Capital Punishment Must Be Advocated

By Hsu Hsin I

  Retaining capital punishment is in order to curb crime, and thus capital punishment has been retaining in criminal law for long time. In addition to deter crimes, capital punishment can also prevent criminals from committing crimes once again. Therefor, Taiwan has to advocate for death penalty to deter crime rate.

  To discuss whether Taiwan government should advocate capital punishment or not, I extremely support our government retain this criminal law. First of all, death penalty has an effect on the social environment include limit people’s behavior and prevent people from commit felonious crime. Second, when criminals are sentenced to death, it warns both criminals and people that no one could violate and flout law. 

  According to some science research, people never change. “Personality is part of our biology. Life events still influence our behaviors, yet we must acknowledge the power of personality in understanding future behavior as well.” Christopher Nave, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside, said. For instance, criminals who use to do larceny crime would never change unless they are sentenced to death. That is to say, death penalty may not control everyone’s thoughts, but it still limits people’s behavior, trying to force them follow the rules.  

  The criminal in murder case at Huashan grassland was sentenced to death in the beginning. However, the judge sentenced the murderer to life imprisonment in second instance because he turned himself in. This judgement was hard to convince both crime victim and most of people because the man who murdered and dismembered the victim should not be forgiven at all. People could not be convinced by the judgement because the criminal did commit sexual assault and dismember crime, which had to sentence to death in criminal law.

  The judgement report in April 7th, 2020 of Huashan dismember case reminds people again how important death penalty is, and it has to be advocated in our criminal law. People all knows that without carrying out capital punishment to criminals who deserve it, there would be more people try to break law and imitate criminal offence. Capital punishment, the most severe punishment has to retain for its effect of crime prevention and warns people do not violate law.

The Potential Virus: No Viewer Is Innocent

By Odelette Wang

According to the investigation of the Nth Room Scandal, more than 260,000 people in South Korea had watched these videos, and more than 10,000 women had been treated as sexual slaves. There’s an analogy that there are about 260,000 taxis in Korea, meeting a Nth room member is as frequent as seeing a taxi on the street.

The audience is not innocent. If they do not regularly upload their own pornographic video, they will be kicked out of the chat room. Some chat rooms will charge viewers up to 1.5 million won for the viewing fee. In the meantime, the personal information of the victims, including their schools and work places, will also be made known to the viewers as membership bonus. It can be said that these viewers are like potential viruses. In the beginning, they watch videos out of curiosity. After receiving the victims’ information, which could trigger their animal nature, they are likely to become rapists in real life. Among the 260,000 members who entered the Nth room, there are community service workers, policemen and senior officials who are obliged to secure people’s lives and safety.

It was alarming that when the Nth Room Scandal came to light, the disgusting devils who regard women as playthings felt that they are vilified. Even now, a multitude of people excuse those perverted acts in terms of “I watch whatever I want” or “protect subculture”. Of course, there’s no shame in meeting physical needs. The shame lies in is that countless rapes and sexual abuses in the Nth Room are targeted at teenagers or even infants; it is a sex crime. It is a pity that until now many people have not realized the essence of the Nth Room. Instead, they promoted victim-blaming, kept slut-shaming to those women, and insisted that viewers are innocent. Silent onlooking is already a crime, not to mention that they constantly upload crime videos in order to stay in the chat room. Once entering the Nth Room, they are not only the audience, but have become active bloodthirsty beasts. They are the next GodGod, the next Watchman, and the next Doctor. In this extremely secretive transmission, not a specific woman is persecuted, but all women have been discriminated.

In addition to those 260,000 viewers, the opinions from the outside are thought-provoking. Apart from the distortion of the organizer’s human nature, the indifference of the netizens indicates that there’s something wrong with the whole society. If you enter the keyword “the Nth Room” on Weibo, there will be a bunch of people jump out, claiming that they have relevant video clips. It seems that while most people cry out against the criminals, there are still a few people vying to be one of the 260,000. This is just ironic! In this patriarchal society, women are always being judged, objectified, and treated as prey the dark desire of men, while men are always being covered up, forgiven, and win the compromise from women.

If these cold-blooded viewers are not exposed one by one, it will be cruel to the victims and it will also have an extremely negative influence on the public. A lenient sentence is an encouragement for the next crime. The Nth Room is only one step away.

