This NYT article about Google's business in China bears reading, for several reasons.
1) It shows some unnapreciated cultural difficulties in working there.
2) It gives a balanced picture of some of the journalists that have been arrested for their blog posts. They're not martyrs for the cause of democracy, not like earlier generations of Chinese activists.
3) It gives a more sympathetic reading towards Google in the China/Free Speech issue. Namely, that Google offers two websites for Chinese surfers, one inside the firewall that gives back results that are clearly censored, and the basic google.com site outside the national firewall that can be blocked by China, at any given moment, but does offer free information.
4) Yahoo and Microsoft look unprincipled in comparison to Google.
After reading the piece, Google isn't behaving any differently than an Evangelical missionary in China. They have an official job (like teaching English, or giving censored search results). But they're willing to go other places for those who ask (share the Gospel, or provide access to google.com). I don't really see any fault here.
Although for only being 4 days old. The site has generated quite a bit of heat. However, in my mind we are missing several very important alumni. Please, email these people; let them know that you would like to see them as part of social-networking fun!
In reverse order
5. Vincent Howard The only reason Vincent is last, is that he's probably going to get around to it soon, but he's just busy you see, with the details of getting hitched. Somebody has to be last, but V has enough going for him right now, that I'm not worried.
4. Micah Parsons I think Micah is speaking more Korean than English these days, so that could be why he hasn't gotten on the bus, but please, communicate to him as best you can that he needs to sign up.
3. Ryan Davidson - I'm ashamed to say that I don't have Ryan's email. But as a first rate curmudgeon. we need Ryan's presence in something so silly.
2. Wendy Allison '78- Nothing could be cooler on Scots Alumni that having your own mother as a friend, except maybe a former fiancee. Alas my mother has a strong, irrational fear of spam. So she compulsively deleted my invitation. Please, tell her not fear, Scots Alumni.org is a good thing.
1. Julian Wierenga- Dream the impossible dream. That's right. Julian, know that you can join. No one at school has to know.
I feel the need to at least make a token effort to write something in this space. I'm a little bit bad at blogging, but just the same the arrival of the Scots Alumni web page. It's silly, but extremely satisfying. I find that out here, my enthusiasm for my Covenant experience, at times make polite conversation embarrassing with our team-mates. But, with the social networking power of Scots Alumni, the enthusiasm now has a place. Pity it only exists so far as friend lists.