I’m currently visiting the Whore of the Orient…no, silly, not a person but rather the city of Shanghai. I’m here attending a conference for work but will have a few days off to explore a little. More content to come.
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Posted 17 March 2010
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Travel
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Damon Linker of the New Republic has an interesting, intelligent response to the National Review article I linked to recently in defense of American exceptionalism. I particularly liked this remark about President Bush:
Lots of conservatives turned on George W. Bush by the end of his presidency. But here we see that if Bush didn’t exist, [...]
It appears that a group of atheists in San Antonio, Texas, have launched a program in which college students can swap Bibles and other religious texts for high-class pornography. The idea is for people to equate the two rather than to actually promote porn. Clever? No doubt. Effective? I’d say no.
As an atheist, I’m well [...]
It appears that our fair city of Kunming has received international press attention, though not for its beauty, good weather, or fine food. Nope, Kunming’s claim to fame may now be it’s dwarf theme park, which since last year has been open to the public. From the New York Times:
Chen Mingjing’s entrepreneurial instincts vaulted him [...]
In January I wrote that both China and the United States view themselves as exceptional nations, ones that resist comparison to other countries across a broad spectrum of issues. Members of the U.S Republican Party, I wrote, believe in the superiority of the American system regardless of any metric that proves otherwise.
Five weeks later I’m [...]
Dan Washburn is a writer I’ve followed since I arrived in China six years ago. Over the past couple of years Dan has shifted his focus to golf, a burgeoning sport that has attracted a certain amount of controversy in China. To say that few Chinese play golf would be a grand understatement- the percentage [...]
Living in Yunnan we’re treated to the regular spectacle of Chinese tourists from the coastal provinces arriving en masse to indulge themselves in a little 少数民族 exploitation. This New York Times article touches upon this subject, and includes a funny concluding section:
At another table outside were two Han tourists from the city of Chongqing. Zheng [...]
China Hush has translated a rather long screed in the form of an open letter from an outraged Chinese to President Obama. The letter is interesting not for its unremarkable message but rather because it provides a useful archetype of how a Chinese fenqing, or angry youth, thinks.
Much of the letter consists of a denunciation [...]
If I may take a break from my usual content, I’d like to direct your attention to this very moving profile of America’s finest film critic, Roger Ebert. Since a 2006 surgery, Ebert has not had a lower jaw. He has not eaten, had a drink of anything, nor spoken a single, solitary word since.
Most [...]
So a week into the Google Buzz era and…I like it! Seems to be a nice recovery from the Google Wave debacle, which went over like a lead balloon. I think Buzz has the potential to be a nice addition to the social networking sphere- sort of a Facebook without all the extra crap and [...]