I like news. I start my morning reading a newspaper. Besides “reading” thecity1.com, I subscribe to one daily newspaper and one weekly, and I receive one weekly at no cost. I regularly watch fact-telling news commentators on one channel. Throughout the day, my phone alerts me to Yahoo news feeds. Reading International coverage in the Quad-City Times keeps me connected on a world level. But, I no longer read any article describing what our President says or does. I now ascribe to that vague, graffiti inscription painted on the back of Melania Trump’s anorak: “I really don’t care. Do you?” Some days I do not finish reading the political vitriol in headlines and editorials. I realize if I do, that obnoxious thought will be in my head, for who knows how long!
In the Quad-City Times on Sunday, November 29, 2020, I saw an aerial photo of people who were crammed in a room and fighting. No athletic event, political rally, or bar, this scene. I would have turned the page, save for the astonishing headine! “Lawmakers (who?) in Taiwan Throw (what?) Pig Guts, Punches” (why? where did they obtain pig guts? how did they transport them? is this a “thing’ in Taiwan when Congress members disagree?) I needed to know.
It was an intriguing title, and I could not fail to read a few paragraphs about this parliamental nonsense. “Lawmakers in Taiwan got into a fist fight and threw pig guts at each other Friday, [November 27,] over a soon-to-be-enacted policy that would allow imports of U. S. pork and beef.” There was the hook.
Premier Su Tseng-chang was set to report about the policy, “when opposition party lawmakers from the Nationalist party (KMT) blocked his attempt… by dumping bags of pig organs. Legislators from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party attempted to stop them, resulting in chaos and an exchange of punches. A DPP lawmaker wrestled a KMT lawmaker to the floor in the scuffle.”
Imagining describing to the family over dinner that night how your day had gone. There was a health issue behind the lawmakers’ icky, inane behavior.
In August, the Taiwanese President’s administration lifted a long-standing ban on imports of U. S. pork and beef; it will be lifted in January 2021. It is not simply about the sale of meat. This policy is seen as one of the first steps toward possibly negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the U. S. KMT and individual citizens oppose this, because the policy allows imports of pork with acceptable residues of ractopamine, a drug some farmers add to animal feed to promote the growth of lean meat.
On Friday KMT legislators wore t-shirts that read “Oppose Ractopamine-Pork.” Thousands marched in protest Sunday,
I feel fortunate to have legislators who would never stoop to this slimey, low level of discord. But, sometimes, the stuff that comes out of a few lawmakers’ mouths will forever remind me of pig guts.