"An appreciation of Arthur C. Clarke
An appreciation of Arthur C. Clarke
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (Clarke's Third Law)
How do you summarize a man like Arthur C. Clarke? The 90-year-old futurist and science fiction writer, who described himself as a "serial processor", died yesterday in Sri Lanka, his long-time home. Among the authors of the Golden Age of the genre in the 1950s, Clarke is a giant whose creative ideas have found purchase in the real world -- most notably the notion of a synchronous communication satellite, which he envisioned in 1945, but which did not become a reality for 20 more years....
Tearitdown.org is Amnesty International’s global initiative to end illegal US detentions and a major online action under Amnesty International’s campaign to Counter Terror With Justice.
Arthur C. Clarke, RIP
Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke died earlier this week, at the age of 91. He was one of the best-known sci-fi writers of the 20th century, the author behind 2001: A Space Odyssey, among many others. As is well-known, Clarke moved to Ceylon/Sri Lanka in 1956 -- in large part for the year-around access to diving -- and remained there until his death. The locale inspired at least one ofArthur C. Clarke - proud of his Wikipedia legacy or late to his own party?
Arthur C. Clarke passed away this week, and the activity on his Wikipedia page is something he would have been proud to see. All thanks and kudos to David Muir for the thinking that got me started on this blog post, which came from a chat we shared this week and his discovery of Clarke's death via Twitter.
A Guide to the French. Handle With Care.By ELAINE SCIOLINO The Times’s departing Paris bureau chief offers eight lessons for living in France.
Racism and Islamophobia
Of the many strange permutations that the so-called ‘war on terror’ has thrown up perhaps none is stranger than that by which the distinctions between Left and Right which orientated Western metropolitan politics since the time of the French Revolution have seemingly collapsed in relation to the ‘Muslim question’. The demise of the Left/Right split wasThe special thing about the Tibet protests
Six months after the protests for democracy in Burma, we see similar things happen in Tibet. That’s of course not the first time but according to anthropologist Carole McGranahan, China has for the first time acknowledged that there is something like protests in Tibet. And that the protests are widespreead, committed by Tibetans from all backgrounds (monks, laypeople, and students, and by men and women, young and old) and not only by a few extremists.
@ haha.nu.
Danish Cartoons Doom Us All
World trade decelerates almost to a standstill
Global trade slowed almost to a standstill over the new year, threatening to shrink for the first time since the US economy went into recession in 2001. An indicator...No but seriously: Euro-American?
I have a really simply, totally stupid question here: what does the term ‘Euro-American’ mean? It surfaced recently in the comments on this blog and I have seen it elsewhere, but I honestly have no idea. Can someone tell me when/where this concept was first used, and what exactly it is supposed to do analytically and describe ethnographically?
Torture, Human Rights, and Terrorism
by Aryeh Neier
During the spring semester of 2007, the Center for Latin American Studies hosted an exhibit of Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib series of paintings and drawings which depict the abuses committed by U.S. soldiers at that notorious Iraqi prison. In addition to holding a public conversation with the artist, the Center also organized a series of lectures to elaborate on the themes evoked in the artworks.
@ haha.nu.
Current Trends in Islamist Ideology — Volume 6
Source: Hudson InstituteThe Five Dumbest Product Bans: An Overview of Regulatory Absurdity
Source: Competitive Enterprise InstituteSocial Interactions and Smoking
Source: Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Faculty Research Working Paper Series
2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
Source: U.S. Department of State
