Links

Photo: Helmette

I've been clumsily grappling with a fractious bout of the flu, the kind that generously involves one's whole body in the hurt. When in pain, link.

A very nice essay at Mother Jones on China's massive pollution problem: The Last Empire: China's Pollution Problem Goes Global.

Ethnic Fault Lines Emerge in Kenya's Post-Election Turmoil, a piece in the WaPo. Though periodically a source of strife in Kenya, ethnicity has generally, relatively, not been nearly as much a driver of conflict in Kenya as in surrounding countries. Establishment and opposition are now starkly drawn along ethnic lines.

Jaguars and landowners: A balancing act in the Americas. Experimenting with new approaches to jaguar conservation in Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela. Note the parallels to the ongoing issue of wildlife management, particularly wolves, in the western US.

Into the Valley of Death. Sebastian Junger writing in Vanity Fair from the frontlines in Afghanistan.

A Vow for the New Year. A terrific essay by Scott Horton at Harper's on shoring up defenses in the new year against the damages suffered throughout the Bush years.

McClatchy's blog, Inside Iraq, written by Iraqi journalists. This entry suggests that the ballyhooed lull in violence is due to ethnic cleansing becoming past tense.

Kwame Anthony Appiah in the NY Times Magazine on experimental philosophy and the nagging issue of interpretation. Maybe this will be one of the more valuable lessons from "X-phi": that a critique of X-phi might better elucidate the lazy positivist assumptions of experimental science.

Tom Engelhardt on How Bush Took Us to the Dark Side. Well worth a read.