Summer News Reads July

I am just using this post as a reading note.

Currently I am preparing for the SIA, and need to do a lot of reading and listening in various topics. To acquaint myself with all the topics concerned is the only effective way I can think of. So for me, it's simple - read. And I also believe if I can recite the material it means I pretty much have understood it, and if not, I need the help of the more background information or a dictionary.

Below I am just using the space to keep track of the news articles that fall under my schedule of intensive reading, just for future reference.

July 28

BBC, David Cameron, Anglo-Indian relationship, Turkey, Ankara, Business, Private Sector, Public sector, Gaza, Israel, Militant Islamic group Hamas
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10784317
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10783485
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10768105
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10778110

Alcohol, drinking culture, crack down, better community, alcohol-related health
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10784060
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10776758

July 29

Facebook, privacy issues, SNS, Bebo, Myspace
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10796584
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10713199

China, Nanjing blast, chemical plant, press control, industrial accident
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10785568
(In Pictures)http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10787548

China, Death Penalty
(graph) http://www.economist.com/node/16690097

★US, justice system, ratchet effect, legal system
http://www.economist.com/node/16640389

Some parts of America have long taken a tough, frontier attitude to justice. That tendency sharpened around four decades ago as rising crime became an emotive political issue and voters took to backing politicians who promised to stamp on it. This created a ratchet effect: lawmakers who wish to sound tough must propose laws tougher than the ones that the last chap who wanted to sound tough proposed. When the crime rate falls, tough sentences are hailed as the cause, even when demography or other factors may matter more; when the rate rises tough sentences are demanded to solve the problem. As a result, America’s incarceration rate has quadrupled since 1970.

Still, they have plenty of other weapons. By counting each e-mail sent by a white-collar wrongdoer as a separate case of wire fraud, prosecutors can threaten him with a gargantuan sentence unless he confesses, or informs on his boss. The potential for injustice is obvious.

America needs fewer and clearer laws, so that citizens do not need a law degree to stay out of jail.

 July 30

★North and South Korea, China, US, Six-Party Talk, geo-politics
http://www.economist.com/node/16646244
http://www.economist.com/node/16706997?story_id=16706997&fsrc=rss

In China the strength of the American response has sparked a debate over whether the country is pushing too far with its expanded list of “core interests”. On July 27th even the Global Times, a usually reliable critic of American behaviour, argued that China should avoid “arbitrarily expanding” the definition of its core interests. Sometimes even big powers, it said, can make territorial concessions without sacrifice. Outlook Weekly, part of the state news agency, quoted a military academic warning that to misuse the term “core interests” might undermine its deterrent value or even lead to armed conflict.


Just now, Chinese diplomats, for all the talk of China’s “peaceful rise”, have weakened their case by upping the ante. In the South China Sea, say Western diplomats, China has in effect declared as its territory not merely the contested Paracel and Spratly Islands and waters close to them, but a vast swathe of ocean stretching deep into South-East Asia. Neighbours wonder whether claims will one day be backed with force. “Does the expression of one’s legitimate concerns count as coercion?”, asked Mr Yang, the foreign minister. When it’s a colossus talking, China’s neighbours might understandably think so.

Entertainment, Ellen, American Idol
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-10813959

Marijuana, drug, cartel, Mexico, California, plantations, police raid
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10811870

July 31

Crime, rape victims, health, BMA, forensic medicine, Acpo
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10820667

Job, Internship, payment, law, employment
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10822784

★America's Royal Wedding, Chelsea Clinton, America's girl
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10820649

... Americans are interested in Chelsea's wedding because she is part of the national narrative.
"It's a reflection of ourselves I think. It's this sense of a public event and these public people that we have sense of familiarity with," Mr Anthony says.
Moreover, the Clintons are icons of a different, seemingly more youthful time in America's history - a pre 9/11 era when the country wasn't weighed down with wars, bulging deficits and billowing oil leaks.
Chelsea is a reminder of that time, and people feel invested in the life of that young girl who held her parents hands through their darkest personal days.

 Brazil, Sex tourism, prostitution
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-10764371

"Our parents don't worry about us too much. We tell them when we are leaving and when we're coming back. And then we give the money to them to buy food. They know how we get the money, we just don't discuss it"

Environment, UNESCO, everglades, wetlands, wildlife sanctuary, world heritage sites at risk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10825472

【I want to call this the BBC period, when I mainly focus on one single source, BBC, to continue with my project. First of all this is not very hard for me to recite; secondly, news gave me a good and varied expansion of vocabulary on all kinds of things, though its tone might be a little limited during its occupational characteristics. The next step still remains to be find out. The Economist is definitely in my plan but right now it still seems quite a rise from BBC news online directly to The Economist. But so far, so good. I am seeing substantial results coming from the reading of news of the last three days. When I try to listen to radios and TV (Ashes to Ashes Season 1) lately, I am better able to focus on what they are saying instead of being just carried away by the picture. I am going to carry on. Until I exhaust the news on BBC online as reading and learning materials. The next step with BBC, however, should be focused on choosing those stories I am not familiar with and would usually skip – they make up my major cognitive loopholes and weaknesses.】

Britain, Pakistan, protest, comment, David Cameron
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10826082
 

A Week into the Summer Vacation

"It feels so good to be able to sleep whenever you feel sleepy," I wrote on my Twitter, and went to bed for a little nap. Yesterday I took a nap of only half and hour and yet felt very refreshed. A siesta thus sounded a very nice idea to me.

But when I when woke up today it was already three hours later. It was a nightmare.

I was probably thinking too much lately. Thinking, I meant, instead of doing. When you're planning many things but not actually setting out to do anything substantial your dreams are very likely to intervene.

