Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe Upon a dwarfish thief.

Beijing insists the Chinese nation is not imagined, but a “historical inevitability.” Yet China’s new ethnic unity law suggests the opposite: national consciousness must be legislated, operationalised, and continuously forged. My latest for @chinabrief.bsky.social: jamestown.org/new-law-engi...

Translation: The Decade-long Death of a Campus Media Outlet (Part One) "As physical spaces were being sealed off, layer by layer, the boundaries of speech were silently closing in as well. One after another, the corners in which raising questions had once been possible disappeared."

And they have been for a very long time. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yuc...

I just want to add, since this is breaking containment, that this can't be made right. these people, each one a whole universe, are gone. there can only be justice for the perpetrators; public remorse & restitution; & reform to ensure future aid systems are more just and less prone to imperial whims

Why and how would one person’s comments be expected to represent the diversity of views across an entire faculty?!

Berkeley CA yesterday - only marginally better than the most expensive station in LA. I saw it over $7 in SF last week.

China is the reason why @rightscon.org, one of the world's largest human rights conferences attended by thousands, has been canceled in Zambia — a location specifically chosen to honor the Global South. I've been to the past three (Taipei, Costa Rica, online). Some thoughts... 1/5

Really shocking. Comes a few days after Zambia signed a cooperation agreement with China. It was a big effort to bring this conference (which was in Taiwan last year) to Africa Sad state for #humanrights right now around the world www.404media.co/rightscon-hu...

Today marks another birthday for Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the world’s youngest political prisoner. Kidnapped by China at just 6 years old, he's now missing for over 30 years. We remember. We will keep speaking his name. #FreePanchenLama

The longest-running family owned Chinese restaurant in America shut down yesterday. Survived 115 years, two world wars and the Great Depression but couldn't withstand whatever it is we're doing right now.

“The good Earth - we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy.” Kurt Vonnegut #earthday

Thanks to @nadrakn.bsky.social for this piece about my relationship to California & how it shapes my space-time: “You need to know that your relationship to the universe is more important than your relationship to Donald Trump … you choose how you will relate with the rest of the cosmos, not him.“

Translation: “Letting You Think You Haven’t Been Silenced is Crueler Than Deletion” "The brilliance of shadow-banning comments is that it transforms platform decisions into self-doubt." chinadigitaltimes.net/2026/04/tran...

CDT’s “404 Deleted Content Archive” Summary for March 2026 Topics: The War in Iran, mass deletions of feminist and LGBTQ+ accounts, the legacy of educational influencer Zhang Xuefeng, March 15 Consumer Day, the Open Claw craze, and tightening WeChat censorship. chinadigitaltimes.net/2026/04/cdts...

To “my students and to anyone who might listen, I say: Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so.” www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...

on the 50th anniversary of the release of The Boys Are Back in Town I'm morally obligated to share my favorite story of all time

And yet World Cup ticket prices remain far out of reach for those of us who are already here and would like to go.

This song has been running through my head for no particular reason.

The West: *creates the internet* “Try nailing THAT jello to the wall.” CCP: *nails it* The West: *creates LLMs* “Alright, try nailing THIS.” CCP: *picks up hammer*

ADDITION: It’s important to note, even though Eric Swalwell suspended his campaign, California law still keeps his name on the ballot. That’s the problem. We have to be careful who we vote for, make sure they’re viable and not just splitting the vote.

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WE HAVE A CALIFORNIA PRIMARY PROBLEM Attention California voters and friends. Watch this, share it. Folks need to understand how our jungle primary can screw us if we’re not paying attention. There’s no separate Dem vs. Republican primary. It’s one pool, top two advance, period. 1/2

"We need to imagine a more democratic, more egalitarian, more generous country, one that operates in recognition of an abundance of wealth that should serve all of us – and nature and future generations too – rather than is driven by the moral poverty of billionaires."

