It's been a long time since my last post! In fact, it sort of feels like a lifetime, so much has happened. ( Since June, DK has... )

TIME magazine has placed a photograph of an Afghan woman for their issue on "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan." No question mark. The woman is missing her nose.

And there was controversy.

And I rather like Sepia Mutiny's coverage of it too.

I find it ironic that everything the "pro-portrait" people have said prove the naysayers right.

"That ( Read more... )

(Note: I'm just thinking aloud here, people. Generally, I'm not using any references, so I might be getting some ideas wrong.)

On second thought, let's go back to how economics is a tool for understanding the world and explaining various phenomena (much like political science, anthropology, sociology, etc ( Read more... )

Between all the countries I'm learning buckets about, I realized it was worth doing a post on economics itself.

Economics has a bad rap. (And it may well deserve a good deal of that.) It is famously known as the "dismal science" and is often associated with people who believe in free markets in a way that could be very harmful to people and the ( Read more... )

avalonestel is doing an awesome Quest for Knowledge, and I've been doing something similar during my break. I thought I'd share a little bit of what I was learning since it's all super fascinating. To me anyway: My Q4K is very specific to international politics and economics, and mostly involves reading decades and decade of histories. I know international ( Read more... )