Another Day, Another Protest on China\'s Edges

HONG KONG- Another day, another sophisticated and wealthy Chinese-speaking city and another demonstration against China â€" outside the Chinese mainland, since the authorities there don't permit protests.
On New Year's Day it was Hong Kong's turn, after Taipei's rally on New Year's Eve, which I wrote about yesterday.

In Hong Kong on Tuesday, tens of thousands of people marched through downtown toward the government headquarters, calling for universal suffrage and for the leader, Leung Chun-ying, to step down, as my colleague Keith Bradsher reports.

Driving both the Taipei and the Hong Kong protests are worries about the loss of freedoms in the face of an increasingly wealthy, yet authoritarian China, while local events were th e immediate catalyst. In Taipei, concerns focused on the construction of media monopolies while in Hong Kong, on the trustworthiness and independence of the city's political leader.

As Mr. Bradsher wrote of the Hong Kong marchers: “Critics of the chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, accuse him of misleading the public on a controversial real estate issue, and of being a puppet installed by Beijing.”

Reflecting that, they carried giant posters of Mr. Leung as Pinocchio with a long, skinny nose, or as a wolf with vulpine teeth (his fiercest critics here call him “the wolf.”)

Yet thousands of people also rallied to support Mr. Leung. Police figures put the pro-Leung crowd at 8,560, while they put the anti-Leung crowd at 28,500. Organizers gave far higher estimates: 62,500 and 142,000, respectively.

There was some mystery about the identities of the pro-Leung marchers. Cheng Yiu-tong, a prominent politician who helped organize the Hong Kong Celebrati ons Association's pro-Leung march, said they represented the “silent majority” of Hong Kong people.

Yet as the South China Morning Post noted: “While marchers opposed to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying were eager to declare their reasons for protesting, many of the thousands who turned out in a show of support for the administration were reticent,” with some participants replying “no comment' when asked to explain their endorsement of Leung.

The SCMP wasn't sure why, but suggested that one possible motivation: they had been paid to show up, presumably by pro-China forces, though the newspaper didn't spell that out.

“An investigation by online news portal The House News, which sent reporters undercover to join the rally, suggested one possible motive â€" cash handouts of $250 Hong Kong dollars,” (about 32 U.S. dollars,) given, surreally, “by an operative hiding inside a portable toilet.”

However the newspaper noted that marchers questioned about the cash payout denied it, emphasizing they were “self-motivated.”

Fifteen years after Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, calls for universal suffrage are common here. But adding a definite frisson to the marches was a small but growing pro-independence group numbering in their hundreds, perhaps thousands, who carried two flags: the pre-1997 colonial Hong Kong flag, and an altered version of that which retained the “dragon and lion” emblem, symbolizing China and Britain, but removed the Union Jack, Britain's flag.

The latter flag is the rallying point of the Hong Kong City-State Autonomy Movement, which has a Facebook page and a Web site. I spoke to Fred Ng, who was carrying a blue, pre-1997 colonial flag. What did it mean to him?

“I think the old, British-ruled Hong Kong was better than today,” said Mr. Ng, a 30-something, online retailer. “People had a chance to buy a flat, get a job, to say their own things. But now there's less and less freedom,” he said. “Rich people control Hong Kong and citizens can't afford to stay.”

Didn't the flag symbolize colonial humiliation, as Chinese authorities have said? “I don't think it's a problem,” he said. “I think now we still have colonialism. Before it was the British government, now it is the Communist government.”

Christina, 30, who asked her second name not be used for fear of retaliation, sat on a road divider holding a large, 1 by 2-meter “autonomy movement” flag. It was significant that the movement had removed the Union Jack and added, in Chinese, the words “香港,”or Hong Kong â€" it showed their allegiance to their local identity, she said.

“We took off the British symbol because we are not ruled by Britain. We want Hong Kong to be ruled by Hong Kong people, by ourselves,” she said. But on balance, before was better, she said.