In a Patriarchal Society, Any Woman, Any Homosexual Can Be the Next Victim

By Ciou Peiyi 

Since the coronavirus(covid-19) outbreak, it’s been three months. During these days , things that makes us afraid not just virus, but also – Nth-Room case in Korea

It has been three months since the first outbreak of the Coronavirus (Covid-19). While the whole world is still in shock, another knocker comes to deal another blow—the Nth Room Sex Scandal in South Korea.

The Nth Room Sex Scandal was a digital crime committed via a software program--Telegram, which provides a cloud-based and real-time system of text and voice messaging service. Sex video clips are illegally shared in categories labeled from the “1st Room” up to the “8th Room,” hence the name of the scandal—the Nth Room. There was even a “Doctor’s Room” in additional to the aforementioned 8 rooms. The 8 rooms were maintained by God God; the Doctor’s Room was maintained by Doctor. While the former disappeared with their administrator from the Internet in September, 2019, the latter stayed on the Internet as late as when its administrator Doctor (now identified as Cho Joo-Bin) was arrested by the Police.

According to anonymous sources. It was an organized crime in which the criminals blackmailed dozens of women, forcing them to make sexually explicit videos. Most of the victims were  very young. The youngest victim was only 11 years old.

The tortures inflicted on them were beyond our worst imagination. He “wrote” on the skin of the girls with a knife by leaving deep cuts that formed words like “slave” or “Doctor” to show to his charged members on his on-line channel that the video clips were all masterpieces produced by none other than him, the Doctor. It is beyond reason, ethics, morality, or any quality that defines us human to commit such a crime. The administrator of those rooms has become the public enemy; those who paid for their memberships as viewers of those video clips were definitely accomplices who likewise shamed the entire humanity. According to police investigation, the Doctor’s bank statement showed 3.2 billion bitcoin (1: 190,000; bitcoin to won). And yet, it turned out to be a distracting account to keep the police from knowing the main one, whose statement might amount to a greater sum of money/bitcoins. It reveals a horrible fact behind the horrifying crime: there were devils who paid for the show and there were devils who got paid to make it. Evil was brewed in cycle.

According to news reports, the master villain Doctor, Cho Joo-Bin, ruthlessly tortured the women by night but worked as a volunteer for charity by day. He was once even  interviewed by online media because he helped orphans and the handicapped. He shamelessly and manipulatively said that because he received a lot of help from others, he wanted to help people in return. It is both sickening and saddening to know the mind behind such a crime and to know such hypocrisy he is capable of. 

After the exposure of this horrifying crime, the Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF) started to take its action by proposing to the government an amendment of related laws:

1. Strenthten penalties and punishments related to making, owning, and sharing sex video images involving exploitation of children.

2. Introduce preventing, processing, investigating, and tracking therapeutic systems to cope with kidnappings, missing children, and runaway teens.

3. The Executive Yuan to establish and be in charge of an organization exclusively dedicated to the functioning of children’s safety and related on-line issues.

The Nth Room sex crime is not the first court case of its sort, and certainly won’t be the last. As we are alarmed by Coronavirus, we should also be on alert to make of an all-out prevention of similar crimes and of any potential double jeopardy done to the victims and hurt them any further.

The Orientation for an Explanation of the English Department’s New Name

 

By Hsu Hsin I 

The English Department in Shih Hsin University had been planning to rename itself into The Department of English and Applied Communication since last year. People can not live without the Internet. Our heavy dependence on computer programs and smartphone apps proves that it is already something inseparable from our life. We have to spend time studying both language and communication in order to make the most of the Internet resources. By emphasizing both language and communication educations, we plan to enhance our competitive advantage on the job market.

However, biting off more than we can chew is not the way to enhance our competitive advantage. We are living in the Google Age, everyone can go online and find information they need. What make it an academic burden on our shoulders? Maybe focusing on communication is a better idea? Since as English majors, we are aware that language is a tool for communication and a tool to record all human traces in the development of civilization. For such significance of language, students should gain sufficient knowledge of language through intensive programs. Possibly, we need more professional literature courses to gain a good command of language.

