The Useless Tree

Current Affairs

  • Confucian Family Policy

         This sounds like a good idea (from yesterday’s NYT): In an effort to correct dysfunctional foster care systems, a growing number of child welfare agencies around the country are reaching outside their ranks to involve troubled families and… Continue reading

  • WWPD? (What Would Pavel Do?)

        Following up on my last post, just below, I just found this China Daily story that suggests the collectivist/spiritualist (Korchagin?) tendency among Chinese youth may not be as strong as the Party pollsters had hoped: Students look down… Continue reading

  • Pavel Who?

         I came across an odd little commentary in People’s Daily this morning, which got me to thinking about the continuing transformation of "Chinese culture," and my own ignorance of Chinese popular culture.     I will be brutally… Continue reading

  • Knowing the Enemy

        George Packer has a good article in this week’s New Yorker (alas not on-line), "Knowing the Enemy."  He considers the "anthropology of insurgency" in Iraq, focusing on an Australian military intellectual, David Kilcullen, currently working for the US… Continue reading

  • Calling Attention to Reality

         This is a small operation, a modest blog.  I do not attract the kind of attention that the big blogs get; if I have 200 unique visitors a day, that’s good for me.  So it was somewhat surprising… Continue reading

  • Old Confucianism and New Mistresses

         In the China Daily today we learn of a web site set up to claim rights for mistresses of Chinese men: Six months after it began, Zheng Baichun’s website (www.2n88.com), known for defending the rights of er’nai, or… Continue reading

  • Taoist Parenting

        In a NYT story today, Michael Winerip asks: "But When Is There Time to Be a Kid?"  It is a fairly common litany of over-programming of children.  He describes the frenetic pace in one household: The family lives… Continue reading

  • Our Children, Ourselves

        An article a couple of days ago in the NYT raises all sorts of ethical issues about birth and disability.  It draws from a piece in the journal Fertility and Sterility and describes a particular medical procedure: The… Continue reading

  • Getting Modern Confucian Education Right

         A story in yesterday’s Christian Science Monitor describes a school in Guangdong (it doesn’t tell us what city or town) that integrates Confucian classics and traditional Chinese cultural practices into a modern elementary school curriculum:  "Now the government… Continue reading

  • Iraq Study Group

        Not much to add to the US media outpouring on the Iraq Study Group report that came out yesterday.  Can’t get better commentary than that of my neighbor Abu Aardvark.  It strikes me, in the end, as a… Continue reading