Archive for February, 2004
Much Ado about Nushu [an Invited Post]
This is the first of what I hope to be many such “invited” posts.
by Laura Miller [invited author]
The recent Washington Post article by Edward Cody (“A Language by Women, for Women, February 24, 2004) is representative of the type of misunderstandings that continues to be perpetuated in reporting on [Nushu].
Invited
As my site grows in popularity, I am hoping to leverage that attention by starting a new feature I call “invited blogging.” This is unlike traditional “guest blogging” (which I may do as well at some point), in that the people posting are not themselves bloggers. These are more like journal articles, in that the […]
Amendment
Notice, for example, that recognizing gay marriage will not require a constitutional amendment, but blocking it will.
Even if Scalia and Thomas find a way to interpret “equal protection” to exclude gays, reasonable minds know better - it is just a matter of time.
Huntington
Not satisfied with casting the future of international relations as the struggle between White Protestants and the rest of humankind, Samuel P. Huntington has returned to piss in the well of civil society just one more time.
More in the The Chronicle of Higher Education (paid subscription required).
UPDATE: Washington Post op-ed tears Huntington to little, itty-bitty, […]
228
Today is February 28th, which is the most important date in post-war Taiwanese history:
On that day, [57] years ago in 1947, an incident took place in Taipei, which led to the massive slaughter of thousands of Taiwanese at the hands of Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese troops.
The event was the beginning of 40 years of repressive […]
Murphy
I’ve only seen Murphy beds in movies, and then usually as part of some joke where someone accidentally gets folded away with the bed in the closet. So I was very happy to read a story about them in the Jackson Heights newsletter, Views form the Heights. The story is by Robyn Einhorn, an MA […]
Sabotage
So it turns out that the biggest act of (terrorist?) sabotage this century was committed by the CIA:
“In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after […]
Sharpton
I would like to retract an earlier post. I suggested that the Democrats try to use “states rights” to re-frame the issue of same sex marriage. But in last night’s debate, Al Sharpton set me straight:
I think is not an issue any more of just marriage. This is an issue of human rights. And I […]
Trippi
I wrote before about how strange it was that Dean supporters weren’t bothered by Joe Trippi’s partnership in the company that had been hired to make Dean’s campaign ads. But now it seems that Trippi and Dean are fighting over “control of the campaign’s bounty of grass-roots supporters“!
Stocks
It is hard to see much democracy in the distribution of stock ownership. THe bottom half of the population held 1.4% of total stock in 2001, with an average portfolio of just over $3,000. And since only a minority of bottom-half households own any stock, that average is deceptively high. … If you sort households […]
An anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, 
