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Reading Shakespeare in Pyongyang – By Abraham M. Denmark | Foreign Policy
The prospect of Kim Jong Il’s death has loomed over Asia ever since he suffered a major stroke in 2008. And yet we have still managed to be surprised: Official word of the Dear Leader’s demise has inserted a profound sense of uncertainty about the future of North Korea and its neighborhood, driving down markets throughout the region, and spiking popular concern in South Korea about what comes next.
Yet it will be machinations inside Pyongyang — not the hand-wringing of those of us outside the country — that in the coming days, weeks, and months will have profound implications for the future of the Korean peninsula and the entire Asia-Pacific region. Taking into account North Korea’s impoverished and imprisoned population, its large and nuclear-armed military, and the global strategic significance of its neighbors, the stakes are astronomical.
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BBC News – US tops world charitable giving index
The Irish Republic came second, then Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
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BBC News – Bradley Manning case hears of secret computer files
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BBC News – Philippine floods: President declares national calamity
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Police in China fire tear-gas, beat protesters: witnesses – Yahoo! News
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BBC News – Libya commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj to sue UK government
A Libyan military commander has started legal action against the UK government, which he claims was complicit in his illegal rendition and torture.
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In Kim Jong-il Death, an Extensive Intelligence Failure – NYTimes.com
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I’m an investor because I have a 401(k)-type retirement account. Which means that some significant part of my financial future depends, for better or for worse, on corporate profits, stock performance, and other creatures of the market.
Because I’m an investor, it’s the job of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to look out for my interests…
Because of Citizens United, my family’s nest egg has become a political weapon for the corporate agenda. I have no way of knowing whether my money is being used to make attack ads for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or Karl Rove’s American Crossroads GPS.
Here’s where the SEC has the authority to step in.
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Graveyard of Empiricism – Javid Ahmad and Dhruva Jaishankar | The AfPak Channel
Another and perhaps more damaging misperception is of Afghanistan as the “graveyard of empires”: a historically insignificant strategic backwater where great civilizations — inevitably European ones — ended up mired in ruinous war. But even a cursory examination of the region’s history makes a mockery of this now entrenched concept.
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The Jihad Will be YouTubed – Raffaello Pantucci | The AfPak Channel
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It’s Time We Move Beyond COIN – by Maj. Michael Few | The AfPak Channel
“As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, the much needed conversation over counterinsurgency (COIN) has returned. “
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Meet Corvid College, a Radical Experiment in Debt-Free Education – Culture Feed – The Bay Citizen
Corvid is just one example of several new experiments in egalitarian alternatives to formal education. Last February, poet Alan Kaufman launched The Free Univeristy in the basement of antique shop, Viracocha, offering free five-week courses taught by volunteer teachers. Anyone with access to the internet can take advantage of websites like Skillshare and Khan Academy that offer online courses in everything from ice cream making to algebra.
The impetus for the first iteration of Corvid College, named for a family of birds Greer describes as non-hierarchical, was a 2008 email from Eric Buck, of the Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement (BAM), who wrote that he was looking for radical educators to try an experiment with education.
Over long chats and glasses of wine (glasses of wine feature prominently in the Corvid model), Greer and his collaborators brought down the walls of the Hassle Castle: anyone who submitted a plan for a class, and attended a new teacher orientation, followed by a hoedown, could teach. …
Greer caps his classes at 15 students, and is also serious about attendance; practicing something he calls Reverse Bribery. He charges $200 up front and refunds $20 every time a student attends class. If a student doesn’t attend, he spends the $20 on wine and snacks for the rest.
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Union Leaders Oppose Quan Recall – The Bay Citizen
Union leaders said today that they oppose efforts to recall Oakland Mayor Jean Quan because she’s a strong advocate for labor and they think she’s doing a good job under difficult circumstances.
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The Hashemi Arrest Warrant | Iraq and Gulf Analysis
The televised confession, often taped less than 48 hours after the detention of a suspect, has become something of a gold standard in Iraqi judicial procedure in the post-2003 era. …
Given the symbolic timing of the arrest warrant just days after the US withdrawal from Iraq, it is hard to ignore accusations that there are political dimensions to the case.
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College Students May Hold the Key to Redesigning Education – Education – GOOD
Can college students develop solutions to end the high school dropout crisis and close the achievement gap? That’s the hope of rEDesign Education, a new grassroots initiative created by University of Michigan undergraduates. …
The initiative isn’t limiting itself to students at Michigan, either. The group posted the project at DoSomething.org and are actively recruiting other college-based groups to start rEDesign efforts on their campuses and help design “systemic transformations in K-12 education.” They’re also asking students to tweet their ideas using the hashtag #rEDesignMyEdu…
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Exclusive: U.S. Senate Races—Democrats Look to a Strong Field of Women – blog
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“meant to be” monogamous | Emily Nagoski :: sex nerd ::
…we live in this moment of cultural awareness, where people are ditching their running shoes and running barefoot, like we did on the savanna, in our earliest evolutionary days; we’re ditching bread and eating “paleo,” like our pre-agricultural revolution evolutionary forebears; and apparently we’re looking to our pre-historic, pre-agriculture ancestors for tips about love and relationships.
It makes sense for nutrition and shoes in a way that it does NOT, for love and relationships. It is both lacking in science and hopelessly misguided. Lacking in science: our social structure doesn’t leave a fossil record, so anyone who proposes an idea about how we lived on the savannah is basically just making up a plausible story. Misguided: welcome to phenotypic plasticity.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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