Absurdity, Allegory and China

It’s difficult to get through an entire spring and summer without writing something about baseball, even if it won’t ever get much of a grip here in China. Despite the MLB’s recent series of promo events in Shanghai, Wuxi, Guangdong, Chengdu, and now, as I write, in Beijing. I think baseball has about as much [...]

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The MLB (Major League Baseball) season is underway again, and for some of us, that means some nebulous sense of order has been returned to the universe. Last year there were two pre-season MLB games in Beijing at the field at Wukesong. Good fun, really. I missed the first game when the PSB (Public Security [...]

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I belong to a listserv group, one I‘ve been dropping in and out of for about 14 years. Over the years I have had face-to-face meeting with eight other members, all without the least shred of disappointment. In fact, all the meetings have been more pleasant than I could have hoped for, and I look [...]

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BAGHDAD -  Television reporter Muntadar al-Zaidi  threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush during a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki today while screaming, “This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog.” The AP video shows Mr Bush nimbly ducking Shoe #1, which would have popped him in the [...]

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A few days back I mentioned how I watched from from afar while Tug McGraw pitched the final inning of Game Six of the 1980 World Series, an unforgettable few minutes for any Phillies’ fan. Tug, who died in 2004, has a son, the wildly popular country/western singer, Tim McGraw who was on hand before [...]

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I was born on the twenty-sixth day of the eighth month in the absolute middle of the 20th century, 8/26/1950. My first recollected memory, from 1953, is of my father coming home on a Friday evening as I, his eldest son, sat dutifully on the bottom step along the Weaver Street sidewalk waiting for him [...]

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