Second Drawer to the Right

Bricks at Congress

2006-05-31T06:10:00.000-07:00

Best lede ever.

Ahmadinejad

2006-05-30T05:50:00.000-07:00

An interview that shows unsubstantiated lunacy and polemical irrationality, with bits of reasonable argumentation in between.

Dealing with Iran

2006-05-17T05:28:00.000-07:00

Finally, some sensible suggestions. It's nice to see that at least some individuals acknowledge the complexity of politics and culture and religion within Iran, and know which parts to smite and which to support.

Immigration

2006-05-17T05:25:00.000-07:00

For once, the President is right-on on this one. Admirable that he's doing this amidst such political turmoil. His ratings only went lower this morning.

No Clash

2006-05-05T06:50:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me a pretty shocking question today. I thought I'd share my gut response:

Q: I don't understand. How could a Muslim community have anything other than an anti-Western mentality?

A: Perhaps you should ask that question to the large number of Muslims living in the U.S. and Europe, enjoying the freedoms in these countries after having escaped the stifling atmospheres of their own. Or the communities of African-American Muslims that live in the U.S. who simultaneougly have strong dual western and muslim identities. Or the Muslims in westernized Muslim states like Turkey, which in its secularization sought to emulate European advancements and itself be termed a Western" country. Or the scores of Bosnian Muslims who were rescued from genocide after Western intervention in Kosovo.

This question signals to me a conflation of the image of a few radical terrorists with all Muslim communities. There are many kinds of Muslims, with all sorts of cultural sensibilities, all over the world-- not all of them are Arab-centric, Wahhabi, anti-American wackos. Certainly some, but not all.

Picking a Fight with a Scarecrow

2006-05-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

Indeed. But we weren't all illegal. Stop conflating the issue, folks.

Poking Fun

2006-05-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

Colbert's keynote at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Pretty gutsy to say it all in front of the President. Favorite lines:

"Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city. Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I would like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., The chocolate city with a marshmallow center. >> And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It's a mala march is what I’m describing, a seasonal cookie."

Censorship, Internet, Google, and China

2006-04-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

This is a very long but very excellent article on Google and China, from today's New York Times. Through its discussion, the article provides much insight into Chinese culture itself, and its ingrained notions of self-censorship, hesitation, and omission of curiousity. It also presents the actions of Google in the context of Yahoo and MSN, and poses the question of whether 99% of information to flourish in a stifled country isn't better than boycotting the country as whole out of principle.

Nepal

2006-04-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

This is pretty amazing. It reminds me of something I read once in a book called Influence, where the author talks about the psychology behind inducing change. And he points to a pattern, evident in Perestroika and the fall of the Russian regime as well as the American Civil Rights movement and the sudden upsurge in the 60s, that shows that when people are conceded some freedom, when they get a taste of it, and then it is again taken away, the response is sudden, overwhelming, and revolutionary, often taking those with power by surprise. It is the contrast, the close grasp of potential and then feeling it slip away, that brings forth the surge.

Heckling Hu

2006-04-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

I was there this morning.

You know, before there was any noise, I was somewhat enamored by the fact that I was in the South Lawn with all the flags and fanfare around, and I was thinking to myself, hey, that's the President of China, cool. And then she started shouting, and reality came rushing back.

It boggles and bugs me that an entire nation of 1.3 billion people can be completely kept in the dark, in a bubble. China is the only major nation (I believe) that we appear to be friends with that is outrightly repressive of its people. Ceremony cannot condone that fact. And I stood there in the South Lawn, what I really felt was a latent discomfort in even being there, in celebrating Hu's presence, even if passively. As the ushers passed out mini Chinese flags to be waved in the air alongside American ones, I could not help but feel a visceral antagonism against the Red banner, and I could not bring myself to wave it in my own hand.

Its moments like these that remind me how lucky I am to be an American.

Psychology of Bias

2006-04-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

Let's stop pretending that we can be completely objective.

Timeline of a Commodity

2006-04-18T05:32:00.000-07:00

The WSJ today has a nice socio-political timeline showing oil prices over the last forty years, with adjustments for inflation.

Freedom of Speech vs. Just Plain Wrong

2006-04-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

To anyone who didn't get the anger behind the Danish cartoon thing, this is the analogy. Except that, I imagine the Christians will not be killing American soldiers and setting embassies on fire in response.

Hearing a Terrorist Surrender

2006-04-14T06:59:00.000-07:00

So the transcript from the Cockpit Recorder on United Flight 93 is finally out.

For a long time, I have been suspicious as to what really happened to that fourth plane. Was it shot down, as some have suspected, and as would have been consistent with US policy at the time? Or was it really the passengers that took it down? I think now my suspicion has subsided.

Timing

2006-04-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking, I should have started this blog at the beginning of this year, but I only recently developed this habit of noting things that strike me and stashing them away in a drawer (it's a habit I developed once I had a drawer, once I had a desk, and indeed, once I had an office of my own in my new job). So now that I will soon be leaving my job, it is a habit that I shall be forced to continue only online, stashing things away in this blog.

Explanation

2006-04-13T12:46:00.000-07:00

In my desk at work, I have a place where I like to keep things that strike me. A place where I collect random papers, studies, news stories, transcripts-- things from the everyday happenings around us, things that I imagine I will one day want to look back and refer to. And if that day comes, well, I'll know just where to look-- the second drawer, to the right.