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On Ai Weiwei as Barber
I mentioned two days ago that I had encountered famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (and famous Spanish/American chef Jose Andres) in the evening in Beijing. I didn't mention that a few minutes after the...
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On Criticizing China
The day just ended, Friday, May 10, was an absolutely beautiful day in Beijing. Warm, clear, sunny, fresh -- the kind of moment I celebrated when living here as representing "Paradise Beijing." What...
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False Equivalence: We Have a New Champ
This took place while I was on the road in China, so I didn't catch up with it until just now. It is an editorial in (surprise!) the WSJ ten days ago that represents a certain kind of perfection in...
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With Sidney Rittenberg, in Seattle
Sidney Rittenberg's The Man Who Stayed Behind (with Amanda Bennett) is a genuinely astonishing book. To be more precise, it is a dramatic account of a genuinely astonishing life.Rittenberg, who grew up...
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Today's Unfortunate Found-Art Department
Reader WSR, who has spent a lot of time in Shanghai, alerted me to this one just now. It's from our old friend The Shanghaiist:Tech details: the ad on the "right rail" rotates among a variety of...
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A Newcomer's Guide to the 3 Obama Scandals
I have been in China, offline, and in other ways removed from the US news ecosystem through the blossoming period of the three simultaneous problems for the Obama administration. Here is how they look...
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On Criticizing China, Cont.
This follows my dispatch last weekend on the proper and improper bounds of foreigners finding fault with a big, contradictory, quickly changing, disorderly-but-progressing society.1) Yesterday the...
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3 Followups on 3 'Scandals'
After this item late last night.1) Benghazi remains a tragedy but not a "scandal," as a number of clearer-thinking Republicans are noting. 2) The IRS/Tea Party imbroglio also looks more like a mess,...
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If You're in Redlands, Calif. on May 18 ...
... be sure to come by the 5th anniversary Air Show / celebration for the Hangar 24 craft brewery. If I weren't necessarily at a policy big-think event in DC this weekend, I would be there myself. I...
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Two Takes on the Modern History of the 'Scandal'
Take One. From Mike Lofgren, best-selling author of The Party Is Over, long-time staffer for Republicans on Capitol Hill. He writes in an email:The three Obama "scandals" have varying characteristics...
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Annals of the Security State, Gabriel Silverstein Division
This is Gabriel Silverstein. Unlike me, he is involved in commercial real estate and investment banking, and once worked at Morgan Stanley. Â Like me, he is an amateur pilot who likes to fly the Cirrus...
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My Semi-Annual Pop Culture Report
No one turns to me for tips on pop culture. Well, too bad! Like it or not, here they come.1) On the latest long-haul plane trip, I ended up watching a movie I would never have talked my wife into going...
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The Impossibility of Being Barack Obama
I half-heard the President's commencement address at Morehouse when coming back to DC this weekend. I saw a clip of it again late last night and thought: this is another sample and reminder of Barack...
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Annals of the Security State: More Airplane Stories
Over the weekend IÂ related the story of Gabriel Silverstein, a businessman and pilot who for no apparent reason was subjected to a two-hour detention and invasive search by Homeland Security officials...
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Two Bits of Life-Getting-Better Tech News
1) Amtrak suddenly has much better Wi-Fi service on some routes -- starting with the Acela I am taking right now from DC to NY. Of course I admit that griping about the speed and reliability of a...
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'Continuous Partial Attention,' 'Metonym,' 'FOP,' 'Charm'—Items From Our New...
The June issue of The Atlantic has arrived. Say it with me: Subscribe! I read the "actual" (printed) magazine cover-to-cover last night, on the DC-NY train and then after arrival; it's full of good...
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Linda Stone on Maintaining Focus in a Maddeningly Distractive World
As I mentioned a few minutes ago, our new issue (subscribe!) includes a Q-and-A I did with Linda Stone, coiner of the term "continuous partial attention," on how to maintain sanity and focus in an...
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What Mattered in Obama's Speech Today: Ending the Open-Ended 'War on Terror'
This speech was very long -- nearly 7000 words, even longer than my profile of Jerry Brown! And I didn't expect anyone to listen to me read my article aloud. Also, I am not going to deal with the part...
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Sidney Rittenberg on China
I mentioned last week that I was going to do a Q-and-A in Seattle with Sidney Rittenberg, whose first-hand exposure to US-Chinese relations probably exceeds that of any other living person. In the...
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Why 'Turd Blossom' Is Metaphor but Not Metonym
Let's have fun with metonymy! I got into this thicket with an early scene in my new profile of Jerry Brown. Here I was trying to convey the interesting/odd experience of talking with the man:"Do you...
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