Photographing the Flight From ISIS

Photojournalist John Stanmeyer brings images of some 66,000 Syrian Kurds fleeing from ISIS and flooding into Turkey yesterday.

High Five, Fellow Capitalist Pigs!

Thanks to free markets, over the last 20 years nearly 1 billion people have been raised out of extreme poverty.

Book Review: "The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza" by Eyal Weizman (2012)

The book (or at least its intent) sounds interesting, and this review even more so since it actually uses the delightful and grossly underappreciated word "defenestrated" a few paragraphs in. Anyway, here's a blurb:

For Weizman, instead of regulating or limiting violence, international humanitarian law (that is, the laws of war) actually legitimates certain manifestations of it. This is due to the utilitarian logic that pervades our thinking about violence caused by states and their agents, reasoning that sees “the sphere of morality as a set of calculations aimed to approximate the optimum proportion between common goods and necessary evils.” According to Weizman, deeming certain evils “necessary” provides the conceptual cover for further acts of cruelty. What begins as a “pragmatic compromise” between two terrible choices becomes an acceptable logic in less than exceptional circumstances. The logic of the exception is widened; the infliction of suffering is made civilized and inevitable. Weizman focuses largely on the concept of proportionality.

Ouch: #LetThemEatMarathons on Twitter

Bloomberg's decision not to cancel the New York City Marathon is catching a lot of flack from all sorts of people (like the glorious Iowahawk via Twitter - here's just one example) and even some of the marathoners themselves.  Really, Bloomberg, the optics are horrible, especially since Staten Island is in such dire straits. Meanwhile, the #LetThemEatMarathons hashtag on Twitter is being used a lot by understandably outraged people.

UPDATE: 

We have decided to cancel the NYC marathon. The New York Road Runners will have additional information in days ahead for participants.
— NYC Mayor's Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) November 2, 2012

The Human Cost of China's Infrastructure

Indeed.  Note too the environmental cost.  Think about all this next time some idiot like Tom Friedman or Elizabeth Warren says out loud that it's too bad the US is not like China.

Fleeing North Korea: Song Ee Han's Story

Read this.  The link is from a Korean-American friend who of mine who added, "It makes me feel so proud and fortunate to live in this country." 

Rant: "The War on Women"

Sarah Hoyt has something to say, so listen up!

Hitchens on Kim's North Korea

Even in his absence Christopher Hitchens is still on point.  See this 2005 piece in which Hitchens visits North Korea and describes it as being worse than Orwell's dystopia from 1984.  Read the whole thing.


UPDATE: While we're at it, read Havel on North Korea too.

Hungary Outlaws Homelessness

When homelessness is outlawed, only outlaws will be homeless!  *facepalm*

Quote of the Day: Good Samaritans

Here's a thought:

“Good Samaritans will always be needed to succour those who are assaulted and robbed; yet it would be even better to rid the Jerusalem-Jericho road of brigands.”

Let Them Eat Biofuel

*Sigh.*

Saudi Arabia Recalls Ambassador to Syria

In protest against Assad's ongoing, bloody assaults on his own people.  Kuwait and Bahrain have also recalled their ambassadors. Meanwhile, I see that the White House is still leading from behind on this. 

Like a Good Neighbor: Massive Taiwanese Aid to Post-Earthquake Japan

Here are some rather astounding numbers:

Taiwan, a country of 23 million people, has to date pledged approximately 5.9 billion New Taiwan dollars (about ¥16.7 billion) in relief funds following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan on March 11. 

By comparison, South Korea's 49 million people have raised 55 billion won (about ¥4.1 billion), while the United States, a country of 300 million, has donated $120 million (¥9.8 billion).

I shouldn't have to tell you that this is is neither a contest nor a critique of other nations' generosity and fund-raising on behalf of Japan.  Kudos to everyone from all countries who pitched in to help that beautiful but stricken country -- a lot of the money came from just normal folks donating what they could.  On a personal note, a Japanese friend of mine recently emailed me about her gratitude to Taiwan for its help.  We tiny Asian democracies gotta stick together, after all.

Hans Rosling in Praise of the Washing Machine

This is fantastic.  Do watch.  The humble washing machine, I dare say, has singlehandedly improved the lives of countless women around the world, and that is a wonderful thing.  As for the delightful Hans Rosling -- he is always worth your time.  (Other lovely inventions: the stove, the refrigerator, the dishwasher, the vacuum cleaner, the microwave...)

North Korea: The Murderous Regime

No surprise at all.  

Japan Relief Update: Operation Tomodachi in the Japanese Media

Japan Probe has a nice write-up of a recent Japanese news report on Operation Tomodachi (which previously appeared here).

Oops, I Did It Again: Another Manmade Famine

Reading articles like this drives me absolutely crazy.  Some of the most horrific instances of food crises, hunger, famine, and outright starvation in history were caused by man himself, and we're apparently repeating the same deadly mistake.  Remember this and this?

Japan Relief Update: Operation Tomodachi

Here is some good stuff as US sailors and Marines go to work in Japan.  Check out the Flickr photostream too.  Yeoman's service indeed.  

Awesome: A Samurai for Japan Relief Fundraising

Arigato.

This is Japanese-American Darin Furukawa working at an American Red Cross fundraiser for Japan outside Los Angeles City Hall (source).  Well done, sir, well done indeed!  More utterly awesome photos here.  (On an unrelated note, I think I'm in love!)


UPDATE:  Video goodness!

Perspective: Japan's Crises Nuclear and Humanitarian

Lately there's been overwhelming and near-hysterical media frenzy about the Fukushima nuclear reactors (which, by the way, cannot become nuclear bombs), and the frenzy is fed in part by the fact that there's a lot of scientific ignorance and misinformation about nuclear power and radiation (here is, for instance, the usually flippant xkcd doing yeoman's work with its explanatory graphic of everyday radiation levels).  I don't want to underplay the very real concern.  See also information on nuclear reactors, radiation, and Fukushima posted by the blog of MIT's Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.  (I'd also like to point out its comment on nightmare scenarios flooding the media -- they have "varying degrees of scientific merit," which is diplomatic Nerdish for "there's a lot of BS out there.")

But amid it all, though, I can't help feeling that the Fukushima coverage has all but forgotten the much greater and far more terrifying crisis everywhere else in Japan: the humanitarian one as millions of Japanese struggle to cope amid the devastation.  

Aid and relief workers are piling in (here is a riveting account by an Australian aid worker), but the need is unfathomably vast ... and every little bit helps.  Let the specialists keep on  Fukushima, but for God's sake, let us all please do what doesn't require such expertise -- and by that I mean everything we can for the folks.  The next time you're tempted to flip out about Fukushima, I challenge you to give $5 to a charity working in Japan.