Podcasts about Wu

China opened a vital waterway on Wednesday, giving its landlocked southwestern areas a shortcut to the coast and overseas markets, as the country moves to further strengthen its trade relations with regional neighbors, particularly those in Southeast Asia.中国星期三开通一条重要水运通道，为西南地区内陆省区通往沿海和海外市场提供了一条“捷径”。随着中国进一步加强与周边国家，尤其是东南亚国家的贸易联系，这一工程将发挥重要作用。The Pinglu Canal, built in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region at a cost of 72.7 billion yuan ($10.8 billion), stretches for 134.2 kilometers from the Xijin reservoir in the county-level city of Hengzhou to the Qinzhou Port in the Beibu Gulf. It is the first waterway built in the country to connect a river system directly to the sea since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.平陆运河位于广西壮族自治区，总投资727亿元人民币（约合108亿美元），全长134.2公里，北起横州市西津水库，南至北部湾钦州港。这是中华人民共和国成立（1949年）以来，中国建设的首条连接内河水系与大海的人工运河。The canal shortens the inland waterway journeys of goods from southwestern China by more than 560 km compared with traditional routes through ports in Guangdong province. It is expected to reduce overall logistics expenses and save more than 5 billion yuan in transportation costs each year.平陆运河使中国西南地区货物运输相比过去经广东港口出海的传统路线缩短超过560公里，预计将降低整体物流成本，每年节约运输费用超过50亿元人民币。Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang, who attended the canal's opening ceremony, called for making full use of the new waterway to develop a first-class international gateway port in the Beibu Gulf and support further opening-up of China's western region.出席运河通航仪式的国务院副总理丁薛祥表示，要充分发挥这一新航道作用，加快建设北部湾一流国际门户港，进一步推动中国西部地区扩大开放。Ding also called for efficient operation of the canal, which serves as key infrastructure for multimodal transportation integrating river, rail and sea, and is a backbone project of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor — a strategic route connecting China's inland areas with regional and global markets.丁薛祥还强调，要高效运营平陆运河，使其成为连接江、铁、海多式联运体系的重要基础设施，并服务于西部陆海新通道建设。这一战略通道连接中国内陆地区与区域及全球市场，是推动内陆开放发展的重要工程。Construction of the Pinglu Canal started in August 2022 to address a long-standing geographical problem in terms of trade.平陆运河于2022年8月开工建设，旨在解决长期存在的贸易地理瓶颈问题。While Guangxi boasts a coastline and borders Vietnam, its major inland rivers flow east, which means cargo moving by water from Nanning, the capital of Guangxi, and other parts of the Xijiang River basin could only reach the sea through Guangdong.广西虽然拥有海岸线并与越南接壤，但其主要内河向东流动，这意味着来自广西首府南宁以及西江流域其他地区的水运货物过去只能经过广东港口出海。The Pinglu Canal, designed to handle vessels of the 5,000-metric-ton class, now allows cargo to turn south and reach the Beibu Gulf — the closest maritime outlet for much of southwestern China — through the Qinzhou Port.如今，平陆运河可通行5000吨级船舶，使货物能够向南转运，经钦州港抵达北部湾——这里是中国西南大部分地区距离最近的出海口。One of the biggest engineering challenges during construction of the canal was navigating a difference of 65 meters in the water level between its northern end and the sea. Three navigation hubs — Madao, Qishi and Qingnian — featuring twin-line ship locks were built to raise and lower vessels, effectively acting as giant elevators.建设过程中，最大的工程挑战之一，是需要克服运河北端与大海之间65米的水位落差。为此，工程建设了马道、企石、青年三座通航枢纽，并配备双线船闸，通过调节水位帮助船舶升降，如同巨型“电梯”。Ni Yuping, vice-dean of Tsinghua University's School of Humanities in Beijing, placed the megaproject in a broader context, saying that one of the key questions it seeks to answer is "how western China can better integrate into the global economy".清华大学人文学院副院长倪玉平表示，这一重大工程放在更宏观背景下，其试图回答的关键问题之一是：“中国西部如何更好融入全球经济。”Unlike the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, which primarily provide shortcuts for vessels between major seas and oceans, the Pinglu Canal gives a vast inland economic hinterland a shorter route to the coast — and from there to international markets.与主要为连接不同海域和大洋船舶提供捷径的苏伊士运河和巴拿马运河不同，平陆运河为一个庞大的内陆经济腹地提供了更短的出海通道，并进一步连接国际市场。Wu Tao, a history professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, noted that inland waterway shipping routes "remain irreplaceable" even though China's road, rail and air transportation networks have expanded. Their large carrying capacity and relatively low logistics costs make inland waterways particularly suited for bulk cargo, Wu said.广州中山大学历史学教授吴滔指出，尽管中国公路、铁路和航空运输网络不断完善，但内河航运依然“不可替代”。他说，内河运输具有运量大、物流成本相对较低等优势，尤其适合大宗货物运输。For businesses, the new canal is already dictating logistics and investment decisions.对于企业而言，平陆运河已经开始影响物流布局和投资决策。On Sept 8, a consignment of auto parts from Chinese vehicle manufacturer SAIC-GM-Wuling left Liuzhou for Nanning Port, before continuing by ship through the Pinglu Canal to reach Can Tho Port in Vietnam.9月8日，中国汽车制造商上汽通用五菱的一批汽车零部件从柳州出发，运抵南宁港，随后通过平陆运河水运前往越南芹苴港。The company said the new river-sea route could cut its logistics costs by about 10 percent. "For us, the freight saved is real profit, and that translates directly into greater price competitiveness in ASEAN and other global markets," said Cai Yan, a senior technical officer at SAIC-GM-Wuling.该公司表示，这条江海联运新线路可帮助企业降低约10%的物流成本。上汽通用五菱高级技术主管蔡艳表示：“对我们而言，节省下来的运费就是实实在在的利润，也直接转化为我们在东盟及其他全球市场上的价格竞争力。”The canal has added waterway to the company's existing road and rail transportation options, giving it more flexibility as it expands its business and production links across Southeast Asia, Cai said.蔡艳表示，平陆运河为公司现有公路和铁路运输方式增加了水运选择，使企业在拓展东南亚业务和生产联系过程中拥有更大的灵活性。The new route is being factored into investment plans of companies.这一新航线也正被纳入企业投资规划。About 50 km from the Pinglu Canal's northern end, French chemicals producer SNF Group is building a plant in Nanning's Liujing Industrial Park, with an annual capacity of 370,000 tons.距离平陆运河北端约50公里的南宁市六景工业园区，法国化工企业SNF集团正在建设一座年产能37万吨的工厂。The factory, which will be the group's largest production base in southern China, is expected to start operations in stages before June 2027.该工厂将成为该集团在中国南方最大的生产基地，预计将在2027年6月前分阶段投入运营。"The Pinglu Canal will reduce our logistics costs and enable convenient delivery to South China and all of Southeast Asia. It offers great advantages in both materials sourcing and product distribution," said Thomas Wilsius, head of the company's Nanning project.该公司南宁项目负责人托马斯·威尔休斯表示：“平陆运河将降低我们的物流成本，使产品能够更加便捷地运往华南地区和整个东南亚市场。无论是在原材料采购还是产品配送方面，它都具有明显优势。”The waterway is likely to bring more Southeast Asian products to the Chinese market.这条水运通道也有望推动更多东南亚产品进入中国市场。Philippine Ambassador to China Jaime A. FlorCruz, who visited the canal with a group of ASEAN envoys in July, said that fresh seafood and other time-sensitive products could be exported more efficiently from his country to China.菲律宾驻华大使海梅·A·弗洛克鲁斯7月曾率东盟国家驻华使节团参访平陆运河。他表示，菲律宾的新鲜海产品以及其他对时效要求较高的产品，未来可以更加高效地出口到中国。"In the long run, this will benefit not only the local people, but the broader region and even the world," he said, adding that shorter shipping distances, lower freight costs and faster deliveries would bring tangible benefits to fishermen, farmers, traders and entrepreneurs.他说：“从长远来看，这不仅将惠及当地民众，也将惠及更广泛的地区乃至全世界。”他指出，更短的航程、更低的运输成本以及更快的交付速度，将为渔民、农民、贸易商和企业家带来切实收益。For Shen Guiping, a resident of Shangjing village in Qinzhou, who took part in relocation work for the project, the opening of the Pinglu Canal carries a more personal meaning.对于参与该项目搬迁工作的钦州市上京村居民沈桂平而言，平陆运河的开通有着更加特殊的意义。"It almost feels like a dream that has finally been realized. It is something generations of locals hoped for," she said.“感觉像是一场终于实现的梦想，这是当地几代人一直期盼的事情。”她说。【词汇提炼】shortcut /ˈʃɔːtkʌt/ n.捷径；便捷通道landlocked /ˈlændlɒkt/ adj.内陆的；无出海口的logistics /ləˈdʒɪstɪks/ n.物流；运输管理multimodal /ˌmʌltiˈməʊdl/ adj.多式联运的；综合运输的corridor /ˈkɒrɪdɔː(r)/ n.通道；走廊；经济带gateway /ˈɡeɪtweɪ/ n.门户；枢纽infrastructure /ˈɪnfrəstrʌktʃər/ n.基础设施hinterland /ˈhɪntəlænd/ n.腹地；内陆地区consignment /kənˈsaɪnmənt/ n.货物；托运物

A special interview with Dr. Ross Bender, who recently finished his translation of the Shoku Nihongi, including a capstone work on the court of the 8th century.  We cover his work, from his training with some of the greatest names in Japanese historical circles to his dissertation on the Hachiman cult and the Dokyo Incident, and then to his most recent work publishing translations of the various senmyo, the edicts, as well as the entirety of the Shoku Nihongi.  Throughout the discussion we touch on many different  topics, and for notes on everything, please check out our blogpost page:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/bender-interview   Rough Transcript: JOSHUA: Welcome to Sengoku Daimyō's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is a special episode I'd like to share with you an interview I had with Doctor Ross Bender, translator of the shogunate. Now, some of you may know Doctor Bender from his work translating the Shoku Nihongi, the official history of the Japanese court compiled in 797 and covering from the end of the Nihon Shoki in 697 through the entirety of the Fujiwara capital and Nara periods ending at the 10th year of the reign of Kanmu Tennō in 791. Not only has he translated the historical chronicles, but he has a series of books on the senmyō, the edicts, as well as more about that period, including institutional life more generally. And we cannot forget the paper that started at all, the Hachiman cult and the Dōkyō incident. We'll have links to all of this and more over on the episode blog post page. Now, in this interview, we cover the Shoku Nihongi and Dr. Bender's academic journey. Throughout that journey, he has had the chance to converse and study with some of the big names in Japanese historical circles, such as Donald Keene, Alexander Vovin, G. Cameron "Cappy" Hurst, and more. It was absolutely a pleasure to be able to talk with him about his career, his work, and about the Shoku Nihongi and this period more generally, and I really hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. So without further ado, I give you Sengoku Daimyo's interview of Dr. Ross Bender.    