“Before we were ruled by a modern, British state. Now we are ruled by a politically underdeveloped government,” she said.

Prominent Chinese former officials with special responsibility for Hong Kong have sharply criticized the autonomy movement, calling its adherents “sheer morons” and warning it was “spreading like a virus” and must be handled firmly, the SCMP reported late last year.

Is America Still the Land of Opportunity?

Millions of immigrants head to the United States each year. And millions more would if they could get a visa. Yet, more and more Americans complain of a sense that the cards are stacked against the middle class - and, more devastatingly, its children.

It's not just sky-high college costs, especially compared to Western European universities, or the substantial difference between the amount of state support in Europe and the United States of everything from healthcare to childcare to education - whether Europe's social generosity is sustainable over the long term or not.

Many Americans - both in the United States and abroad - are concerned that the heart of The American Dream, the belief that, as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice often puts it, in America “it doesn't matter where you come from, but where you're going,” is less and le ss true.

A provocative set of statistics in a column by New York Times opinion contributor Steven Rattner makes the case.

Over the last decade or two, the American middle has been hollowed out, with an affluent, well-educated class growing on one side of the divide and a poor and working-class majority on the other, faced with limited opportunities to change their circumstances.

Not unlike the view that many Americans have of a traditional European lack of social and economic mobility: if your father was a farmer or a factory worker, chances are you will be a farmer or a factory worker.

One of the most eye-popping statistics reported by Mr. Rattner, is that a href=”opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/america-in-2012-as-told-in-charts/”> 93 percent of all income growth in the U.S. in 2010 went to the top 1 percent of Americans. And 37 percent went to the top .01 perce nt. He writes:

Also astonishing: just 15,000 households received 37 percent of all of those income gains. In no other period in recent American history have economic gains been concentrated so disproportionately in an elite sliver.

And the partially approved deal meant to avert the so-called fiscal cliff - if approved - would do little to slow America's increasing wealth disparity.

What do you think? What is the future of The American Dream? Whether you are an immigrant, an expat or a global citizen, do you believe in The American Dream? Is there something different about the United States than other societies? Has the once-American dream been exported to developing nations and their growing middle classes?

What to Watch for in Europe in 2013

LONDON - New Year predictions, like New Year resolutions, are probably best avoided.

François Hollande, the French president, was perhaps tempting fate when he told his fellow citizens in a New Year message that everything would be done to reverse the growth in unemployment by the end of 2013.

And Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron may have been offering a hostage to fortune when he assured Britons, “We are on the right track.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to better reflect the zeitgeist when she told fellow Germans, “We still need a lot of patience. The crisis is far from over.”

The economy dominated in Eur ope in 2012. But it could have been worse. Despite pessimistic forecasts at the start of the year, the euro did not crash and burn.

So what is in store for 2013?

Predictions aside, here are a few developments to watch in Europe and nearby:

As Ms. Merkel says, Europe's economic crisis is far from over. The economy will continue to be issue number one. On one hand, Europe will have to break a downward spiral for countries on its Southern tier: their contracting economies making it ever hard to escape debt and rekindle growth. And Europe will have to pray that France doesn't become the next front in that fight.

“Europe still has plenty to worry about. Economic output is shrinking in nine of the 17 nations that use the euro. European banks remain weak, and many have yet to confront their problems decisively,” my colleague Jack Ewing reported on Sunday.

There will be the fight over the E.U. budget that was kicked down the road till this spring. And concerns that Great Britain could eventually be heading for a “Brexit.” Prime Minister Cameron is expected to reaffirm that he will seek to claw back powers that have been passed to Europe and that he is prepared to hold a national referendum on E.U. membership after the next British election.

And there is still the financing of all the E.U. bailouts - Greece and company - where European leaders will have to convince their citizens to stay the course.

No citizens will be more important than the Germans. 2013 is an election year in Germany and Italy. Ms. Merkel is favored to retain the chancellorship in the face of what my colleague Nicholas Kulish has described as the gaffe-prone campaign of Peer Steinbrück, her Social Democratic Party rival.