And I did realize that after more than a week's leisure at home, it was time for me do something now. I have a paper to work on, a big exam to prepare for, and some important internships to seek. The week's leisure was actually some extended luxury that I allowed myself in the excuse of the painful semester that had just passed. But now, it was time for me to get back on the horse.

I think I will tackle my paper first. It needs extensive reading but it was not in conflict with my daily life. I always wanted to read intensively about one same subject. And this one, is about Hemingway, and pragmatism, and "moment of truth". I will learn a lot in the process of writing this paper. And I keep my fingers crossed for my future.

Before this blog was named "有幸生于斯"(Lucky to be Here) I also considered the possibility of naming it "越写越具体" (To the more Concrete - don't know how to translate it anyway), for this was the initial idea behind my re-starting blogging here on blogspot.

As I go back to Hemingway I think I will continue to be influenced by him. So, I am starting to read Hemingway.

Sorting GR

I decided that I have done enough of the expansion.

Earlier tonight I was reading this book review in the Economist - Spoiled by Choice, the Perils and Politics of Prosperity - and I made a decision to collect unite all my recent efforts to enter into a simplistic and intensive way of life. Not much about it, it meant an idea as simple as to stick to the useful things at hand, stop expanding and the hunt for new or more exciting stuff.


I spent almost a whole afternoon sorting my Google Reader items - deleting more than a hundred subscriptions - 2/3 of the original - and putting them under Essentials I/II, Big Fish, Culture, IT, China Blogs, Law, English Reading and My Stuff nine categories. After a good part of a year, my GR is finally readable again!

I will not go out hunting for new stuff. I am just not much of a multi-tasker. I will have to focus on a few immutable content to yield anything desirable. The same is to be applied to Douban. It will remain my sketch book and place for self-talk. No "new neighbors" will be added during the course of the next several months.

Other things vary, but the basic idea will not change. Keep it simple and stupid. For as a comment goes under the article:

As JS Bach noted: a warm fire, a comfortable chair, a cup of coffee and a tobacco pipe."

A Bruise on my Left Knee

Time Flies in your Negligence

About a month ago I felt to the ground while running on a little lane to a small event held in the stadium hall, and bumped my left knee black and blue.

I knew it hurt, and it was a sore to the eye, but I just refused to look at it or even think about it. My reasoning was that, as there was nothing I could do about it, I might as well leave it alone. Let time fly in my negligence, and before I realized it, it would be healed.

And it worked. It worked perfectly.

This morning I got up and found blood veins pumped up around my left eye. Since it was not itchy, I guessed it was not caused by bacteria, but more likely harmful chemicals like toilet water. I really should have been more careful with all the things I used daily, and led a more healthy life.

But I knew full well it was wrong to regret - regrets are deeply related to a perfectionist outlook of life, where you want to raze down what have been established as a whole and build from scratch. But this is will only bring about more and more new beginnings and unfinished projects. What I need is a 'piecemeal approach'(Reading Open Society and Its Enemies recently).

I did some remedies within my ability, and started to do other things. I knew things are in control. I smiled to myself.

Abandoning iTunes

This is part of my effort of "piecemeal engineering" where I try to adjust myself little by little to a more efficient lifestyle.

First of all there is music. The addiction to iTunes turned out to be a major efficiency killer. I liked it because it gave me a sense of elitism, but when you're not really some music addict it turned out to be snobbery. I really can be that stupid. And stupidity is recurring and reversible. You catch it like you do cold in obscure moments and can't seem to expel it as quickly as you wish.

I only realized that when I wanted to re-install windows and was trying to back-up disk C. Turned out, the copy of the music took up more than an hour.

I made a decision never to download music again. Why do I have to care about the play count of each song? I will remember the music that truly strike my heart even if I only catch it while passing a shop window. And for those I don't have much feeling, 100 times will not make me remember them. Whatever can be measured by numbers are not as important as they appear to be, I suppose.

The website I am currently using is http://www.saylikes.com/ I use it to search for music, single songs in most cases, and then it can allow me to listen to it over and over again. One of the drawbacks is that the collection is not very complete. I will leave it whenever I find a better one, but since I no longer store music, I have nothing to lose.

That is also, how you travel light, only in the virtual world, from one website to another.

Lookign at the Photos in NG

"I Want to Be There," I told myself.

When I was looking at the photos on NG, it suddenly came to me, for the first time, that I actually wanted to be there. Much as I hated the notion of "traveling", or as I thought myself to be, at that moment and many a moment since that one, I was dying to be there.

I want to touch the stone railings with my fingertips and let them take away some heat from there; I want to stand on the balcony of an ancient castle and look down on the green villages and woods down below like a king used to do.

Some childhood memories came back to me. How much did I want to occupy a mound for my own, and have my own view there, to feel as if I was the king of the world.

It will not bother me if the place I went is not beautiful or exciting, I just want it to be different from mine, so that I will learn something from it. I want to see it as it is. I want to be steeped in its total facts and truth, and that is the essence of traveling. Not for pleasure, otherwise a computer game will do, but for expansion of the heart and the clarification of the mind.

It Takes a Computer Crash

It takes a computer crash, or something to that effect, for one to look back on all his activities surrounding the computer and and to start to recognize the real important aspect of his life.

I realized how silly I used to be, and how inefficient I was with my computer and anything connected to it.

Downloading music to listen made me feel elitist, but not any more. In today's world efficiency is everything. So take advantage of all the net service and try to put all the things online if possible.

Don't download E-books that you will not immediately read. You will never go find them again.

It's all about high efficiency and competence. Throw away all the trash, don't ever try to store all the photos, and travel light. It reminds me of Up in the Air.

Also, I lost all interest in fictions. I don't know how that one came about though.