Hold Fast

This is really important. Han Han is a Chinese race car driver, singer, author and the country’s most prominent blogger. He was just voted #2 most influential person in the world in Time Magazine’s Top 100 poll. In response to being nominated, he penned a blog post earlier this month called “Let the Sunshine In” [...]

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In the lead-up to the Shanghai World Expo, the Chinese government’s propaganda department has released a new set of directives for journalists covering the event. According to Reporters Without Borders, they include reducing coverage of the Jyekundo earthquake: Reporters Without Borders has been told that another directive from the Propaganda Department on 25 April asked [...]

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Oklahoma style. I’ve never been taken by the right’s attacks on “big government.” Most of it has always struck me as a handy catch-all for programs and policies that they just don’t like, while very few have actually any impact on the way these people will lead their lives. The EPA regulating pollution-causing industrial process [...]

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James Galbraith has a great quote on the limited debate going on in Washington about the need for a deficit commission: “The frame of the debate is between those who think the witches have taken over the entire community and the whole lot of them should be burned and those who think there are only [...]

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High Peaks Pure Earth has translated reports from the Tibetan blogosphere that Shogdung, a leading Tibetan writer and intellectual, has been arrested by the Chinese government shortly following the Jyekundo earthquake. Shogdung was taken from his home in the middle of the night, standard practice for totalitarian regimes worldwide, and his family has been unable [...]

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It feels really weird to write this, but as of today, April 22nd, 2010, I’m not that concerned about the fate of Democrats in midterms. Granted, they haven’t done much to make me care too deeply about the size of the Democratic majority in either chamber or even holding on to both. If I had [...]

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The South China Morning Post (subscription link) is reporting that the Chinese government has ordered Tibetan monks who voluntarily provided aid and helped rescue victims of the Kyigudo earthquake in Kham last week cease their activities. Monks have been the backbone of rescue and support efforts, spending time rescue and helping Tibetans and Tibetan residential [...]

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The Times of India: Officials put the death toll from the 7.1 magnitude quake at 1,944 and the injured at 12,135. Official Xinhua news agency said out of the injured, 1,434 are in serious condition. The official death toll started at 600 and was raised to 700 about a day after the Kyigudo quake. It [...]

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Josh Schrei has an important piece up at Huffington Post in response to yesterday’s earthquake in Jyekundo, Kham, Tibet. Schrei details the history of Kham and Yushu, making clear it’s a part of Tibet, occupied by Tibetans. More importantly, Josh then explains what is happening now and the potential for this earthquake to challenge political stability [...]

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A large earthquake has hit Kyegundo in Kham, which is part of Tibet. Western media sources have reported this as taking place in “northwest China” or “Qinghai,” and described the affected area as “inhabited by ethnic Tibetans” or “part of the Tibetan plateau.” This is not accurate – Kham is part of Tibet and is, [...]

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