The Useless Tree

Sam Crane

  • Dongzhou: The Truth Will Out

        The powers that be in the PRC are paying people in Dongzhou to change their stories about the killings.  They are inducing villagers to say that people were killed by the homemade fire bombs wielded by the crowd,… Continue reading

  • The CCP’s Dongzhou Strategy

          Chinese Party leaders continue the news blackout on the Dongzhou killings.   They are likely betting that the Western media will turn its attention elsewhere (voting in Iraq; spying in the US), which will give them more leverage over… Continue reading

  • Snow Day

         We woke to a snow storm and school was canceled for the kids.  A snow day.  It’s not quite like the snow days of my youth: we had less warning of storms then and snow days could often… Continue reading

  • A Lost Day…

        Sorry to anyone who checked in only to find a week-old post here.  It turns out that my blog service, Typepad, crashed for a good part of the day.  Things may be getting back to normal now… let’s… Continue reading

  • Can We Stop Now with the “Confucian Commonwealth” stuff?

        The just-completed East Asian Summit should remind us of just how little political commonality is to be found in a diffuse historical notion of a "Confucian Commonwealth."  Usually that notion, or something like it, is deployed to represent… Continue reading

  • Dongzhou, Tiananmen, Dongzhou, Tiananmen, Dongzhou, Tiananmen

        Maybe that title will overload the PRC censors…     Here’s what the Beijing leaders are thinking about (thanks to Daai Tou Laam): In a regular briefing in Beijing yesterday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the two… Continue reading

  • The Rectification of Names: Dongzhou

        The PRC government is trying to suppress information about the Dongzhou incident.   They are blocking websites (not to worry: this blog is already blocked in China, I believe).  They are not allowing reports in the domestic media about… Continue reading

  • It Takes More Than This To Be A Mencian Gentleman-Ruler

        This just in from the People’s Daily: Top Chinese leaders including Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin have made donations to natural disaster victims and poverty-stricken people of the country, to help them spend the winter in warmth, sources… Continue reading

  • Sunday “Modern Love” Blogging: Surrogacy

        I know, it’s Monday, and only now am I getting to blogging on the NYT‘s "Modern Love" column that ran yesterday.  And I missed it completely last week.  Maybe there just isn’t enough in these columns to justify… Continue reading

  • Friday I Ching Blogging (late on Saturday!): Global Warming

          Crazy week.  Lots of grading to do for my day job as a college teacher.  All those short papers I assign come back to bite me.   But that is behind me for now, and I can finally catch… Continue reading