Bo Xilai’s downfall and China’s future

"A decade ago when Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao were installed as China’s president and premier respectively, one could have been fooled into thinking that the process by which they were selected ran like clockwork. Indeed, some apologists for Beijing’s authoritarian rule have argued that the way in which the Communist party picks its leaders is a model of technocratic rule. Prospective candidates for top slots are groomed over years in the most demanding jobs the vast country has to offer. The competition is ferocious. But the process lacks some vital ingredients. It is neither transparent nor accountable.
...

"There are some steps, well short of the full-blown democracy so feared by the Communist party, that could be taken. First, dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel peace prize winner, and others should be released. What most of these political activists are demanding is enshrined in China’s own post 1949 constitution. Mr Wen’s rhetoric is incompatible with silencing such people and depriving them of their liberty. Second, there should be more experiments with genuine democracy, if only, initially, at the village, county and township levels advocated by Mr Wen. Here the experience of Wukan, a village in southern China that organised its own election after expelling corrupt officials is instructive. It is mildly encouraging that the Communist party in Guangdong, where Wukan is located, chose to let the elections proceed rather than sending in troops as some feared."

FT: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c268c15e-6fa3-11e1-b368-00144feab49a.html#axzz1uZv1lYYg

Insights, photographic and otherwise: Heading East

From the eclectic, photographically oriented blog Heading East

Night Sounds


When I was a kid I imagined the sound of night to be wind in the branches and the beat of firefly wings.
As a teen I imagined it to be the breath of the sleeping.


Night in New York where the quiet hours were never so quiet, was always a conversation, muffled and rich.


In LA it was the tinkle and chime of a distant party.


Today, if I close my eyes after 2 or so, wherever I am, night is always full of keyboards... clicking away, endlessly, out there in the dark.

http://www.mexicanpictures.com/headingeast/2012/05/night-sounds-1.html

Maurice Sendak - Brilliant obituary, memorable stories

 NYTimes: Maurice Sendak, Author of Splendid Nightmares, Dies at 83 http://t.co/dV3b6MIf

Video Interview: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/09/grim-colberty-tales-maurice-sendak/

Drawings http://nga.gov.au/InternationalPrints/Tyler/DEFAULT.cfm?MnuID=2&VUWRKS=TRUE&ArtistIRN=20545 

Bill Clinton, LBJ, Caro

Bill Clinton makes some interesting observations while reviewing LBJ by Robert Caro http://t.co/nf0umzVb

Reading Amis ....

Reading Amis on Larkin; drinking Kilkenny. Next: Tibetan Book of Dead, interpreted by Dalai Lama, but really curious about Lopez critique.

http://twitter.com/pmorgan/status/191390021851418624
April 15, 2012 at 12:58PM

Evolutionary reason for art ...

"He argues that humankind's universal interest in art is the result of human evolution. We enjoy sex, grasp facial expressions, understand logic and spontaneously acquire language—all of which make it easier for us to survive and produce children. In "The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution," Dutton contends that an interest in art belongs on this list of evolutionary adaptations."

Marie Lorenz

This stuff is properly commitedly quirky. See Tide and Current Taxi

"The last bit of Earth unclaimed by any nation-state was eaten up in 1899. Ours is the first century without terra incognita, without a frontier…We are looking for spaces (geographic, social, cultural, imaginary) with potential to flower as autonomous zones" from 'The Temporary Autonomous Zone' Peter Lambourn Wilson

"Running water is more than a passive guide, it represents an invitation for a free ride into terra incognita." from 'Early Man and the Ocean' Thor Heyerdahl

"The natural element for industry, animating its outward movement, is the sea. Since the passion for gain involves risk, industry though bent on gain yet lifts itself above it; instead of remaining rooted to the soil and the limited circle of civil life with its pleasures and desires, it embraces the element of flux, danger, and destruction." from 'Philosophy of Right' Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

My artwork combines psycho-geographic exploration with highly crafted, material forms. I use boats and navigation in my artwork to create an uncertain space. My belief is that uncertainty brings about a heightened awareness of place. When we feel unstable we see more. In my very first boat projects in the canals around Providence, Rhode Island, I was struck by the unique perspective that navigating a city waterway allows. I saw the city from below street level. The people and cars were gone. The strangely empty city allowed for an unusual encounter with architecture and structure.

In my ongoing project called The Tide and Current Taxi, I ferry people throughout New York in a boat that I made. I study tidal charts of the harbor and use the tidal currents and river currents to push the boat all throughout New York City. The act of floating through adds a specific presence to ones own observation. The viewer maintains an awareness of their own balance and form as they absorb the details in their surrounding. This kind of observation creates something new out of something familiar. This is an attempt to 'un-know' the city. Furthermore, my project looks for unoccupied edges of social control– we float freely through the highly gridded city, in search of understanding, or just 'in search of'. I continually insist upon re-exploring the metropolis. The coastline of New York City is constantly changing and developing; my projects navigate and record this transitional state.

