News That Stays News

From the Browser November 11, 2010

1. A lawyer evaluates the Chinese and Japanese claims to the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. These islands are uninhabited and good for nothing, but the dispute rages all the same (though the Japanese claim there is no dispute at all). A case of history as farce.

2. David Bromwich critiques Obama’s temperament. Bromwich is almost slick enough to rise above the political noise; he writes as though he has the foresight to write history as it happens. Makes you wonder who his ideal president would be. He’s a big Lincoln fanboy, but for some reason I doubt that he would have gotten Lincoln right on the first go-round.

3. World of Warcraft’s new expansion pack, Cataclysm, as a new model of what games will be. Why buy a new game when you’ve spent six years building an emotional connection to a world as detailed and dynamic as WOW?