Another of my Letters to the Editor has been published in the 28 January 2026 edition of the Financial Times. Again, the topic is China's demographic challenge.

My father’s father’s father was born in France in 1828. He died in Constantinople (long before it became Istanbul) in 1884. This is his story, illustrated as best I can. You may view/download the PDF:

Putin’s missiles raining on Ukraine about every night. It’s sickening. How is Ukraine able to hold the line? Why is it so hard to stop Putin?

There is no end in sight to the fighting. The year-end election is unlikely to change anything. Parami U now has 300 students enrolled.

A French friend produces a newsletter published in French and English in the form of an interview. Here are my answers to his questions.

Another innovation: The first time I’ve recommended a podcast. It has lots of food for thought about this moment in American history.

More than 25 years ago, I sketched out a political system that could produce “good governance” by holding nonpartisan elections. Here it is.

This is the first book review I’ve posted. It’s a brilliant treatise on why the Trump phenomenon is not an aberration. It’s worth the price.

In 2019, Indonesia's last president started building a new capital city on the island of Kalimantan. My view of the project is updated here.

Three weeks ago, a French expert working with a global advisory NGO in Paris asked me to answer seven questions about Myanmar. Here they are.

An op-ed in the Washington Post prompted me to push back on the view that our falling birth rate is a crisis. Plus an unpublished letter.

Since my December 2024 Update, the world has become dramatically more chaotic due to the unprecedented assault on trusted US institutions by President Donald Trump who began a second 4-year term in January. At the end of March, a 7.7-degree earthquake in the center of Myanmar created extensive structural damage in Sagaing Region, Mandalay (Myanmar’s second largest city) and in the new capital of Naypyitaw. Both of these events have shaken up Parami University.

I had an exceptional inside view of "Myanmar Egress", a Third Force mediating between the democracy movement and the military.

In 2020, I donated a hookah acquired during my service in India to the Peace Corps Museum. Here is the story that went with my gift.

The Singapore Straits Times published my op-ed on this rivalry in October 2020. Now seems like a good moment to update my thoughts about it.

In 2020 I advanced the radical idea that the USA doesn't need a larger population. I riff on this idea as I add the piece to my website.

Today, “globalization” is a curse word for many people. Five years ago I co-authored a piece that tried to be realistic but seems optimistic in today’s world.

After Trump's election in 2016, four of my blog pieces about him were published on the Brookings website. Here I assess what I wrote then.

Here’s a story about my collaboration with a student on an essay about “China’s Demographic Future” published in 2024 by Scientific American

Some good news about Parami U but Myanmar remains in chaos due to the ongoing conscription. Some modest territorial gains by the opposition.