Latest Posts
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Taoism is a set of meaningless cliches only popular because of 1960 hippies
The title above is taken from a Google search that brought someone to my blog this afternoon. What is to be said in response? I guess he wasn’t satisfied with what he found here, if he stayed for… Continue reading
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Another Taoist July 4th.
I wrote this post last year, but not many people saw it; so, I post it here again this year: It may seem improbable but I think we can find a Taoist angle on the US… Continue reading
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No Justice
The failed president, Bush, commuted the jail sentence of his lying underling, "Scooter" Libby. For his obstruction of justice, then, an obstruction that shielded the constitutionally-challenged Dick Cheney from legal scrutiny, Libby avoids the greatest humiliation, though he… Continue reading
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Are We Afraid of Birth?
The chapter I am beginning now considers how Confucianism and Taoist would respond to a set of issues surrounding contemporary practices of birth: abortion, stem cell research, surrogacy, etc. As I begin, I am struck by an idea:… Continue reading
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Two Years of Blogging
Another July 1st, and another blogging anniversary: my second. In looking back over the past year, I am generally happy. Traffic is still modest – somewhere between 1,000 – 1,5000 hits a week, tending to the… Continue reading
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Simple and Minute
I am doing some writing tonight, working on a chapter that introduces "key concepts" of Taoism and Confucianism for the book I mentioned in this post. It’s going well; I will likely finish a draft of this chapter… Continue reading
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Way is Vast
In one of Robert Henricks’ translation of the Tao Te Ching, which he titles the Te Tao Ching (because the text he works from was found with what is usually known to be the second half of the… Continue reading
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Update on the Block
This blog is still blocked in China. I can tell by my traffic stats. Where once I could count dozens of China hits (this is, after all, a small operation), now there may be one or two a… Continue reading
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Fifty Years
In 1957 Mao turned from his Hundred Flowers campaign, during which he had encouraged the urban intelligentsia to criticize the Party openly, to the Anti-Rightist Campaign, when those same intellectuals and Party members were arrested and sent to… Continue reading
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Confucian Apparatchiks
China Law Blog picks up a post from a new blog, The Pacific Narrows, which raises political questions about the recent revelations of slave labor in the PRC. The issue is the use of remonstrance – appealing to… Continue reading
The Useless Tree 