Latest Posts
-
Three by Mencius on Teaching
I’ve finished the big pile of grading I had for my larger class (33 students). Hooray! I still have to send comments to the twelve students in my tutorial (I haven’t forgotten you!) but the bulk of my… Continue reading
-
Who’s Important
Sorry for the dearth of posting the last couple of days. I’m grading. For any academic who has faced it, you know how diverting it can be; and for those who do not have to do it, trust… Continue reading
-
Eliott Spitzer and Mencius
I am reading Mencius with my class now; so, when I heard the news today of Eliot Spitzer’s embarrassment, I wondered what Mencius might say. I found this passage which, while evincing a rather different sensibility toward mistresses… Continue reading
-
Douglas Feith as Mao Zedong
One of the planners of the Iraq war, Douglas Feith has a book coming out (ht: TPM). The Washington Post has a story about it today. The problem for Feith is: how do you rationalize what… Continue reading
-
An Epistemological Dissent
Over at The China Beat, David Porter has a helpful post about the cultural biases that plague American and, more generally Western, perceptions of China. It is not really a new argument, but a well stated one that… Continue reading
-
Cai Guo-Qiang: Taoist?
Cai Guo-Qiang, the China born but transplanted to New York artist, has been getting a lot of attention of late: the big Guggenheim show (I saw most of this a few weeks ago while they were still installing… Continue reading
-
The Master would not be Happy
Another familiar story on the sexual revolution in China: The no-tell motels in Beijing’s university districts pulsate with sex. Every weekend, lusty college couples make a beeline past greasy spoon restaurants and bootleg video game shops for the… Continue reading
-
Admonish Them Gently
Thandiwe D. Watts-Jones has a nice little piece in the Westchester section of today’s NYT about her aging mother’ habit of hoarding things: She must save everything. In the pile of dust I had gathered with a broom, she bent… Continue reading
-
The Failure of American Society
A depressing story out today: For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults are behind bars, according to a new report. Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it… Continue reading
-
Once More Into the Breach: The New Legalists and the Tao Te Ching
One more thing about the New Legalists (am I going on too much about this? Probably. But what the hell, it’s kind of fun….): they want to enlist the Tao Te Ching in their efforts to construct a… Continue reading
The Useless Tree 