When the going gets tough... I go indoors.

Y'all.... the thesis is going well and almost out the door. Well, except for frantic emails from my supervisor like this:

Chris. I think it is URGENT that we have another session. There are still far too many holes in what the thesis is saying. We have some patching to do. The
sooner the better.

So the roof is leaking, but hey... at least it's up. I think.

In other news...

• Cheers to Michael Valpy of The Globe and Mail. The paper ran a great piece by him on Liberal leadership frontrunner Michael Ignatieff in today's weekend edition. The sensational cover plug: "The Ruthless Path of Michael Ignatieff." Check it out on F1 ("focus") or online;

• Congrats to Laura, Rachel, Stu and Donald for successfully defending their MA theses and escaping the Dalhouise Dungeon... and congrats to Paul, Aimee, Malcolm and Dayna for deciding the Dungeon wasn't so bad after all (you'll never leave now, BTW, and the lot of you are doomed for eternity to see my waifish silhouette roaming the halls and be dagged into conversations you don't want to be in);
  

• Kudos to PBS for not sucking as much as it usually does.Conan O'Brien sat down for an hour with PBS broadcast hero Charlie Rose. Charlie, BTW, usually has great guests, and New York Times reporter Tom Friedman virutally lives on the set -- but this was a particularly good interview. Check out the online version here;
  

• Salutations to jailed Chinese dissidents for dishing it out and taking it. China has sentenced this dude for "fraud" and this dude for "damaging property and organising a mob to disturb traffic." In reality, of course, the former was originally charged with revealing state secrets to foreigners while he was doing his job as a reporter for the New York Times. The latter, Chen Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who is blind, campaigned against a series of forced abortions and sterilizations taking place in Shangdong province -- abortions and sterilizations that are illegal by China's own standards. Instead of investigating the issue or maintaining some semblance of transparency, authorities sentenced the blind Mr. Chen to four years in jail on trumped-up "disturbing traffic" charges. And let's not forget about this guy or this guy or this guy or these people.

  Whatever happened to trying to pressure the Middle Kingdom into developing a fair legal system instead of the straw house they have now? Oh, right, the human rights agenda fell off the stage when we started making money from the stagehand. The scary part is how inconsistent the PRC's legal wranglers are. Activist citizens who expose local corruption or criminal activity are sometimes made into heroes. Other times, they end up like Mr. Chen. Although the BBC reports reference some protest from the U.S. over Chen's arrest, I doubt anyone in the West who doesn't follow these things is paying much attention. All we seem to do these days is chastise our own coporations when they kowtow to the CCP's rules. Real productive.
  
  (Another note: I can't find the Chinese version of Chen's story on Xinhua, Shanghai Daily or the China Daily -- it has likely been burried or not run at all, which is uncharacteristic of Chinese media considering Chen got coverage when he was arrested in 2005. If you can find the story, do forward it me); and



• Thanks to everyone who submitted a Wisdom of the Week. If you haven't submitted yet, or want to submit again to improve your chances, the "contest" is still open.

That's it.
Back to the thesis.
再见。