The New Republic

What you think of a presidential candidate is in large measure determined by what you think of the world. Different circumstances call for different talents, different sensibilities, different approaches to power. "Leadership" comes in many forms. A sterling individual may be historically inappropriate; and a person whom it is impossible to admire may accomplish significant things. The question of whether Barack Obama will make a fine commander-in chief finally depends on your view of the direction of history in the coming years. READ MORE >>

Yesterday, Steven Spielberg announced that he is withdrawing from his role as artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympics in order to protest China's link to the Darfur genocide. Spielberg is certainly correct that Beijing has supplied Khartoum with weapons, money, and diplomatic cover. And anything that embarrasses Beijing over this morally indefensible support for Sudan is a positive development. In that respect, good for Spielberg. READ MORE >>

Shanghai, from which I have just returned after a first visit to China, has a specially built modern museum to house exhibits on the planning for the future Shanghai, and it includes an enormous model of Shanghai today. It is of a scale and detail that matches the huge model of New York City built for the 1964 World's Fair and now housed in the Queens Museum—which is itself located in a fragment of the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. But the contrasts are striking and reveal much that distinguishes China's largest city from our own largest city. READ MORE >>

Rachel Carson opened Silent Spring, her 1962 polemic against chemical pesticides, with a terrible prophecy: "Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth." She proceeded to narrate a "Fable for Tomorrow," describing a bucolic American town "where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings." The nearby farms flourished, the foxes barked, and the birds sang in a kind of pastoral Eden. "Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community." Cattle died. Children died. READ MORE >>

Rachel Carson opened Silent Spring, her 1962 polemic against chemical pesticides, with a terrible prophecy: "Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth." She proceeded to narrate a "Fable for Tomorrow," describing a bucolic American town "where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings." The nearby farms flourished, the foxes barked, and the birds sang in a kind of pastoral Eden. "Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community." Cattle died. Children died. READ MORE >>

Rachel Carson opened Silent Spring, her 1962 polemic against chemical pesticides, with a terrible prophecy: "Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth." She proceeded to narrate a "Fable for Tomorrow," describing a bucolic American town "where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings." The nearby farms flourished, the foxes barked, and the birds sang in a kind of pastoral Eden. "Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community." Cattle died. Children died. READ MORE >>

For days, thousands of average Burmese and respected Buddhist monks parade through the streets of Burmese cities, calling for democracy and picking up supporters as they march. The protests have a kind of festive atmosphere. Crowds of young men in baseball caps and elderly Burmese in traditional sarongs cheer the monks from the rooftops and wave hand-lettered banners in Burmese and English. As the demonstrators walk, sometimes linking arms, the feared Burmese troops, who have run the country since the 1960s, stand aside, letting them pass. READ MORE >>

The export trade of China is in a shambles. Not proportionally, of course. Still...could the most rapacious of capitalisms have been worse? It's not just that the guy whose company had been black-balled by Mattel for coating its toys with toxic paint had committed hari-kiri. No, no, that's a Japanese guilt ritual. Anyway: Mattel has turned back at least 18.2 million toys. Including some of my grandson's favorites: Thomas the truck. Or is it Thomas the tank? I think, actually, that it's Thomas the READ MORE >>

"Made in China" used to be a guarantee of shlock, cheap shlock. Now, the "Made in China" label is once again a guarantee of shlock, but not necessarily particularly cheap shlock. It's still too early to tell how much U.S. government interpositions against tainted food products raised or made in China, perilous medicines and drugs and unsafe manufactured items, will dent that country's trade with America and, subsequently, when other jurisdictions grasp that commerce with Beijing may be dangerous to their inhabitants' health, its trade with other polities, as well. READ MORE >>

China is an impossible world citizen. OK, no country is a terrific world citizen. But China scrapes the bottom in sheer callousness to the people who buy their products. That's the story behind the conscious mixing of poisons into feed for animals, including pets. There is a story in the business section of today's Times about this deliberate use of cyanuric acid in wheat gluten where it should NOT be. READ MORE >>