The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: china

  • Raccoon Dogs?

    Had you ever heard of these things before this pandemic?

  • Looting in Plain Sight

    For the current possessors of plunder, repatriation does not appear to be a topic of discussion.

  • This Feels Like the End of the World

    Air matters.

  • An Environmental Reset

    An opportunity to think about what we’ve done.

  • There Are Just Too Many of Us Now

    I just read an interesting article in the New York Times entitled, In China, Wives Fight Back After Their Activist Husbands Are Jailed. It went on to describe the kinds of human rights abuses you come to expect from China: Defense lawyers being imprisoned simply for standing up for the rights of their clients. Being…

  • Feeling Helpless About Syria

    Unless you live in a cave somewhere, you know what’s going on in Aleppo, Syria right now. And if you’re like me, you’re feeling pretty darned helpless about it. People are being slaughtered and I’m looking at my empty guest room. I’d take them all in if I could. I’d stack ‘em up like cordwood.…

  • The Plight of the Pangolin

    I remember distinctly the first time I saw a picture of a pangolin. I was browsing a coffee table book on Africa at a friend’s house. I thought it was some sort of a joke. They look like the love child of an artichoke and an aardvark. But the situation got even more strange when…

  • Exploring Vancouver: The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden

    In an oft overlooked corner of Chinatown in Vancouver, Canada, on the other side of an unassuming moon gate, lies an oasis of beauty and tranquility. The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is the first garden of its type outside of China. It’s based on a traditional Ming Dynasty scholar’s garden, and it is…

  • Why I Vote

    I used to work with a woman who had never voted, had no intentions of ever doing so, and was quite proud of that fact. She hated this country and everything it stands for, and did not want to participate in it in any way. She dreamed of moving to the Australian outback, where she…

  • Countries are Artificial Constructs

    One of my friends applied for a high level federal job many years ago and put me down as a personal reference. Some guy in a suit showed up at my door to interview me about her, and one of his questions was, “Is she a good American?” That made me blink. Uh, what does…