In Italy, Mario Monti, the prime minister, will face the electorate in February as a politician rather than a technocrat, as Silvio Berlusconi, his predecessor, hovers in the wings. The center-left Democratic Party is favorite to win, with Mr. Monti tipped as possible finance minister in a new coalition.

Europeans will also be watching elections developments in Israel and Iran. The outcomes will affect the current standoff over Iran's alleged nuclear weapon program after a year in which an Israeli military strike was at times predicted as imminent.

The Europeans have staked everything on firming up sanctions in a policy aimed as much at restraining Israel as it was at curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions.

As my colleagues David E. Sanger and James Risen recently reported, there are signs Iran wants to avoid a direct confrontation and is now more interested in a deal to end the standoff.

At the start of the New Year, the civil war in Syria remains unresolved, while other potential conflicts are looming on Europe's periphery.

Mali is likely to be in the news as Western and fellow African states struggle to resolve how to deal with a crisis provoked by an Islamist takeover of the north of the cou ntry.

An international intervention might not be ready to deploy there until September. But look out for action earlier than that if France, in particular, perceives the need to counter what many see as a potential terrorist threat to Europe from the Islamist regime there.

Bright Passages (Humor Division)

In the right place and in the right hands, a flash of humor can be a powerful tool in our writing.

Understatement is effective, and we're not looking for belly laughs. It's important for editors to serve as a skeptical audience, lest a writer's wit seem witty mostly to the writer. But here are a few recent examples where an amusing incongruity made a sharp point. And if readers smiled, so much the better.

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National, 11/29:

Despite Powerball Odds, A Mad Rush to the Registers

NEW ORLEANS - All across this recession-weary country on Wednesday, Americans of every rank and station lined up at convenience stores and delis, placed their hard-earned dollars on countertops and took part in a venerated national tradition: trying to get really rich without doing anything. …

Most of the buyers interviewed on Wednesday ackn owledged that their chances were not especially good.

A standard practice in news media coverage is to compare lottery odds unfavorably with odds of dying in peculiar ways (shark attack, lightning), but even that morbid exercise does not do justice to the long shot. The odds of picking the winning numbers in Wednesday's drawing were longer than the odds of picking an American man completely at random and having him happen to be Alan Alda.

Campbell Robertson brought wit and some journalistic self-awareness to the predictable story about lottery mania. And his “Alan Alda” reference was perfect in its randomness, much more effective than the predictable “George Clooney” illustration in the source he linked to.

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Sports, 11/29:

Firing a Coach, at a Price, With Little Evidence the Move Pays Off

For an especially lucrative occupation, one might consider becoming a fired college football coach.

We should all be so lucky, as Jeré Longman's arch lead and well-reported story made clear.

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Business, 10/22:

Fresh Windows, but Where's the Start Button?

It took Mr. McCarthy several minutes just to figure out how to compose an e-mail message in Windows 8, which has a stripped-down look and on-screen buttons that at times resemble the runic assembly instructions for Ikea furniture.

A truly apt, if idiosyncratic, allusion in Nick Wingfield's story, and “runic” was the perfect word on many levels.

 
Number Trouble

W e're still struggling to keep those subjects and verbs in accord. In many cases, sharper and less convoluted sentences would keep us on track. And copy editors, your writers are counting on you to save them!

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On clear days, the white peaks of Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain after Everest and K2, floats over the hilltop city like an ethereal fortress.

The intervening nouns seem to have thrown us off track. Make it “peaks … float.”

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He and his writers broke news, sent shrapnel into many subject areas with provocative, opinionated copy and was part of the notorious pilfered iPhone 4 story that had law enforcement officials breaking down doors on Apple's behalf.

We lost the agreement thread before reaching the final element in the compound predicate. Make it “he and his writers … were part.”

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Republicans have strenuously oppose d any increase in capital gains rates, and the notion that low rates on capital gains promotes economic growth is an article of faith for many conservatives, even though the empirical evidence is inconclusive.

