Andrew To
Andrew To
Andrew Tois a member of the Wong Tai Sin District Council, Hong Kong. Of Hakka ancestry, he is the former chairman of League of Social Democrats from 2010 to 2011, succeeding Wong Yuk-man. His wife, Jackie Hung, was a leader of Civil Human Rights Front and Justice and Peace Commission of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese...
dreamer five haphazard harold learnt poets published reader taken terrifying
Long before I was a writer, when I was just a haphazard reader and a dreamer of stories, I learnt about an influential book by Harold Bloom. 'The Anxiety of Influence', published in 1973 when I was five years old, is taken up with the terrifying influence of poets on each other.
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I probably owe my political dismay to New Labour, but also my growing sense that the satirical shape of human affairs is international and historical, not glued to the tawdry ambitions of a team of politicians who represent nothing but themselves.
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Long before the arrival of reality TV - before speed cameras, before recording angels on buses and lampposts - I felt I was living in a country that already knew how to watch itself. It was journalism that held the responsibility for seeing who we were and noticing what we did.
blank conscience further happening people response soapbox wakes
A theatre is not a blank page for editorial, it is not a soapbox or a Tannoy system: it is a conscience that wakes with what is happening in the space, and wakes further still in response to what people are making of it.
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When you grow up by the sea, you spend a good deal of time looking at the horizon. You wonder what on Earth the waves might bring - and where the sea might deposit you - until one day you know you have lived between two places, the scene of arrival and the point of departure.
man wanting
I didn't start out angry. I started out a young man wanting adventure.
contest produces trial truth
A trial is not a search for truth. It is a contest and, often, one that produces no winners.
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I did criminal defense work part-time, and that paid the bills for representing abused and neglected children... and for defending in juvenile court those kids the 'child protective system' had missed when it had the chance.
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The sweetest thing I could say about my mother and father is that if I had the choice, I would have picked them. But I don't have any belief in biology or DNA as compelling conduct. The idea that we owe people something because we're related to them is bizarre. But the idea that we owe something because of their conduct towards us is legitimate.
either
Without question, I've either got to be a writer, or I fail.
internet piece prey society technology
There is no Constitutional right to prey on others. The Internet is just a piece of technology, like the telephone. Society has the right to modify its uses.
In some neighborhoods, if you want to walk down the streets, you've got two choices - look down, or look hard.
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Ask any experienced defense lawyer: the real risks are for an accused person who is innocent. A guilty defendant has many more options available.
pulse takes tells truth
Crime takes the pulse of a culture. It tells us the truth about us as a species.