The Useless Tree

Current Affairs

  • Alito and the Injustice of the Law

        I was in the car a lot today: had to drive Aidan to and from the dentist; then had to go to an out of town meeting.  Where I live there are few options for radio listening.  Beyond… Continue reading

  • Nationalism and Science (and not just in Korea)

        Oranckay has a very good analysis of the Korean stem cell fiasco (hat tip Marmot).  The key point is the social context that enabled and supported the fraud even after some questions were being raised: Put simply, I… Continue reading

  • Two Articles on Confucianism

         The first (hat tip for both: China Digital Times) is in China Daily and is a warning, by a Chinese analyst, Huang Qing, not to allow Confucianism to become a religion.  By "religion" he seems to mean unreconstructed… Continue reading

  • More State, Less Society

         The State Council, China’s ruling cabinet, has issued "a national plan on emergency response:" The emergency response plan aims to increase the government’s capability to protect public safety, deal with unexpected incidents, minimize the losses of the incidents,… Continue reading

  • Chinese Nannies

          Is it just me or is there something grotesque about the idea of "designer nannies," as suggested by this story in the German magazine, Spiegel, (hat tip: China Digital Times):  Chinese Nannies are the Latest New York Trend… Continue reading

  • Orphans

        Here’s something I have not thought about before: how would a modern Confucian-esque philosophy deal with orphans?  This question follows from this short piece in today’s China Daily: China currently has 573,000 orphans, among whom 66,000 have been… Continue reading

  • Confucian Cosmopolitanism

        Princeton Philosopher, Kwame Anthony Appiah, argues, in Sunday’s NYT Magazine, that, in the face of globalization, the best ethical stance to take on questions of cultural difference is cosmopolitanism: The right approach, I think, starts by taking individuals… Continue reading

  • The Cost of Death

       Today, in Slate, Steven E. Landsburg recounts the sad story of Tirhas Habtegiris: …a 27-year-old terminal cancer patient at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, Texas, was removed from her ventilator last month because she couldn’t pay her medical… Continue reading

  • Is South Korea a “Confucian Society”?

         A good piece in the NYT today on the "Korean wave" of popular culture that is washing over China of late: From clothes to hairstyle, music to television dramas, South Korea has been defining the tastes of many… Continue reading

  • Rent-a-Grandparent

        I missed this in yesterday’s People’s Daily, but had to post it today: "Grandparents" rental service offered in Beijing    A newly established company in Beijing has offered a novel service to rent "grandparents" so as to deal… Continue reading