The renaming act means certain impact on our future career. If we plan to start advanced studies, it will be very challenging to find matching field of study. If we plan to put ourselves on the job market, employers will expect us to be like a communication information management major, instead of an English major. Whatever the case, it is really up to everyone of us to have a say about whether renaming is a good idea or not.

An Unfortunate Birthday in the Year of Plague:

The Painting by the Famous Artist Was Stolen from the Dutch Museum on the Birthday of the Artist.

By Woo Jiwoo

Due to COVID-19, we have lost our ordinary life and the painting by the famous Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884) was taken overnight from a small museum, Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands. Since the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, March 13, the Museum had been temporarily shut down to help preventing the spread of virus. According to the police statement, the alarm went off around 3:15 a.m. on early Monday morning. When the time officers arrived, all that they found was the shattered glass front door and an empty showcasing in which the painting was displayed. The thief or thieves had already disappeared. 

“I feel enormous anger and sadness. Because especially in these dark days that we are in, I feel so strongly that art is here to comfort us, to inspire us and to heal us,” said the museum’s curator, Jan Rudolph de Lorm, over the theft.

The painting was created within 1883 to 1885 while Van Gogh stayed in the town Nuenen where his parents lived. It shows the ruins of the local church in the town. The painting never belonged to the Singer Laren Museum where the painting was stolen; it was on loan from another museum in the Netherlands, Groninger Museum, for the exhibition “Mirror of the Soul”. 

It is not the first time for the Singer Laren Museum targeted to a heist. In 2007, seven statues were stolen from the museum’s garden including the well-known bronze cast The Thinker by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The sculpture was found and damaged that it missed one leg.

People are wondering whether Van Gogh’s 167th birthday is related to the heist. But Mr. de Lorm, the curator of the museum, insisted that the thieves probably didn’t know about this and it’s just a strange coincidence.

The Taiwan's Center of Disease Control: NHCC

By Tsai Peiyi

The novel Coronavirus outbreak has drawn increased international attention and concerns as the virus quickly spreads across the world. However, Taiwan is seen as one of the few places which have successfully checked the spread of the Coronavirus. Thanks to the leadership of Shih-Chung Chen, the Minister of Health and Welfare, who is now the acting commander of the National Health Command Center (NHCC), Taiwan is steeling itself against and forward its battle with the Coronavirus.

    It is also worth mentioning that someone wants to hold us back. According to news reports, the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) proposed a replacement of our acting commander lest the minister may sometimes disagree with his superior, the premier. In TPP’s opinion, it is better off for the premier to take over the NHCC, better off for the superior to act as the commander. It may after all be a ridiculous idea. First, although the premier is a more highly ranked position than the minister, the  minister is more professional on this position as a medical doctor. So, even when there is a disagreement of opinion, people have their faith in and respect for the minister’s opinion and decision. Second, regardless of the minister’s success in battling the outbreak so far, from people’s thorough observation, he has never shown the slightest sign of dereliction of duty. There is no reason to replace him. Finally, the time is crucial and the enemy is the Coronavirus. Why does TPP focus on petit politics like this instead of epidemic prevention? Placing politics before anything else in the nick of time, if that is the case, is absolutely absurd. Can we have a capable commander and a professional doctor to lead and work for people? This battle is the whole nation’s life-and-death concern and it is a responsibility beyond the TPP’s capability to tackle or to put a word in edgewise.

    We are all going through a rough patch. What we need is stick together. An unclear head with an uninformed mind is the least thing we need. Taiwan is free country and it certainly allows freedom of speech. But, if you are only insisted in acquiring your  political gain, you are doing so at the cost of people’s suffering and pain, in the time of plague..

Classic Video Games

 

By Tsai Peiyi

In modern times, we have access to more video games than ever. Some of the most recent video games are just amazing. Gamers can enjoy new gaming experience with vivid graphics, real-time virtuality, and well-advanced AI. They are available worldwide in forms of TV games, PC games, mobilephone games, stand-alone game units, etc. And they come in numberous types and genres. In retro, however, we did not have as many types and genres. Yet, we had the classics back then. Here let me share with you a brief history of video games, along with some classic games and game consoles.