Dr. Bender, thank you very much for joining me for this. Dr. Bender has done some absolutely wonderful work, in particular with translating the Shoku Nihongi, which is going to be very key to some of the stuff we're going to be looking at here in the coming years. I want to thank you, first of all, for all of your efforts and welcome you to Sengoku Daimyo's Podcast, here; our little Chronicles of Japan.    DR. ROSS BENDER: Thank you. Happy to be here.    J: So your translation of the Shoku Nihongi: how did you come about deciding to do that? What was it that pulled you into the translation?    R: Well, it's a long story, but it does go back to my time in graduate school at Columbia in the 70s. In 1974, I finished my Master's thesis, which was "The Hachiman Cult and the Dōkyō Incident". I started grad school in 1971, and after a lot of intensive language training, became interested in Hachiman because, as you know, the common definition was that Hachiman was the Shinto god of war. Of course, at the time, the Vietnam War was raging. And so I became interested in, you know, what was this theology of a war God. And so I became rather obsessed with Hachiman, and, two things: In 74, I was in a seminar with Donald Keene on the Noh theater, and I found a play--a Hachiman play--called "Yumi Yawata". And I translated that and became interested in the way that Hachiman was portrayed in this Noh play. And then at the same time, I became interested in the Dōkyō incident and the Hachiman Oracle. So that was really my first encounter with Shoku Nihongi.    Two things I suppose really struck me. The first was that although the text is in classical Chinese or literary Sinitic, the senmyō and a few of the- there are a few poems are in the old Japanese script inscribed in Shoku Nihongi.    J: And the "senmyō": They are specifically the edicts.    R: They are the imperial edicts that are recorded in old Japanese.   And Motoori Norinaga, in the 18th century did an intensive study and interpretation, really, of them. And he came up with a canonical number of 62. There are some quibbles with that number, but that's the number. And so at the same time, I was discovering that some of the pioneers in the field had done work on these. So, for example, George Sansom in the 1920s had started to translate the senmyō, and he had also done work on the ritsuryo. And then in the 30s, JB Snellen had begun translation of the Shoku Nihongi, and he completed the years 697 to 715. So the reigns of Monmu and Genmei and-    J: I remember actually going through that translation. I think at one point I found it and was so enamored of like, oh, we have some of this, but then it then it stops.   R: Then it stops. And so both Sansom and Snellen are published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. And as I say, these were real pioneers, you know, digging into this stuff. And it was amusing because Snellen prefaced his work by saying that Shoku Nihongi is "dry as dust". And he further said that translating it was like "intellectual coolie labor". But his translation, you know, is still very useful and extraordinarily well documented, footnoted. And of course, I was able to use that, although it needed updating.    J: You mentioned that you had language training before going into this.    R: Well, I started at Columbia in fall of 71 with no Japanese at all. I had visited Japan and as a teenager in 67, but no language training. So they gave me an intensive full year of language study. So you had first year, second year, and third year all in the first calendar year. And then in the second year of study you started Bungo and further modern Japanese. And I have to say that I was very fortunate to be at Columbia at a time when some of the giants and pioneers of the field were there. So Ivan Morris had the first class in classical Japanese, and we did bits of Hōjōki and Heike Monogatari. And he told us that when we eventually went to Japan, we might find ourselves at a cocktail party, and we could be sure to amaze the hosts. And so he had us memorize the opening lines of both of those.    J: That's fascinating. So, so all about the Gion bells, and-    R: Yes. "Gion shōja no kane no koe...", and "Yuku kawa no nagare wa..." So I actually- I think there was one time I was at a party with, oddly enough, bunch of pediatricians from Kobe Children's Hospital, and I tried them out and with Hōjōki, and they couldn't get it. They said, oh, is that Hyakunin Isshu?    J: [laughing] R: So I was kind of pleased about that. But then everybody knew the "Heike".    J: Right.    R: Yeah. So actually my first class in ancient Japanese history was with Morris. He tragically died in 1976, so he had the Bungo introduction in the fall. And then Donald Keene came back from Japan and did it in the spring. And so he introduced us to a Noh play and "Oku no Hosomichi" and Shinkokinshu, I think. So the language training was just excellent. And then in the third year, Doctor Hakeda did Shingon Buddhism and classical Chinese and so forth. So yes, there was a lot of front-loading and intensive language study, but it was very pleasurable.   J: As you're studying about Dōkyō and the Dōkyō Incident and Hachiman, that then allowed you to access these sources and the senmyō, and all of that, correct?   R: Right. That was my first introduction to them. Both the "Yumi Yawata" and the "Hachiman and the Dōkyō Incident" were published in the late 70s in Monumenta Nipponica, and then in 1980, I finished my dissertation, which was the political meaning of the Hachiman cult in ancient and early medieval Japan.    J: I came across that as I was going through Ōjin Tennō's period. R: Yes, it was sort of a simplistic construction, but what I did basically was to posit three stages of the Hachiman cult. The first at Usa, which was the oracular stage, the second at Iwashimizu, which was where the Ōjin Tennō connection developed, and also the Hachiman Daibosatsu connection. And then the third stage, you know, identified with Tsurugaoka in Kamakura, which was the Minamoto- Where the martial aspect--the god of war--really developed.    J: And that is fascinating because, you know, you go to Hachiman shrines today and that's probably where people's minds will first go. But it is such a fascinating religious exercise of like Shinto, but also kind of Buddhist and kind of continental.    R: Yes. And I don't know what the statistics are today, but at least I think 35 or 40% of Shinto shrines have some connection with Hachiman. So it's yeah, it's a fascinating study all by itself.   J: So as you were doing this, you come across the Shoku Nihongi. Can you talk a little bit about where the Shoku Nihongi falls in all of this?    R: Yes. Well, the notable thing about both Nihongi and Kojiki is that they begin with the Age of the Gods, so that the first sections, the Shinwa, are the mythologies. Nihongi probably becomes historically accurate sometime in the late, I don't know, it's late six hundreds, but for the seven hundreds it's probably pretty much historically accurate. And of course, you know that John Bentley just recently did the first English translation since I think 1898 was going to ask, so that was long overdue. And that's a very useful publication. J: It's interesting to see the differences in some of the things he updates and the different take he has on it in terms of how to do some of the translating.    R: Yes. And he is a historical linguist. And so he has a very valuable exegesis and commentary. And then, of course, Matthieu Felt just published the first volume of his translation. It was Oxford Press. That just came out a few months ago. That's also a useful document. He actually has the text of the Nihon Shoki along with the translation. And so that's very useful. And I'm not sure when he's going to be publishing the second half, but that's something to watch for.    So the first one started with The Age of the gods. Now, Shoku Nihongi is the second of the Rikkokushi, or 'Six National Histories', and it, unlike the first two, is judged to be a very accurate historical chronicle. And it, of course, was presented to the Court of Kanmu in two recensions, 794 and 797, and takes the story up to 791, which I think was the 10th year of Kanmu's reign. That's where it fits. And then, of course, you have the rest of the Rikkokushi. The next one is Nihon Kōki, which I'm just starting to get into now. Then Shoku Nihon Kōki, Nihon Montoku Tennō Jitsuroku, and then Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku. So they take the story up to 887, and they become increasingly detailed, and the language becomes more intricate as time goes on. But that's where Shoku Nihongi sits in terms of the six national histories, and they're all court chronicles, compiled by court scholars and ordered by the emperors. And of course, the point of view is that of the central court.    