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POPSLearning from history: the British pullout from Iraq, 1932 Maj. Joel Rayburn, a historian and officer now posted to CENTCOM, writes about the dangers of a too-hasty exit from Iraq, drawing on the British experience post-WWI. I need to read this more carefully, but it seems his ideas present a pretty strong rebuke to both Republican and Democratic positions on the war right now. He says: a purely military approach, which is what the administration is pushing (though they claim not to be) will probably make things worse, but leaving now would probably be just as bad. From Foreign Affairs; a cached version.
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POPSFundamentalism and history An article by TheRevealer.org's Jeff Sharlet on the relationship between American fundamentalist Christianity and the country's history. His trademark rambling, ethnographic, personal style.
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POPSPrivacy law: "I've got nothing to hide" misses the point Haven't read this yet, but it looks interesting. Addresses the common, dismissive response to concerns about privacy and the law by people who say, "I've got nothing to hide, so why should I care?" and explains why this misrepresents the nature and importance of privacy.
7
POPSBill McKibben on why "self-reliance" is a chimaera Self-reliance is the American "pathology" -- in the consumerist form of everyone cocooned in front of his own TV screen, or the environmentalist back-to-the-land form, or the survivalist nut-job form. We depend on each other & might as well admit it.
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POPSSurge of religious belief in China On the resurgence of religion in modern-day China. Religious practice (of the five "authorized" faiths: Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam) is increasingly public, though still subject to draconian restrictions and limitations.
4
POPSPNAS: Innovation, growth, and the global future of urban life A new article suggests that many sociological indicators for urban life conform to a relatively simple mathematical model, and that the model predicts that "innovation cycles" will have to increase consistently in order to avoid urban "stagnation" or social "collapse." Somewhat alarming.
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POPSTezcatlipoca as an Aztec "trickster figure" An interesting, unusual perspective on Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec deity variously called "Lord of the Here and Now," "He Whose Slaves We Are," "Enemy on Both Sides," "Obsidian Blade," and "The Mirror's Smoke."
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POPSBradley Burstyn, Haaretz: What 1967 did to Judaism Bradley Burstyn writes in Haaretz last week that 1967, in convincing rabbis that they could be generals and putting them in a position of providing spiritual sustenance to an occupying army, effectively destroyed Orthodox Judaism. A provocative claim.
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