My friend Marvin should add this to his list of books to study Japanese from. I mean, Japanese Ebonics? via… oh, damn, I lost the original. (I was reading by RSS and marked all read.)
Category: ASIDES
Judas as Faithful Sidekick to the End?
According to the Gospel of Judas, a newly discovered document from early Christian times, that’s the story. It’s an surprising alternate version of the story we all know, and that in itself makes it interesting, regardless of your views on mainstream religion.
Who’s Your Worst Enemy?
Reading the title of this post at Mingi Hyun’s page, S. Koreans Say China is the Greatest Threat in the Future, it feels like seeing Luke Skywalker eyeing Boba Fett and saying, “You know, that guy, he’s the one I’m worried about, guys.” And this, with Darth Vader standing in the background, lightsaber at the ready. sigh
Can’t Force Democracy
Robert Kaplan points out the error in the Bush Administration’s thinking in an article titled We Can’t Force Democracy. For the average person who just wants to walk the streets without being brutalized or blown up by criminal gangs, a despotic state that can protect him is more moral and far more useful than a democratic one that cannot. … Globalization and other dynamic forces will continue to rid the world of dictatorships. Political change is nothing we need to force upon people; it’s something that will happen anyway. What we have to work toward — for which peoples with …
Airborne Ebola a Good Idea? Get This Guy a Straightjacket, Please!
Here’s a link to an article in The Citizen Scientist about a guy named Dr. Pianka. The guy gave a speech about the need to exterminate over two-thirds of humanity… because we’re wrecking the environment and running out of oil. OIL! Worse, the reporter claims he got a standing ovation after saying we could achieve this with purposeful depoyment of airborne Ebola. The nutcase’s website is here. I can’t believe he was allowed to speak, or that people clapped for him. Report via Blogcritics. UPDATE: I stand happily, though ever so slightly sheepishly, corrected by Adam (see comments section below). …
Portable NPR
Even for those abroad: NPR : Podcast Directory. Too bad they don’t offer This American Life.
Language Log: O grammar books, O now your virtues show
On Language Log recent mention was made of English teachers in America who think “the” is an adjective. It can be worse, so so much worse. A few days after arriving in Korea, where I was hired expressly to teach English, a co-worker who’d been hired at the same time as me asked what a verb was.
A CHINK IN THE ARMOUR
A CHINK IN THE ARMOUR is a documentary about stereotypes of Chinese people. Nothing you don’t already know, but there are a couple of amusing moments. via Angry Asian Man
No, he’s very BAD.
Metanoiac has a video up which shows some of the psychotic training practice used on Kim Jong-Il’s Bodyguards. It’s very gaaaaaaaaaaa.
Weird Moments, But Nice
Last night, I spent a bunch of time previewing a movie that I was planning to show a class today. I hadn’t seen the whole film in a while, and I got through it and managed to choose important scenes for discussion, but the problem was what it did to my mind today. When I woke in the morning, for almost the first time since I’ve come here, I had this strange, sudden awareness that, Hey, I live in Asia. I mean, I’ve been aware of it, for a long time, but the awareness has continually just far enough from …