September 01, 2015 Hi all! I have decided to blog-in-haste about my experiences in China. Some of these postings may only be pictures, or very hasty impressions (with typos, alas), because I need to get up to speed with teaching here at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) in Suzhou. The first thing I need to say
Arrival in Shanghai Read More »
This May I was hired by Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University to teach in Suzhou, China for three years. I am thrilled for three reasons: first, because the Lecturer position within the British system is the equivalent of an Assistant Professor in the U.S. system. Second, I am aiming to use this “scheduled shake-up” of my life
Going to China: first reflections Read More »
Grieving about the Emanuel A.M.E. Church murders My chest literally aches for the people of Charleston, S.C. and every African-American whose fear of racially motivated violence has been affirmed, once again. I live in an integrated neighborhood–an increasingly rare place in America–and I feel like I have to tread carefully around my neighbors. In response
Racism and Collective Memory Read More »
Honoring the irreverent dead The satirists who were murdered at the comic-journal Charlie Hebdo prided themselves in being iconoclastic. The purpose of this essay is to critique the Western group-think of both political leaders and journalists, in their unified reaction against the terrorist acts in Paris last week. Critique does not mean total disagreement. I
Charlie Hebdo: an Iconoclastic Perspective Read More »
A common conservative disparagement of liberals and leftists is that we are anti-business. I often use Adam Smith?s arguments to show precisely the opposite. Leftists dislike monopolies and oligopolies. Oil companies and phone companies are two examples of oligopolies: their products, services, and pricing are so similar that their collusion with each other is pretty
A Leftist pitch for competition and economic growth Read More »
Several of my students still express anxiety about “over”population as part of urbanization. This anxiety is shaped by Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book, The population bomb. The book has been highly influential ever since it was published more than 40 years ago. This is unfortunate, because it contains a glaring conceptual flaw that demographers have known
(Over?)population and our urban future Read More »
Since I teach at a large state university, I have several veterans in my classes every semester. This is incredibly valuable for the way I teach, because veterans have direct experience of federal policies, experience of different cities and countries, and a nuanced perspective on geopolitics. So I am thankful for their presence, in addition
Citizenship, Military Service, and College Read More »
Good news! You can add a plugin to GIMP 2.8 that enables it to save files normally! The issue Months ago, the developers of the Graphic Image Manipulation Program (a.k.a. “The GIMP”) released version 2.8. Many regular users were dismayed to discover that we could no longer do the following: open a .jpg file; edit
Making GIMP 2.8 useful Read More »
Tomorrow evening, Friday, November 22, there will be a candlelight vigil at 5:00 pm, 15th and Guerrero Streets in San Francisco, to protest the beating of D’Paris Williams one week earlier by plainclothes police officers of the San Francisco Police Department. D’Paris lives in Valencia Gardens, one of only a few public housing complexes in
Last night we returned to Berkeley from our round-the-country road trip. We logged 8,914.3 miles on the trip odometer. It is Sunday morning, August 25. After I post this I will put together the readings and class websites for two of the four (yikes!) courses that I will be teaching this fall at San Francisco