Peaceful Rise

Don't let the title fool you, I don't actually love my job. Nor have I seen Dr. Strangelove. Nevertheless, it's been such a long time and I wanted to write something about my job.  The reasons I haven't written about it for so long are a mixture of respect for whatever nondisclosure terms might have been lurking in my contract, a fear of seeming disrespectful or disloyal to any potential future employers who might grace the pages of this blog, and mostly, the fact that my company's website is so ridiculously awful and the content is so immensely stupid that it's not even worth the space on this page to point it out.  I was also somewhat concerned that a coworker would stumble upon my site and I would be in trouble, except that a) my coworkers can't really read English, and b) I kind of half want to get fired at this point.  So what merits this special occasion today?  Well, I just happen to be so numbed by the Olympics, the insipid circle-jerk of the

As I began work this morning, and dove into my daily task of figuring out how to procrastinate for eight and a half hours, I started, as usual, by reading through the China articles on the New York Times website.  The first article to fall across my screen was yet another monthly reminder by Jim Yardley of why, exactly, the Chinese Communist Party is still in power, because apparently we keep forgetting.  Either that, or we're just downright impatient.  The headline was: China's Communists, Resilient in Face of Change A few hours later I found that the page had refreshed itself, inexplicably bearing a new title: China's Leaders Are Resilient in Face of Change The second title is actually more fitting for the article itself, which is more informative and less colored than the first title would lead you to believe.  But I wonder what the explanation is for the title change.  Did it all of a sudden occur to some editor that "Oh yes, those pesky Communists are

Dreamy riot police, where are you now? (from www.telegraph.co.uk) There was a crazy man on the subway during my commute this morning.  He sat across the car by the door and swore uncontrollably, punctuating the end of each string of curses with a tight swipe of his arm, as though he were smacking a child upside the head.  Then he would look around, half indignant and half afraid, and self-consciously stroke his long thin hair back behind his ear with the other hand.  As if suddenly remembering that the imaginary child hadn't quite learned his lesson, he would then burst out with another barrage of cursing, and strike the air again with his palm. This went on for at least ten minutes before I reached my stop.  Some people got nervous and went to other cars, and some people laughed at him openly.  Eventually one lady wearing a red security volunteer armband came by from the adjacent car and peered worriedly at the man.  People looked from the man to the lady, wondering if she

This was yesterday's picture of the day on Telegraph.co.uk , taken at Crab Island, a beach resort area near Beijing.  Who is this guy?  He is my new hero.