Last night was a rather interesting experience for me that I’m not going to blog about, but certainly has much in common with what I was writing about Felix Ruchert a couple of days ago. So instead I’m saying nothing and forcing my morning’s reading – plus a few favourites from the course of the week – on you.
Switzerland invades Lichtenstein. So much for neutrality and all, but the best line goes to Interior Ministry spokesman Markus Amman who said, “It’s not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something.”
Astrono-porn from STEREO-B, planetary astronomy is making me crazy at the moment. Yes it’s a solar eclipse, but one that has never been seen before and can never be seen from Earth: the moon transiting the sun seen from about 1 million miles from earth, and super-awesome video too.
I always hated how migrant workers in Guangzhou got treated like shit. Not just in their working and living conditions or from obvious exploitation of what is a vast, cheap disposable resource in the eyes of the Communist Party and so all through society. What I hated was how locals would have some really questionable biases against people just trying to drag themselves out of poverty. So, A report by Amnesty International highlights the discrimination and abuse suffered by China’s migrant workers.
Mutant Palm has been posting again and is one of the most erudite writers on Chinese history. His piece on The Art of Chinese Astronomical Technology is a wonder of mathematics, calendars, observatories, oracle bones, a 2000 year old earthquake detector, Muslim astronomers and Jesuit priests.
Danwei gives a rundown on Ming Dynasty books in Booklists: things Ming, under-appreciated gems, and over-rated junk, and Heaven Tree, one of my favourite blogs writes On Rituals, and ends up with, “Make theater, not war, I say.”
This is from the start of the year but I missed it then, we make money not art interviewed Art Orienté Objet, a French duo who do disturbing and beautiful things somewhere between biotechnology, vivisection and art.
