Highlighted, US Domestic Policy
The problem with the current pandemic is that we don’t know if we’re coming or going. It’s as if we’re swimming far from shore, overwhelmed by one wave after another, and we’re unsure if we’re heading toward land or away from it. China was the early face of COVID-19, but it hasn’t faced many infections… Continue reading What’s Up with the Herd? FPIF
Highlighted, US Domestic Policy
Welcome to Chewing the Fat, our weekly talk show here at WXYZ. Today, we have a special treat for you — two guests who will answer the question on everyone’s mind. Should we stay at home in virtual quarantine or should we head out the front door and reopen the economy? The coronavirus pandemic is… Continue reading Death and the Economy: A Dialogue, FPIF
Highlighted, US Foreign Policy
THE MODERN GLOBAL economy rests on the foundation of modern medicine. The transactions that sustain the global trade of goods and services require an implicit assurance that merchants and financiers are not infecting one another when they meet to conduct business. Economic globalization requires that the nodes of international distribution—ports, airline terminals, railway stations, intermodal hubs—do… Continue reading COVID-19 and the Global Economy, Inference
Environment, Highlighted, US Domestic Policy
Imagine for a moment that Hillary Clinton had won the presidential election in 2016. Imagine, in other words, that the “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania had held firm four years ago. Claiming election fraud, Donald Trump would have insisted on a recount and Election Day would then, too, have stretched into election week… Continue reading Revisiting the Goldilocks Apocalypse, TomDispatch
Highlighted, US Domestic Policy
The best way to fight the rising far right is to go green. That’s what dozens of academics, researchers, and activists told me over the course of 80 interviews this year. Over the last decade, the radical right has come to power in the United States, Brazil, India, Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere. It has joined… Continue reading A Global Green New Deal Could Defeat the Far Right—And Save the Planet, Newsweek
China, Highlighted
If you ignore the headlines, you’d think the United States and China were the best of partners. Americans continue to rely on Chinese-made products in their homes, at their offices, and in their pockets. If you live near a university, you can still bump into one of the 340,000 Chinese studying in the US. You… Continue reading The Widening Rift Between the US and China, The Nation
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A large billboard on the side of the road urges residents of this dusty capital city to restrict their showers to under three minutes. Even now, during the rainy season, Gaborone is experiencing a severe water shortage. At the luxury casino resort hotel where I stayed on a recent trip, water flowed from the taps… Continue reading Between Rocks and a Hard Place, Foreign Policy
China, Highlighted
We were surrounded by sand. It stretched in undulating waves to the horizon in all directions. Wei Men, who works for the Baijitan Nature Reserve in Ningxia province, beckoned for us to step down from our desert overlook and take a close-up look at the desert floor. He wanted to show us what officials hope… Continue reading Deserts vs. Development in China, Global Post
Highlighted, Korea
Political cartoonists love to portray North Korea as an irrational and infantile force. It’s either a baby with a nuclear rattle or a little truant in need of a timeout. The relative youth of the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, encourages such representations, but the practice predates his ascension to power. According to the dictates… Continue reading Infantilizing North Korea, Hankyoreh
Food, Highlighted, Korea
I’m standing with a social worker beneath the palm trees outside a municipal building in the main city of Jeju Island. We’re talking about a nearby naval base, which the South Korean government is trying to build and a number of islanders are trying to prevent. She’s repeating a familiar refrain about Jeju — that it’s… Continue reading Jeju Island: Paradise with a Dark Side, Washington Post
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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 his choices, though quite a… Continue reading My Backlogged Pages, New York Times
Highlighted, Korea
Social workers are fond of saying that they must start where their clients are. This basic principle of social work is not theoretical. It comes from decades of practice. Simply telling people what they should do rarely translates into their actually doing “the right thing.” So instead, social workers have turned the tables by beginning… Continue reading Starting Where North Korea Is, 38North
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When I traveled through Eastern Europe in the wake of the 1989 revolutions, I carried a computer and a portable printer. I typed up my dispatches, printed them out, and sent them back to my employers by air mail. Even with the lag time of a week or more, my reports on conversations with activists,… Continue reading Will Facebook Remake the World? Harvard International Review
Environment, Highlighted, Korea
Gas prices are above $4 a gallon; global food prices surged 39% last year; and an environmental disaster looms as carbon emissions continue to spiral upward. The global economy appears on the verge of a TKO, a triple whammy from energy, agriculture, and climate-change trends. Right now you may be grumbling about the extra bucks… Continue reading Are We All North Koreans Now? TomDispatch
Book Reviews, Highlighted, Korea
According to the official North Korean version, the Americans were the culprits. In October 1950, the first year of the Korean War, American soldiers massacred tens of thousands of innocent people in the North Korean city of Sinchon. In perhaps the most horrifying incident, US soldiers led 900 residents, including 300 women and children, into… Continue reading Writers from the Other Asia, The Nation
Highlighted, Human Rights, Korea
World Policy Journal, Fall 2004
Highlighted, Korea
The line dividing acceptable from unacceptable meat is sometimes a fine one. While vegetarians naturally reject meat of all kinds, the rest of America maintains some form of double standard — chicken but not crow, beef but not horse, venison but not reindeer, lamb but not mutton, legs and wings and rumps but not hearts… Continue reading The Politics of Dog, American Prospect
Highlighted, Russia and Eastern Europe
Containment Lite: US policy toward Russia and its neighbors If the US government had wanted to destroy Russia from the inside out, it couldn’t have devised a more effective policy than the so-called “strategic partnership.” From aggressive foreign policy to misguided economic advice to undemocratic influence-peddling, the U.S. has ushered in a cold peace on… Continue reading Containment Lite: U.S. Policy toward Russia and Its Neighbors, FPIF
Europe, Highlighted
Key Problems With the end of the cold war and the demise of the Soviet threat, NATO must find new rationales for its existence. The Clinton administration is urging NATO to welcome new members from East-Central Europe as early as 1999. The U.S. treats expansion as a fait accompli, but many serious obstacles remain. The… Continue reading The Costs and Dangers of NATO Expansion, FPIF
Highlighted, Russia and Eastern Europe
Z Magazine, June 1993
Book Reviews, Highlighted
Commonweal, May 3, 1991
Highlighted, Russia and Eastern Europe
Z Magazine, January 1990
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Philadelphia City Paper, December 23, 1987