I talked to Sayaka last night. She is busy with her Chinese language studies at ICLP. Last night her homework was to write two essays. The topics she chose I think well represents her uniquely balanced personality, which mixes an interest in security policy with one of the world’s more deeply philosophical cartoon characters. One [...]
“Totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes in the form of strong temptations which will come up whenever it seems impossible to alleviate political, social, or economic misery in a manner worthy of man.” Samantha Power, a professor at the Kennedy school who writes a lot on human rights issues, wrote an [...]
I think this is unhealthy but I suspect I’m not the only one: Eating is such a nuisance! Here I am, with stuff to do, stuff I want to read and write, and then Wham! I get hungry. Often I don’t notice hunger until I get a little lightheaded or a headache but then I [...]
Ralph Luker has a posting at Cliopatria on the book In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage. I have a deep interest in arguments like the one put forward in the book Luker is discussing, which along with Coulter’s Treason, some recent criticism of Kerry’s opposition to Vietnam, and a long history of criticism of the [...]
I hope everyone understands what has been going on in at least one military detention camp in Iraq. The most extensive article I have read on this is in the New Yorker, which other articles seems to quote often. There is a very disturbing slide show with photographs of the US torture online as well. [...]
Ok, I’m stupid. I thought that the classic Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison was a science fiction book. I’m hanging out with Lars at his apartment late on a Saturday night when he says, “Here, read these two paragraphs.” They are the opening from the Prologue to the Invisible Man, a book about black lives [...]