In the latest news out of Egypt, where people power is confronting regime rigidity, President-for-life Hosni Mubarak is doing what he can to maintain his perch. He has named a new cabinet, deployed more troops in the cities, and blocked al-Jazeera broadcasts. The opposition, meanwhile, hopes to bring a million people into Cairo’s streets to… Continue reading Two Cheers for the Brotherhood
One of Washington‘s favorite guessing games is: “What’s the president really thinking?” Is Barack Obama a former community activist pushing a progressive agenda, a Goldilocks centrist aiming for the perfect bi-partisan porridge, or a reluctant militarist who’s been forced to adopt key portions of the Bush agenda only to discover that he rather likes them?… Continue reading Secret SOTU
The campaign against dictatorship in the Arab world has brought together some strange bedfellows. The Bush administration’s neoconservatives darkly dreamed of democracy promotion in the Middle East before the Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires became the stuff of nightmares. Sharing the same bed, but dreaming different dreams, have been the Muslim Brotherhood and its fellow Islamists… Continue reading Arab Democracy Now
The Pentagon and the National Rifle Association have a lot in common these days. They’re in love with guns. They maintain powerful lobbies. They refuse to acknowledge the dangerous consequences of their policies. And they’re both on the defensive. After yet another gun massacre over the weekend in Tucson, the NRA in particular has a… Continue reading Gun Crazy
Given the title of this week’s World Beat, perhaps you expected an essay on North Korea or another vilified U.S. adversary and violator of all human decency. Actually, I was referring to Jon Kyl. Those who dismiss the value of negotiating with North Korea insist that the country makes unreasonable demands, never has any intention… Continue reading Negotiating with Evil
“The Baby Trade,” World Beat, December 21, 2010 “South Korea: Seeking Reunification by Live Fire?” Focal Points, December 20, 2010 “Lighting the Terrorist Fuse,” World Beat, December 14, 2010 “Transparency Fundamentalists,” World Beat, December 7, 2010 “China: Already on Top?” World Beat, November 23, 2010 It’s a Shame Chalmers Johnson Did Not Live to See the U.S. Air Base… Continue reading 2010 Archives
n this one-man show, a father, a son, and a French chef search for the perfect meal. The adventure begins in a Chinese restaurant and continues to Sweden, North Korea, and Oklahoma. And you thought you were obsessed with food
The New York Times, June 12, 2010 In this age of Amazon recommendations and Kindle downloads, I still rely on the old-fashioned services of a book buyer. My personal book buyer has an uncanny ability to anticipate my tastes. He has introduced me to out-of-print novelists, obscure playwrights and classic philosophy tracts. I’ve enjoyed nearly all of… Continue reading My Backlogged Pages
Krapp’s Last Power Point is an almost-one-man performance about technology gone out of control. George Krapp is a scientist giving a presentation on a new drug with miraculous benefits. His presentation is not exactly a slam dunk, however. The drug has controversial side effects, and the government has refused to grant approval for human trials.… Continue reading Krapp’s Last Power Point
Korean Quarterly, Fall 2010
Review of B. R. Myers, The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves – And Why It Matters (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2010), 200 pages Brian Myers has a peculiar literary fetish. He spends an enormous amount of his time reading literature that he intensely dislikes. A specialist in North Korean literature, Myers wrote his… Continue reading The Cleanest Race (Review)
Review: Peter Maass, Crude World, (Knopf, 2009), 276 pages It has become a staple of newspaper articles about lottery winners that, more often than not, their huge windfalls cause more grief than glamour. The lucky few frequently overspend themselves into bankruptcy, watch their families descend into nasty conflicts, and endure endless requests for money and… Continue reading Crude World (Review)
If you look closely at the AP photograph of the South Korean marines conducting a drill on Yeonpyoeong island, you can see that their yellow headbands read tongil. That’s the Korean word for reunification. With the South Korean government conducting another round of live-fire artillery drills in contested waters near North Korea, the message of… Continue reading South Korea: Seeking Reunification by Live Fire
