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Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell

Thanks to Thomas Sowell's publicist, I just received a copy of Sowell's revised and updated Intellectuals and Society. 669 pages, so it might be some time before I get around to doing a review. Below is a photo I took with him back in 1999 when I met him. I told him that when I switched my ideology from socialism that friends and I dubbed ourselves "Sowell Brothers."


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Common Sense on North Korea (Korea Times, April 2, 2012)

By Casey Lartigue, Jr. As interesting as Kookmin University professor Andrei Lankov’s writings are, there is nothing quite like attending one of his lectures. He can barely restrain himself behind the podium, often pointing and waving his arms. I also enjoy his unscripted speeches, but his answers in Q&A sessions are like the difference between watching Michael Jordan shoot baskets in warm-ups and an actual game. I have finally discovered the secret behind Lankov’s consistently solid analysis about North Korea: Use common sense. At an Asan Institute conference last summer, he argued that North Korea watchers should try to understand North Korea from its perspective. Don’t most people know that you must understand the mindset of others you are dealing with? Yet, common sense in theory gets ignored politically. From the North Korean perspective, nuclear weapons are the best thing they’ve got going. They will NOT give them up easily, even if President Obama ...
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