Last Bender

NGUYEN COCHINCHINA SOUTHERN VIETNAM IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES By Li Tana Southeast Asia Program Publications Southeast Asia Program Cornell University Ithaca, NY 1998    http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-AN/102893.htm http://www.jstor.org/stable/20072012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonmachi Nguyen Cochinchina, Li Tana’s fascinating and vitally important book about the expansion of the Vietnamese into central and south Vietnam, addresses a period and place little [...]

A friend confided to me that he is so disillusioned with the Democratic Party that he would probably not vote for Obama in 2012. He says at this point there is no real difference between the parties, given the failure of the democrats to reform Wall Street. I have heard similar sentiments from others because [...]

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN             So I went to Tony’s. The drive was terrifying. I came down out of the hills and the entrance to the freeway was a maze of stainless steel bladed walls and blinking yellow eye censors on retractable necks. By the time I reached LA Yaanga my knuckles had fused for lack of [...]

I Googled ‘Liberals with Guns’. There is a website, but it reads like a gun fanatic’s screed. I have no love of guns. I didn’t grow up with them and don’t own one. They scare me. But the right wing scares me more. Second Amendment Solutions are available to Leftists too. When AK-47 toting weekend [...]

Last Thursday I took a vacation with my family, a mini jaunt to the Eastern Shore of Maryland where my sister lives. We planned on swimming in her pool and grilling venison and then spending a day at the beach. As Thursday approached so did Irene, a category 3-4 hurricane that was expected to wreak [...]