The Useless Tree

Current Affairs

  • Freedom of Speech in China (with a bit of Chuang Tzu thrown in for good measure)

    Over at ESWN, Roland has translated a rather remarkable commentary from The Beijing Daily News, by Shin Minte. (original Chinese here).  It's title says a lot: "The Pursuit of Truth is Tied in with Freedom of Speech."   I don't… Continue reading

  • Mencius and Sun Tzu on Gaza

    It is apparent that the Israeli attack on Gaza fails on both moral and strategic grounds. The wide-scale killing of innocents and disproportionality of the Israeli violence make it an unjust war.  And, even though he did not argue in… Continue reading

  • John Travolta’s Agony: Taoist and Confucian Views

    John Travolta's son died. Apparently he had a seizure disorder and was killed by a seizure – that is what the death certificate says, at least.  The parents must be devastated.  My heart goes out to them. It seems that… Continue reading

  • The Real and the Fake

    China is famous for the knock-off product, the locally made copy of a famous, often international, brand commodity.  There is even a neologism,  shanzhai, that is used to denote fake products.  But now, it seems, fakery is expanding culturally beyond… Continue reading

  • My Bad

    Almost a week without a post.   That's not like me.  So what's up?  A couple of things.  First, was the grading.  This semester I taught two sections of the same class, "Asia and the World," an introduction to Asian history… Continue reading

  • Confucius on Youtube

    Googling around today I found this video.  It's from the Voice of America but strikes me as a useful little bit on Confucianism. Continue reading

  • Confucianism in Hard Times

    Yesterday in class I was talking about Japan in the 1990s, the persistent economic stagnation and the cultural pessimism it spawned (the pessimism is expressed in this article by Masaru Tamamoto, "The Uncertainty of the Self: Japan at Century's End").  … 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

  • Remember: Bush Lost the War

    There is a lot of talk these days about how the "surge" in Iraq has worked and that "victory" is at hand.  Rubbish.  While it is true that the "surge" was one of several elements (the others being internal Iraqi… Continue reading

  • More Thoughts on the Economic Crisis

    The Master said: "Poor food and water for dinner, a bent arm for a pillow – that is where joy resides.  For me, wealth and renown without honor are nothing but drifting clouds." Analects, 7.16      Things are starting to… Continue reading