Tag Archives: China

A Nuclear Iran: How does this change your world view?

Er, so remember guest contributor jdavis85? Before leaving the blogosphere, he wrote one last post. Except that I just found it today, so it was about four months ago when he wrote it. Luckily, these kinds of issues never go away…

There are two major issues that I am very interested in and I spend about 1-2 hours each day reading blogs about these issues. These issues are Israeli politics/relations and China in general. So, naturally, as someone who considers himself a Zionist and tries to continually keep updated on Israeli politics, I read Jeffrey Goldberg’s blog over at the Atlantic. Recently, he had an interview with Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, the recently sworn in prime minister of Israel (for the second time at that!). The full text of the interview can be found here.

One thing to note is that during the interview, Bibi implies, signals, hints at, however you want to call it, that if America doesn’t manage to stop Iran’s acquiring nuclear arms, Israel will be forced to. After all, for a country that has stated that it wants to wipe Israel off the map, publicly funds two terrorist organizations, and has recently rebuffed Obama’s attempt at peace, who can blame the Israelis? But, what is also important to note is Joe Klein’s note on the same subject where he said:

“Netanyahu is also completely wrong when he says that Iran, with a bomb, will be able to coerce Arab neighbors to its side. The precise opposite is true: Iran with a bomb would touch off an Arab arms race. The very prospect of Iran with a bomb is freaking out the Arabs now–in private, your average Egyptian, Jordanian or Saudi diplomat is far more passionate about the threat from Iran than the “atrocities” Israel undertook in Gaza.  ” Continue reading

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Mondays are always strange

So in a misguided attempt to distract myself, I managed to read an actual, honest-to-goodness, paper-and-ink newspaper today. Here’s what I found:

1. Chinese chap accused of stealing Apple’s iPhone secrets. Commits suicide. Girlfriend gets laptop for compensation. What?

“Even so, the company paid compensation to Mr. Sun’s family. It declined to say how much, but Mr. Sun’s brother cited a figure of 300,000 renminbi, or more than $44,000, and said Mr. Sun’s girlfriend was also given an Apple laptop computer.”

Your boyfriend just committed suicide so they make up for it with a laptop? I sure hope she refused to take that. On the other hand…I’d do just about anything for a Mac Powerbook.

2. Go unions! Teachers at charter school KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) recently unionized.

“In recent months, teachers have won union recognition at schools including the Boston Conservatory Lab School, a school in Brooklyn that is part of the Knowledge Is Power Program, an Afro-centric school in Philadelphia, four campuses in the Accelerated School network in Los Angeles, and a Montessori school in Oregon. Moves toward unionizing have revealed greater teacher unrest than was previously known.”

Anyone who knows a teacher who work at a charter school knows this is a good thing.

3. The whole Jersey fiasco distracted everyone from Vince Fumo. Good? Bad?

4. I will have no job in the future.

The Taboo Side of China

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More fascinating insights from phillyboy jdavis reporting from China!

Politics and Chinese Culture

In the year before I came to China, I was taking private Chinese lessons with a tutor for one hour a week for about 10 months. However, my tutoring essentially consisted, initially anyway, of my tutor teaching me how to pronounce Chinese words, making me write down lots of new words, and then telling me to memorize them. As things transpired, it turned into her telling me to memorize the words in the lessons in the book and her quizzing me on them during class. Continue reading

Are they really serious? I say “No.”

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Please welcome guest blogger, jdavis – a phillyboy who is currently teaching abroad in China.

After living in China for a bit over a year, one of the things I’ve realized is that, while I’m fairly certain corruption exists in every country, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a country that flaunts it quite so openly. Corruption like this can really be seen at all levels, from office workers and teachers, to the police, to government officials. This, I understand, is not uncommon for developing countries, as I’ve heard similar things about India. But for a country so publicly vying for rank as one of the greatest nations in the world, it troubles me that such corruption is so obvious on so many levels.

Continue reading