The fundraiser at Amnesia last Friday night made for an excellent evening. A good time was had, raffle prizes were won, and I was encouraged to leave town more often by a number of friends. Thank you to everyone that made Friday night such a successful sendoff.
In other news, I’m still gathering any and all information I can about the political and cultural history of Burma. Luckily my buddy Jack brought a recent Foreign Affairs article by Michael Green and Derek Mitchell to my attention. The authors’ argue that it is (about damn) time the international community reassess their conflicting policies towards Burma. China and other countries in Southeast Asia have been (in my opinion, at best) encouraging the junta to reform while the US has been using sanctions and a strategy of isolation. Both approaches have failed. “If anything, Burma has evolved from being an antidemocratic embarrassment and humanitarian disaster to being a serious threat to the security of its neighbors.†Dictatorships do not improve with age, and the SPDC is no exception. I encourage everyone to read Asia’s Forgotten Crisis, it’s worth your attention.