publishing news no. 1

I contributed a bit to this recently published book. Specifically, I helped with the parts about how feminine hygiene is a critical element to community empowerment... because, of course, I'm an expert.

The book profiles and parallels several women leading either Fortune 500 companies or small community projects in rural villages throughout Africa. And it echoes my own growing belief that women do the bulk of the work throughout the world, and as such tend to make more effective community leaders (in other words.. yo soy una feminista.).

The proceeds support the wonderful ngo CARE. So.. you know.. buy.

rock doctor speaks

I avoided blogging during our two months in the states, because I didn't really have anything to say. And I've avoided blogging since we got back to Thailand a month ago, because my wife usually says everything better.

For my dad's birthday in October, I set up for him a blog. I told him it could be any blog he wants (he's a hell of an unpublished poet), but encouraged him to take on (and work to elevate the discourse of) climate change. A year ago he told me he'd be willing to believe in man-accelerated global warming if the science was there, but that the misbehavior of climate change scientists and the general mindlessness of the media discourse about it was keeping him skeptical.

It's obviously a complicated issue, but one that's generally discussed with the same sense of self-reinforcing sneeriness as Yankees v Red Sox (or, say, anything on Fox News v Huffington Post) — an opinion reinforced with gusto by the recent climategate stuff. I was hoping that the thoughtful, open-minded way he usually describes his own global warming investigations could help.

dave, when he was cool

A month later, his first post is up, and the chosen subject is.. well.. something. But it's entertaining and random, and what we can expect in the future from this reader, thinker, scientist, author and poet.

So welcome to blogland, Dad. And if you can find the time to write, then I should too.

phonstance

two things happened in may that made me start liking phayao. 1) i got a moto, and 2) the monsoon started (which put out the forest fires and brought back the mountains).

now i can explore sunsets. and jungles. and listen to wilco's summerteeth while riding through the afternoon rice paddies. and okkervil river on moonlight dashes around the lake. and (unreleased) paul banks every other time. and simply indulge every impulse of exotic wander-y adventurism i have.

it really is happiness on wheels. and it was enough to get me back for a second year.

anyway, the point is.. con thinks we look like:

Design Flaw

Giant Thai Things

we live in a jungle.

(that's a king cobra)

Where we'll be:

Aug 30–Sept 3: San Francisco, Sexy Rexy, etc.
Sept 4–8: Yosemite, Death Valley, Vegas, Sedona, Marfa
Sept 9–14: Dallas
Sept 15–Oct 1: Austin
Oct 2-4: Colorado
Oct 5–12: Austin
Oct 13–18: Houston/College Station

Then.. possibly California again, before Thailand No. 2 at the end of October.

We want to see you. Yes, you.

Eight days

Last week of Thailand Round No. 1.

I haven't blogged in months, so it's time to do so with fury.

Here is a video we made once on the Great Wall of China:

Sexy Rexy!

Rex David Kilbride. "The Psalmist." I'm an uncle.


Alright Emmy and Justin!

Where's Lorne?

Lorne (our friend from Texas) is in Thailand, and everyone thinks he's Thai. Odd, since he clearly looks more like a younger Ho Chi Minh. Still, he just blends in, and it's endless fun.

What's this?...

... found him!

Fight Night

Con (read her more thoughtful account here) declared it our best night in Phayao. Watching 12 year-old kids hit and kick each other—and grown-ass men making rice whiskey-fueled bets on said hitting and kicking kids—I entirely agreed.




Also learned how little we know about the sport...

During the [above] title fight, we assumed red shorts was winning, although probably only because he had a cooler back tattoo. So when—in the fifth and final round—they began dancing and mocking their way around the ring instead of fighting (reminded me of wrestling video games), indicating an inevitable split decision, the extent of my lame ignorance was hammered home. Sure enough:

Tuesday!

Brooks on Fallows on China

I admire both the NyTimes' David Brooks and The Atlantic's James Fallows for similar reasons. Both guys seem to enjoy posing questions and exploring ideas more than arguing sides, and both seem to write with humility and openness about their own opinions. Both seem willing to be wrong, and willing to give credit where credit is due. Both are refreshing voices in our current information age gone wrong.

So.. I was happy today to read Brooks about a debate about China featuring Fallows (where he lived for several years, and about which he's written a series of very illuminating stories).

Fallows pointed out that there is no one thing called “China” or “the Chinese,” and that many of the most anti-American statements from Chinese officials are made to blunt domestic anxiety and make further integration possible. That integration, Fallows continued, is deep and will get deeper. Many, many Chinese leaders were educated in the U.S. and admire or at least respect it. If you go to cities like Xian, you find American and European aviation firms fully integrated into the commercial fabric there.

Fallows’s main argument, though, was psychological. When he lived in Japan in the 1980s, he said, he sometimes felt that the Japanese had a chip-on-their-shoulder attitude in which their success was bound to U.S. decline. He says he rarely got that feeling in China. Instead, he has described officials who are thrilled to be integrated in the world. Their mothers had bound feet. They themselves plowed the fields in the Cultural Revolution. Now they get to join the world.

Some of the officials interviewed by Fallows believe the U.S. is following unsustainable fiscal policies that will lead to decline, but they view this with frustration, not joy. Fallows doesn’t know what the future will hold, but he believes that Chinese officials still see the dollar as their least risky investment. Domestically, China will not turn democratic, but individual liberties will expand. He agreed that China and the U.S. will dominate the 21st century, but he painted the picture of a more benign cooperation.

I post this because the biggest question that I went to China with—and I think, one that is going to be asked endlessly in the coming years—is what does China's inevitable rise mean for America? Will America respond out of undue fear or proper caution? Does one superpower's rise require another to fall? To what level will we tangle over resources? Can we commend and encourage the miraculous, rapid evaporation of Chinese poverty without abandoning our own human rights principles?

Seems like it's the geopolitical relationship that will matter more than any other over the next 100 years. Glad I got a glimpse.

Losing Face

Tienanmen is a sensitive issue here. So we mocked it.

All walls are great if the roof doesn't fall..

.. (Thom Yorke shouldn't always be taken literally).

The Great Wall "experience" reminded me a bit of the Grand Canyon. I'm always a bit ho-hum about going to super-famous, fanny pack-friendly places I've seen over and over in pictures... and then I'm always pleasantly surprised when the place is pleasantly, surprisingly spectacular. It almost works better that way.

The GW really is that stunning. Geesh it's stunning.

Joyce drafts me into the PLA.