The Book Club will meet Tuesday, January 9, 2018, at The Park, to discuss Mikhail Bulgakov's novel, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, in which Satan arrives in both Roman Jerusalem 2000 years ago and in Moscow in the stalinist 1930's and turns out to be the most interesting and dramatic dude in town (think Milton's PARADISE LOST).
The Kunming Book Club has a wechat group in which many regular attendees participate, but meetings are open to all. Readings, locations and times of meets are chosen by attendees. New participants welcome.
That's creeping up on Chinese New Year, so you might want to check early on tickets to Jinghong. From Jinghong on you can probably just buy tickets the day before at the bus station.
Yahoo is not a brilliant site for news, but it works consistently for me here - perhaps there was a glitch for a week or so once, but that was a long time ago, can't quite remember.
I am a foreigner and at my local PSB I have never needed my landlord to go with me to register, I just needed lease and photocopy of his ID the first time, when I moved in. Later trips in and out of the country, I just had to show up with my passport - did this last week.
I mean it's also worth looking at such 'illnesses' as self-enslavement - and I don't mean to be substituting one perspective for another - both are important in any treatment - this is not either/or.
@faraday: I agree with you about addiction as illness etc. However, I do think that recent, especially US, concentration on seeing many things as 'illnesses' sometimes leads to the idea that they should not be considered responsible for their own behaviour, and that going too far down that road can lead to complete irresponsibility and denial of the idea of human freedom/responsibility entirely. Easy enough to look at past events & analyze them in terms of cause/effect - but in the present, where we all always are, choice and self-direction are necessary or we simply reduce both ourselves and others to the status of objects - e.g., we are no longer human.
OK, this leads off into philosophical considerations and perhaps too far from the subject at hand to go into in detail here - however, I think they're relevant. Addiction is not freedom, but self-deception: the addict CAN stop, can choose to stop, often, perhaps, tells himself he IS stopping - but he doesn't, may tell himself he CAN'T; lies to himself. I speak as a nicotine addict. Cf. J-P Sartre's concept of Bad Faith.
@HFCampo: I suggest that if we can't come up with something a bit more original then we all drop it, or start a forum, where I can tell you about my fantastic acid trip of many years ago, which I've never regretted; as well as another one some time later that was a real horror show. I would suggest that most such stories that people might tell will be a lot less dramatic or important, and quite a few might be funny.
At any rate, enough with the idea of a 'war on drugs'. Problems not all solved absolutely, finally and forever, with an iron hand? Then it's like almost everything else. And iron hands usually turn out to be bigger problems than the ones they are supposed to deal with.
@HFCampo: Your major argument was that drug users should be killed - you lost that one.
You affirmed that rehabilitation of addicts was just a matter of substituting one addiction for another.
Now you seem to be saying that all rehabilitated addicts are a-holes, offering no proof.
Are you still saying that you have some solution to 'win' some 'war' on drugs? If so, what is it? If not, then you're simply pointing out that illegal drug use - defined as using drugs that evil governments decide should be illegal - can involve lots of problems. Fine: I think we can all agree to that, and then argue about the details if we want to; we could also discuss possible advantages to the use of some drugs. But I doubt if this is the place to do either.
Not quite what you'd call a jumping place, but not bad at all for rather standard US-type meals, not overly expensive, and with a really good salad bar that's cheap, or free with most dinner dishes after 5:30PM. You can get a bottle of beer or even wine if you really want to, but I've never seen anybody do it - maybe that's just to take out. Chinese Christian run, and they hire people with physical disadvantages, who are pleasant and helpful. Frequented by foreign (mostly North American) Christians and Chinese Christians - was started by a Canadian couple associated with Bless China (previously, Project Grace), who are no longer here, but no religious pressure or any of that. Steaks are nothing special, and I avoid the Korean dishes, which I've had a few times but which did not impress me.
As a shop and bakery, it's very good bread at reasonable prices, of various kinds (Y18 for a good multigrain loaf that certainly weighs well over a pound. Other stuff too, like granola and oatmeal that is local, as well as imported things, including American cornflakes and so forth, which some people seem to require.
Large portions, seriously so with the pizza, which is Brooklyn/American style, I guess. Convivial, conversational, good place to drink with good folks on both sides of the bar, especially after about 9PM.
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted byI mean it's also worth looking at such 'illnesses' as self-enslavement - and I don't mean to be substituting one perspective for another - both are important in any treatment - this is not either/or.
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted by@faraday: I agree with you about addiction as illness etc. However, I do think that recent, especially US, concentration on seeing many things as 'illnesses' sometimes leads to the idea that they should not be considered responsible for their own behaviour, and that going too far down that road can lead to complete irresponsibility and denial of the idea of human freedom/responsibility entirely. Easy enough to look at past events & analyze them in terms of cause/effect - but in the present, where we all always are, choice and self-direction are necessary or we simply reduce both ourselves and others to the status of objects - e.g., we are no longer human.
OK, this leads off into philosophical considerations and perhaps too far from the subject at hand to go into in detail here - however, I think they're relevant. Addiction is not freedom, but self-deception: the addict CAN stop, can choose to stop, often, perhaps, tells himself he IS stopping - but he doesn't, may tell himself he CAN'T; lies to himself. I speak as a nicotine addict. Cf. J-P Sartre's concept of Bad Faith.
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted by@HFCampo: I suggest that if we can't come up with something a bit more original then we all drop it, or start a forum, where I can tell you about my fantastic acid trip of many years ago, which I've never regretted; as well as another one some time later that was a real horror show. I would suggest that most such stories that people might tell will be a lot less dramatic or important, and quite a few might be funny.
At any rate, enough with the idea of a 'war on drugs'. Problems not all solved absolutely, finally and forever, with an iron hand? Then it's like almost everything else. And iron hands usually turn out to be bigger problems than the ones they are supposed to deal with.
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted by@HFCampo: Your major argument was that drug users should be killed - you lost that one.
You affirmed that rehabilitation of addicts was just a matter of substituting one addiction for another.
Now you seem to be saying that all rehabilitated addicts are a-holes, offering no proof.
Are you still saying that you have some solution to 'win' some 'war' on drugs? If so, what is it? If not, then you're simply pointing out that illegal drug use - defined as using drugs that evil governments decide should be illegal - can involve lots of problems. Fine: I think we can all agree to that, and then argue about the details if we want to; we could also discuss possible advantages to the use of some drugs. But I doubt if this is the place to do either.
Hekou's 600 million yuan "boondoggle"
Posted byYeah - follow the money, and see who's got expensive new cars.