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Matching entries from Houston's Clear Thinkers
Crossing Heaven's Border
Over the past decade, tens of thousands defectors have crossed the dangerous waters of the Tumen and Yalu Rivers into northeast China to escape from North Korea, the world’s last closed Communist state. In the hour-long documentary Crossing Heaven’s Border,...
A continuing civic shame
My first blog post on the chronically shameful condition of the Harris County Jail was four years ago. There have been quite a few others since then. Still, nothing has changed. Despite my libertarian leanings, it's way past time...
The continuing horror that is North Korea
Amidst the slow progress of the United States' diplomatic efforts to bring North Korea into the community of the world's civilized nations (previous posts on North Korea are here), this recent W$J op-ed by Shin Dong-Hyok -- who lived the...
Remembering 1968
In 1968, I was a 15-year old concentrating on playing various high school sports in Iowa City, a Midwestern college town. However, even in that somewhat sheltered environment, it was impossible not to realize that 1968 was an unusually tumultuous...
What to do about North Korea?
With last week's confirmation that North Korea had tested a nuclear device, The Atlantic Monthly has put online Robert D. Kaplan's cover article from the October print edition, When North Korea Falls, a stark analysis of the disaster that could...
It's not Austin, but . . .
Even when the New York Times provides a generally favorable review of the College Station, Texas -- about 100 miles northwest of downtown Houston and the home of Texas A&M University -- the newspaper cannot resist making a snarky comment...
Thinking about foreign policy
Inasmuch as foreign affairs issues are simmering all over the place right now, I pass along the following items that I've come across recently: In this Investor’s Business Daily article, Claremont Institute President Brian Kennedy evaluates the US missle defense...
Last gasps of a Stalinist regime
This Times Online article opines that there are clear signs of increasing instability within the government of North Korea. Earlier posts on the sad saga of North Korea may be reviewed here, here, and here....
Signs of growing dissent in North Korea
This Der Spiegel article notes the signs....
Jimmy Carter's sabotage of the Democratic Party
Jimmy Carter's laudatory remarks today about the dubious leadership qualities of Yasser Arafat reminded me of this pithy book review that the Weekly Standard's Noemie Emery wrote earlier this year regarding Steven F. Hayward's book about Mr. Carter, The Real...
Understanding terrorism
Although I am generally supportive of the way in which the Bush Administration has conducted the war against the Islamic fascists over the past three years, I have never been comfortable with the Administration's characterization of the war as the...
Decisions during the fog of war
Max Boot is a Senior Fellow of National Security Studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, and an award-winning author and former editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Boot is an expert on national security policy and...
James Fallows on the Iraq War
James Fallows is the National Correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, where he has worked for more than twenty years. He is one of the most important and gifted investigative reporters of our time. During his long and storied career, Mr....
The view from inside the CIA
The Houston World Affairs Council was formed about 15 years ago to provide a forum for all sides of current global issues, to promote better understanding of international relations and to contribute to national and international policy debates. The Houston...
As if North Korea didn't already have enough problems
Randy Parker over at ParaPundit has this interesting post in which he points out that the shortage of females in China -- coupled with North Korea's crippled economy -- presents the real prospect that Chinese men will import substantial numbers...
VDH on Rumsfeld
Victor Davis Hanson's latest NRO column is up and, as usual, he places the calls for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation or firing in the proper perspective: The idea that anyone would suggest that Donald Rumsfeld -- and now Richard Meyers! --...
Kim Jong II cook's story
One of my favorite magazines is Atlantic Monthly. In the February edition, North Korea dictator Kim Jong II's former cook pens an article ($) about the decade he spent cooking for the, might we say, idiosyncratic Mr. Kim. The entire...
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