There has been some coverage about the ‘forgiveness’ offered to Dylann Roof by some of the Christian parishioners of Emanuel AME church that survived his attack. Matt Schiavenza in the The Atlantic describes this. [For some other responses as to why […]
Howard Ahmanson
Beijing – At the End of the Road
Because Beijing, as the capital and second largest city, gets the most media attention, most people go there first. We made a point of going there last. The first surprise is that the air there was the clearest we had […]
150 Years Later, People are Getting All Excited About the Confederate Flag
Recently, a young racist terrorist shot a bunch of people in one of Charleston’s historic black churches. This kind of stuff happens. But it has aroused a whole new controversy about the Confederate flag, a century and a half after […]
Dynasties and All That
It will occur to the reader that I have been talking about dynasties and this and that without giving any clear background on them. The time has come to clarify. DYNASTIES In case you don’t know, a dynasty is a […]
Our China Journey Part V: Shandong
About half of Shandong is a mountainous peninsula that sticks out into the East China Sea, dividing it into the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Gulf. But a considerable portion of it projects into the great plain to the west. […]
Comment on WSJ – Walter Russell Mead – On the Future of Middle East Christians
Walter Russell Mead really hits the nail on the head, here. He explains that the four older empires, Ottoman, Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian, were, whatever their weaknesses, “multiethnic and multi confessional states.” After the fall of these empires, all these […]
Our China Journey, Part IV – Henan, The Center of the Universe
We bundled our luggage into a van and got on a train and headed for Luoyang, Henan, a place which has frequently been the capital of China, though a bit of a backwater now. Here were a number of things […]
Our China Journey, Part III – Xi’an and Yan’an
From Nanjing we got on a plane and flew 600 miles to the northwest to Xi’an, Shaanxi. This city is now a second tier city about the size of Chicago, but during the Tang dynasty [618-907] it was Chang’an, the […]
Our China Journey, Part II – Shanghai and the Lower Yangtze Region
SHANGHAI We next flew to Shanghai, though the largest city in the country it is not in its core area historically Chinese. Shanghai was a small town until 1842, when just north of it two large concession enclaves were carved […]
Our China Journey, Part I – Singapore and Guangzhou
SINGAPORE David, Roberta, and I started our adventure in Singapore, which is a 75% Chinese city but was ruled by the British from 1818 to 1957 and after 1965 by the late great Lee Kwan Yew, who established English as […]