The Useless Tree

Current Affairs

  • Dick Cheney, Please Read Mencius

         The Vice President cannot seem to accept reality; he is impervious to facts. He says, on a right-wing radio show, that al-Qaeda really did have a close, working relationship with Saddam Hussein, a charge that is rebutted fairly… Continue reading

  • The Desire for War

         Some conservative pundits are dismayed that the UK-Iran standoff has ended peacefully.  They seem to believe it better to have taken take up arms, however implausible and destructive, than accept a deal, perhaps even a prisoner swap of… Continue reading

  • Who (Hu?) are they talking about?

          I’m getting ready to read Chuang Tzu with my tutorial students next week.  One thing that always fascinates me with this text is its skepticism toward language.  It so sharply and smartly questions the capacity of words to… Continue reading

  • Flexible Ritual – Where’s Elijah?

         One of the key concepts of Confucianism is Ritual – Li.  The term has a somewhat negative connotation in contemporary English, suggesting something dryly formal, done without feeling or commitment, just going through the motions.  This is not,… Continue reading

  • Confucius is Dead – and Koreans killed him…

         …that, at least, is the thesis of a punchy op-ed in tomorrow’s (I love globalization!) Seoul Times by Taru Taylor.  I’ll let him speak for himself: Neo-Confucianism killed Confucius. In other words, it stereotyped him. Confucius, the great… Continue reading

  • Bush Lost The War

        Now that the Senate has also passed a bill that sets a timetable for US withdrawal from Iraq, we are going to hear a lot of noise from Bush and company, and their ideological defenders in the media,… Continue reading

  • Teenage Suicide: Losing Their Way

        Another sad story about suicide in China: …Recent statistics from the Chinese Association of Mental Health show that suicide has become the No 1 killer of Chinese people between the ages of 15 and 34. Suicide accounted for… Continue reading

  • Legal v. Moral

         This story came across the news wires today: Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Against Rumsfeld WASHINGTON — Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cannot be tried on allegations of torture in overseas military prisons, a federal judge said Tuesday in… Continue reading

  • Taoist Counterinsurgency

          Getting ready for work this morning, I was, as usual, listening to NPR and was struck by a story on the difficulties US soldiers face in their counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq.  Here’s a quote from the transcript:    … Continue reading

  • Tell Rumsfeld He Better Watch Out

         What Mencius might say to the former Secretary of Defense: It’s clear from this that Confucius deplored anyone enriching a ruler who didn’t practice Humane government.  And he deplored  even more people who waged war for such a… Continue reading