Latest Posts
-
Why Joe Lieberman Should Not Run As An Independent
From The Analects (1.16): The Master said: "Don’t grieve when people fail to recognize your ability. Grieve when you fail to recognize theirs. Are you listening Joe? Confucius is telling you to give it up. It’s… Continue reading
-
Confucian Psychiatry
I saw this obituary in the NYT today: Dr. Jean Baker Miller, a psychiatrist who disputed traditional notions of social roles and developed a theory that serves as a foundation for treating women’s depression and other disorders through… Continue reading
-
Modern Love: It’s Enough
Abigail Thomas has a beautiful piece this week about the difficulties she encounters caring for her husband, who suffered traumatic brain injury after being hit by a car. She cannot care for him herself. He has severe mental… Continue reading
-
Beijing Weekend: Corruption
I though I might catch a little flak for this one but China Daily published it just as I wrote it. Full text below the jump. I especially like the Mencius quote. Continue reading
-
What Kind of China?
Howard French has a nice piece in today’s International Herald Tribune. Reflecting on the dizzying pace of development in Shanghai, he asks a good question: The question I am working my way toward, having acknowledged the extraordinary capacity… Continue reading
-
Naming “Civil War” in Iraq
The news in the Washington Post this morning that the outgoing British Ambassador to Iraq seems willing to use the "c w" words is telling: Britain’s outgoing ambassador to Iraq has advised his government that the country is… Continue reading
-
Robert Pape Channels Sun Tzu
In an op-ed in today’s NYT, Robert Pape notes: ISRAEL has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hezbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power won’t work either. The problem is not… Continue reading
-
Stretch onto tiptoes
Here’s a story from yesterday’s Washington Post: Adolescent alienation isn’t a new phenomenon. But the unhappy teenagers clinical psychologist Madeline Levine sees in her practice aren’t merely going through a developmental phase, she writes. In her new book,… Continue reading
-
The next time you’re in Xian
The famous terra-cotta soldiers of the first Qin emperor are really quite striking. But after my trip to Dunhuang, I see them in a different, less celebratory light. And now I find that Mencius presaged my misgivings: When… Continue reading
-
Virtue Ethics and Confucius
A great book review by Jim Holt of Deirdre McCloskey’s, The Bourgeois Virtues. I laughed out loud when I read the last line: "Somewhere within this loose, baggy monster there has to be a slim, cogently argued treatise… Continue reading
The Useless Tree 