Absurdity, Allegory and China

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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I know that picking on party rags is fish-in-a-barrel sport, but it’s Christmas and I’m full of good cheer. A wander over to the (English) People’s Daily Online today found this one floating on the surface: A new year approaching amid intense turmoil,  which outlines the world financial crisis in terms that are pretty odd. [...]

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… a good thought. We just need more of ‘em. And a bit more goodwill wouldn’t hurt either. Here’s hoping.

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Access to the NYT started to waver last night here in Tianjin. On, off, on again. This morning on, but for at least the last several hours off again. So do we blame it on Jim Yardley’s After 30 Years, Economic Perils on China’s Path, and his coverage of the 30 year “reform and opening” [...]

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Again, I am going to make a plea to George W. Bush to finally do something constructive for Iraq after overseeing years of misguided and rabid destruction. In the NYT’s story, Tumult in Iraqi Parliament Over Shoe Hurling, we learn that the Iraqi Parliament has been thrown into utter chaos over the matter, and that [...]

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“This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” These were the words that accompanied the second shoe that Muntadar al-Zaidi hurled at POTUS Bush as it sailed harmlessly over the Texan’s head. The first shoe nearly nailed the US commander-in-chief, and while Mr Zaidi didn’t make contact with either, [...]

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As Zimbabwe horrifically unravels and the world wonders what it possibly can do, there’s this story from the Independent Online, South Africa: Zim women sentenced to life Three Zimbabwean women have been sentenced to life imprisonment for drug trafficking by a Chinese court, the Herald newspaper reported on its website on Monday. Another woman received [...]

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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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Over the past year I have spent a great deal of time trying to understand my conflicting responses to an architectural object: The CCTV Headquarters Building in the Central Business District (CBD) of Beijing. It has been an unforgettably beautiful experience as well as a maddening struggle as I’ve tried to find some balance in [...]

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“It is truth perpetually that accumulated facts, lying in disorder, begin to assume some order when an hypothesis is thrown among them.” –Herbert Spencer When I was a kid doing kid things that were considered unacceptable, my mother would call me a tinker, an Irish-ism that I am sure she picked up from her mother, [...]

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