Thank My Lucky Stars

The former President of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian, who has been mired in embezzling scandals for over a year now, was just arrested.  Not the proudest moment to be a Taiwanese, but whenever crap like this comes up, I think, hey, at least crap like this is allowed to come up.  Our congress people get into fist fights during debates.  Our former president and his whole family is dirty (and they're not the only ones).  The economy is a mess and there are protesters outside the presidential compounds all the time (for good reason, too).  But is anyone shooting down protesters?  Are the president and state made to be worshiped?  Are stories of any of these things suppressed?  No.  Not to say that the government is transparent (far, far from it), but at least it's open enough that the Taiwanese people and the world can look to the island's affairs and laugh.  That's a lot more than can be said of a lot of our neighbors.