Lone Signal

Author: Kate

  • On law, or how we view it

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    I’ve been reading Peter Hessler’s Oracle Bones, a nonfiction work that’s part-memoir, part-journalism, part-travel writing about Hessler’s years in China. One of the more intriguing sections I’ve recently finished dealt with the government’s crackdown on Falun Gong, a health system-cum-religion that gained millions of believers in the 1990s. Many of these adherents had a penchant for staging peaceful…

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    Kate

  • As T.H. White’s Merlyn says,

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    Kate

  • Radiolab on thinking trees

     Great episode from Radiolab on the vast underground networks that link trees together. Does that sound dull? It’s a testament to the Radiolab team’s skill that this remains one of the most riveting podcast episodes I’ve heard in months.

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    Kate

  • Cross-posted from Tumblr: Unit 731

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    (In response to this post.) I’ve been interested in Japan’s Unit 731 since it came up in a bioethics class back in college. Recently, I read a journal article on the subject written by Tsuneishi Keiichi, one of Japan’s top biowarfare specialists, and several details stood out. “It is said that Ishii [Lt. Gen. Ishii Shiro, the…

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    Kate

  • Futures Within Our Grasp

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    Pokémon GO has been all over the news since its launch, talked up everywhere from NPR and Forbes to regional and local news sites. Even my old law school blockmates have been posting about it on Facebook (Law students agog over a gaming app! Imagine that.), which isn’t surprising considering the numbers the game has been…

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    Kate

  • On human rights and drug-related killings

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    I caught a really thought-provoking interview on human rights featuring the philosopher John Tasioulas recently. Being an (old) episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast, which caters to a general audience, the interview focused on a basic1 question: What are human rights? Basic, but not simple, since “human rights” has become both a very charged term and,…

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    Kate