In a plot line inspired by Robert Frost’s poem Road Not Taken, fictional character Archie Andrews has already proposed to Veronica and will propose to Betty next month. I wonder what it would be like if other comics were inspired by poems…(imagine dreamy music and blurry vision.)
On His Blindness—John Milton
Spiderman is blind, worries about his [...]
Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Super Poems
Posted in Arts and Aesthetics, History, Literature, Media, Popular culture on October 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Great Moments in Selective Quotation
Posted in History, tagged Andrew Roberts, Richard J. Evans, shoddy intellectuals on September 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Not too many years ago, Andrew Roberts was a respected historian. He specialized in a very old fashioned sort of history, writing sympathetic biographies of conservative British bigwigs like Lord Halifax and Lord Salisbury. However conventional they might be, these volumes were based on original archival research and graced by a fluid prose style. The Salisbury [...]
Banner image: John Sell Cotman
Posted in Arts and Aesthetics, History, tagged Girtin, John Sell Cotman, Turner, watercolour painting, Wordsworth on September 14, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Though few members of the public give much thought to ranking the prestige of different art forms, if forced to do so it is likely that watercolour painting would be granted an affectionate but decidedly second-tier status. We think of pretty landscapes formed with washed-out pigments: light browns, greens, yellows, pinks and reds that tend [...]
It came from the desert, part deux
Posted in Canadian politics, Foreign affairs, History, Media, tagged Algeria, AQIM, Mali, Robert Fowler on September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Readers of the Globe and Mail will already have seen today’s front-page-above-the-fold article on diplomat Robert Fowler’s return to Canada and his interview on national TV about his abduction last year by a splinter group of AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb — itself a splinter group of the Algerian insurgency of the 1990s), [...]
It came from the desert
Posted in Foreign affairs, History, Media, tagged Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat, Jeremy Keenan, Sahel, Tuareg, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Maghreb on August 7, 2009 | 3 Comments »
According to American and European intelligence and military sources, there is a growing menace to Western security in (to use the intervention-justifying cliché of recent times) “the vast ungoverned spaces” of northwest Africa. A New York Times story published earlier this month itemized a string of violent events in the region that officials blame on [...]
Global Citizenship Expert Reviews Japan’s Open Future
Posted in Asia, Foreign affairs, History, Japan, Philosophy, Popular culture, tagged book review, Global Asia, global citizenship, Hans Schattle, Japan, Japan's Open Future on July 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’d like to share a recent review of my book Japan’s Open Future: An Agenda for Global Citizenship by Dr. Hans Schattle, an expert on global citizenship and author of the 2007 book The Practices of Global Citizenship.
I have not yet had the chance to read Schattle’ s book, but according to the Amazon review, it “provides a detailed and [...]
A Garden at Last for Kolakowski
Posted in Arts and Aesthetics, History, Personalities, Philosophy, Uncategorized on July 22, 2009 | 4 Comments »
I was sorry to hear from Jeet’s recent post that Leszek Kolakowski had died. As an undergrad I read and read again his penetrating collection of essays in Modernity on Endless Trial – an inspired title, I always thought. Fittingly enough for someone who was influenced by Kant, he shook me from some of my immature dogmas.
For instance, Kolakowski [...]
Life, the state, and a pack of Kents
Posted in Film and documentary, Foreign affairs, History, tagged 4 Weeks 3 Months and 2 Days, Cristian Mungiu, Das Leben der Anderen, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck on July 5, 2009 | 3 Comments »
At the beginning of Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or-winning film 4 Weeks, 3 Months, and 2 Days, the camera lingers on a goldfish in a square bowl. The fish seems to be trying to escape, not by jumping out, but by pushing directly against the glass, its tail thrusting spiritedly but without result.
It is an effective [...]
Cleopatra’s Dessert and Shark Fin Soup
Posted in Arts and Aesthetics, Asia, Environment, Foreign affairs, History, Japan, Personalities, Philosophy, Uncategorized, tagged black swan, Cleopatra, discount rate, humility, intergenerational equity, nuclear waste, Ramsey, shark fin soup, Taleb on June 21, 2009 | 1 Comment »
At a Brussels nuclear law conference in 2007, I gave a technical paper on intergenerational issues in nuclear waste economics. I argued for the prudence of applying a conservative discount rate when setting aside funds for future nuclear waste management so as to guard against contingencies. Recently I had the chance to look at my argument again with fresh eyes [...]
Foreign Workers in Japan: Please Close the Door When You Leave
Posted in Asia, Foreign affairs, History, Japan, Media, Uncategorized on June 14, 2009 | 1 Comment »
A recent episode of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered discusses Japan’s (mis)treatment of foreign workers; my Japan book co-author, Jean-Pierre Lehmann, is interviewed just after five minutes into the seven minute program. It’s also worth listening for the politician Taro Kono’s candid comments about 3:28 into the interview.
A recent New York Times article, “Japan Pays Foreign Workers to [...]
