OK. bear with me while I start this out.  Does the world really need another blog?  Maybe not.  But I’m going to do it anyway.  Here’s what I think will happen here.

   For the most part, I want to use this space as an outlet for my musings on how ancient Chinese philosophy can speak to modern American life.  At the outset I should warn everyone that I am not a professional philosopher (though I do play one, ocassionally, in the classroom).    Rather, I am a political scientist (though I never did like the "scientist" part), who specializes in Chinese politics.  I read modern Chinese and have lived in China for fairly long stretches of time.  In the last couple of years,  I have been writing commentary for the LA Times on topics in East Asian international relations.  At some point I will link to them.  I am always thinking about topics like China’s rise to great power status, North Korean nukes, Japan’s closer relationship with the US, Taiwan, and the like.  But this blog will be about my other interest: Chinese philosophy. 

    That interest is linked to my personal experience.  When my son, Aidan, was born profoundly disabled, my world was turned upside down.  I wrote a book about it: Aidan’s Way, in which I call upon Taoist philosophy (the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu) to understand the meaning of his life.  I am very much aware of the danger of descending into vacuous, new age-y, orientalist cant – and I try to keep it straight.  My purpose is not to reveal the "mysteries of the East" to confused Western moderns.  Rather, I think that the classic texts can be taken seriously and, with obvious recognition of vastly different historical circumstances, applied to quesitons of our day.  That is what I will try to do here, for the most part. 

    I suspect that I will also be tempted into commenting on contemporary East Asian and Chinese political topics from time to time.  We’ll see how it goes.

    So much for the maiden post – let me see if I can get this thing to work…