Really think every journalist, no matter what your beat, should grab a copy of this. There's a China angle to every story! EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT CHINA* by @jwassers.bsky.social. Available in Asia and Europe!

Renowned Iranian composer, Ali Ghamsari and tar virtuoso, announced he will stay at the Damavand Combined Cycle Power Plant. His plan: Create music there as a symbolic effort to shield Iran's infrastructure from attack. @iranscreenshot

But shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship’s company down to doom with him?

"The present is different from the past, but that’s no use if you can’t remember the past. With feminism, the immensity of its achievements over the past 50 or 60 years disappears if you forget things used to be worse in ways almost unimaginable to those who didn’t live through them or study them."

NASA just dropped this image of Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch looking back at us. The first woman to ever see our planet in its entirety. I’m not crying you’re crying 🥹🔭🧪 📸: NASA

Amazing news for the East Bay www.berkeleyside.org/2026/03/31/g...

Please join CDT’s Xiao Qiang along with Perry Link, Tony Tsoi and Larry Diamond for a special film screening and discussion about the life and work of Fang Lizhi, Friday April 3 at Stanford. And please help spread the word!

Exciting news—We've finally found a way to do a paid indie media bundle so you don't have to separately subscribe to so many newsletters. Now you can get a 30-day trial of @katelynburns.com @kattenbarge.bsky.social and my publications in your inbox for one [heavily discounted] price! Sign up now:

Sun pillar at sunset, Sutro Baths, San Francisco 7:31pm 3/22/26 @trachkids.bsky.social

According to the City of Paris, in the last 10 years 150K trees have been planted, and 45ha of parks created in the already hot city, all intended to not only improve quality-of-life today, but also help the city adapt to & manage summer heatwaves of 50℃ (122F) by 2050. Keep going with this, Paris.

An online museum of Chinese cigarette packaging art. [ciggies.app]

I’d love to see the average white North American Tik Tok user be subjected to a Chinese auntie’s blunt comments and probing questions about your weight, love life, babies, and salary. I’d bet that many would not be “Chinamaxxing” anymore

Took California less than a day to begin the process of holding people accountable and making efforts to right wrongs. And Chavez was a revered figure! He wasn't some random finance bro pedo from NYC. Funny how the Ivys/prestige universities and the GOP protect Epstein and his buddies at all costs

Currently on repeat: youtu.be/hkOaSf5aqUA?...

Why can’t every park, street and school named for Cesar Chavez be renamed for Dolores Huerta?

We got a DM the other day with a fun request from a local family: Could we find this nice BART train operator who always waved and beeped at this special little rider? And if we found him, could we deliver him a thank you card!?  So we got to work …

Great news! The separation of powers has prevailed. As a beneficiary of VOA News for more than two decades—beginning as a teenager in China behind the Great Firewall—I am with the three courageous journalists that, going forward, VOA must produce news, not propaganda. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/17/u...

67 years ago today, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama set out on his escape into exile from Chinese-occupied #Tibet. While #China’s illegal occupation continues to this day, the Dalai Lama is one of the most respected figures in the world, and the Tibetan cause is alive and strong.

What an amazing politician.

If you saw Michael B Jordan in Friday Night Lights, in the episode where he begged his mom to stay clean? You knew this was coming. May this be the first of many.

Yes yes and yes

John F. Burns, a longtime foreign correspondent for The New York Times who won two Pulitzer Prizes, died on Thursday. Here is some of his reporting from around the world, written over a 40-year career.

RIP John Burns, perhaps the last of a generation of swashbuckling, straight-from-central-casting war correspondents who ran to the sound of the guns and filed exquisite copy at the end of the day. A spendid tribute by @cowellcnd.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/w...

It was wrong and harmful - and quite possibly unlawful - to cut already approved NEH grants because Donald Trump hates "DEI." But the way DOGE went about doing it was even dumber than you probably imagined. They fed abstracts into ChatGPT and demanded an answer in fewer than 120 characters.