J: Right. You're not getting Kyūshū's take on things.    R: No. Although, you know, Kyūshū is a fascinating place. A lot happens there. So of course you have the Dazaifu, the Kyūshū government headquarters, which is an important outpost, almost a mini capital by itself. J: The first several dazai sōchi, I think, all become Daijin. Like Sadaijin, Udaijin. They kind of come back and do that if they don't pass away in the meantime.    R: Yeah, it's an important post. People take that position and come back. But also what's interesting is that the Hayato people of southern Kyūshū begin to appear in the chronicles, and in the early years, there are some major Hayato rebellions, and that's a story all by itself. Those rebellions are, for the most part, put down. And then there's some sort of accommodation because Hayato people show up at court almost as envoys from, you know, the barbarian realm, and then some of them become guards. So they are assimilated more or less early on. And then, of course, there's the whole question of the Hayato and the Emishi and where did they come from? There are some theories that when the Yayoi people came in they mixed with the Jōmon people and assimilated. But some theories that the Hayato in the far southwest and the Emishi in the northeast were remnants of the old Jōmon. So that's, you know, it's a possibility, but it's certainly interesting. And unlike the Hayato, the Emishi, as you know, were constant problem for the Nara court. And all through Shoku Nihongi, but particularly from about oh 780 on, there were more and more intense periods of warfare. And these are described in great detail in Shoku Nihongi. Karl Friday and Wayne Farris back in the 90s, both did books on. I think Farris was the "Heavenly Warriors: History of the Samurai". And then Karl Friday also did a book on the samurai, but they paid a lot of attention to these Emishi wars, so that's well documented in English. J: Getting back to the Shoku Nihongi, which includes all of this, really, what were some of the biggest challenges you found?    R: Well, part of the story is that after I finished my dissertation, I went off and did a variety of things, this and that, and finally wound up at University of Pennsylvania teaching in the English Language Programs, which was the program to teach English to foreign students. At that time the majority of the students when I started were from Japan. So I actually ran a program for the Monbushō, and they would send over Japanese high school teachers of English for a summer session, and we would give them language classes, but also pedagogical training, how to teach English. And so that was my connection with Japan during that period. And so I really was away from my original interest until the early 2000s. I took early retirement and I visited my old advisor, Paul Varley. He had, of course, taught at Columbia, but then he had retired and moved to University of Hawaii. I visited him, he introduced me to Wayne Farris, who was also there at the time, and they both encouraged me to get back, get back to work. So that was sort of the impetus. I have to give them credit for that. So I found myself in Kobe for several months in 2006, and that was when I decided I was interested in the senmyō. So my first thought, my first ambition was to translate the senmyō. As you know, in the late 80s and 90s, the immense five volume Iwanami collated and critical edition had come out, the one edited by Aoki Kazuo and his team. That was still a magnificent piece of work, you know, with I'm sure you've seen it with all of the head notes and footnotes, and on one page there's the kanbun and on on the facing page is the yomi-kudashi, and, you know, more than you could ever hope to know. But also at that time there were three modern Japanese translations, so that was very useful. It was a good time to be starting into this, so I went to a secondhand bookstore in Kobe and got myself the books, and that started, I guess, what's turned out to be a 20 year project.    J: 2006 to 2026.   R: Right.    J: And it looks like you're doing most of this through self-publishing. Is that correct?    R: Yes. I discovered early on that what's now called Kindle Direct--it used to be called Create Space--through Amazon was a very useful piece of software. In fact, I first published several volumes of poetry in 2012, and that was my introduction to using this platform. And I've been very pleased with it, because I don't have to wait years and years to try to find an academic publisher. And actually they pay royalties through Amazon, so... J: That's not bad.    R: Yeah, that's worked out well for me. So I never had a chance to have an academic position teaching Japanese studies. Although when I was at Penn, my friend Cappy Hurst--Cameron Hurst--was the chairman of the department and he had been a student also of Varley's at Columbia, although before my time. And he invited me to give some lectures in his class on Japanese history. So another thing was that my classical Chinese needed an upgrade. Fortunately, at Penn, Victor Mair was teaching a year long course in classical Chinese, and so I sat through that and he was extremely, extremely helpful. Then one other thing was that I also got to know Alexander Vovin, who at the time was at Hawaii, and he, of course, is *the*- was *the* authority on old Japanese. And, you know, his Man'yōshu translations and, and commentary are just really helpful. So he gave me some good advice. So I had good teachers all the way through. And, you know, I'm always very grateful for that.    J: You mentioned classical Chinese. I'm curious how much of it is a standard classical Chinese, or is it kind of their own thing in the archipelago? I'm curious what the language is like in the Shoku Nihongi.    R: Okay, so of course, at that time, the eighth century was sort of the apogee of the Tang dynasty, and at least from what Victor Mair told me. And he was very helpful in beginning this translation. And he would look at some of my stuff. And according to him, it was pretty much like the Tang dynasty Chinese. I think that's called Early- I forget- Early Middle Chinese. So at least for the eighth century, that seemed to be the case. And, you know, you have records in the Shoku Nihongi of teachers who come from the mainland and lecture and teach the correct pronunciation and how to read. And then, of course, with the Buddhist monks, they're using the Chinese translations of some of the Sanskrit, and they have their own techniques for reading. So, yeah, the eighth century is a really dynamic time because the Japanese, at least at the elite level, are and with the help of the Koreans and that should be emphasized after the fall of Paekche there were a large number of refugees and high ranking aristocrats who came to Japan and helped them to learn to read and write Chinese. And then, of course, the Japanese started sending students to China and, you know, staying there for ten, twenty years. So, yeah, it was a very dynamic time. And then, of course, they were learning how to use Chinese characters to express old Japanese. And that's another story in itself, using the characters as semantograms, but also as phonograms. That's one of the things I found really fascinating about old Japanese, about the senmyō. J: And how does that compare to- I think we usually just refer to "Man'yōgana" as any of that. Is it very similar to what's going on in the Man'yōshu, or is once again, is there something else going on with the senmyō?    R: The standard edition of the senmyō I think notes that there are about 250 some--if I've got the number right--of phonograms used in the senmyō. There is a huge number used in the Man'yōshu; much greater. In fact, I think Vovin once said that it's not really known that you can't count. Although Bentley has a very excellent book, I think it's called an ABC Dictionary of Phonograms, like that. He has really scoured the landscape. So- But you could say that the phonograms in the senmyō are Man'yōgana, but that the set of Man'yōgana is far, far greater. J: Only 250 phonograms to have to worry about, as opposed to going through the Man'yōshu and seeing every once in a while a character and going, which pronunciation or what are they trying to represent here?    R: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, Man'yō studies, you know, or a whole realm in themselves and some of the, the emperors--I'm thinking of Genmei especially, or is it Gensho? I think it's Gensho. She has three poems in the Shoku NIhongi and they may be included in Man'yōshu. So there's some crossover. I was going to say that, of course, once you start reading these phonograms, you begin to see where the kana systems developed from, from Man'yōgana.    J: Right. So I think I've read that in Old Japonic, we think that there were more or at least different sounds than maybe we have today. R: Yes.    J: And so you see it represented in different ways. You'll see the same--what we would think of as the same character--represented differently, because to them it was different.    R: Yes. So there's still, as far as I know, no absolute standard for representing old Japanese. You'll see different scholars have their own takes on it, and Vovin, in his Man'yōshu translations, has his own very intricate system. Another good place to look that's freely available. The Oxford, I think it's called the Oxford Ninjal Corpus of Old Japanese Texts, is an ongoing project. It's actually been ongoing for many years, but you can go there. They have laid out all of the Man'yōshu poems with their  romanization system. I suspect that, you know, that's very prestigious and will eventually become a standard. But that's where you find all these things. Like is it "Himiko" or "Pimiko"?    J: Do you say "Kapa", "Kaha", or "Kawa"?    R: Yes. There you go.   J: [Laughter]    R: Right. Yeah.    J: I'm constantly wondering that myself.    R: Yeah. So you'll see different scholars have different ways of approaching it. But my opinion is that the Oxford, which is a very long standing and slow running project, will probably produce the standard.   J: In doing this translation, were there any favorite moments or items of particular interest that you found? R: So yes, actually my first go at the senmyō were the edicts of the lady we call Koken/Shotoku. Actually, I think almost half of the senmyō were produced during her reign. And so that was where I started. I think the first article I got around to writing in 2009 was for the journal Oral Tradition, and it was called Performative Loci of the Shoku Nihoingi Edict 749 to 770. And also because of my interest in Dōkyō my interest in her went way back. So 2015 I did the edicts. I called it the Edicts of the Last Empress, and it was a translation of all of the edicts from her reign. That year and the next year I did the four volumes I called them, Nara Japan 749 to 757, 758 to 763. So that period was, yeah, my first period of interest. And of course it went back to the Hachiman cult and the Dōkyō incident. I mean, you know, the stories about this wild empress I saw I saw an article that's just come out. I think it's a compilation of Women in Japanese Buddhism. And the title of the article by Emily Simpson is "The Depraved Empress". So that was one of the things that, early on, I decided was not accurate. That's a whole rabbit hole by itself. But according to Shoku Nihongi, there's no evidence, you know, of any illicit goings on between the two. But in Nihon Ryoiki, which appears in the early Heian period, not much later, you find the first really scurrilous story that about Dōkyō and the Empress. And then, as if you look at, for example, Donald Keene's "Seeds in the Heart," he has a long excerpt from a medieval tale. I forget which one that, you know, really rings the changes. And what fascinated me was that in there was a Playboy fable- I forget they were called. Some sort of fabulous stories. This one was done anonymously, but it was a very scurrilous, licentious story about Dōkyō and the Empress, and done anonymously. But it was later found to have been Bill LaFleur--William LaFleur--who taught at Penn and passed away unfortunately, some years ago.    J: So then in the Shoku Nihongi, it's just straight up politics, right? Just about Dōkyō's rise. And then it's just the political conflict going on rather than anything else?   R: Right. And it's a very intense period of political- So of course, the story was that when she was at the Hora capital, which was up near Otsu, it was a brief capital, and she was there and she was ill, and Dōkyō apparently at that time attended her as a physician. And that was the beginning of their relationship. So this would have been 760 or so. But the only phrase is that Dōkyō received the favor of the Empress, but it doesn't have a sexual connotation. It's used in other political settings also.    J: Yeah, I have to wonder how much they weren't looking back at Wu in the Chinese, which of course she also gets excoriated for stuff that is questionable. How much worse was it than anything that any of the men did? But she was a woman doing it.   R: Yes. Well, that's what happens to female rulers. You know, you have Catherine the Great in Russia. So. Yes. So that was initially my what really excited me. It was that period. And then I finished the "Edicts" translation. This was 2012. Bryan Lowe, who's a good friend at Princeton, he was finishing his doctorate and he had a workshop on Shosoin documents, and he invited Dr. Sakaehara Towao to present at the workshop. And he had been Bryan's advisor in Japan. So I was able to meet him and then talk to him and said, you know, I think I'd like to translate Shoku Nihongi. And he basically said, go for it. But I met him later that fall in Nara. He was at the Todaiji Museum, and so he encouraged me. A lot of people gave encouragement along the way. Yeah. So 20 years later, actually, I finished the translation 2025. And then this year in the spring, I did what I- is sort of considered the capstone, the volume: "The Japanese Imperial Institution in the Eighth Century." That's available as an e-book and also paperback and hardcover. And so there I have about a 75 page overview of the eighth century and then the introductions, not the translations, but the introductions to each of the emperors throughout the period. I'm very happy with that. And that sort of puts a cap on it. I should mention that that was in memory of Herschel Webb, another one of my great teachers at Columbia. He had done a book way back in 68 called "The Japanese Imperial Institution in the Tokugawa Era". And so this is sort of an homage to his memory.   J: And we very much thank you for it.  I remember when that came out, and we definitely snapped it up as soon as we saw it.    R: Well, great.    J: [Laughter]   R: Yeah. And you know, it's all available on Amazon. So let me let me make my plug.    J: Absolutely. Absolutely. You mentioned something about the Nihon Kōki. Are you are you serious about taking this project on and moving forward, or is that just kind of something you're toying with? R: Well, no, I'm actually I've actually made a start. That's an immense document. And what I'm interested in is finishing the reign of Emperor Kanmu. He dies in 806. And so Nihon Kōki begins in 792, and I'm currently up to 799. But I'm not putting as much energy into it. I do maybe an hour a day if I feel like it, but it's slow going. But there's some really fascinating stuff. So Wake no Kiyomaro died in 799, and they've inserted this immensely long biography of his life at this point, although it was obviously produced later and it's set apart. But that has details of his miraculous trip to the Usa shrine. And, you know, it's not clear if somebody cut his tendons, but he was lame and so he was on his way to Kyūshū, and suddenly a pack of wild boars appeared and sort of escorted him down to the shrine. It is just a really wonderful story. Then he has a vision of Hachiman, which is not part of the Shoku Nihongi tale. Yeah, I'm trucking along. My ambition is at least to finish the reign of Emperor Kanmu, and then we'll see what time there is beyond that.    J: So do you have any recommendations for current students of Japanese history? Those coming up? R: Actually, there are some young scholars. I was at the Association for Asian Studies meeting in Columbus, Ohio, which was, I guess, yeah, 2025. And for some reason there were a good number of presentations on eighth and ninth century. So there's a scholar by the name of Nadia Kanagawa. She finished a dissertation at USC on immigrants in the eighth century. Then Abigail McBain finished up at Columbia, and her dissertation was on specifically Tang Buddhist monks and interchange with Japan. Yeah, so there are some young scholars who are digging in to this. You know, I was just looking the other day at Wikipedia, which is a good start for anyone. I would say, you know, take it with a grain of salt. But if you want to know the names of the, you know, the famous emperors and the rebels, you know, Tachibana no Naramaro, and Fujiwara no Nakamaro. And just, just the other day I found this amazing thing called 'Grokipedia', which apparently is a new. But it's one of those AI things. Yeah, but it had the best summary of the Shoku Nihongi that I've seen. So with the AI revolution, goodness knows what's going to happen. But yeah, I find that it's possible to dip in and a lot of things are available. For example, the Rikkokushi text is online, it's been online, and it was first published by Asahi Shimbun way back when. But I used that and then that the Oxford project that I mentioned is online -- more and more it's becoming possible to access, you know, original documents. J: Yeah, combination of making them available online, better online translations.    