What Everyone Needs to Know

Still don’t understand the Affordable Care Act? You’re not alone.

I recently stumbled across the site Act of Law, on which an anonymous woman is reading the entire ACA aloud. “I will read the law for two hours each week and post videos of each reading here on this site,” she writes. “It is 906 pages long (table of contents included) and I estimate that it will take about 60 hours to read.”
The most recent video she posted covers hours 23 and 24 of this project. It appears below with permission.

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”

By Jeffrey Wasserstrom

As my friends know, it doesn’t take much to make me think of Mark Twain. And even people I’ve never met who have followed my writings on China know about my obsession with Twain, since I’ve managed to bring him into discussions of a wide range of China-related topics, from Shanghai history (he never went

What people know about drugs is wrong

While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs?

A good first step might be to learn more about them. In this Bloggingheads.tv video, The New Republic’s John McWhorter discusses the controversial topic with Mark Kleiman,

The long, strange journey

From the Long March to the massive, glittering spectacle of the Beijing Summer Olympics’ opening ceremony in 2008, what a long, strange journey it has been for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). On July 1, the party celebrated its 90th birthday, marking the occasion with everything from a splashy, star-studded cinematic tribute to the party’s early years to a “praise concert” staged by two of the country’s officially sanctioned Christian groups.

Mao’s (red) star is on the rise

What kinds of historical echoes sound loudest in today’s China? And which past leaders deserve the most credit — and blame — for setting the country on its current trajectory? These are timely questions as the Chinese Communist Party celebrates it’s 90th birthday today. For in China, as elsewhere, milestone moments are fitting times for backward glances and often accompanied by symbolic gestures that invite scrutiny.

Orwell and Huxley at the Shanghai World’s Fair

Tweet Who, we sometimes ask, at the dinners and debates of the intelligentsia, was the 20th century’s more insightful prophet — Aldous Huxley or George Orwell? Each is best known for his dystopian fantasy — Huxley’s Brave New World, Orwell’s 1984 — and both feared where modern technology might lead, for authorities and individuals alike. […]

Do not phase out nuclear power — yet

Tweet By Charles D. Ferguson The ongoing Japanese nuclear crisis underscores yet again the risks inherent in this essential energy source. But it should not divert nations from using or pursuing nuclear power to generate electricity, given the threat from climate change, the health hazards of fossil fuels, and the undeveloped state of renewable energy. […]

Japan’s earthquake could shake public trust in the safety of nuclear power

By Charles D. Ferguson
Is nuclear power too risky in earthquake-prone countries such as Japan? On March 11, a massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake shook Japan and caused widespread damage especially in the northeastern region of Honshu, the largest Japanese island. Nuclear power plants throughout that region automatically shut down when the plants’ seismometers registered ground accelerations above safety thresholds.

But all the shutdowns did not go perfectly.

This Day in History: Burmese Independence

By David A. Steinberg
London essentially determined Burmese independence, although the cry for an independent Burma by the Burmese was long, loud, and clear. Following World War II, there were thousands of Burmese with arms who might have made retention of British control very tenuous. Winston Churchill said he was not about to see the dissolution of the British Empire, but the Labour Party won the postwar elections. India was bound to become independent, and Burma would certainly follow. England was exhausted by the war; holding onto their colonies in the face of rising nationalism seemed impossible. Inevitable independence, then, should be gracefully granted. What kind of independence, and whether independent Burma would be divided between Burma Proper and a separate minority area was unclear. Some in England wanted to try Aung San as a traitor because he backed the Japanese before and during most of the war,

What Everyone Needs To Know About China: The Answers

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. His new book, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, covers everything form Confucius and Mao to Internet censorship. Yesterday we posted a China quiz. Below are the answers. For more China questions check out another quiz by Wasserstrom that appeared on The China Beat.

Do Farm Subsidies Cause Obesity?

Robert Paarlberg, author of Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, is a leading authority on food policy, and one of the most prominent scholars writing on agricultural issues today. He is B.F. Johnson Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. He was invited to testify in front of the House Committee on Agriculture on May 13th, and shared his thoughts with us here last week. Now, after presenting his testimony on obesity, Paarlberg reflects on the experience.

Food Politics: Invited to Testify

Robert Paarlberg, author of Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, is a leading authority on food policy, and one of the most prominent scholars writing on agricultural issues today. He is B.F. Johnson Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Soon after his “Attention Whole Foods Shoppers” article in the May/June 2010 issue of Foreign Policy, Paarlberg was asked to testify in front of the House Committee on Agriculture. Below, he shares his thoughts on this invitation.

Is Organic Food Healthier or Safer to Eat?

Food Politics: What Everyone Needs To Know, carefully examines and explains the most important issues on today’s global food landscape. Politics in this area have become polarized and Robert Paarlberg helps us map this contested terrain, challenging myths and critiquing more than a few of today’s fashionable beliefs about farming and food. In the excerpt below we learn about the organic food.

Ramadan

Ramadan begins tomorrow and will last for a month. For an explanation of the holiday we turn to John Esposito’s What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam.