Two Talibans
The New York Times published this article by Scott Shane about a month ago, but I think it continues to be relevant now, as Obama just announced his new/revised Afghanistan policy of the “surge” (which another commentator mentioned is the war strategy formerly known as “escalation”.)
The article essentially lays out how there are two different groups called “Taliban” that the U.S. is fighting in Afghanistan, with quite different motivations and constituencies:
At the core of the tangle are the two Taliban movements, Afghan and Pakistani. They share an ideology and a dominant Pashtun ethnicity, but they have such different histories, structures and goals that the common name may be more misleading than illuminating, some regional specialists say.
Beautiful Autumn
Posted by Aaron in Photography on November 10th, 2009
It is autumn now, my favorite time of the year. Here’s a picture of the leaves changing in our neighborhood:
Bourbon Coffee in DC
Posted by Aaron in Uncategorized on September 18th, 2009
I’m sipping a delicious latte at Bourbon Coffee in the Foggy Bottom area of downtown Washington. The barista did an amazing job and I wish I had a camera with me to take a picture of the latte art that I am now consuming. It makes this former Seattlite’s heart — and mouth — feel at home.
In Washington state
Posted by Aaron in Photography on August 7th, 2009
Along the beach in Washington
Pictures from our trip to Washington state.
Just finished: Chinese Lessons
Just finished reading John Pomfret’s Chinese Lessons. Suggested by my dad, it’s a wonderful book for those interested in how China is changing and has changed over the past three decades. Pomfret recounts the stories of his Chinese classmates when he was an exchange student at one of China’s top universities in the early 1980s. Stories of the Cultural Revolution can shatter the heart but also provide insight into the character of the Chinese people today. Pomfret, who was one of the first Americans to enter China after it normalized relations in 1979 and was among the first to be kicked out in 1989 for witnessing the Tiananmen incident firsthand, then travels back to China for a class reunion to catch up with his classmates and observes how the last 20 years have changed China and them.
Maybe now I’ll have time for some National Geographic magazine reading. The last issue I’ve finished is probably April.
Garden photos
Posted by Aaron in Photography on July 1st, 2009
It’s July and the garden is in full bloom. Here are some pictures. I realize now that I took a bunch of closeups so you can’t see the overall height and maturity of the plants themselves. So, instead, just enjoy the closeup details.
The cilantro is doing great. Here’s a closeup of a few of the leaves:
Flowers on black background
Posted by Aaron in Photography on July 1st, 2009
I’ve been looking to try to improve my “still life” photography. This was taken with one flash and filtered sunlight through a window. Hope you enjoy it.
How the internet changes the Smithsonian (and your business too)
Posted by Aaron in Technology on June 2nd, 2009
By Joel Garreau of the Washington Post wrote an excellent piece in January entitled “Smithsonian Click-n-Drags Itself Forward” (reposted at New America Foundation).
Imagine you’re the Smithsonian Institution. You are ”America’s attic,” comprising museums numbering in the teens,with literally millions of artifacts in each inventory. Now you want to put your entire collection online, so that everyone can can see it. How do you do it, while also adding descriptive information that makes each artifact relevant to non-experts?
Oh yeah, did I mention the Smithsonian has a lot of stuff? If you’re only counting photos, it has a whopping 13 million. As a quick calculation, if it takes just 5 minutes to tag and write explanatory text for each image (which is very optimistic –some will surely take much longer to research, verify, revise, etc.), the entire collection would 250 people working full time for over two years to complete. No wonder the Smithsonian’s initial foray on Flickr only featured 1,300 photos.
Books: Google’s Next Monopoly?
Posted by Aaron in Technology on May 26th, 2009
An editorial in the Washington Post by Brewster Kahle, director of the Internet Archive, highlights the tricky position we now face as Google becomes more enmeshed in the workings of the internet. In particular, it appears a court settlement may allow Google to grab distribution rights for millions or even billions of books:
And under this settlement, authors who come forward to claim ownership in books scanned by Google would receive $60 per title. … But the settlement would also create a class that includes millions of people who will never come forward. For the majority of books — considered “orphan” works — no one will claim ownership.
Google would get an explicit, perpetual license to scan and sell access to these in-copyright but out-of-print orphans, which make up an estimated 50 to 70 percent of books published after 1923. No other provider of digital books would enjoy the same legal protection.
I love Google and use their search engine all the time. I think as a corporation it behaves fairly well. At the same time, I’m wary of putting too many of our technological eggs in one basket. As the author concludes:
We’ve wrestled with high-tech monopolies in the past — IBM, AT&T, Microsoft. The lesson was that such strongholds restrict innovation and competition.
“How Somali Pirates Could Take Obama Hostage”
As far as titles go, this one is pretty good. The notion of the president of the United States taken hostage by thugs on the open seas is too good to resist — how could you not want to read the article from the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)? It reminds me of the many events we hold here at the Center: we try to come up with provocative or unusual titles for what are often quite dry topics. Not necessarily boring, mind you…and sometimes very interesting. But they are often quite humorless. So I appreciate a good title when I see one.
Of course, the article is referring to how pirates can hostage Obama’s presidential agenda, not the person himself:
The notion that an American president cannot permit hostages or POWs to remain in captivity without suffering a significant political penalty is exceptionally dangerous—gravely injuring two presidencies in succession. … Otherwise, when a Somali pirate detains an American sailor and holds him captive in Mogadishu, Obama may find that his administration is also being held hostage.
Still, that title is pretty arresting.