米高有話兒

用父親對頭人產品「說不過去」
蓋茨禁子女用iPhone 妻子罕有受訪 談教子女之道

(明報)3月4日 星期三 05:05
（上刪一千字，下刪幾百字，要看全文，自己去睇）

蓋茨禁止子女使用iPod，相信與iPod的產品質素無關。《新聞周刊》記者利維（Steven Levy）透露，2001年iPod上市前，他曾向蓋茨展示iPod，蓋次當時說﹕「這看來是優秀的產品。」蓋茨拍檔、微軟現任主席鮑爾 默（Steve Ballmer）2006年接受《財富》雜誌訪問時亦表示，自己沒用iPod，「我與孩子都沒用iPod，我已向孩子洗腦﹕你不可用Google，你不可用iPod」。

微軟走下坡的原因，就是因為那些高層。「你不可用Google，你不可用iPod！」天呀，你間巨無霸咁犀非利，點解你唔憑實力整得好過 Google, 好過 iPod，令你的孩子理所當然地唾棄 Google, 恥笑 iPod。用呢 D 低級的招素，我管你幾有威嚴，最多，咪淨係叫到自己的仔女唔去用，比你贏咗，好巴閉嗎？

現實就擺在眼前，Google 及 iPod 真是比 Microsoft TMD Zune 及 Live.com 好用得多嘛！為何不客觀地想想為何連親生骨肉都唔幫襯你，憑實力做好自家產品，立下決心要仔女不久將來將 iPod 放進紙皮箱，張 Google 從 Bookmark bar 刪掉！這樣，才贏得英雄、贏得光彩。

Always on the side of the egg
By Haruki Murakami

I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.

Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling them. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?

My answer would be this: Namely, that by telling skillful lies – which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true – the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.

Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.

So let me tell you the truth. A fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. Some even warned me they would instigate a boycott of my books if I came.

The reason for this, of course, was the fierce battle that was raging in Gaza. The UN reported that more than a thousand people had lost their lives in the blockaded Gaza City, many of them unarmed citizens – children and old people.

Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. This is an impression, of course, that I would not wish to give. I do not approve of any war, and I do not support any nation. Neither, of course, do I wish to see my books subjected to a boycott.

Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told. If people are telling me – and especially if they are warning me – “don’t go there,” “don’t do that,” I tend to want to “go there” and “do that.” It’s in my nature, you might say, as a novelist. Novelists are a special breed. They cannot genuinely trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.

And that is why I am here. I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing.

This is not to say that I am here to deliver a political message. To make judgments about right and wrong is one of the novelist’s most important duties, of course.

It is left to each writer, however, to decide upon the form in which he or she will convey those judgments to others. I myself prefer to transform them into stories – stories that tend toward the surreal. Which is why I do not intend to stand before you today delivering a direct political message.
Please do, however, allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: Rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:

“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”

Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?

What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.

This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: It is The System. The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others – coldly, efficiently, systematically.

I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on The System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories – stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.

My father died last year at the age of 90. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply-felt prayers at the Buddhist altar in our house. One time I asked him why he did this, and he told me he was praying for the people who had died in the war.

He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.

My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.

I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong – and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others’ souls and from the warmth we gain by joining souls together.
Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow The System to exploit us. We must not allow The System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: We made The System.

That is all I have to say to you.

I am grateful to have been awarded the Jerusalem Prize. I am grateful that my books are being read by people in many parts of the world. And I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak to you here today.

後記：

這是一個很值得我們去思考的問題：「如果要在萬丈堅牆與以卵擊石的雞蛋之間作選擇，你會站於那一邊？」我永遠也會選擇站在雞蛋那一邊。因為在面向世界時，其實每個人也只是弱得如一只雞蛋。真正的堅牆，是把我們分隔開的不同政權、不同體制和宗教。

三者也是人類創造出來，但不幸地，無數雞蛋正被那些堅牆壓得紛碎。

揭露非典（SARS）的入獄了。
揭露上海周正毅貪案的入獄了。
媒體因報導真相，給接管了。

還有很多單轟動全國的事件，揭露者最後也是入獄收場。原因是披露了真相，洩露 / 持有國家機密。但為何到今天還有人明知要坐牢還是要向公眾披露真相？因為這是 13億 條人命呀！如果中國沒有一班捨己為人的同志，將真相公開出來，你那個胡爺爺溫爺爺還可安然坐在這嗎？

維權者揭豆腐渣工程明受審
(明報)2月2日 星期一 16:10
內地維權人士黃琦的妻子表示，他因在四川 地震後揭露豆腐渣工程，被法院以「非法持有國家機密」罪名起訴。

45歲的黃琦目前被拘押於四川省。其妻子曾麗向路透社表示，剛於今天收到成都人民法院的通知，指黃琦會在明天（周二）受審，但她不知道自己是否可以出席聽審。

曾麗說，當局沒有具體指出黃琦的罪行是什麼，又拒絕向他或代表律師提供任何證據文件，令他們無法準備抗辯。她認為，黃琦是因為協助在震災中子女死於豆腐渣學校的父母申訴，而遭當局算帳。

「非法持有國家機密」的最高刑罰是入獄3年。

黃琦是維權網站「天網」的 創立人，之前也曾在2003年被判「煽動顛覆」罪成立而入獄，於2005年獲釋。

(路透社)

(明報)1月6日 星期二 05:05

【明報專訊】加沙爆發人道危機，連醫院也瀕臨無法運作。以軍高級官員聲稱，隨着以軍空襲炸毀了哈馬斯 幾乎所有的秘密藏身地，哈馬斯高層為防遭到空襲和轟炸，正穿上醫生們的白袍，裝扮成醫生和護理人員，隱藏在加沙地帶最主要的什法醫院中，繼續指揮作戰。雖然該名官員強調，「由於襲擊平民醫院將引發輿論和道義上的強大壓力，因此以色列 不會輕易對那裏發動空襲」，但並未明確排取進攻的可能性，令人關注以軍會否向醫院動手。

哈馬斯旗下的精銳「卡桑旅」聲稱，進入加沙東部和北部的以軍，損失慘重，以軍一支特種部隊遭到埋設的炸彈襲擊後，多人死傷，一輛以軍坦克試圖營救，結果有一輛坦克也被摧毀。

中新社

其實，有好多哈馬斯隊員可能假扮以色列人藏身起以色列境內，不如用坦克戰機火箭炮炸埋自己國家丫，斬草除根。全世界只有布殊支持以色列今次行動，因為佢正為油價下跌苦惱，就卸任又唔夠時間撩交打。身為德州油王家族生意要緊！好兄第幫佢一把，托返起個油價之餘，又可以幫美國試驗新武器，呢 D 叫 Win Win 雙贏。你睇布殊開記招果陣，忍笑忍得機辛苦，梗係啦，諗起不費自己一兵一卒臨走又賺一筆，飲得杯落啦佢，畜生。

王維基及張永霖親身示範了甚麼叫「赤膊上陣打真軍」，一同泡製好新聞，經個多少個年頭，亞視再次成為各傳媒追訪對像、市民茶餘飯後話題：

喂，老陳，咁係咪張永霖迫走王維基呀？
一睇都知係佢地做電訊果陣積怨，大家睇對方唔順眼啦！
呢鑊有戲睇囉！呵呵呵。

大佬，「有戲睇」呢三隻字，幾耐冇用過起亞視身上？就憑呢兩個做大戲，陳志雲就已經要靠邊站，才子濕吻話題迅速變OUT，佢地就係要証明俾亞視 D 人睇：香港人最想睇 D 乜，搵唔到去滿足佢地，就自己製做丫唔該。