Reading assignment before Obama's speech
Full text of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech from 1963 (
here and many other places). Everyone knows how that speech ends. Not that many have ever read, or now remember, the first two thirds of the speech that built up to the famous close. Here's a guess that it might be an important complement to hearing Barack Obama's inaugural address three hours from now. And even if not, it's too impressive a piece of thought and rhetoric not to revisit every so often.
More after the event, plus compare-and-contrast reports on this past 24 hours in DC (after the PEK-IAD longhaul) versus other inaugural ceremonies I've seen here over the years -- just about all of them, by the way, in colder weather than today's.
Brief media notes
For the record:
Interview about Chinese economy and my new
Postcards book, Saturday All Things Considered,
here.
Excerpt from the book in the indispensable
Danwei.org,
here.
Fresh Air interview, recorded in the
unconscious 3am zone in Beijing, scheduled for broadcast today, link as available.
Previously: Q-and-A with Kate Merkel-Hess of
The China Beat,
here.
Selamat Tahun Baru!
Or Happy New Year, as they put it in the Indonesian language I have been hearing around me for
the past week. That week has coincided with enforced separation from the mighty Internet -- not a bad way to spend time with one's family! -- which in turn leaves me behind on various year-end updates still to come.
But I can't let this day pass, nor this moment of online connection, without mentioning that my new book
Postcards from Tomorrow Square goes on sale today, with official pub date early next month. Random House's catalog listings
here. Random House's e-book format is
here, and Amazon's Kindle format is
here. A very nice set of quotes, for which I'm grateful,
here.
I won't make a habit of book promo, but I include this link to an
email Q-and-A that Kate Merkel-Hess, of the influential blog
The China Beat, conducted with me about the book and the general process of writing about China. She evoked from me an admission I'd long managed to avoid:
Ahah! You have cruelly revealed the trademarked secret of everything I've ever written for the magazine!
Further details and secrets at the China Beat site. Further promised year-end updates on software, hardware, the press, and China in this space very soon. New Year's greetings for now.
Media note (updated)
Late Thursday night, Beijing time, I did an interview about the Olympics for the Lehrer News Hour show that I think will be shown early Thursday night US time. This was foreign-correspondentry from Ye Olden Days: hearing a question over the telephone, carefully putting down the telephone so it's out of camera frame, and then answering the question into the camera -- and those recorded answers being FTPd to the US to be spliced with the questions. OK, semi-olden days. Basic theme:
Zhongguo Jia You! Aoyun Hui Jia You!
* Update:
Apparently not shown Thursday. Maybe Friday? Que sera sera.
**
Updated update: The segment did run on Friday. Info
here, with link to streaming video
here.
Interview about Great Firewall in Network World
In the new issue of the tech journal Network World, I have this Q-and-A, with Carolyn Duffy Marsan, about the workings, weaknesses, and evolution of China's "Great Firewall," expanding on this article in the Atlantic two months back.
Transcript of interview for PBS documentary on Iraq
Now posted online here (and text appended after the break).
Continue reading "Transcript of interview for PBS documentary on Iraq" »
In praise of West Coast Live
Three weeks of a dead computer, and those same weeks of nonstop book tour and related chores, can keep a man off the internet.
A note for further consideration: this morning in the San Francisco, as the very last stop in the United States before returning to Shanghai, I had the joy of appearing on Sedge Thomson's West Coast Live.
Continue reading "In praise of West Coast Live" »
Interview with Spokane Spokesman-Review
Interview with journalist Dan Webster, discussing "We Win" article and Iraq.
Interview with Santa Barbara Independent
Interview about terrorism and Blind into Baghdad , conducted by reporter Sam Kornell.