R: Machine translation is going great guns. Yeah-   J: Yeah. Although I have to admit, it can get you a sense of what the classical Chinese is kind of saying sometimes, but the translation for some of the old stuff just it still has some work to do. I think it's better if you can translate the at least the modern Japanese translation, rather than sometimes going back into this. It's still tricky.    R: Yeah, well, it's I admit I'm getting old, but this this stuff is getting kind of frightening. This machine translation...   J: It is, yeah.    R: I feel like I'd be out of the job if I had a job.    J: Well, I think there's still a lot of questions to be asked on that. I don't think we need to get into a whole thing on AI right now, but I think there's some great benefits, obviously. And then, you know, I definitely know there's some concerns too, because every once in a while it can just hallucinate an answer. And you might be going through things that seem absolutely wonderful and then find something that you're like, wait a minute, I never knew that. [laughter]     R: And then it turns out not to be true.    J: Yeah, I don't know if you heard there was one, and I mean, this was a year ago, which already seems, in AI terms, ages and ages, but apparently it hallucinated entire papers and authors.    R: Yes, that's there was I don't know if you follow the PMJS list.    J: Oh yeah.    R: But I think there was a discussion and an example of that. So it's-  J. But the world is going to be different. J: Things are changing. And I think we will figure out how to use the tools that are useful will hopefully win out. And there's always going to be certain things. For instance, I remember early days, Wikipedia and still, you know, looking at Wikipedia sometimes for certain things around more popular subjects got to be a little more wary, though I have found the Japanese Wikipedia has been great when you're just trying to look for something and go, let me at least get what a common sense of this is so that I know the other things to go research. R: Well, I was going to say, just to sort of sum up, yeah, we're in a very dynamic time, but the eighth century was very similar because the new technologies were pouring in from the continent and the peninsula, and people were learning these new methods of reading and writing and orality to literacy.    J: So any last thoughts? I do appreciate all your time. But any last thoughts as we finish up here?    R: Not really, but I noticed that yesterday you came up with a long spiel on the UNESCO World Heritage site, and that's exciting. The Asuka region you seem to have links to photographs that took me back to wandering around that area. The Ishibutai, I remember, was something. So party on and keep up the good work. J: Thank you very much and thank you again. Thank you for your time today, and thank you for all the work that you've put into this. You have made these sources so much more accessible for people in English, and I think that is going to be critical as we move forward. I know for me this is a huge help. I was looking at Shoku Nihongi going, okay, I know we've got like the first so many years so I can get through that and then I'm really going to have to up my game. Then I saw all the work that you'd been doing and it was like a big load felt lifted off of my back. Now I can, you know, take a look. But at least with the idea that someone more experience than I has already done some of the really hard labor. I really want to say thank you for all of that.    R: Yeah, you're very welcome.    J: And once again, I would like to say thank you to Doctor Bender and thank all of you for listening. If you think that this is something you would like to see more of, please let us know. We'll see what we can do. Perhaps we can make it the start of a new interview series. In the meantime, next episodes we get back to our regularly scheduled program. And as always, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more and want to help us keep this thing going, we do have information about how you can donate on Patreon, where we have early and add free episodes for you to listen to. You can also donate through our Ko-Fi or BuyMeACoffee Sites. Just look up SengokuDaimyo for all of that. You can also find the links over to our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com, where we will also have more discussion on topics from this episode. Finally, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.Sengoku.Daimyo@gmail.com. Thank you also to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now. Thank you again and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan

BUFFALO, NY — September 9, 2026 — A new #research paper was #published in Volume 18 of Aging on August 13, 2026, titled “Protective effects of three herbal extracts on mitochondrial dysfunction in VPS13C-knockdown SH-SY5Y cells: implications for Parkinson's disease.” The study was led by co-first authors Yih-Ru Wu and Chih-Hsin Lin from the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Chang Gung University College of Medicine in Taoyuan, Taiwan, and Pei-Syuan Huang from the School of Life Science at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan. Corresponding authors I-Cheng Chen and Guey-Jen Lee-Chen are from the School of Life Science at National Taiwan Normal University. The paper identifies Wu, Lin, and Huang as equal contributors. Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized primarily by dysfunction and loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. Although its causes are complex, mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress are important biological processes implicated in both sporadic and inherited forms of the disease. The researchers focused on VPS13C, also known as PARK23, a gene associated with a rare autosomal recessive form of early-onset parkinsonism. Loss of VPS13C function has previously been linked to impaired mitochondrial function. The study investigated three extracts used in traditional Chinese medicine: Uncaria rhynchophylla (UR), Gardenia jasminoides (GJ), and Scutellaria baicalensis (SB). Previous experimental studies have reported neuroprotective effects from these plants or their bioactive constituents in models relevant to PD. The researchers examined whether the extracts could protect cells against mitochondrial dysfunction associated with reduced VPS13C expression. Chemical analyses identified several potentially bioactive constituents in the extracts. UR contained rhynchophylline and isorhynchophylline; GJ contained geniposide and crocin; and SB contained several flavonoids, including baicalin, wogonoside, baicalein, wogonin, and oroxylin A. Across the concentrations initially tested, the three extracts maintained greater than 90% viability in SH-SY5Y cells after 24 hours, indicating low cytotoxicity under these experimental conditions. Full press release - https://www.aging-us.com/news-room/three-herbal-extracts-protect-mitochondrial-function-in-a-cellular-model-of-parkinsons-disease DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206409 Corresponding authors - I-Cheng Chen - ichen@ntnu.edu.tw, Guey-Jen Lee-Chen - t43019@ntnu.edu.tw Abstract video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM8hO89d_9k Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article - https://aging.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Faging.206409 Subscribe for free publication alerts from Aging - https://www.aging-us.com/subscribe-to-toc-alerts Keywords - aging, Parkinson's disease, traditional Chinese medicine, VPS13C knockdown, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress To learn more about the journal, please visit https://www.Aging-US.com​​ and connect with us on social media at: Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/aging-us.bsky.social ResearchGate - https://www.researchgate.net/journal/Aging-1945-4589 X - https://twitter.com/AgingJrnl Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AgingUS/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/agingjrnl/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/aging/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/AgingUS/ Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/AgingUS/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Aging-US Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1X4HQQgegjReaf6Mozn6Mc MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM

