This report from a recent European conference on Burma is helpful in articulating the differences between American, European, and Asian approaches to the country:
There was a widespread sentiment and frustration among participants that the West’s two-decade long policy of sanctions had failed, even if it showed support for the democracy cause. One participant claimed that […]
David Steinberg’s chapter on Foreign Assistance in Burma: The State of Myanmar goes some way in explaining the current impasse. Rangoon may be thick with foreign NGOs, but convincing an independent Burma to accept humanitarian aid has never been easy:
Yet Burma was dependent on foreign assistance, which at various junctures was essential to the […]
I spent some amount of time at my desk in Rangoon daydreaming about UN tanks rolling down Sule Pagoda Road. (It was a weekly paper; we had lots of time.) In one very narrow sense, the conditions seemed ripe for a clean transfer of power. Burma has an elected leader, we were surrounded by Burmans […]
Anne Applebaum, David Cameron, and others have been calling for the rest of the world to ignore the junta and just start blanketing the country with aid from the air. It’s certainly tempting; orphaned kids are getting sick as planeloads of medication wait a short trip away, and it’s ludicrous that anyone should have to […]
Will and I are in Turkey for the week, and the above is a shot Will took from Pamukkale. It’s bizarre, other-wordly white rock that cascades down the side of a small mountain. It looks like ice, but it’s 70 degrees out and warm water from hots springs runs right down the incline. Tourists can […]
The eminently reasonable Jason Kuznicki weighs in:
[B]eing troubled by both the state and the FLDS does not make one any less a radical for individualism. It’s perfectly conceivable that giving more control to either one means that individualism loses. Highly controlling environments like the FLDS may indeed approach the status of a government, Howley argues, […]
Tim Lee demands clarity!
There appears to be evidence of statutory rape. That’s a relatively easy-to-define and plainly problematic crime that the state can and should prosecute. If there’s evidence that some of the teenage or pre-teen girls have been raped, that would be reasonable grounds for holding all of the girls between the ages of […]
Kim Kardashian reports:
My sisters and I recently did a public service announcement about the country of Burma’s struggle for freedom. Their Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is imprisoned right now and has endured torture.
It’s an incredible story and I’m honored to have helped raise awareness about Burma’s plight. Over all it was […]
The Moxley/Skakel saga continues:
Michael Skakel, nephew of Ethel Kennedy and murderer of Martha Moxley, is now an artist.
Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, imprisoned for killing a teenage neighbor, is spending some of his time in prison creating art that depicts beauty, danger and the loss of innocence.
Skakel, convicted in 2002 of killing Martha Moxley in 1975, […]
What to make of the bizarrely limited conversation surrounding the FLDS raids? A number of people have linked approvingly to this OpEd arguing that the men of FLDS are hapless victims of state-initiated force, guilty only of “teaching their kids that a woman’s highest calling is giving birth and raising children.” With the […]
How big is the child-shaped hole in a childless woman’s heart ? Not too big, finds Bryan:
Controlling for real income, church attendance, age, and marital status, men take a bigger happiness hit from kids than women, just as I said. On a 1-3 scale, every child predicts a 0.021 reduction in male happiness, but only […]
Kevin Drum quotes this K-Lo meditation on porn in the military, but misses the best part:
The last thing I’d ever want is a feminizing of our military. But military bases are family affairs and therefore this is worth a discussion.
I love men. I love men being men. I love military men. And I thank God […]
Wow:
“If part of our problem is that the Chinese are going to eat meat and you’ve got to have corn and soybeans to feed the Chinese their meat, then why isn’t it just as legitimate for the Chinese to go back and eat rice as it is for us to change our policy on corn […]
Gene Healy on John McCain’s “a cause greater” fetish:
In his speeches, McCain periodically sneers at American opulence and suggests that leaving Americans alone to pursue their own visions of happiness is a narrow and ignoble goal for government…Here he is in a recent speech at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, telling his audience that if […]
Bryan writes:
Kerry may be right that explicit advocacy of childlessness was higher in the ’70’s; I don’t know. But the Current Population Survey definitely shows a sharp rise in the fraction of women aged 40-44 who have zero children. That percentage was 10.2% in 1976, versus 19.3% in 2004. That doesn’t directly contradict Kerry’s […]
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