March 2011
3 posts
On Libya
Count me among those quite skeptical about this war. I think some swift linking to Andrew Sullivan posts can easily summarize this:
1. This will probably give people in the Islamic world a more negative view of the West, which is not good in regards to the “fight on terrorism,” or whatever you want to call it. The big hope with Obama’s election is that he could turn this...
the Power of Ideas
Popular culture has a conception of ideas as being abstract and not being particularly relevant to life being live. It doesn’t take much effort, though, to see that ideas have much more power than we typically give them credit for. I don’t want to go on and on about this, because I feel like I’m stating the obvious… but I find cases where ideas have such a powerful weight...
Back from a Blogging Break
So it’s been a few weeks since my last post. I went on a little blog sabbatical due to increased busyness at work, a heavy Chinese lesson load, an 8-day vacation to Thailand and, most recently, an annoying little cold. (The Packers winning the Super Bowl also required a good deal of my very precious energy and attention).
But the break was also because a lot of my thinking — and writing...
January 2011
17 posts
Thoughts on Obama's Tucson Speech
By all accounts, Barack Obama delivered a capable, if not very capable, speech at the memorial service for the victims of the violent attack in Tucson. But I was pretty uncomfortable with its emphasis on ideals. To me, it seemed a bit too easy, decidedly counterproductive and, yes, even somewhat dishonest.
First, I should give credit to the good parts’ of Obama’s speech — which...
Facebook's Identity Problem
Another Great New Yorker Piece on China
This time it’s from the current Beijing correspondent Evan Osnos. Here is is, though, unfortunately, it’s behind a paywall. It’s about China’s fairly brutal and chaotic history in the past 50 years, and psychoanalysis’ decline in the West. What do they have in common? Well, they think they might be each other’s saving grace. Well worth checking out.
Indigenous Peoples and Evolution
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China's State-Capitalism and the West's Worries
This is another post that is just basically a link to another great New Yorker article… though unfortunately the article is behind a paywall… But this was one of the best articles I’ve read in the New Yorker in a long time. It was an article about China’s state-driven form of capitalism. It really explained it this protectionist, nationalistic and maybe even...
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Obama and Wall Street/ Hope and Cynicism
So I guess this is nothing all too shocking, but the fact that it isn’t shocking should be worrisome in itself. But Obama’s new chief of staff, Bill Dalley — who Ezra Klein has written about with good insight — has less than sparkling clean past. Of course, he is currently working for Wall Street giant J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., but James Downie has a much more...
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the Muslim Non-Radicals
Whenever there is a violent act of Islamic extremism the typical reaction of those “hard on Islamism” is to point out that this is somehow endemic to Muslim culture, citing the facts that there aren’t protests and statements condemning these violent acts. I knew that after 9/11 there were tons of protests around the Muslim condemning the acts — such as a protest of 1...
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A Great Passage
This is a great passage from a recent New Yorker review of new books on Mao Zedong. It’s a little sad but also a little humorous in an absurd kind of way. It’s obviously has a moral to it, but I thought I would just post it because it’s fascinating. (The whole article is good [and not behind a paywall] as well).
Having mobilized the masses [during the Great Leap Forward...
quote of the day
“If a public figure walks on water at noon, by 3 p.m. a dozen talking heads will...”
– A recent analysis of the media’s handling of the court cases to overturn the Affordable Care Act.
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"Wall Street 2," "The Social Network" and "the...
I recently watched Wall Street II: Money Never Sleeps, which was enjoyable but unsatisfying. It immediately made me think of two other films: the Social Network and the Hurt Locker. What do all three of these films have in common? you ask… Well, they all try to tackle “important” and “timely” subjects and all fail pretty bad at it. Each movie simplifies things in...
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Surveillance Societies
Usually, I watch Taiwanese news with a kind of horrified curiosity. They level of celebrity bullshit is a bit unbelievable. When I first got here, I tried seeing if there was a difference in the type of news — you know, one show is more NBC Nightly News and one is Extra! — but I gave that up pretty quickly. So there is a news-y type things — politicians meeting or other...
Taiwanese Marathons
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I recently ran two half-marathons in Taiwan (I finished one yesterday) and I thought I would shoot off a short post about the little cultural insights that I’ve picked up from these.
1. The first thing that is striking about these marathons is how goofy and excited everyone is. All the runners are adults but it would be easy to mistake them for twelve-year-olds* about to head off on a...
December 2010
24 posts
A Winter-y Photo, Song and Ethical Discussion...
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I’ve recently become aware of the...
A Trip to the National Palace Museum
TheNational Palace Museum is one of — if not — the biggest cultural institution in Taiwan. It’s home to, again, one of — if not — the best collection of Chinese art. This is due to the fact that Taiwan was the haven for the Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-Shek when they were driven out by Mao Zedong and his Communist revolution. Art had a lot bigger philosophic and...
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Getting "Punked Around"
Wow. I haven’t seen this until now (hat-tip Andrew Sullivan) but Slate has an incredible “new” blog called “the Wrong Stuff.” Basically it’s a bunch of interviews with people who have an interesting relationship with the concept of “wrongness.” They have interviews with a marriage counselor on how being wrong — and the desire not be...
Incredible.
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Novelty and Flow*
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iTunes Radio
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Wikileaks: "It's not even close"
That quote is from the ever unbeatable civil rights blogger Glenn Greenwald on whether Wikileaks is an overall social good or not — if you were wondering, he’s answering in the affirmative. I would have to say that I agree. Greenwald has been unstoppable in covering these events, and it’s hard to say that I have anything to add — so I will just say read Glenn Greenwald.
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Tech-nol-o-gy
I think I’m like many Westerners who marvel at technological developments and sometimes pat myself on the back for being part of a culture that can create something like the Kindle (my favorite little toy). But I find myself wondering how far these technological advancements are really going — in other words, who is benefitting from them and if they are improving life overall....
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Making Decisions Easy/ Making Easy Decisions
I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to have some shorter posts on this blog. Just some clips or interesting thoughts/pieces from my daily intake — not as a way to share links with other people (I know barely anyone is reading this) but as a way to record what I find interesting over time. I might even post interesting things without… wait for it… comment…...
Strength as well as Compromise
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November 2010
5 posts
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Addressing Complexity
(This post may not be the most timely, but whatever…)
When Wikileaks released the Iraq war logs, I noticed that I was more intrigued by the actions/role of the organization’s leader, Julian Assange, than the contents of those logs. For instance, I was much more drawn to this New York Times piece on Assange than their much larger and deeper coverage of the war logs’ contents....
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Movie Review: The Social Network
So I finally got around to watching the Social Network. I actually found it a little disappointing, but that was probably because it was talked up so much. It was quite a bit sexist and if you’re going to try and do the rapid-talking smart-alecky stuff it’s best to do it in a format where you can be realistic — i.e. with an R-rating and no grandiose blockbuster target numbers...
America at Its Worst
The Modern Hero
Man, how great was that New Yorker profile of Rory Stewart? I’ve been fairly interested in Stewart for a while now: I was interested enough to pick up his book about walking through Afghanistan in 2002, The Places in Between, but not interested enough to finish it…
The most interesting aspect of the profile was how conscious Stewart is of cultivating an image of a...
October 2010
3 posts
About those miners...
I didn’t really pay attention to this story about the Chilean miners, but I was surprised to see how much notice it was getting. (Funnily enough, it was one of the very, very few current events to briefly get mentioned in my office, for whatever odd reason). The one good thing that can be taken away from this event, I think, is the global interconnectedness that it displayed. I never...