This show has been flagged as Explicit by the host. Obviously, I'll need to introduce why I'm the best person to explain this concept and how I did my research. After that, I dive into the core of he episode: the research. The Ultimate Guide To Spotting AI Generated Text That Every Writer Needs To Read. That title already has two tells: Title case : every word capitalised, which conveniently cannot be read out loud Hyperbole : a promise of ultimacy, for a ten minute podcast For most of this episode I am not myself, I am the machine, and every sentence I say is an example of the thing it describes. This page is the key to that part of the show: the tells in the order you hear them, with what they sound like in the recording. Most names come from tropes.fyi , so you can look them up there and get the longer explanation. As also stated in the podcast: these aren't errors. They are ordinary figures of speech that human writers have used for centuries. The tell is the density. Part one: Vocabulary Prestige vocabulary : words nobody uses out loud. e.g. delve, harness, utilise, robust, foster Grand nouns for ordinary things : e.g. tapestry, landscape, realm, ecosystem, paradigm Magic adverbs : imply significance, carry no information. e.g. quietly, fundamentally, arguably, remarkably Avoiding the verb "to be" : plain "is" swapped for something that sounds busier. e.g. serves as, stands as, represents, marks Invented concept labels : an abstract problem noun (trap, creep, paradox, inversion) welded onto a domain word, then used as if it were established. e.g. "the fluency trap", "prestige creep" Vague attributions : authority without a name. e.g. "experts agree", "industry reports suggest", "observers have noted" Appeal to familiarity : consensus claimed rather than proven. e.g. "a classic", "famously", "as we all know" Promotional register : describing turns into selling. e.g. unlocks, seamless, unprecedented Part two: Sentence shapes Negative parallelism : the "it's not X, it's Y" pattern, and the most reported tell of all. e.g. "This isn't a stylistic quirk, it's a structural signature." Not X. Not Y. Just Z. : the same move tripled, building tension for a reveal that needed none. e.g. "Not a habit. Not a tic. A tell." Sets of three : one tricolon is elegant, three in a row is a stuck needle. e.g. "it arrives in threes, it lands in threes, it exhausts in threes" Short punchy fragments : emphasis manufactured by full stops instead of earned by content. e.g. "Short. Parallel. Relentless." Self-answered questions : asks what nobody asked, answers it immediately. e.g. "The problem? Nobody asked." Anaphora : the same sentence opening until it becomes furniture. e.g. "They open sentences the same way. They open the next one the same way." Trailing "-ing" analysis : shallow significance bolted onto a finished sentence. e.g. "highlighting its enduring importance", "reflecting broader trends" False ranges : "from X to Y" where there is no scale and no middle. e.g. "from cesspit to citation" Filler transitions : connect nothing to nothing. e.g. "it's worth noting", "importantly", "notably" The interjection reflex : every sentence broken in half, whatever the punctuation. e.g. em-dash, double hyphen, comma pair, colon Comma-clipped tail : a short phrase hung off a comma instead of landing the point. e.g. "above the content, and save." Part three: Tone Manufactured suspense : the buildup arrives, the revelation does not. e.g. "here's the thing", "here's the kicker" Patronising analogy : teacher mode, uninvited. e.g. "think of it as a Swiss Army knife for condescension" Forced figurative language : a metaphor picked for cleverness rather than clarity. e.g. "Picture a bicycle. Now picture that the bicycle is prose." Stakes inflation : everything is historic. e.g. "a pivotal moment in the evolution of reading itself" False vulnerability : honesty performed, never risked. e.g. "let me be honest with you here. Genuinely honest." Assertion in place of evidence : e.g. "history is unambiguous on this point", "the evidence is clear" "Imagine a world where..." : the futurism sales pitch, pleasant outcomes if you accept the premise. e.g. "imagine a world where every paragraph carries a quiet intelligence" Quotable one-liners : slide bait that survives being pulled out of context because it never had any. e.g. "Every bite is a chance to be here, now, fully." The collaborative "we" : one author, plural pronoun. e.g. "we will unpack each one in turn" Sycophancy : not a figure of speech but a training artefact, and the fastest way to spot raw chatbot output. e.g. "What a genuinely profound question." Part four: Formatting Title case headings : see the top of this page Bullet lists where prose would do : the document turns into a slide deck. e.g. this page, from here to the bottom Bold-first bullets : every item opens with a bolded keyword and a colon. e.g. yes, also this page, I know Emoji as punctuation : rocket for aspiration, key for insight, sparkles because the paragraph ended Em-dashes : mid-sentence, twice, sometimes three times, where a comma would have done the job The find and replace tell : double hyphens everywhere, because someone removed the character and kept the habit Unicode decoration : arrows and curly quotes nobody typed on a keyboard. e.g. Input → Processing → Output One thought per line : paragraphs abolished. e.g. "It happened. Alone. On a Tuesday." Part five: Composition Announce then answer : says what the text is about to do instead of doing it. e.g. "This guide will explore what those signs look like." Rapid-fire historical analogies : authority borrowed from a list, with no argument underneath. e.g. "Marconi. Sony. Apple. Print, radio, web, mobile." The metaphor that will not end : e.g. the garden that stays a garden for six sentences, then becomes a north star that moves the needle Self-echo : a word from earlier returning as if it were being paid off, when it is the same narrow vocabulary surfacing again One point diluted : the same idea in five coats, sounding like progress. e.g. "put differently", "to rephrase", "in other words" Fractal summaries : every section summarises itself, including the one you are inside. e.g. "In this section we explored composition." The tie-back : closes by looping the answer back to the original question, long after the point was made. e.g. "So, to answer your question..." Concede and dismiss : e.g. "despite its fluency, it faces challenges typical of automated systems. Despite those challenges, it endures." Signposted conclusion : competent writing does not need to announce that it is ending. e.g. "in conclusion", "to sum up", "in summary" The conclusion that refuses to end : clause stacked on clause, quieter and more meaningful each time. e.g. "the real AI generated text was the paragraphs we scrolled past along the way" Engagement bait : e.g. "Agree?" plus a pointing emoji Tells on the list that did not fit in the episode The recording would have run to forty minutes. These are worth knowing anyway. Reasoning leak : the text narrating its own decisions instead of just making them. e.g. "I want to be exact about my own role here." Premise stacking : a paragraph of evidence in front of the point, so the point has been made twice before it arrives Compulsive counting : states the number of items before listing them. e.g. "Five things we wish to discuss" Excessive enumeration : a listicle disguised as prose. e.g. "The first wall is... The second wall is..." Belaboring the unnecessary : defending a minor point against an objection nobody was going to raise Synonym cycling : refusing to repeat a noun. e.g. the dashboard, then the interface, then the portal, then the analytics hub Wh-headings : the default shape a model reaches for when naming a section. e.g. "What this means", "Why it matters" Content duplication : the same paragraph appearing twice, because the model lost track of what it had written Why this is not a detector guide Liang, Yuksekgonul, Mao, Wu and Zou, Stanford, published in Patterns (Cell Press) on 10 July 2023. Seven commercial GPT detectors were run over 91 TOEFL essays written by non-native English speakers and 88 US eighth grade essays. Average false positive rate on the TOEFL essays: 61.3 percent. 89 of the 91 essays were flagged as AI generated by at least one detector. All seven agreed on 18 of them. The US eighth grade essays came back near perfect. Plainer word choice, lower perplexity, reads as machine to the software. Feeding the TOEFL essays through ChatGPT with the prompt "enhance the word choices to sound more like that of a native speaker" dropped the false positive rate to 11.6 percent. So the way to stop being accused of writing like a machine was to have a machine rewrite you. Do not take my word for it, the paper is open access: https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(23)00130-7 Preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.02819 The pointers, for real Write with things in it: names, dates, prices, the model number of the drive that died. Say something a machine has no way to know, because it happened to you. Be willing to be wrong out loud. Keep one weird sentence that your editor would cut. Links and references The list this episode leaned on: tropes.fyi , by ossama.is The detector study: Liang et al., "GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers", Patterns, 2023 "Not an Addict", K's Choice, 1995. It's not a habit, it's cool, I feel alive. "Friends, Romans, countrymen" and "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him": Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, act 3 scene 2 "Veni, vidi, vici", attributed to Julius Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch Over to you There is a comment section under this episode. Tell me which tell I missed, and which one you are guilty of. Better yet, record it. Read your worst, most machine sounding paragraph out loud and post it to Hacker Public Radio. The queue is always hungry. Provide feedback on this episode.

