Jon Robin Baitz has written a new play, "Chinese Friends," about American politics circa 2030. It derives its title from a board game of the same name, also called Go or Othello. I saw it at two disadvantages: first, not knowing the game; and second, not having Mr. Baitz sit next to me and explain what I was seeing. Generally I prefer to puzzle out the meanings of plays by myself, without an authorial nudge. In fact, I take a dim view of playwrights loitering around the...
Why did his communist Chinese friends want Bill Clinton to be reelected?It is common knowledge that, while in college, he organized pro-communist rallies, refused to fight the communists in Vietnam, and documented the fact that he abhors our own military. He sympathetically visited communist countries while other Americans were fighting against the communists and dying in Vietnam.Since becoming President, he has tried to impose a communist-type medical system on Americans and, as...
The kettle calling the pot black Whenever I'm with Chinese friends I inevitably launch into a tirade about Tibet. I express my outrage that the invasion and annexation in 1959 were unconscionable and cowardly.Unconscionable, because its motivation was for strategic and mineral gain (the country is rich in natural resources) and certainly did not involve "rescuing" the Tibetan people from their theocracy, a line that is regularly trotted out by...
Why did his communist Chinese friends want Bill Clinton to be reelected?It is common knowledge that, while in college, he organized pro-communist rallies, refused to fight the communists in Vietnam, and documented the fact that he abhors our own military. He sympathetically visited communist countries while other Americans were fighting against the communists and dying in Vietnam.Since becoming President, he has tried to impose a communist-type medical system on Americans and, as...
IT WILL be the Chinese New Year tomorrow. Thousands of Malay and Indian Singaporeans will visit their Chinese friends, just as their Chinese friends would have visited them on Hari Raya and Deepavali. Such occurrences seem so natural to us we no longer think they are worth especial note.But how 'natural' is the 'natural', when it comes to inter-racial or inter-religious relations? That like should stick to like - and that they should all...