I am currently working in Rome on a sailboat that I will use to sail the coast of Italy this Spring. I think of the boat as a kind of drawing tool. It is carved with relief images, like building blocks that I can use to make rubbings of the landscape. It has drawers full of drawing utensils and foldout easels. The deck of the boat is a drawing desk. Similar to the photoblog that I keep about the Tide and Current Taxi, this boat in its own form will allow me to keep a careful record of my exploration as it unfolds.

Amazon.com: Empire, Barbarism, and Civilisation: Captain Cook, William Hodges and the Return to the Pacific: Harriet Guest: Books

Amazon.com: Empire, Barbarism, and Civilisation: Captain Cook, William Hodges and the Return to the Pacific: Harriet Guest: Books: "The artist William Hodges accompanied Captain Cook on his second voyage to the South Pacific in 1772-5. His extraordinarily vivid images, read against the fascinating journals of Cook and his companions, reveal as much about European cultures and historiography as about the peoples they visited. In this lively and original book, Harriet Guest discusses Hodges's dramatic landscapes and portraits alongside written accounts of the voyages and in the context of the theories of civilisation which shaped European perceptions - theories drawn from the works of philosophers of the Scottish enlightenment such as Adam Smith and John Millar. She argues that the voyagers resorted to diverse or incompatible models of progress in successive encounters with different groups of islanders, and shows how these models also structured metropolitan views of the voyagers and of Hodges's work. This fully illustrated study offers a fresh perspective on eighteenth-century representations of gender, colonialism and exploration."

Source:

James Cook

"# The celebrated navigator James Cook sighted the coast at Vancouver Island in March 1778 and dropped anchor at a place he thought the inhabitants called Nootka. He heard wrong, in fact, since no local language contained this particular word. Even so, the place where Cook anchored continues to be called Nootka Sound, and its inhabitants, the Nuu-chal-nuth, became widely known as the Nootka.

Cook stayed nearly a month, charting the waters and making friends. On first impression he thought Nuu-chal-nuth people 'mild and inoffensive'-until their trading savvy revealed itself. 'These people got a greater medley and variety of things from us than any other,' he noted. By the time Cook set sail, his ship had been stripped of virtually all surplus metal: copper kettles, tin tea canisters, brass candlesticks and bureau fittings, even the buttons off officers' uniforms. In return, Cook filled his hold with native artifacts-and a fortune in sea otter pelts.

The success of Cook's voyage ignited a worldwide frinzy of excitement. Ships from England, Spain, Portugal, France, and the soon-to-be-independent United States swarmed into the region. Profits were unbelievably high. One trader from New England arrived in 1785 and swapped some cheap metal items for 560 pelts, which commanded $20,000 in the China market....American ships alone gathered some 350,000 sea otter pelts altogether, for which native suppliers received an estimated $7 million worth of trade goods.
# In the end there was plenty for everyone, native and foreigner alike. Among the Haida, prominent families were amassing fortunes in coppers, blankets, firearms, and other valuable items. Down the coast it was the same. White traders coming into the region often preferred to deal with one or two powerful families, who became exceptionally wealthy as a result."

Source:

The Macintosh Biblioblog: Special Key Symbols

The marvel of the minutiae and the internet:

The Macintosh Biblioblog: Special Key Symbols from the blog: "All things Macintosh for biblical scholarship and ministry."

Can You Choose Your Reincarnated Successor? - NYTimes.com

Can You Choose Your Reincarnated Successor? - NYTimes.com: "Since he fled Chinese rule by foot and horseback over the Himalayas in 1959, the Dalai Lama has traveled restlessly and spoken passionately about Tibet. The fruits of his labors are many: The world is spotted with Tibetan centers, and prayer flags flap from Delhi to London to Zurich to Todt Hill in Staten Island. Tibetan culture is celebrated in Hollywood and in popular art. (Exiles number about 130,000; about six million Tibetans live in Tibet and China).

But a darker vision of Tibet’s future is easily divined. This Dalai Lama dies and his successor is young and inexperienced and holds no sway in the chambers of the powerful. Slowly, ineluctably, the Tibetans become just another of the globe’s landless peoples lost in the shadow of a rising superpower."

Source: http://tinyurl.com/dfalpg

Bruce Springsteen: Working on a Dream review

Bruce Springsteen: Working on a Dream review: "Elsewhere, an album that is preoccupied with questions of mortality, romantic fidelity, learning from the past while facing an uncertain future, touches base with some key Springsteen staging posts: My Lucky Day is muscular, Jersey Shore rock’n’roll/soul, Life Itself is downbeat and minimal to the point of resignation, Kingdom of Days marries a swoonsome 1950s-pop chord progression to a beautiful lyric about the passage of time, Queen of the Supermarket boasts a quintessential slow-build intro, sprinkled with Roy Bittan’s piano, and This Life could almost be a Four Seasons song, its walking bass and alternately descending and ascending key structure supporting a powerfully affirming lyric that is both deeply personal and universal."

