart and Soul of every individuation, and that freely shares itself and fully shows itself, in every invaluable instant that arises in Awareness.

3)  Truth Retains, fully Occupies its Rulership, this Beholden Evaluation, Being the intensive Force of Gratitude, this observing impenetrable technician is the I AM ATOMIC POWER, I AM the Consciousness Aware Essence of Sharing myself, pure Androgynous, purely harmoniously balanced intimacy of All things, for the purely Pleasuring Principle.

4) I Am Truth, instantaneously possessing all, yielding strong healthy value, always expressing in abundant individuated harmonious pure clear integrity. Truth yields pure clear integrity besides which there is none else.

All Translators are welcome to join this group.  See Weekly Groups page/tab.

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lit the flame within us.”

–Albert Schweitzer 

Albert Schweitzer (January 14, 1875 – September 4, 1965) was an Alsatian polymath. He was a theologian, organist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran, Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of Jesus as depicted by the historical-critical method current at this time, as well as the traditional Christian view. Wikipedia

(Contributed by Anne Bollman, H.W., M.)

Anti-Defamation League Sacha Baron Cohen is the well-deserved recipient of ADL’s International Leadership Award, which goes to exceptional individuals who combine professional success with a profound personal commitment to community involvement and to crossing borders and barriers with a message of diversity and equal opportunity. Over 100 years ago Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote: “Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant.” Through his alter egos, many of whom represent anti-Semites, racists and neo-Nazis, Baron Cohen shines a piercing light on people’s ignorance and biases. https://www.adl.org/news/article/sach…

santobuenosaires Pride – Sprite

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