image Source How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniencies. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the […]
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. βJames Madison Dean Karalekas writes the following in his PhD thesis, Identity and Transformation: Perceptions of Civil-Military Relations in the Republic of China […]
Image Source This post will be a bit parochial for readers outside of Taiwan. But let us jump in anyway. Ko Wen-je is a fairly popular mayor of Taipei. He is independent of any partyβor at least he was until earlier this month, when he announced he was creating a new political party of his […]
There once lived in a far country a people of gentle nature and perceptive understanding. They were led by a man of great vision. At great cost he decided to dedicate his life to preserving this people’s way of life. He saw in them a beauty and virtue he could find nowhere else. In a […]
A map of “Khmer Krom,” territory once dominated by Khmer speakers before it was conquered by Vietnam in the 18th and 19th centuries. Image Source: Douc Sokha, “βαα ααααβααααααααααβααΆβααααΎαβα―αααΆαβααΆαβα€α α α βαααααβ ααΆααααβααΉαβααΆαβααΆααβααΉαααΈβααααα»ααΆβαααααβα²ααβαααααΆαββ“, Vod Hot News (15 February 2015) Folks, I have a piece up at Foreign Policy on two of my favorite topics–Cambodian politics and China’s international relations. Most analysts see […]
Image source. Now that the heat of the election season has passed, it is possible to examine the heat itself. The election’s aftermath was a grand spectacle. Some convulsed in desperation and despair. Others surrendered to frenzied, twitter-fueled fits of rapture. In the midst of all this noise, a pattern arose. In simplest terms: there is a […]
Graphic source: Kevin Urmarcher, Kevin Schaul, and Dan Keating, “These Former Obama Strongholds Sealed the Election for Trump,” Washington Post (9 November 2016). There has been a bit of push back to my last post. A lot of it revolves around this fact: Donald Trump did not win the popular vote. Others point out that […]
Go, Soul, the body’s guest, Upon a thankless errand; Fear not to touch the best; The truth shall be thy warrant: Go, since I needs must die, And give the world the lie. —Sir Walter Raleigh, βThe Lie,β (c. 1592) A question many of us should be asking: do I […]
We rush towards disaster and greet it with a smirk.I sketched out what this disaster might look like when Bloomberg broke the story of AndrΓ©s SepΓΊlveda, a man who claims to have help hack elections in Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Venezuela, this spring: AndrΓ©s SepΓΊlveda is a challenge […]
Image Source. The scoop of the month was just published in Bloomberg Businessweek. It chronicles the story of AndrΓ©s SepΓΊlveda, a man who claims to have hacked elections in Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Venezuela. To give you a flavor of the piece: …RendΓ³n, says SepΓΊlveda, saw that hackers […]
