Well, I kind of realized as I was looking through the bookstores the past few days that one of the reasons why I have to write is because I can’t find the stories that I want to read in the bookstores. I have to write my own for myself so I can have stories that for whatever reason satisfy me, or reflect the stories that I need to hear.

Of course the major publishers are owned and f...

The Railway, by Hamid Ismailov, translated by Robert Chandler

A shining satire of orphans of an empire beside Russia's iron road

Hamid Ismailov's scintillating novel is set in Gilas, a fictitious small town on the ancient Silk Road in his native Uzbekistan. The town owes its existence to the "iron road" (Russian for railway) - "a never-ending ladder whose wooden rungs and iron rai...

The ancient Chinese sage Confucius once described the harmony between husband and wife and children as "the music of lutes and harps". The influence of Confucius on Chinese family life - particularly his teachings on filial piety and on the relationship between stable family life and a stable state - is still felt today.

Click to listen to the documentary on the Family in China

Sinc...

Some believe the previews to be the best part of seeing a movie in theaters; that belief is most certainly the case with "Snakes on a Plane."

The movie starts out with Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) witnessing the brutal treatment of an anonymous prosecutor who, it is assumed, has gotten on the bad side of Asian mobster type, Eddie Kim.

Having been spotted, Jones flees. Lucky for him,...

Western feminists insist that women have the right to abort an unborn child for any reason they choose, at any point in pregnancy, and this indeed is the law of the land in America as invented by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973.

Abortion-on-demand in the early months also exists de facto in most of Europe. These same feminists and other Western leftists want to impose this abortion-on-dema...

Elvira Arellano was "driven to come to thiscountry by the economic policies of the United States." Arellano said sheis an activist with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which organizes families with U.S.citizen children facing separation by deportation. She went seven times toWashington, D.C., to testify before Congress, putting family unity at the centerof the immigration debate. She mobilized a mass pro...

Parties of the two exiled former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who signed a 'Charter of Democracy' in May this year to oust President Pervez Musharraf, took differing stands on the legislation.

But owing to reservations within its own ranks, the government conceded the demand of the moderates among the opposition ranks and referred the legislation, titled Protection ...

1. 'Thimiru' - Director: Tarun Gopi. Vishal's family made this film to establish him as 'action king' and they have succeeded in their endeavour. After 'Chellame' and 'Sandai Kozhi', this is his third hit. Actress Shriya Reddy shines too in the film.

2. 'Something Something Unakkum Enakkum' - Director: Raja. Even with 'Thimiru' doing so well, there is a steady audience for th...

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The numbers are jaw-dropping, even to those familiar with the evils of human trafficking.

More than 45,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States every year, lured by the promise of honest work and forced instead to work as sex slaves.

That hellish ...

For those who have already suffered through the narcissistic ramblings of a two-bit one-man show or feminists espousing their thinly veiled manifestos at this year's Fringe, Tom X. Chao feels your pain.

In Can't Get Started, the New Yorker pulls back the curtain on festivals like the Fringe and how they often attract hacks with delusions of grandeur. But is he one of them? No way, he sa...