Alabama musings

I'm in Alabama with the family for Christmas and holidays. This is my first post.

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Decline of the US?

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On the day after S & P downgrades the US credit rating, in the week after the great "compromise" on US debt, it is hard to have much hope for the United States and its future. Sure, the US has gone through greater difficulties in its past, Civil War, the Great Depression, WWII, but it feels different this time around. The eight years of the Bush Jr. administration were ones of squandered opportunities. Instead of investing in infrastructure, paying down debts, and laying the foundation for the future, very little was done. The country lived off the prosperity and hard work of previous generations. Then everything blew up in 2007 and 2008, due to the greed of the overgrown Financial Industry. (I highly recommend reading The Big Short by Michael Lewis .) The corrections made by the Obama administration, while noble in intent, have not gone far enough. Then the election of 2010, in which a minority of Americans participated, when those opposed to Obama were motivated and his...
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Blog theme--seeking wisdom

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I've been talking with people about my newly created blog, and someone suggested to me that to write a good one, you need to have a theme. This is a great idea. One theme could be reflections on my work and experiences in Taiwan. But I'm currently not in Taiwan. So, at present I am more interested in the process of analyzing, writing, and reflecting. This is what I am doing in my "job" as teacher and adviser at the University of Oklahoma. And what comes from and through this process is the theme of "wisdom." How can wisdom be pursued, understood, and conceptualized? This is my theme. My first reflection comes from notes taken from a wonderful book, Senses of Place (1996). Edited by Steven Feld and Keith Basso. The second chapter in this book, by Basso, is titled "Wisdom sits in Places." In it Basso discusses the process of learning and understanding wisdom from the point of view of the Western Apache of the Cibecue reservation. Below I'm pasti...
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Environmental Problems in Macau! This morning, after taking my daughter to school, I returned by climbing the trail up to Taipa Park 大潭山. As I was walking along the section that is closest to the chimneys of the Incinerator, I came across dead frogs (toads?) on the trail. I did not count the exact number, but estimate around 20. All were fully grown and were healthy until recently. But they were all face down, dead, with excreted fluid coming out of their mouths. Here's a picture of one: Other pictures can be found here As I walked further down the trail, about 100 meters from where I saw the first frog/toad, I didn't see anymore. If anyone knows why they died, or what could have caused their deaths, it would be appreciated.
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