Singapore is world's least emotional country

[Backwards Observer]

What appears to be satire.

Philippines Is World’s Most Emotional Country, While Neighboring Singapore Doesn’t Feel Much of Anything Anymore by Juli Weiner

According to several maps, the world’s most emotional country and the world’s least emotional country are in shocking geographic proximity to each other, separated only by the South China Sea. Is this body of water the cause of the pathos disparity? In other words, is the South China Sea gas-lighting the Philippines and being totally normal to Singapore? In an attempt to solve this troubling psychodrama, we sat the three of them down for group therapy.

Philippines Is World’s Most Emotional Country, While Neighboring Singapore Doesn’t Feel Much of Anything Anymore - Vanity Fair - 11.29.2012

[Backwards Observer]

Updated link for article in post #6.

Reforming One Party Rule in China - President Xi's Singapore Lessons - Michael Spence - Project Syndicate - 11.19.2012

[Backwards Observer]

Too soon to tell.

Did the Hakka Save China? - Ethnicity, Identity, and Minority Status in China's Modern Transformation - P. Richard Bohr - College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University - 5.22.2012

[Backwards Observer]

From the Department of Too Much Information.

Marx and the Taipings

It is interesting to observe how Europe's greatest revolutionary, Karl Marx (1818-1883), thought about China's greatest revolution in the nineteenth century, the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864). We might imagine that this relentless advocate for underclass interests might have cheered for the poor peasants of the Taiping Heavenly Army. But this was not the case. Marx wrote about the Taiping Rebellion several times in the New York Daily Tribune and other newspapers, and his analysis and his sympathies are fascinating. His articles are as close to blog postings as one could get in the middle of the nineteenth century; they are topical, opinionated, and pretty revealing about his underlying assumptions.

Marx and the Taipings - UnderstandingSociety - 2.13.2009

No Class - Motorhead w/ Wendy O. Williams

[AdamG]

[Backwards Observer]

This thing you call language though, most remarkable. You depend on it for so very much. But is any one of you really its master?

[Backwards Observer]

Green: Operations Alternative To Hysteria (Gr:OATH).

Urban Farming Looking Up In Singapore

Less than 20 miles from Singapore's skyscrapers is a completely different set of high-rise towers. Much smaller in scale but with a big ambition, over 100 nine-meter tall towers at Sky Greens vertical farm offer a new vision of urban sustainability. Green vegetables like bak choi and Chinese cabbage are grown, stacked in greenhouses, and sold at local supermarkets.

Urban Farming Looking Up In Singapore - CNN - 10.12.2012

The Lion City on Vimeo - Vimeo