Latest Posts
-
Yes We Did
I've been crazy busy – on a grading jag that just finished today. Tuesday, of course, was consumed with the election. Wednesday by grading. But here I am tonight…. I watched the election results with my daughter and some of… Continue reading
-
Tao Te Ching on the Radio
As we wait for election returns, how about something completely different. Yesterday, while out driving around, a story about the Tao Te Ching popped up on All Things Considered. Nothing earth shattering, just a guy, a writer, Henry Alford, not… Continue reading
-
Bush Elected Obama
I have been remiss in my blogging duties of late. Too much grading (which is still not completed). Too much field hockey (my daughter had an all-day tournament rather far away on Saturday. They came in second!). Too much stuff… Continue reading
-
More Thoughts on President Obama
Last week I started to ruminate on remarks I will make tomorrow at a dinner with students. They asked me to speak about the upcoming elections. As I mentioned, I am looking past what I take to be a very… Continue reading
-
Even if he didn’t bury scholars alive, Qin Shi Huangdi was a bad man!
Regular readers know that I do not like Qin Shi Huangdi. So I was curious today when the Western Confucian made note of a talk last month at UCLA that took up the question of fenshu kengru – "the… Continue reading
-
Honoring a Modern Mencius
This news was reported today: BEIJING — Hu Jia, a soft-spoken, bespectacled advocate for democracy and human rights in China, was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Europe’s most prestigious human rights prize, on Thursday. The award was… Continue reading
-
Thoughts on President Obama
It's been busy of late. I have a pile of seventy five-page papers that demand my attention. My department just underwent an external review, which took some time as well. And then there is the usual class preparation, writing anxiety,… Continue reading
-
The Tao of Debt
A nice op-ed in the NYT today by Margaret Atwood, expounding on the human associations of "debt." Debtor-creditor relationships are not simply the stuff of economic calculation, they are expressions of more deeply held understandings and expectations, something easily forgotten… Continue reading
-
Seventeen
Yesterday was Aidan's seventeenth birthday. We bought a small tree, an evergreen that will stand out against the bare winter solitude, to plant in our backyard, next to the other trees that remember him and remind us of his presence.… Continue reading
-
Republican Party Maoism
So Sarah Palin is attempting to mobilize the "pro-American" parts of the US against the rest, presumably the anti-American parts of America (think about that for a moment…). In seeking to clarify precisely what she meant by this distinction, she… Continue reading
The Useless Tree 