Make it “low rates … promote” or “having low rates promotes.”

 
In a Word

This week's grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.

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Ammar, whom Mr. Boal has said is a composite, looks as if he has been beaten.

Make it “who,” the subject of “is.”

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Sitting for an interview with Ami, a Jewish magazine, Mr. Hynes gave the side of his hand to “some absolute clown at The Daily News” who had written editorials criticizing his inaction on the Hasids.

The Times's stylebook calls for “Hasidim” as the plural.

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While other rookies may be hitting the p roverbial wall, he said he feels as though his season has barely begun.

Make it “felt as though he season had barely begun” (sequence of tenses). Also, let's be wary of “proverbial,” which appeared five times in the last seven days. It is often the warning sign of a cliché.

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But it is clear that for Mr. Obama, giving up on Ms. Rice's appointment was far different than accepting the resignation of David H. Petraeus, his C.I.A. director, or firing Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, his commander in Afghanistan.

Unless what follows is a full clause, make it “different from.”

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After six years in business, her clothes are sold in nearly 100 stores, she has designed a licensed collection of eyewear, and this week, she introduced a fragrance of her own, a limited-edition scent that is a collaboration with Barneys New York.

Dangler. Her clothes have not been in business for six years. Rephrase.

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As a boy, heart problems kept him from attending school regularly, though he became an avid reader with a particular passion for astronomy.

Another dangler. Rephrase.

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That is between 34 to 48 times what Bergman was paid for sharing top billing with Humphrey Bogart.

Make it “between 34 and 48.”

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No doubt, he was one of the few mechanical engineers who not only was aware of Faulkner's immortal line - “The past is never dead. It's not even past” - but also understood what it meant.

Recorded announcement: “who” refers to the plural “engineers” in this construction, and so requires a plural verb in the relative clause.

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The original musical became a word-of-mouth sensation in 1974 for the nudity and sexual frankness on stage at the Village Gate, where it ran for two-and-a-half years before movi ng from Greenwich Village to Broadway's Morosco Theater in June 1976.

No hyphens needed in this phrase.

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Such frustrations are typical in Venezuela, for rich and poor alike, and yet President Hugo Chávez has managed to stay in office for nearly 14 years, winning over a significant majority of the public with his outsize personality, his free-spending of state resources and his ability to convince Venezuelans that the Socialist revolution he envisions will make their lives better.

Here, too, the hyphen is unnecessary. It would only be needed if the phrase were a modifier, e.g. “his free-spending policies.”

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But his name did not appear on the State Department's list of most wanted militants, and his role and stature inside Al Qaeda was not clear.

“Were,” not “was.”

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska - In a conversation with homicide investigators befo re his suicide in jail this week, Israel Keyes said he had lived much of his life thinking that people only pretended to be nice.

Anchorage stands alone in datelines, according to the stylebook. (This was fixed for later editions and Web.)

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But it marks a new phase of American engagement in a bitter conflict that has claimed at least 40,000 lives, threatened to destabilize the broader Middle East and defied all outside attempts to end it.

As the stylebook cautions, “Resist the journalese use of mark to mean signify and, even more, to mean is or are.”

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In Paris 29 years later, she sung the part in her farewell opera appearance.

Make it “sang.”

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The State Department has no policy that forbids former diplomats from lobbying on behalf of nations where they served or returning to them them for profit, beyond the one applying to federal employees as a whole, wh ich prohibits senior officials from contacting agencies where they once worked for one year and bans all federal employees for life from advising on the same matters.

Aside from the fact that this sentence is overstuffed, the correct phrasing is “forbids … to lobby,” not “forbids … from lobbying.”

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But the speed with which the court moved also raised the possibility of a split decision, one that would provide federal benefits to same-sex couples married in states that allow such unions but would permit other states to forbid gay and lesbian couples from marrying.

Ditto. Make it “forbid … to marry.”