from Spiegel SPIEGEL: Last week you made a €970,000 ($1.3 million) payment to the bank account of the Chinese tax authorities. You consider it to be a kind of guarantee, a deposit. Do they consider it to be an admission of guilt? Ai:I cannot speak for them. But I can tell you a lot about […[...]
Posts Tagged ‘history’
October 3rd, 2011 - 8:37 pm § in Schools & Colleges
Western Governors: a professor’s opinion
"Online Enterprises Gain Foothold as Path To College Degree." Guest blogger Johann Neem is Associate Professor of History at Western Washington University and author of the book "Creating a Nation of Joiners" (2008). During the last legislative session in Washington state, faculty[...]
May 10th, 2011 - 7:00 am § in Religion
佛誕日 부처님 오신 날 The Mitzvot for Buddha’s Birthday
Ed. Central to Judaism is the idea of “mitzvah.” Mitzvah is one of those words that do not translate well. It can mean law, good deed, and religious obligation all at the same time. Moreover, in Judaism, the mitzvot (plural) are themselves eternal, not so much mandated by God, but li[...]
Yom Hashoah: Roger asks, Were Hitler’s crimes immense enough for you to make an exception for him?
Mon, May 2, 2011 …. Tomorrow is the Jewish holiday, Yom Hashoah .. the day of remembrance of the Holocaust. Because I do not believe in the death penalty, my friend Roger asked this question a few weeks ago: If Hitler had been captured alive, would you have supported executing him? Were his [...]
April 21st, 2011 - 5:31 am § in China
Rushdie on Art and Politics
from NT Times (excerpted) Last October the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei covered the floor (of the immense Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Moderny) with his “Sunflower Seeds”: 100 million tiny porcelain objects, each handmade by a master craftsman, no two identical. The installation was a carpet of l[...]
Nigeria Votes, on Passover
Ed. The election in Nigeria may well be much bigger news than the soap opera in Libya. Nigeria is the largest state in Africa and, in may ways, the one with the most promise. With oil wealth, a sizable educated populace, an engrafted tradition of democracy, a truly multicultural society, and gre[...]
OF BLASPHEMY AND BLAME II
A week ago, I posted a comment on the Pope’s recent assertion that only a few Jews of Jesus time were guilty of deicide. My main argument was that the Pope, in the tradition of his predecessors, avoided the real issue … blaming Rome for its brutality toward the Jews.1700 years [...]
The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth
By Thomas Jefferson The Smithsonian is restoring the “Jefferson Bible.” a unique volume the third president cut and pasted himself — omitting lots of theology — from portions of the New Testament. Thomas Jefferson assembled his version of the Christian bible in 1820, after [...]
January 15th, 2011 - 11:40 am § in Uncategorized
The Global Class, Is Fascism Next?
Chrystia Freeland of the Atlantic has a very important article. The Rise of the New Global Class, a Prelude to Fascism? Christia Freeland’s piece in the Atlantic is a brilliant and frightening vision not of the future, but of a present that is likely summed up best by one word “fascism.&[...]
Happy Waralda Day!
In this season of Republican extremism, the day after April Fools seems to me to be a good time to remember the myth that the Nazis were atheists. For more on their god Waralda, click here. “Atheism is the only world, or religious view that is not tolerated within the SS… I have not tole[...]