Tuesday  2002-08-06   World

Making a delivery

Studs Terkel interviews General Paul Tibbets on Hiroshima Day. Fifty-seven years ago, then 29-year old Colonel Tibbets flew Enola Gay.

 
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Monday  2002-08-05   World

Will to fight

BBC and others report that "Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian has backed calls for a referendum on independence" and China's swift and stern warning against the independence. Stanley Chan argues that because US lacks the political will for the defense of Taiwan, China with its resolute aim can overrun Taiwan eventually.

However plausible this analysis may be, there are a few unasked questions:

• What about Taiwanese people's desire for self-determination? Will they fight to the bitter end? Or will they surrender to save themselves and their prosperity?
• Current US opposition to Taiwanese independence stems from its desire to maintain the status quo - will US tolerate any attempt to change it?
• In case China fails in its military or political campaign to take over Taiwan, can it handle other secessionists? "First Taiwan, then Xinjiang, then Tibet, then ..."

 
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Monday  2002-08-05   World

Hell on earth

Pankaj Mishra explains how many factors from a millenium of Indian history have come to an eruption in Gujarat last January: up to 2000 Muslim citizens were massacred by their neighbors in a state sanctioned pogrom. It was truly hell on earth.

 
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Monday  2002-07-29   World

Who are the pirates now?

Several congressmen are introducing a bill that lets the entertainment industry take over people's computers to prevent "piracy".

Or maybe instead of breaking into people's computers, how about hiring deliverymen, utility meter readers, real-estate agents, and so on to enter people's houses and look for ill-gotten copyright material?

And if there is widespread "piracy", shouldn't Coast Guard and Navy respond? Can we have Marine detachments guard our houses and Internet connections?

As for the Congressmen sponsoring this bill, one wonders if they would be happier as highly paid full-time lobbyists for the industry? At the very least they wouldn't be sailing under a false flag of "people's representatives".

 
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Monday  2002-07-29   World

TIPS for snitches

Operation TIPS or Terrorism Information and Prevention System is a US Federal program that encourages citizens (especially people like mail carriers, utility workers who visit lots of people and houses) to inform on suspicious activities of their fellow citizens. Amid a great deal of angry criticism of TIPS during last couple of weeks, Eugene Volokh at UCLA law school points out that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with government asking people to report crime like terrorism (it is after all people's right to report crimes) while conceding open possibilities for abuse and inefficiency. While Professor Volokh's argument is eminently reasonable, it does not soothe people's feelings. What makes people angry is that their public servants had galls to slip the leash and came up with such impudent idea of encouraging people to become snitches. It is bad enough America suffered its worst massacre partly because these public servants were either negligent or incompetent to prevent it. Yet not one of them was sanctioned for their dereliction of duty. And now this?

 
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Tuesday  2002-07-23   World

The Right to Read

"The Right to Read" - read it while you can.

 
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Thursday  2002-06-27   World

War is ON - in case you forget

President Bush's long awaited speech on Middle East was poorly received for lacking impartiality, concrete roadmap for peace process while at the same time committing gross interferance of Palestine internal affairs. But these criticisms are immaterial and miss the real point because "it wasn't about Israel and the Palestinians; it was about World War III, the war which began last September."

 
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