Gratitude of the Day
Best breakfast at Half and Half with Dr. Sadat in Clayton!
Month: September 2012
On Seeing and Solidarity: Jimmy Carter, Palestine, Vietnam
1. In his 2007 book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter had this to say: “When we arrived there in January 1996, it was obvious that the Israelis had almost complete control…
Latin America Reading Group
Julia Thomas, Mary Shannon and I are beginning a Latin America Reading Group. Our first book will be Che Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries. We hope to meet up in mid-October at Café Ventana, and will…
The American Mind/The Asian Mind
1. “I don’t really see that we’re the bad boy.” “Why should I feel responsible?” “But the thing which I think I will remember about Vietnam when I am a hundred years old and will…
The Asian Mind/The American Mind
1. The following remarks are from Captain Ted Shipman, a U.S. intelligence officer in South Vietnam: “You see, they do have some–well, methods and practices that we are not accustomed to, that we wouldn’t use…
“Why did the Americans come here to destroy everything?”
1. In War without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam, German historian Bernd Greiner explains his focus: “At the heart of this book are the wartime atrocities and war crimes committed by the ground troops. To…
Impossible Debt?
1. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps…
A Brief Consideration of Napalm
1. American Heritage Dictionary Napalm, incendiary material used in bombs and flame throwers. Developed during World War II, napalm is a mixture of gasoline (sometimes mixed with other petroleum fuels) and a thickening agent. The…
Given the Transition Ahead
May you be curious May you be wide-eyed May you reach for notebook when stomach flipflops May you remember how many people think of you May you always be at home at the address of…
Ko Un
1. Ko Un‘s Ten Thousand Lives is a remarkable sample in English of his twenty-volume work in Korean, known as Maninbo. In his early years, he was a Buddhist monk. Later, he was part of…