James Church on North Korean Politics, Past and Present

I have been reading all three of the Inspector O novels written by James Church and taking place in North Korea.

Here is a bit by James Church post on Confessions of an Indioscyncratic Mind:

What would be the one thing Americans and the West should understand about North Korean human behavior that hasn't necessarily been transmitted in the press?

Not to mince words, Western media treatment of North Korea has generally been pathetic. “Lazy” and “intellectually bankrupt” also come to mind. Too many reporters and editors love to fall back on “it was a dark and stormy night” journalism when it comes to writing about the country. If one cannot figure out what to say, spill some ink talking about how the North is a mysterious place, a black hole of absurd behavior, a Stalinist Disneyland.

North Korea is a bureaucracy, it is Asian, and it is a totalitarian state inhabited by human beings. None of those attributes are beyond our understanding or experience. In other words, North Korea is not an unknowable enigma, yet we insist on seeing it as the equivalent of the planet Pluto—dark, cold, and distant. Why are we stuck in this rut? It’s a very American problem. Perhaps we don’t understand other peoples as well as we might because, as a nation, we sometimes fool ourselves about ourselves. READ MORE....

Original Elephant Painting

ALTHOUGH OF COURSE YOU END UP BECOMING YOURSELF: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky

Books are coming in faster than I can read them. Here is one that I will read soon. 

If you can think of times in your life that you've treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself. And I think it's probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we're here for is to learn how to do it. I know that sounds a little pious.   

- David Foster Wallace

Against the Wind Nursery

 

Against the Wind Nursery

Hello Gardeners!

I believe that spring has at long last arrived!  Along with general seasonal activities, I have been busy getting the nursery ready for opening day, which is this Sunday, April 18th. Come out and see the nursery and the farm - a lot has been going on in the past few weeks.

OPEN FOR THE SEASON 

SUNDAY, APRIL 18TH,
10am - 5pm

Location:
6376 Slocan River Road
Winlaw  (between Winlaw Bridge and Perry's Bridge)

          Regular hours are:

Sunday - Wednesday, April 18th - July 31st 
10am - 5pm 
(or) 
If you wish to visit the nursery on Fridays or Saturdays please call 250.226.6957
Closed Thursdays

Ajrakh Blockprint Textiles On Sale

Ajrakh Blockprint textiles in our store in Winlaw are now 20% off to make room for the new Organic cotton Ajrakh blockprints. We do have organic cotton blockprints in stock, but not the Ajrakh style yet.

Visit Maiwa's website.

Why are Nordic detective novels so successful?

from The Economist 

The neat streets of Oslo are not a natural setting for crime fiction. Nor, with its cows and country smells, is the flat farming land of Sweden’s southern tip. And Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, is now associated more with financial misjudgment than gruesome murder. Yet in the past decade Nordic crime writers have unleashed a wave of detective fiction that is right up there with the work of Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Highsmith, Elmore Leonard and the other crime greats. Nordic crime today is a publishing phenomenon. Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy alone has sold 27m copies, its publishers’ latest figures show, in over 40 countries. The release this month in Britain and America of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, the film of the first Larsson book, will only boost sales. READ MORE...

new fairly traded hand made baskets in stock

Red Telegraph

Red Telegraph sources fairly traded products made by women in developing countries. We work with organisations that are committed to breaking the cycle of poverty by training and employing the most disadvantaged women in their regions. By buying one of our products you are helping to support their efforts to establish poverty-free societies across the world.