One of the enduring fixtures of American politics is that elections are largely decided by a relatively small group of "independent" voters in the centre. Or at least that's where we think they are. One of the great principles that such voters will enunciate is that they "vote for the man (and when called upon …
The Democrats and National Security: Dzerzhinskii’s Dilemma
At long last, we are entering the season where most Americans who do take interest in the November election actually take that interest. I find this botheresome but inevitable. Back in the spring I sat on a school Superintendent Selection Advisory Committee, and even with all of the rancour we had experiened over the years …
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9/11: Learning Little, Forgetting Nothing
Last year, I documented some of my encounters with a Sudanese friend of mine who was a Sunni Muslim imam. We went back and forth on a wide variety of subjects in our conversation. One day, we reserved a graduate study room in the university library and covered the waterfront on a wide variety of …
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The Sad End of Mao Dun
During my first trip to China in March 1981, I had no idea that one of the great figures of twentieth century Chinese literature was passing away: Mao Dun, the pen name for Shen Yanbing, novelist and author of Midnight, the social realist novel of Shanghai in the 1930's. Long a place of interest, going …
Positive Infinity 