Today, grim news was released concerning the privacy of internet users in Hong Kong. Roughly translated, the Chinese passage below cites that the High Court has ordered major internet service providers to release information of customers using peer-to-peer software to download songs. It is a concern that this breach of privacy (requiring release of name and address details) will be to the detriment of many people in Hong Kong.

高等法院頒令4家互聯網服務供應商，向唱片公司提供22個涉以點對點技術，向7家唱片公司提供非法上下載歌曲的網民的真實姓名及居住地址，而有關資料只能用於訴訟。

Ming Pao

I was sent an email recently of a poem purported to be from a terminally ill girl in a New York Hospital. Of course, the actual facts don’t matter – just the message. With a luxury of choice, knowing the unknown uncertainties of life, she proceeds:

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask How are you?
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say,”Hi”
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

Often, we hear such things as “slow down”, “there’s more to life”, but what does it matter – people need to do other things to keep the clock going – to prolong life so they can actually realise it. Balance is key, and there is no substitute for a loved one’s support and your own dedicated willpower. Something that no one can take away. Your manager may drive you crazy, but then it isn’t till you slap him round the face that he realises that his wife has eloped and children gone on drugs. Life can be like that. Be inspired: visit inspiration.

JUST IN: Chile and Liberia get their first women presidents ahead of human rights advocate – the United States of America.
Michelle Bachelet of Chile, a Socialist, vowed on Monday to shrink the gap between rich and poor that persists in the South American nation despite lower poverty and a thriving economy.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia took the oath of office at a ceremony attended by thousands of her compatriots, African leaders and top-ranking representatives from further afield including the United States. With a degree from Harvard University, the eight-time grandmother and divorced mother of four has worked at Citibank, the UN Nations Development Program, the World Bank, the Soros Foundation and the influential International Crisis Group think-tank.
While the USA has perhaps the longest lineage of presidents, they have all been men. No complaint there, since men can be good too, but it just seems funny that younger democratic nations have opted for the female before the USA, land of rights advocates.