●      History

The history of video gaming goes all the way back to the early 1950s. The first proper video game was created that time. People considered Spacewar! the first widely recognized video game. Academic computer scientists began to design games and simulations for research as well as for leisure. It was all the rage in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, people began to play arcade games, gaming consoles, and PC games. During that time, game units and game designs perfectly reflected the advanced development of computing technology; the idea of video gaming was defined. Up till now, the entire history of video games has been  divided into eight generations.

The first generation designates the time when home consoles first came out. Pong and its various clones were most popular. From 1976 to 1992 was the second generation.During that time,game consoles emerged. When the 8-bit units showed up, they declared the beginning of the third generation that spanned between 1983 to 1985. The fourth-generation consoles, which were 16-bit models, came into beingfrom 1987 to 1999. The 1990s was the time when video games entered the 3D gaming era. Spanning between 1993 and 2006, it was the fifth generation, with its consoles improved for both handheld units and PC’s gaming, on 32 and 64-bit units. During the fifth generation, mobilephone gaming arose. In the 2000s, the sixth generation of consoles were issued. In this generation, mobilephone games and online gamesclaimed their major presence on the market. In the seventh generation, from 2005 to 2012, the most popular console was the Wii console. 2013 witnessed the birth of the eighth generation, with its main consoles including Wii U, Nintendo 3DS,  Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

●      Game consoles

-        Family Computer (FC)

        Family Computer is known as the Famicom, which was marketed by Nintendo on July 15, 1983. Famicom is an 8-bit home video game console (third generation). Since 1985, it has been released in Europe and the United States under the name Nintendo Entertainment System. Famicom was the best-selling game console of the time, with a cumulative global sales of more than 61 million units. The emergence of Famicom had a profound effect on video games. It enabled the American video game industry to recover from the impact it received in the 1983 crash. There are a lot of groundbreaking games on Famicom. Super Mario Bro. is a pioneer in side-scrolling video games. At the same time, the Legend of Zelda made built-in memory system popular (the technology of “battery storage recording”). The most popular game of Famicom is Super Mario Bro. It sold 40.24 million copies worldwide.

-        Game Boy (GB)

GB stands for Game Boy, which is an 8-bit handheld game console. It was also marketed by Nintendo. Game boy is the first handheld unit in the Game Boy family. It has three modified models. The first one is Game Boy Pocket, which is a small and light unit that runs on batteries. The second one is Game Boy Light; it adds the features of  electroluminescent backlight for low-light conditions. The thrid one is Game Boy Color, which is a color-screen model. Game Boy has sold apporximately 118 million units in total. GB has five buttons. A, B, select,  start and directional pad. The game memory is stored on its ROM cartridge. The most popular game of Game Boy is Pokémon Red and Blue.

-        Wii

        Wii was released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. It belongs in the seventh generation of home console. On the market, Wii competed with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. It made a strong entrace into the market, however, the global sales of Wii was outstripped by that of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It still sells more than 101 million units. The most special thing about Wii is that it works with the “Wii Remote controller”. The Wii Remote controller is a handheld pointing device, which detects manual motions. Also, Wii can receive information and updates over the Internet. Wii games are issued on Wii DISC’s; the most popular game of Wii is Wii Sports.

●      Classic Games

-        Tetris

Tetris was the most popular video game around the world from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. It is the predecessor of various puzzle games we play today. The word Tetris was coined from the prefix “tetra,” which means “four” in Greek. (Because all blocks are made up of four sub-blocks.) , and “tennis,” its designer Alexey Pajitnov's favorite sport. Tertis also became the most popular game in the Game Boy history. Electronic Gaming Monthly listed this game No.1 of the Greatest 100 Games. Because of its mathematical and dynamic features and its lasting popularity,Tetris is widely adopted as a training program for game programming.

-        Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros. is a platform game marketed by Nintendo in 1985, first played on Famicom. The player needs to control the character Mario to save Princess Toadstool from the main antagonist Koopa. The second player controls Luigi, Mario's younger brother. Mario can collect coins scattered around the Mushroom Kingdom. The player has a certain number of lives. The game is composed of eight worlds, each with four sublevels called “stages” in it. Super Mario Bros. sells more than 40 million physical copies.

        In retro, even though these classic games’ art design and audio effects are not as good as those trending games at the present time, they claim their own credits and merits with their origianlity, niches, etc. If you are a big fan of video gaming, you should definitely go back to these classic games without missing any.