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This week we present one of our periodic China editions–three stories focusing on that wonderful, ever changing, fantastically complicated, increasingly important giant of a country. But before we dive into China, we pause to admire the ever fascinating Japan. We’ve noted more than once that Japan has perhaps the most unique culture in the world […]
Years ago we were traveling overseas, Asia perhaps, though we don’t remember exactly where. We were looking at some postcards, when such communication beasts still existed. We saw one with a naked large man sitting on an enormous turtle. We bought it with the idea of mailing it to two friends who worked in the […]
You may think you did not receive* your regular dose of INTN last week because we had our third knee surgery in three months. But surely you know we are made of sterner stuff than that. No, what prevented delivery of edifying, informative and important international news and data was the continuing technical problems we […]
Back before the current Russian shenanigans, for work we traveled to Russia.* The Russian Far East, to be precise, not too distant from Siberia. In the middle of Winter. It was so cold we were unable to walk outside wearing our then metal-framed glasses because they would stick to our face. But that’s not the […]
In our ever expanding department of unpopular opinions, we finally saw the mega-hit movie Black Panther last week and while entertained, we also had some reservations. The movie was visually stunning, had more interesting moral quandaries and intellectual arguments than your average superhero movie and was overall more entertaining than most Marvel movies. But the […]
Obviously given this newsletter’s content, we have an interest in international. We are indeed keenly interested in our world. How could one not be in this rotating, orbiting globe chock full of so many interesting characters, events and mysteries? And as you’ve probably noticed, we are also a fan of both music and New Orleans […]
The great baseball player Ichiro and I share the same birthday and we–well, that’s in fact the only thing we share. With Ichiro returning to the Seattle Mariners this week we were reminded of our trip to Spring Training the first year Ichiro played for the Mariners way back in 2001. We were walking from […]
We apologize for not delivering key international information and data to your digital doorstep last week. Our knee, which was recently replaced, was in need of additional medical procedures, as pain and stiffness broke through established term limits like a Chinese president. Combine that with our brother’s wedding (congrats Joe and Linda!), and we found […]
We’ve noted our worries about automation displacing human jobs before, but it’s also possible that at least in the mid-term, the worries are overblown as we were reminded when reading an article recently that asserted truck drivers’ jobs would change, not be eliminated, with the advent of self-driving trucks. Of course, some jobs we may welcome […]
For reasons we won’t go into here, we’ve been researching the TV show, This is Us, which led us down a tangential rabbit hole researching the song, Blues Run the Game, which led to reading up on Jackson C Frank, who wrote the song, and who has the seventh saddest Wikipedia write-up ever. If you are ever despairing of […]