Writing in the WSJ about a program to provide food security to India’s poor, Rupa Subramanya reveals her ideological bias in towards the end of the article: After all, if someone is offering to give you free food, why would you bother to get a job and earn income so that you can feed yourself? [...]
Foulcault on reform vs. critique Under no circumstances should one pay attention to those who tell one: ‘Don’t criticize, since you’re not capable of carrying out a reform.’ That’s ministerial cabinet talk. Critique doesn’t have to be the premise of a deduction which concludes: this then is what needs to be done. It should be [...]
With regard to the economy, conservatives always preach restraint in the face of forces beyond our control, warning of unintended consequences if we overreach. E.g. David Brooks: But you don’t have the power to transform the whole situation. Your discrete goods might contribute to an overall turnaround, but that turnaround will be beyond your comprehension [...]
We have some very exciting announcements to make regarding our documentary film, Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir! But before I get to that, I wanted to thank everyone who contributed to our Summer fundraising campaign. We raised just over $5,000 through the generous donations of over fifty people. Thank you all so much! And thanks [...]
We are very happy to announce that our film, Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir!, has been officially selected to have its world premiere at the 2011 Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) in October! The Independent listed BIFF (“Asia’s largest film festival”) as one of the top twelve film festivals of 2011. In order to make [...]
In his review of Google+ Farhad Manjoo compares their “Circles” feature to arranging wedding seating charts. Having to sort people into lists before you can interact with them online is annoying. But the problem isn’t lists. I like lists. I use lists. I might not be a typical user (Manjoo says that only 5% of [...]
In this “Thinking Allowed” interview with Stuart Hall, he discusses the Middle East and has some interesting things to say about our inability to judge the importance of history as it is unfolding. I especially liked his comments about how the manner in which history unfolds is as important, if not more important, than where [...]
If we come downstairs before Juno she will often sneak into the bedroom (where she isn’t allowed) and steal socks from the laundry basket. (Somehow she always manages to steal a matching pair!) When she comes downstairs she will then dance around looking somewhat ashamed, with her tail between her leg, as if to say: [...]
On the trip to Cambodia I finally had some time to read Jon Lee Anderson’s excellent New Yorker Article on the counter-insurgency in Sri Lanka. Because the piece isn’t available online (except for this Scribd posting which I don’t expect will stay online for long), I thought it worthwhile to share some quotes: The “Sri [...]
Catching up on Cambodian history as we make our way to Phnom Penh, I came across some interesting historical context for the current squabble over Preah Vihar temple. The temple is mentioned in John Tully’s A Short History of Cambodia, during a discussion of King Sihanouk’s nonaligned policy in the 1950′s: Another running sore was [...]