Posts

Showing posts from November, 2013
This issue of Chinese sovereign jurisdiction assertion into the East China Sea is interesting on numerous levels form UN Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) angle to the broader significance in terms of U.S. power projection in the Pacific. The Washington Post reports just now: "The U.S. military has flown two warplanes over the East China Sea on a training exercise, the Pentagon announced Tuesday, blatantly ignoring a recent edict from China that it must be informed in advance of any such flights over the region."... Japan and the United States immediately protested the move. The Pentagon, which frequently conducts naval and air exercises in the East China Sea, said it had no intention of bowing to China’s demands, calling them “a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region.” On Tuesday, the White House blasted China’s imposition of the air defense identification zone, but urged Beijing to address territorial conflicts diplomatically instead of militarily."
W eare reading this worthy book Drug War Zone in my borderlands class this week.  Light holiday week reading... This film Narco Cultura has been getting a lot of press , I think it looks like it will be worth seeing. The director Shaul Schwartz's photography of the drug violence is really quite striking and working seeing. (not for the squeamish) Though your time would best be spent reading 2666 .
Every house needs one of these:   " The Laib Wax Room , lined with fragrant beeswax and illuminated by a single bare light bulb, is the first permanently installed artwork at the Phillips since the Rothko Room in 1960. German artist Wolfgang Laib (b. 1950) installed the work in a space he helped to select in the original Phillips house. The Phillips Laib Wax Room is also the first wax room that Laib has created for a specific museum. Accommodating one to two people at a time, it offers a personal, meditative encounter. To install the work, Where have you gone – where are you going?, Laib melted approximately 440 pounds—at a constant temperature to achieve a uniform golden hue. He used tools such as a spatula, spackle knife, electric heat gun, and warm iron to apply the wax, on the walls and ceiling of the 6-by-7-by-10-foot space. For Laib, The Phillips Collection was a logical choice for the work because of its intimate, experiential character. Laib visited the Rothko Room for
  This article about Korean literature is worth a look, especially once you wade through the filler intro (can we at last dispense with the phrase "neon-saturated"?) and the sweeping generalizations about Korea which litter it. Nevertheless, it makes some observations about the relative invisibility of Korean literature in the U.S. and the globe more widely, and presents the directed Korean state response to the problem. This is a telling section: "Still, when it comes to American recognition, Korea has a ways to go. Charles Montgomery, a California native who’s now a professor in Seoul and the proprietor of a lively literary blog, puts it this way: “Imagine, we’re drinking martinis with a bunch of educated people, and I say, ‘Who is your favorite Japanese author?’ You can say one of ten names. ‘Who is your favorite French author?’ One of ten names.” Montgomery continues: “But ‘Who is your favorite Korean author?’ Everyone will run to refill their drinks.” When