AKIC tidbits.

• First my wife and mother-in-law were convinced that the cracks we were seeing in the wall were new.  But the occupants of the apartment across the hallway from us say the cracks are old.  Be that as it may, I hope that the apartment building we are in now was not built by the same people who built all the schools in Sichuan
• Traffic was stopped on the street yesterday during the moment of silence observed for the victims of the Sichuan Wenchuan earthquake.  But there were the few who were looking about wandering what was going on.
• The Toner is learning how to fold and unfold things.  Or I should say, he is teaching himself.  I recently saw him grab an old birthday card and make serious efforts to fold it.
• Taiwan: the Israel of Asia?
• Some hard truths about Burma. 
• Seablogger on Chinese Dams and Superstitions.  I have asked the students about the superstitions, and they all deny they have any concerning this year.  As for construction techniques (read the comments to the Seablogger posting), you can refer to my photos of the construction across the street from my current apartment.  (Visit AKIC spaces.)
• A commentator on my latest Wuxi Tony Update noticed that my wife looks weary.  She is and she has every reason to be so.  Tony is hard to deal with these days.  He is energetic and impatient.  My wife does a lot of work around this apartment and the new apartment as well.
• Here is a site I will spend time with today.  This George Jonas, a Canadian I can be proud of, is as thought provoking as another Canadian who has his head on straight:  David Warren.
• In this article, Jonas gives the straight goods on Canada.  Try as we might these past 40 years, Canada has not become a basket case country.
• This young, seemingly innocent, student disappointed me by knowing what the word "shack up" meant.  I don't know who taught her that but it had to have been one of our leftist-leaning teachers.  I am always agog to listen to these left-leaners complain about how sexually-naive and prudish many of the Chinese seem to be.  "If only they would learn to shack-up and have one night stands like we do"  seems to be their lament.  Historically speaking, it the west's libertinism that makes us the freaks.  Meanwhile, these same leftists tacitly approve the one-child policy that has left so many families in Sichuan childless.