Chaos im echten Leben? Taranja Wu hat dafür einen simplen Vorschlag: tanzen. Ihr neues Album ist der Soundtrack fürs Durcheinander – bevölkert von Figuren aus Filmen und Serien. Im Interview erzählt sie, warum Saoirse Ronan, Carey Mulligan und David Lynch plötzlich Teil ihrer Songs werden. «All Messed Up» ist kein autobiografisches Album – zumindest nicht im klassischen Sinn. Taranja Wu versteht ihre Kunstfigur eher als Echo oder Spiegel: Durch sie schlüpft sie in andere Menschen und Situationen. So landen plötzlich Figuren wie Saoirse Ronans Charakter aus «The Outrun» oder Carey Mulligan aus «Promising Young Woman» in ihren Songs. Auch David Lynchs «Blue Velvet» hinterlässt Spuren. Das passt zu Wus intuitiver Art zu schreiben: Sie beginnt meist mit einem Beat, ohne zu wissen, wohin die Reise geht. Erst nach und nach tauchen Figuren, Geschichten und Atmosphären auf. Und obwohl es dabei inhaltlich auch mal richtig düster wird, soll «All Messed Up» kein Album zum Versinken sein. Wu will dem Chaos lieber tanzend begegnen – ohne falsche Hoffnung, aber mit genug Drive, um weiterzumachen. «All Messed Up» ist das neue Sounds! Album der Woche. Es gibt Vinyl und CDs zu gewinnen, nur live im Radio.

Texas House Democratic Leader Gene Wu joins me this week on the podcast to lay out what's at stake for democracy, the Constitution, and state governance in Texas. Representing Southwest Houston (District 137), Rep. Wu breaks down why local legislative races matter nationally, how AANHPI and Chinese American voters can tip the scales, and why protecting democratic institutions starts at the ballot box.

Hay pacientes con daño cerebral que tienen fuerza, movilidad o equilibrio suficientes para hacer mucho más de lo que finalmente consiguen en su vida diaria. Y otros, aparentemente más afectados, terminan siendo mucho más independientes. ¿Qué explica esa discrepancia? En este episodio utilizamos el concepto pedagógico de "fenotipo premotor" para explorar todo lo que ocurre entre disponer de movimiento y conseguir convertirlo en una acción: selección, preparación, secuenciación, predicción, aprendizaje, automatización y transferencia. Hablamos de corteza premotora, complejo motor suplementario, sinergias, aprendizaje explícito e implícito, retención, generalización y de por qué a veces "da un paso largo” funciona mejor que “extiende la rodilla”. También revisamos estrategias clínicas y tecnologías que podrían ayudarnos cuando el verdadero problema no está simplemente en la fuerza o el tono. Porque en neurorrehabilitación no basta con conseguir más movimiento: necesitamos conseguir que ese movimiento se convierta en una acción útil, estable, transferible y autónoma. Referencias del episodio: 1. Antenucci, P., Moura, J., Bhatia, K. P., Rocchi, L., & Latorre, A. (2026). The Bereitschaftspotential in Voluntary Movement and Movement Disorders: Potential, Limitations and New Perspectives. Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology, 187, 2111895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2026.2111895 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42013765/). 2. Ariani, G., Shahbazi, M., & Diedrichsen, J. (2025). Cortical Areas for Planning Sequences before and during Movement. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 45(3), e1300242024. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1300-24.2024 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11735648/). 3. Boyd, L., & Winstein, C. (2006). Explicit information interferes with implicit motor learning of both continuous and discrete movement tasks after stroke. Journal of neurologic physical therapy : JNPT, 30(2), 46–59. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.npt.0000282566.48050.9b (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16796767/). 4. Branscheidt, M., Hadjiosif, A. M., Anaya, M. A., Keller, J., Widmer, M., Runnalls, K. D., Luft, A. R., Bastian, A. J., Krakauer, J. W., & Celnik, P. A. (2025). Reinforcement Learning is Impaired in the Sub-acute Post-stroke Period. Neurorehabilitation and neural repair, 39(4), 297–311. https://doi.org/10.1177/15459683241304352 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39849897/). 5. Cattaneo, L., Nunes, S., Giampiccolo, D., Caro, V. D., Basaldella, F., Badari, A., Tagliaferri, M., Squintani, G., & Sala, F. (2025). Anatomical characterization of premotor-motor connectivity in humans by paired intraoperative direct cortical stimulation. NeuroImage, 324, 121621. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121621 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41314273/). 6. Demeco, A., Marotta, N., Lentini, M. P., Fratto, C., Loiarro, G., Frizziero, A., Salerno, A., Cerasa, A., de Sire, A., & Ammendolia, A. (2026). Mental simulation practices in stroke rehabilitation reorganize brain connectivity: a systematic review. Journal of stroke and cerebrovascular diseases : the official journal of National Stroke Association, 35(9), 108719. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2026.108719 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42537726/). 7. Denyer, R., Greenhouse, I., & Boyd, L. A. (2023). PMd and action preparation: bridging insights between TMS and single neuron research. Trends in cognitive sciences, 27(8), 759–772. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2023.05.001 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37244800/). 8. Fridman, E. A., Hanakawa, T., Chung, M., Hummel, F., Leiguarda, R. C., & Cohen, L. G. (2004). Reorganization of the human ipsilesional premotor cortex after stroke. Brain : a journal of neurology, 127(Pt 4), 747–758. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awh082 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14749291/). 9. Fried, I., Katz, A., McCarthy, G., Sass, K. J., Williamson, P., Spencer, S. S., & Spencer, D. D. (1991). Functional organization of human supplementary motor cortex studied by electrical stimulation. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 11(11), 3656–3666. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.11-11-03656.1991 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1941101/). 10. Fu, Y., Wang, W., Yan, Q., Song, J., Li, Y., Zhu, C., Chai, S. C., Subramaniam, P., Yao, L., & Singh, D. K. A. (2026). Comparative effects of transcranial direct and alternating current stimulation combined with cognitive-motor dual-task training on functional and cognitive recovery in stroke survivors. Frontiers in neurology, 17, 1720429. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2026.1720429 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41725712/). 11. Garcea, F. E., & Buxbaum, L. J. (2023). Mechanisms and neuroanatomy of response selection in tool and non-tool action tasks: Evidence from left-hemisphere stroke. Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 167, 335–350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2023.06.012 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10543550/). 12. Genkin, M., Shenoy, K. V., Chandrasekaran, C., & Engel, T. A. (2025). The dynamics and geometry of choice in the premotor cortex. Nature, 645(8079), 168–176. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09199-1 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40562938/). 13. Jahfari, S., Waldorp, L., van den Wildenberg, W. P., Scholte, H. S., Ridderinkhof, K. R., & Forstmann, B. U. (2011). Effective connectivity reveals important roles for both the hyperdirect (fronto-subthalamic) and the indirect (fronto-striatal-pallidal) fronto-basal ganglia pathways during response inhibition. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 31(18), 6891–6899. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5253-10.2011 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21543619/). 14. Kim, M. S., Park, H., Kwon, I., An, K. O., Kim, H., Park, G., Hyung, W., Im, C. H., & Shin, J. H. (2025). Efficacy of brain-computer interface training with motor imagery-contingent feedback in improving upper limb function and neuroplasticity among persons with chronic stroke: a double-blinded, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial. Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 22(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12984-024-01535-2 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39757218/). 