Times Higher Education - In Defense of Lost Causes

Times Higher Education - In Defense of Lost Causes: "Most compelling here, however, is Zizek's engagement with ecological crisis - arguing that the looming threat of environmental ruin necessitates collective revolutionary action on the scale of Robespierre or the Bolsheviks. The worst possible path here, he demonstrates, following a formula that captures the spirit of the work as a whole, is 'the middle position, taking a limited number of measures', where we 'fail whatever happens'."

Source:

The Silence of Lorna, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 105 mins

The Silence of Lorna, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 105 mins, 15<br>To Get to Heaven First You Have to Die, Djamshed Usmonov, 95 mins, 15 - Reviews, Films - The Independent: "Consider this column a tribute to the great American film critic Manny Farber, who died earlier this year. In an influential essay of 1962, Farber proposed a distinction between what he called 'white elephant art' and 'termite art'."

Source:

The harsh lesson of Afghanistan: little has changed in 200 years

The harsh lesson of Afghanistan: little has changed in 200 years | Ben Macintyre - Times Online"“We are content with discord, we are content with alarms, we are content with blood,” the old man said. “But we will never be content with a master.”"

Architecture in Manchester

Architecture in Manchester
Originally uploaded by pmorgan

Flickr: Discussing What are you listening to right now as you type? in Utata

I am listening to the quirky, delightful jazz- style cello plucking Block Ice Propane by Eric Friedlander. The inspiration for his music came during summer road trips when his father Lee Friedlander would stop and take pictures. There is a good interview and some of Eric Friedlander's music on NPR"

Source:

The Fallacy of Hypothesis Testing

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2008 — Page 2: "IRENE PEPPERBERG
Research Associate, Psychology, Harvard University; Author, The Alex Studies

The Fallacy of Hypothesis Testing

I've begun to rethink the way we teach students to engage in scientific research. I was trained, as a chemist, to use the classic scientific method: Devise a testable hypothesis, and then design an experiment to see if the hypothesis is correct or not. And I was told that this method is equally valid for the social sciences. I've changed my mind that this is the best way to do science. I have three reasons for this change of mind."

Source:

James Fallows (November 27, 2007) - "The" way vs "a" way (Japan v China dept)

James Fallows (November 27, 2007) - "The" way vs "a" way (Japan v China dept): "Details to notice below: crew identically dressed in company uniform; complete safety gear -- hardhats, reflective chest straps with procedural checklist clipped on, puffy protective cuff to shield the plane's wing from damage."

Source:

James Fallows (November 27, 2007) - "The" way vs "a" way (Japan v China dept)

James Fallows (November 27, 2007) - "The" way vs "a" way (Japan v China dept)

Source:

Best Coffee

Coffee’s Holy Grail: "Where did you have your best cup of coffee?"

An African hero: Biko - the forgotten martyr

"In popular culture, he is a very powerful symbol of hope, an icon of change. He helped to articulate our understanding, our own identity that continues to resonate in young South Africans to this day."

An African hero: Biko

How Anita changed the world

"... it might seem presumptuous to a degree to include in this august company of Dead White European Males a woman from Sussex who sold shampoo. Yet there seems no doubt that Anita Roddick, the founder of The Body Shop, did change profoundly the way that we think about things, in a way that flowed on to change the world itself."

A Photographer's Guide to Namibia

A Photographer's Guide to Namibia - photo.net by Philip Greenspun; created September 2007 Namibia is the African country for beginners to Africa tourism. It is mostly too dry for malaria. The spaces are wide open. The cities are uncrowded and safe. The roads are good and you can drive yourself from place to place rather than being shepherded."

The New Great Game. Blood and Oil in Central Asia - by Lutz C. Kleveman

"Crude oil, once seen as a wealth-creating blessing for mankind, is fast turning into the “devil’s tears”. The struggle to control the world’s remaining energy reserves increasingly culminates in bloody conflicts and the killing of innocent civilians, with the war in Iraq only being the latest example."

Source: The New Great Game. Blood and Oil in Central Asia - by Lutz C. Kleveman

The author's website is here.

Masters of Photography: Josef Koudelka

Josef Koudelkaquoted by Czeslaw Milosz, in Exiles

"While writing this essay I had before my eyes Josef Koudelka's photographs. Let my words serve as a tribute to his art of telling stories without words."

Kids with Cameras

The very worthwhile Kids with Cameras project

Visual Art - Illegal Art - Copyright

Visual Art - Illegal Art

Exhibit of art artists have got in heck for creating because the corps didn't like the ad or the copyright violations - check out Barbie and Starbucks, as good examples.

The Unsettled West

Foreign Affairs - The Unsettled West - Joshua Kurlantzick: "Indeed, thanks to Beijing's policies, instead of fighting among themselves, as the Uighurs had done for centuries, after 1949 many began to settle their intra-ethnic differences and build a sense of Uighur solidarity."

Hey, Jack Kerouac - Paper Cuts - Books - New York Times Blog

Hey, Jack Kerouac - Paper Cuts - Books - New York Times Blog: "The review that started everything for Kerouac was Gilbert Millstein’s, published in the daily New York Times on September 5, 1957. Kerouac would have made it without Millstein. But this was the review that kicked the door down."