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State Dinner Jazz Concert: The Long Road from Kenny G
Just under the wire, this note from Nicholas Charles Bouloukos, a jazz pianist and conductor now working in China, is too interesting not to share while the Hu Jintao visit is still more or less...
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Are Thomas P.M. Barnett and I the Same Person?
Well, no. And one day we were actually in the same place at the same time -- about five years ago, at a conference he was running in Rhode Island -- so I can disprove any suggestion that I am...
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The Zipper Streets of Holland
A reader in California responds to the report of "zipper streets" in Shanghai -- thoroughfares that are continually dug up, paved over, and dug again for (seemingly ill-planned) maintenance:...
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Sargent Shriver
Sargent Shriver, who died today at age 95, was a great and inspiring man. I heard many tales about him over the years from my mentor Charles Peters, who before founding the Washington Monthly had...
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The Zipper Streets of Ikebukuro
When showing a picture of the "zipper streets" of Amsterdam, I mentioned that Japan was the only other place where I'd seen such an effort to carry out "tidy" infrastructure improvements. Happily, a...
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Welcome Our Guest Blog Team: Baker, Guajardo, Tierney, Wallace
As mentioned earlier, starting tomorrow morning we're kicking off what should be a very interesting stretch of guest voices in this space, while I disappear to finish a book (and before that, ahem, an...
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The Small-Plane Non-Menace (updated)
Our current issue is out -- say it with me, Subscribe! -- and has a lot of important articles about which I will intend to say more in due course. For instance: Joshua Green on the man who has done so...
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H.L. Mencken on 'Civility,' Improbably Enough
From a reader in North Carolina: >>I'm sorry this is late to the discussion, but it took me a while to run down the quote from H. L. Mencken. I think about it often, but I wanted to get it right,...
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Management Change at Google?!
If I were still in the blogging business, which I am leaving for a while, I would want to find out more about this management change announced just now by Google, in which co-founder Larry Page "will...
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Product Development and China
By Phil BakerWe all saw the coverage of President Hu's visit last week. This man holds the keys to a big part of our future, particularly when it comes to the products we create and consume.I've been...
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State Dinner, and the 'Language Screwup' That Was, or Wasn't
When I am no longer way, way overdue on a (non-China related) article for the magazine, I will "intend" to provide some color commentary on the State Dinner for Hu Jintao last night at the White House,...
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Language Screwup at the Hu-Obama Presser? Maybe Not
On the run, but to clarify something that had confused me:It looked for all the world as if there had been a big interpretation screwup at the Two Presidents Press Conference just now. First Barack...
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More on 'Being Like China'
In response to yesterday's "thought experiment" of fitting 1.3 billion people -- all inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, plus all Japanese and Nigerians -- within the borders of the 50 American...
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'Threat Inflation': The Chinese Stealth Fighter
First, a procedural note: In a week or two, I'll be heading off for a while, to return to China and finish a China-related book. I am excited about a cadre of guest voices to introduce during the time...
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Imagining America as China
In honor of Hu Jintao's visit to DC this week, two useful (IMO) thought experiments for understanding China's situation:1) All of the Americas within US borders. I mentioned yesterday that Thomas...
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One More Under the Wire, on the White House Jazz Show
Following this and this item, a Western reader in northern China writes:>>It seems to me that the intended subtext of the jazz presentation at the White House was much deeper than simply "America...
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Are Visionaries Born or Created?
By Lane WallaceThe announcement by Steve Jobs, last week, that he was taking another medical leave caused considerable alarm among Apple's investors and customers alike. Jobs has an unusually...
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More on Imagining America as China
Following this item and this, suggesting that to match China's population and scale, the United States would need to pack the entire population of the Western Hemisphere into our territory, plus...
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The Risk of Public Places
by Lane WallaceThe suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Monday has already prompted a predictable scramble and knee-jerk reaction among officials -- as all these attacks do -- to reassure...
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'When You Speak ... Angels Sing From Above'
by John TierneyNo, I'm not thinking of Barack Obama with that headline.I'm not even thinking of Michele Bachmann! How can my heart continue to throb for her when she won't even look into the camera at...
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