As Solzhenitsyn writes in his subsequent paragraph:
“During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood.”
NATO must focus more on challenge of rising China, report to say
"China is no longer the benign trading partner that the West had hoped for," according to one diplomat who has seen the report.
The major difference between capitalist and communist bullies is if you upset anybody in the Communist party especially their emperor you may find yourself locked up in a prison waiting trial, maybe even for 6 years, as was done to some westerners. Or as a Chinese citizen you might just disappear.. internally Chinese people would be terrified of confronting a communist party that bullies them. Chinese people ignore their own bullying people. The consequences of standing up to that are dire and extreme. Chinese citizens in Australia in conversations with Chinese people in China are constantly reminded by the people spoken to. Please don't talk politics over wechat, everything we do is being monitored… yeah China is a bully but for the Chinese all you have to do is ignore it. One thing you don't see in China very often are real blue skies, instead the pollution and smog covers everything. Nothing is done about it because you'd have to complain. No one dares complain in China.
The world is finally uniting against China's bully tactics
Coronavirus pandemic: Behind the charm China is a bully ...
How China uses its trading clout to bully nations like Australia ...
Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend
What people in other forums are saying about public policy Continue reading
The True Value Of An Arts Degree
A recent graduate says of her art history, cultural analysis, and other classes, “Being able to take these topics seriously and giving them the same attention and weight as things such as 18th-century philosophy taught me so much more about our communities, what we value, what we enjoy and whom we pay attention to.” – Maclean’s (Canada)
Documentaries Are Hot Right Now, Threatening HBO’s Dominance
But the two women who run the documentary division at the behemoth aren’t worried. “Audiences’ appetite for nonfiction has grown as new funding sources like Kickstarter have emerged, and new formats, like podcasts. At the same time new and affordable technology has helped democratize the medium, and competition has exploded among deep-pocketed platforms hungry for documentary content.” And then there’s Netflix. – The New York Times
The epidemiological musical culture that is Sweden
Assassination by remote control
The Worst Kind Of Book Thief
Easily the worst is the kind that steals from a shared heritage in libraries for private sale or just adoration. “It denies everyone the opportunity of having access to that book. Even a rare book bought (or stolen) from a bookshop will end up having just one owner, whereas in a public library that same book is available for anyone who wishes to read it.” – The Guardian (UK)
Documentaries Are Hot Right Now, Threatening HBO’s Dominance
But the two women who run the documentary division at the behemoth aren’t worried. “Audiences’ appetite for nonfiction has grown as new funding sources like Kickstarter have emerged, and new formats, like podcasts. At the same time new and affordable technology has helped democratize the medium, and competition has exploded among deep-pocketed platforms hungry for documentary content.” And then there’s Netflix. – The New York Times
A Century Of The Widening Gyre
One hundred years after the last massive, worldwide pandemic, Yeats’ poem feels close at hand. “I would scarcely call ‘The Second Coming’ a holiday poem. But it makes you feel that that a page of history is about to flip: one epoch is about to give birth to another.” – NPR