WHAT THE CHINESE MAN IN THE STREET IS READING: MORE ON THE TRAIN WRECK

THE CHINESE 

TRAIN WRECK 

II 

WHAT 

THE MAN IN THE STREET 

WAS 

READING 

1981 

And now:  In five days, according to the reporting in the New York Times, twenty-six million messages about the Wenzhou train wreck had been posted on the two main Chinese weibos, or microblogs. 

One in a Series: China Then & Now 

{work in progress} 

JULY 30, 1991: MARCHING TO THE END OF THE SOVIET UNION, TWENTY YEARS AGO

A HANDSHAKE 

ON THE WAY TO 

THE END OF 

THE SOVIET UNION 

TWENTY YEARS AGO 

U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH MEETS 

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN 

IN YELTSIN'S NEW KREMLIN OFFICE 

JULY 30, 1991 

Story coming in RUSSIA REDUX, Ch. 4 

"Russia Takes a President; the U.S. Takes Notice" 

MEMO TO D.C.: GOING TO THE DOGS

MEMO 

TO 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

GUYS!  GUYS! 

BEFORE THIS COUNTRY GOES TO THE DOGS, 

CAN'T YOU GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER? 

(With apologies to the dogs.) 

"UGLY CHOICES":  "Treasury officials would have to decide whether to pay retirees on Social Security before or after active-duty soldiers, whether to forgo pay to federal workers or to withhold payment for services rendered by federal contractors. The list is long: In any given month, the Treasury Department issues about 80 million checks, according to the White House," is the way McClatchy lays it out. 

Stephen Walt calls it a "self-inflicted wound," in writing of the effects of the "budget battle and America's reputation." 

And patriotism? And pulling for the country? 

We have already seen that Alan Greenspan, whom the deficits scare, is now against the Bush tax cuts he supported as Fed Chair. 

BILL BRADLEY b. July 28, 1943

BILL BRADLEY 

b. July 28, 1943 

Senator BILL BRADLEY (D-N.J.) 

(former basketball star, 

 Princeton-Olympics-Knicks) 

 speaking to the 

1988 Democratic National Convention 

Bradley's official Senate (plus) biography (he served 1979-1997) is here. 

A photograph of mine from his first (1978) campaign for Senate is here -- Bradley meeting with workers at the Ford plant in Mahwah, New Jersey. 

A bit about Bradley's loss to Al Gore in the 2000 Democratic presidential primaries is here. 

An appreciation from his home town from February of this year is here:  "Crystal City [Missouri] remains a part of Bill Bradley"; this article includes an action picture of Bradley from fifty years ago. 

ONE MORE JANIS JOPLIN HAVING FUN

"27" 

BUT 

NOT YET 

IN 

"THE CLUB" 

JANIS JOPLIN 

at her last concert 

Harvard Stadium 

Boston 

August 12, 1970 

RICHARD BELL is at the piano, to Joplin's left 

For more, you can begin here and here 

AMY WINEHOUSE, JANIS JOPLIN, & THE "27 CLUB"

THE "27" 

CLUB 

 

JANIS JOPLIN 

at her last concert 

Harvard Stadium 

Boston 

August 12, 1970 

 

I have been resisting posting on Janis Joplin and the so-called "27 Club" ever since the death of Amy Winehouse (R.I.P.) kicked them up to the top of the news. 

Stuart Samuels has been working on a documentary of earlier "27"-ers, including Joplin, meant to bring perspective. 

But as for the coverage now, enough is enough. 

I have decided to post a happy picture from Janis's last concert (above).  Several others I have already posted can be found by clicking the "Labels" box, below, and by going to this web page. 

With Janis Joplin, at least, it was not all gloom & doom. 

More here. 

CHINESE READERS, THEN & NOW: AND WHAT WE ARE LEARNING FROM THE HIGH-SPEED TRAIN CRASH

CHINESE READERS 

THEN 

STREET LENDING LIBRARY 1981 

AND NOW:  The collision of two high-speed trains near Wenzhou two days ago has provided an opening into how the news can get out and get commented on in China despite the strictures of the regime. 

The high-speed rail system is a source of pride at home and potential profit abroad.  The Beijing-Shanghai express line was opened recently with great fanfare.  There have been some problems before, but nothing like this tragedy. 

From the authorities came conflicting stories.  The most basic facts seemed to be that one train "stalled after being struck by lightning and was rammed by another one behind it." 

From one survivor, "minutes after the accident," came a plea for help -- on Sina Weibo, "China's version of Twitter" -- and by the next night, "four million messages about the crash," according to the New York Times. 

The message official China wanted front and center was "great love in the face of great disaster."  One Weibo "micro-blogger" saw instead, as The Guardian reported, a China like "a train rushing through a lightning storm," and warned that "When a country is so corrupt that one lightning strike can cause a train crash ... none of us is exempt." 

MACHU PICCHU CENTENARY II

MACHU PICCHU

IS "DISCOVERED"

July 24, 1911: Yale History lecturer HIRAM BINGHAM III "climbed a 

2,000-foot-tall slope and encountered an abandoned stone city of which 

no record existed," writes Mark Adams.

