Welcome! This is a new site where we explore politics, current affairs, and pop culture from a Generation X perspective. The photo above is me at the incredible Snoqualmie Falls in Washington State.
About me. I’m a native New Yorker from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. For those who don’t know, the Upper West Side was once a hotbed of progressive intellectuals, teachers, artists, writers and activists.
Some of those folks are still there, and it’s definitely still a great neighborhood. My mother lives there, after all.
But now it’s mainly inhabited by bankers, lawyers, tech people and corporate types. It’s part of the general wave of gentrification that has swept through so many great American cities.
My professional background is in politics, international affairs and East Asian Studies. I’ve been a consultant at the United Nations, a speechwriter for the South Korean government, a program manager and analyst at a Japanese foundation, and a development writer for a human rights NGO.
Within East Asia, Japan is the country that’s influenced me the most. I became interested in Japan in the early 1990’s, when it seemed as if Tokyo was poised to dominate the world economy. I studied Japanese at a university in Kyoto, lived with a Japanese family, and later taught English in Saitama prefecture outside Tokyo.
These days I live in Astoria, Queens, which is an incredibly diverse neighborhood with cultures and cuisines from all around the world.
Queens is undoubtedly a world apart from the Upper West Side, but Astoria has a lot to offer. It’s a combination of hipster millennials priced out of Manhattan and Brooklyn, 3 generations of southern and eastern Europeans, and immigrants from Latin America, South Asia and the Middle East. It’s truly a melting pot in the northwestern corner of the Queens, which is the most diverse county in the country.
About those hipster millennials. While I love all my fellow citizens of all ages, as a child of the 80’s I’m squarely in the Generation X demographic. Even though millennials are struggling in the current job market, we Gen X’ers can lay claim to being the first American generation in recent memory to be less economically secure than our parents. It’s a dubious distinction, for sure.
As far as the content of this blog, I’ll tackle all the big topics of the day, from the 2016 presidential race to US national security to sports. (Disclosure: I’m a huge Mets and Knicks fan, and also a NY football Giants fan.)
While some of the posts will be humorous, you probably won’t find me creating listicles of the top 25 Taylor Swift emojis, ranking Belgian microbrews, or sharing photos of my ironic beard and tats. I actually have no beard or tats, and it would be OK if I did, it’s just not really my thing.
I’m also into photography, like every other citizen in the world with a smartphone. So a lot of my photos will populate the blog.
From time to time, I’ll post my academic or professional work, like the first 2 research papers that preceded this introduction. If you’re interested in how Americans feel about the civilian casualties that result when we invade or bomb a country, the first paper has some ideas. The second paper is one I wrote about 15 years ago, and it’s my take on the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990’s, the dangers of unfettered capitalism, and the damage that can be caused by unregulated capital flows.
Heavy stuff, but worth reading if you care about US foreign policy, asymmetric warfare, the Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank, IMF), and neoliberal economic paradigms.
In general, when I write about politics or the world, I’m coming from a humanist, progressive, yet realistic perspective.
Given this lens, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I’ve been horrified by the demagogic discourse of the current Republican presidential race. I’m on Team Bernie, and I hope he goes all the way to the White House.
There’s a lot more I could say, but I’m sure we’ll get to it eventually. I hope you enjoy my blog, let’s try to make it as interactive as possible.
Nice, Charlie. Go, Mets!
Thanks Hester. This is the Mets’ year!
Grear breadth of experience, shaping a broad and deep outlook!
Great breadth of experience makes great breadth and depth of outlook and perspective!
Thank you!