It’s 1994 all over again in North Korea, and that’s not good news for the country. The nuclear crisis continues to burn. There are food shortages and flooding. Jimmy Carter has gone to Pyongyang. Relations between North and South have sunk to new lows. And the country is preparing to pass the reins of power… Continue reading It’s Ground Hog Day All Over Again in Pyongyang
Washington may well be rejoicing at the result of today’s election inside the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). Prime Minister Naoto Kan defeated rival Ichiro Ozawa by a large margin in a battle for the party’s top spot. Ozawa, with his calls for a more equal partnership with the United States and a renegotiation of… Continue reading Japan’s Three Elections
Christian Century, November 30, 2010
International Politik, January 2010
International Politik, March 2010
International Politik, June 2010
Washingtonian, July 2010
When Ok Chin was a child, her mother brought her to an orphanage. The family was poor, and her mother heard that the girl would get fed and clothed. Ok Chin would get an education. Maybe if the family’s fortunes improved, she could rejoin her brothers and sisters. What happened next was unexpected. Another little… Continue reading The Baby Trade
Terrorist plots are suddenly everywhere. In Baltimore last week, a 21-year-old construction worker tried to blow up a military recruitment center. In late November, federal law enforcement officials arrested a Somalia-born teenager for plotting to bomb a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. In October, a jury found the Newburgh Four guilty of planning to… Continue reading Lighting the Terrorist Fuse
WikiLeaks puts the government through a full body scanner to reveal many dirty secrets. U.S. officials, not surprisingly, have responded with anger. They don’t want their “junk” exposed or touched. No one, from emperors to excursionists, likes to be naked in public. And the latest revelations are the most intrusive yet. It’s one thing when… Continue reading Transparency Fundamentalists
“The Communists have taken over the World Bank!” So far, this phrase hasn’t appeared on Glenn Beck’s infamous chalkboard. I’m still waiting for Beck or Rush Limbaugh to make a big stink that the World Bank’s chief economist is from Mainland China. Justin Yifu Lin has been in his position for more than two years… Continue reading China: Already on Top?
They had to eat spam and Pop-Tarts. They had to shower in the dark with cold water. The toilets overflowed. When the Carnival Cruise ship finally docked in San Diego last week after three days on the high seas without electricity, CNN interviewed two of the youngest passengers in an attempt to play up the… Continue reading Cruising for a Bruising
It’s a cold morning in January 2011. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rand Paul (R-KY) wake up early to put on their Revolutionary War costumes. They’re joined by a miscellaneous group of anti-government protestors, libertarian activists, and all-around hotheads. With their supporters in tow, the tea party movement’s Adam and Eve drive to the Pentagon and… Continue reading Tea Party at the Pentagon
The Muslims were bloodthirsty and treacherous. They conducted a sneak attack against the French army and slaughtered every single soldier, 20,000 in all. More than 1,000 years ago, in the mountain passes of Spain, the Muslim horde cut down the finest soldiers in Charlemagne’s command, including his brave nephew Roland. Then, according to the famous… Continue reading The Lies of Islamophobia
Even before the polls opened for voting in the U.S. midterm elections, the finger-pointing had already begun. The Obama agenda, instead of coming to term after four years, was suffering a miscarriage halfway through. The potential culprits were many and diverse. President Barack Obama was to blame because his populist attempt to rally the economically… Continue reading Midterm Miscarriage
What were NBC executives thinking? The unemployment rate remains near double digits, and many Americans have simply stopped looking for work. And what does the network premier this fall but a sitcom called Outsourced about an American manager sent to run a call center in India. The jokes revolve around funny names, unappetizing food, Sikh… Continue reading What’s So Funny about Outsourcing?
Writing about it didn’t, alas, prevent it from happening. In the late 1940s, Gore Vidal lived in Guatemala, where he shared a house with the writer Anaïs Nin, lived on the cheap, and wrote Dark Green, Bright Red. Published in 1950, this undeservedly obscure novel describes how the operatives of the World Banana Company work… Continue reading Not-So-Magical Realism