Month: November 2007

  • The 100-Mile Closet: Dress Locally, or Get Real?

    Nate at Carrotrope introduces the 100-mile wardrobe ideal: If green-minded foodies can eat only food products from within 100 miles of their dinner table, why can’t green fasionistas wear locally-grown (organic) fiber? This seems like a nice idea. Wearing local clothes, as with eating local food, radically reduces shipping-related emissions. As much as you may…

  • Are Pollution Stories Anti-Chinese? Sometimes, yes.

    James Fallows notes, but does not really respond to, a criticism of his persistent posts on bad air quality days in China. A reader recounts the thoughts of a Chinese friend, who “pointed out that the focus on pollution before the Olympics is a phenomenon of the typical inability of the Western press to focus…

  • links for 2007-11-14

    Ozawa’s Melodrama, Japan’s Mission in the Indian Ocean, Abe’s Concessions on the Comfort Women Issue, and Wasteful Government Spending (Trans-Pacific Radio) via Japan Probe (tags: ozawaichiro sdf japan abeshinzo comfortwomen warresponsibility podcast) An unscripted summit? (Observing Japan) Style matters as much as substance; the US should be trying to coax Japan back to the table,…

  • New Jersey Quality Control is a Threat to Our Children!

    Stephen J. Dubner, of Freakonomics fame, is also the author of a children’s book. He recently discovered a misprint in one edition and “assumed the mishap was yet another Chinese quality-control issue concerning children’s merchandise,” he writes in the New York Times Freakonomics blog. But that’s not the whole story. The publisher was suitably horrified…

  • links for 2007-11-13

    Dalai Lama to visit Japan (Pravda.Ru) The Dalai Lama is expected to visit Japan this week, organizers said, despite China’s protests over other trips overseas by the Tibetan religious leader. But top government officials are not expected to meet … (tags: dalailama japan china-japan china tibet) China ‘to end HIV foreigners ban’ (BBC) China plans…