(Notice: Adams carefully writes "encountered," and not discovered.)

This year, the centenary, one million visitors are expected.

Mark Adams's long article in the New York Times (he has also written a 

book, TURN RIGHT AT MACHU PICCHU, which I have not yet read), 

is here.

Christopher Reynolds, who has been to Machu Picchu three times since 

1988, has another perspective in a piece in the Los Angeles Times, here.

For some information on the official, Peruvian, celebration, held earlier 

this month, see here.

To see some of my other photographs of Machu Picchu please go to 

the LABELS row at the bottom of this posting, or use your find 

function ("Machu Picchu"), and for more "Peru Scenes," see here.

A MOMENT OF PEACE...AMIDST THE HORRORS (OF NORWAY, AND NOT JUST OF NORWAY)

FOR 

A MOMENT 

OF PEACE, 

& 

BEAUTY 

A ROCK FACE IN MAINE 

As to the horrors in Norway, an appropriate, and Norwegian, response comes to mind:  see "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, here. 

BOB DOLE IS EIGHTY-EIGHT; AND A LOOK BACK AT BUDGET CUTS AND TAXES UNDER RONALD REAGAN

BOB DOLE 

b. July 22, 1923 

Senators ROBERT J. DOLE (R-Kansas) [l] 

& RUSSELL B. LONG (D-Louisiana) [r] 

As published in Business Week, July 19, 1982, p. 52 

For the moment I will stint on Senator Dole's distinguished biography, beginning with his service in World War II and lasting through six terms in the Senate, one vice-presidential nomination and one for president.   His official web site can be found here. 

What is striking, given what is going on in Washington this very moment, is what Business Week wrote (July 19, 1982) about the story that occasioned this photograph (Dole was then Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Long the ranking minority leader and former chair): 

In crafting a tax bill that would raise $21 billion next year, Senate Republicans have taken a page from Ronald Reagan's political strategy book. To win approval of budget cuts for this year and last, Reagan largely spared programs that benefit the middle class. The Senate Finance Committee has drafted a tax bill that mainly hits business and well-to-do individuals, while leaving the politically potent middle class largely untouched. 

KARL DEUTSCH b. July 21, 1912

KARL W. DEUTSCH 

July 21, 1912-November 1, 1992 

PROF. KARL DEUTSCH 

at the podium 

teaching Gov. 20 

at Harvard 

Nicholas Kristof, when he was writing for the Harvard Crimson and not yet the New York Times, headlined Karl Deutsch as "The Best Political Scientist in the World."  The New York Times obituary (not written by Kristof) called him "An Innovator in Political Science." 

Colleagues at Harvard and in the political science field more broadly wrote long appreciative pieces on Deutsch, which can be read here and here (the latter includes an extensive bibliography). 

I had the pleasure of working with Karl Deutsch as a Teaching Fellow in Government 20, Introduction to Comparative Politics. 

 

ELLIOT RICHARDSON b. July 20, 1920

ELLIOT LEE RICHARDSON

July 20, 1920-December 31, 1999

ELLIOT RICHARDSON AT WORK

For a time in the seventies, Elliot Richardson was the Republican presidents' go-to-guy. Eventually, under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, he held four Cabinet posts: Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare; Secretary of Defense; Attorney General; and Secretary of Commerce.

This is still, apparently, an all-time record.

Richardson had won two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star in World War II; was graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School; clerked for both Judge Learned Hand and Justice Felix Frankfurter; served as U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts and Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts; then began his service in Washington as Under Secretary of State, the number two, before being appointed to the four Cabinet posts named above. (Details in the New York Times obituary, here.)

As the Pentagon's own official summing up of its eleventh Secretary of Defense put it, "When President Nixon selected Richardson as secretary of defense, the press described him as an excellent manager and administrator, perhaps the best in the cabinet."

But with a tenure of less than four months as SecDef, Richardson did not have much chance to prove his mettle there.

President Nixon moved him to Attorney General, to "handle" Watergate.

And so it happened that, as Richardson himself said, he became known for what he did not do: "I’m the only American I know of who is principally remembered for what he didn’t do—I didn’t fire Archibald Cox" -- as Nixon had ordered him to, when Cox tried to take his investigation of Watergate farther than Nixon wanted.

Thus, the Saturday Night Massacre of October 20, 1973: Richardson resigned; his deputy William Ruckelshaus also resigned rather than fire Cox; Robert Bork did the deed. (Yes, the one who was later "Borked.")

Interesting details of Richardson's memories of the event are to be found here, including the arguments Nixon tried to use to keep him from resigning.

Richardson became known as a "moral arbiter," and did go on to do more good deeds. He did not get elected to the Senate when he tried to in 1984.

He did win the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest American civilian honor, in 1998.

A note about the photograph: According to the Times, Richardson "once told friends that he spent his years at Harvard College mostly drawing cartoons for the Lampoon, the comedy magazine" (which did not stop him from graduating near the top of his class). Here he is, decades later, doodling while being interviewed: