dialectic
From n+1:
Where, then, is universal history to be found? In a talk in Shanghai in 2010 about “the West” and what it has meant to modern India, Chakrabarty ended on a surprising note. He conceded that while holding India in “the vise grip of power,” Europe had also “created a room for dialogical maneuvers” by exhibiting “enough contradictions within herself to provide the colonized with terms with which to criticize her doings.” Then he wondered aloud whether “the prospect of China and India taking their place among the dominant nations of the world,” which he welcomed, would “help create new visions of humanity and help humans achieve justice and fairness in a world racked by problems of planetary proportions.” His Chinese hosts would have been correct, I think, in perceiving in this a diplomatic hint: that their coming hegemony, while good news in a sense, would not be good news in every sense and thus would require tools of self-critique, as European hegemony had.
This is insightful.
The entire article isn't worth the effort, but this paragraph is worth marking for reflection.
winnipeg, mars
From CBC News:
The Manitoba Museum is reporting Winnipeg's temperatures on Tuesday were actually as cold as the surface of Mars.
According to the Curiosity Rover, Mars reached a maximum temperature of -29 C on Tuesday, a temperature Winnipeg only reached shortly before 3 p.m.
The deep freeze over much of Southern Manitoba prompted extreme wind chill warnings in the area and most of the north.
In Winnipeg, the daytime high temperature for Tuesday was only expected to reach –31 C, but the windchill made it feel more like –40 to –50. That means exposed skin can freeze in less than five minutes.
On Monday, it got as warm as –28 C.
Seriously.