The Useless Tree

Current Affairs

  • The Rui’an Microcosm

        About three weeks ago a high school teacher in China, Ms. Dai Haijing, was found dead.  She was determined, by local officials, to have committed suicide.  Her students found this unbelievable and they started asking questions and demonstrating,… Continue reading

  • How Modern Can Confucius Be?

         A rather ambivalent editorial in the People’s Daily: Needless to say, Confucius is the most attractive symbol in Chinese traditional culture. But when a rapidly growing China is trying to build a new image and engage in greater… Continue reading

  • Mao Lives!

         Or, at least, a distorted image of him is kept alive by an authoritarian political party too afraid to face up to its own history.  That, at any rate, is what this story in today’s Globe and Mail… Continue reading

  • Confucius to Bush: Speak Less Please

         Bush gives a big speech yesterday, telling us that torture is not really torture, and that one long-time captive in our secret jails is a "big clever fish" in global terrorist networks, when, it seems, he is merely… Continue reading

  • Fewer Sticks for North Korea

        I have been suggesting for some time now that to get out from under the obvious failure of US foreign policy toward North Korea, we should drop the overly punitive approach of the Bush Jr. administration and start… Continue reading

  • Family History

        A good post over at Crooked Timber: Harry Brighouse summarizes and critiques a paper by David Vellman (PDF!) on the genetic basis of parenthood and children’s identity.  Vellman, according to Brighouse (I have only started the ful 22… Continue reading

  • Nationalism and Culture

         A revealing interview with Wu Jianmin, President of Chinese Foreign Affairs University, in today’s People’s Daily.  The nameless interviewer asks some leading questions: Reporter: Culture is a component of China’s soft power strategy to develop national strength, and… Continue reading

  • Mencius Responds to Bush and Rumsfeld

         President Bush is intensifying his rhetoric on the Iraq war.  So is Rumsfeld.   Mencius replies: Talk is easy when you don’t have to get the job done. (136).      They are not trying to "get the job… Continue reading

  • Mencian Biology

         Richard Rorty reviews Marc D. Hauser’s new book, Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, in yesterday’s NYT Book Review.   Rorty describes the book’s project thusly: Nazi parents found it easy to turn… Continue reading

  • Hurricane Katrina: Bush Lost the Mandate of Heaven

         Last year when Hurricane Katrina struck, I asked the I Ching if this meant Bush might lose the Mandate of Heaven.  The answer I received then centered on the actions that Bush might undertake.  Here’s the key graph:… Continue reading