Yearly Archives: 2011

Bugs!

I realize I risk a little goblin coming in the night and stealing the essence of my manhood by saying this — but I fucking hate bugs. I’d have to be more than a bit ignorant to move to a tropical island and not expect to cohabitate with the creepy crawlies, but it doesn’t disturb …

August 26, 2011
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Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Here is a fantastic video elegantly removing the legs from the archaic, yet amazingly still used, watchmaker” analogy. Even if you’re well past believing in fairy tales, it’s worth a watch (pun not intended, but embraced) for its excellent job of explaining evolution via mutation and natural selection. One thing I should add is: expect …

July 18, 2011
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What’s in store for Thirty Four?

Today’s my birthday. I’m 34. I think this is the first birthday I’ve ever said it, but I feel older. Not old, but older. Undoubtedly some, if not most, of that feeling of age relates to being a parent now. Nothing forces you to look at the world in more “grown up” terms than when …

July 16, 2011
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Hainan’s Red Detachment of Women Ballet

While later today Canada will be celebrating its own anniversary with fireworks, BBQ and a whole lot of drinking; in China it’s all about the Communist Party of China’s 90th anniversary. Not one to shy away from the spirit of things, I figured it was an excellent time to showcase one of Hainan’s most well …

July 1, 2011
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Attn: parents of mixed Chinese kids

From the Global Times: The city’s Exit-Entry Administration Bureau on Monday strongly advised parents of biracial infants born in China with Chinese nationalities to make sure their paperwork is in order before arriving at local airports, after some 100 families have been prohibited from taking their infant children out of the country this year. Mixed …

June 28, 2011
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Learning about the Li – Hainan’s largest minority

ChinaTravel.net has an excellent, and cleverly titled, regular feature called “Minority Report” in which the Ctrip-sponsored blog explores China’s numerous non-Han peoples. In the most recent edition, Minority Report: China’s betel nut-chewin’ islanders, the Li people of Hainan, Sascha talks about Hainan’s large Li minority population and their long history on the island. From the …

June 8, 2011
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Interviewed by Offbeat Marriage

When Glee contacted me about being interviewed for her site, Offbeat Marriage, I was a bit unsure what I would be able to add to the discussion. Despite Maggie and I having been married for about four and a half years now, I spend very little time consciously aware of the fact that we come …

May 29, 2011
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Facts are expensive, invaluable really

As the category for this post suggests, here is something done well: an RSA speech by Timothy Garton Ash. “Against every post-modernist in the world, Timothy Garton Ash maintains that there are facts, and that establishing them is both a political and a moral imperative – and an aesthetic one, too.”

May 27, 2011
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