Featured Books
Real News. Fake News. Manipulated News.
Over the last year or so, much has been written about the news and the role media should or should not have played in certain affairs of national import. This is clearly an important topic for the United States and the world, as well as for those responsible for...
read moreThe Death and Death of Great Chinese Cities
In the Epilogue to my Blue Ear Books title Live at the Forbidden City: Musical Encounters in China and Taiwan, I reflected ruefully that the China I'd described in the narrative, which had still retained much of its aesthetically rich pre‒twentieth century character,...
read moreThe trouble with Twitter
A few times in recent weeks I've found myself in tweet-exchanges that have descended quickly into intemperance and misunderstanding. In all cases, I could be accused with some justice of being overly sensitive and hair-trigger in my emotional and rhetorical reactions....
read moreRobert Pirsig: An Appreciation
When I took Freshman Composition at Azusa Pacific University back in 1986, we were required to read Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. I wasn’t much of a reader back then; if a book or magazine didn’t have pictures, I...
read morePower of Ridicule / Ridicule of Power
Blue Ear Books ringleader Ethan Casey recently asked if I had any thoughts to share on the current North Korea crisis, given my modicum of empirical expertise in things East Asian (see my BEB title Live at the Forbidden City). My initial reaction was "What do I know...
read moreErdogan’s Turkey – Trump’s America
Citizens of Turkey just voted in a referendum on whether to move from a parliamentary to a presidential system of democracy - one in which a great amount of power would be concentrated in the hands of one person, the duly elected president of the country. Turkey has...
read moreWeekend rides
In a little over a month, I’ll be heading out on the open road with my daughter Kait for a 2,600-mile cycling adventure. The only way to prepare for such an undertaking is to get out and bike, bike, bike--the best preparation for cycling is cycling. But it’s not just...
read moreThe Tragedy of Syria
The US missile attack on the airbase in Syria made memories of my 2010 trip to that beautiful country rush back to my mind. The Syria that I saw, the beautiful winding lanes of the old city of Damascus, all the ancient sites around the city, are no longer the way I...
read moreSolitude
I just watched one of my favorite films, Cast Away. I enjoy the middle portion of the film, when Tom Hanks’s character is alone on a desert island. Yes, he’s with Wilson– but the film, at this point, focuses on how he can survive in solitude. He doesn’t handle...
read moreRestricting Khizr Khan’s Travel Restricts Everyone’s Citizenship
There’s so much being forced on our attention right now that you (or I) might easily have missed the news about Khizr Khan having to cancel his trip to Toronto to give a speech. And so much that is happening is unprecedented and astonishing that you (or I) might have...
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