15. Koyama, T., & Domen, K. (2017). Diffusion Tensor Fractional Anisotropy in the Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus Correlates with Functional Independence Measure Cognition Scores in Patients with Cerebral Infarction. Journal of stroke and cerebrovascular diseases : the official journal of National Stroke Association, 26(8), 1704–1711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2017.03.034 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28478977/). 16. Liepmann, H. (1900). Das Krankheitsbild der Apraxie (Motorische asymbolie): Auf Grund eines Falles von einseitiger Apraxie. Monatschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie, 8, 15-44 (https://www.mpi.nl/publications/item2354912/das-krankheitsbild-der-apraxie-motorische-asymbolie-auf-grund-eines-falles). 17. Meehan, S. K., Randhawa, B., Wessel, B., & Boyd, L. A. (2011). Implicit sequence-specific motor learning after subcortical stroke is associated with increased prefrontal brain activations: an fMRI study. Human brain mapping, 32(2), 290–303. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.21019 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20725908/). 18. Mihara, M., Hattori, N., Hatakenaka, M., Yagura, H., Kawano, T., Hino, T., & Miyai, I. (2013). Near-infrared spectroscopy-mediated neurofeedback enhances efficacy of motor imagery-based training in poststroke victims: a pilot study. Stroke, 44(4), 1091–1098. https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.111.674507 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23404723/). 19. Mihara, M., Fujimoto, H., Hattori, N., Otomune, H., Kajiyama, Y., Konaka, K., Watanabe, Y., Hiramatsu, Y., Sunada, Y., Miyai, I., & Mochizuki, H. (2021). Effect of Neurofeedback Facilitation on Poststroke Gait and Balance Recovery: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Neurology, 96(21), e2587–e2598. https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000011989 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33879597/). 20. Nachev, P., Kennard, C., & Husain, M. (2008). Functional role of the supplementary and pre-supplementary motor areas. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 9(11), 856–869. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2478 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18843271/). 21. Park, S. H., Yan, S., Dee, W., Reed, R., Roth, E. J., Rymer, W. Z., & Wu, M. (2022). Repeated adaptation and de-adaptation to the pelvis resistance force facilitate retention of motor learning in stroke survivors. Journal of neurophysiology, 127(6), 1642–1654. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00046.2022 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35583975/). 22. Paul, T., Cieslak, M., Hensel, L., Wiemer, V. M., Tscherpel, C., Grefkes, C., Grafton, S. T., Fink, G. R., & Volz, L. J. (2024). Corticospinal premotor fibers facilitate complex motor control after stroke. Annals of clinical and translational neurology, 11(9), 2439–2449. https://doi.org/10.1002/acn3.52159 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39073030/). 23. Potgieser, A. R., de Jong, B. M., Wagemakers, M., Hoving, E. W., & Groen, R. J. (2014). Insights from the supplementary motor area syndrome in balancing movement initiation and inhibition. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 8, 960. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00960 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4246659/). 24. Zhang, Y., Zhang, Y., Zheng, B., Chen, S., Yu, H., Dai, L., Zhang, W., Huang, H., Su, X., Cao, M., & Chen, J. (2025). The effects of combining anodal transcranial direct current stimulation with robot-assisted gait training on lower limb motor function and the motor cortex regulation of stroke patients. Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 22(1), 230. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12984-025-01731-8 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41163056/). 25. Zhang, Y. S., Li, Y. D., Ou, C. X., Bi, Z. T., Xiao, J. H., Zhang, J. M., Wei, J. X., Xu, J. W., & Huang, L. (2026). Comparative efficacy and mechanistic insights of non-invasive neuromodulation and motor rehabilitation on functional reorganization of the supplementary motor area in subacute stroke: a narrative review. Frontiers in physiology, 17, 1744260. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2026.1744260 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42005313/). 26. Zhou, Y., Li, X., Huang, W., Xie, H., Zheng, Y., Su, L., Xiang, H., Zhou, H., Jiang, W., & Dou, Z. (2026). Predicting activities of daily living at discharge in stroke patients using rehabilitation robot training-induced functional connectivity. Topics in stroke rehabilitation, 33(6), 618–629. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749357.2026.2612712 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41496182/).

Carlos Alcaraz vs Wu Yibing — full preview, head-to-head breakdown and prediction for their THIRD ROUND clash at the 2026 US Open at Flushing Meadows, New York. The defending champion, still shaking off four months of rust, against a Chinese player quietly having the cleanest week in the bottom half.Carlos Alcaraz is finding his way back. The second seed returned to competitive singles here for the first time since a wrist injury at the Barcelona Open in mid-April, and the rust has been visible — he dropped the opening set to Jaime Faria before running away with it 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2, conceding just five games across the final three sets. That is the pattern so far: slow starts, then a level nobody in the draw can live with. He landed in what Spanish media called a "death draw," with Alexander Bublik potentially in round four and Ben Shelton or Arthur Fils in the quarterfinals, so building rhythm now matters.Wu Yibing is a better opponent than his ranking suggests. The Chinese player sits around World No. 113 after years disrupted by injury — he missed nearly three full seasons with elbow, back, shoulder and wrist problems before a rapid climb to a career-high No. 54 in 2023 — and he won the Sarasota Open title this year. Most importantly, he has NOT DROPPED A SET in two rounds in New York, coming through James Duckworth in straights.Alcaraz leads the head-to-head 1-0, from their only previous meeting in Shanghai in 2024. He is a heavy favourite. But a fresh opponent with nothing to lose against a champion still finding his timing is exactly the kind of match that gets interesting for a set.

Newage and Dr. Wu show off more tiny third party G1 figures, Transformers trading cards are making a comeback, and we bid a fond farewell to the voice of the franchise. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 710 – Thank You, Mr. Cullen appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

Newage and Dr. Wu show off more tiny third party G1 figures, Transformers trading cards are making a comeback, and we bid a fond farewell to the voice of the franchise. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 710 – Thank You, Mr. Cullen appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

We revisit Ms. Wu's saga in New York in today's elementary lesson as we follow on a handbag shopping excursion. Will she be able to find one that suits her? Learn how to shop for handbags (and other products) in today's ChinesePod lesson! Episode link: https://www.chinesepod.com/1886

Academic Summary:A massive, population-based study out of Eastern China analyzed nearly 10,000 individuals to determine how daily tea consumption impacts liver cancer risk. Researchers discovered that drinking just one freshly brewed cup of tea per day—specifically green tea—significantly drops the overall odds of developing primary liver cancer. Astonishingly, this protective "shielding" effect was highly effective among high-risk groups, including regular alcohol consumers and those positive for Hepatitis B. The active polyphenols and catechins (like EGCG) in the tea appear to actively neutralize the severe oxidative stress and inflammation caused by alcohol, pathogens, and environmental toxins.#LiverHealth #GreenTeaBenefits #CancerPrevention #Biohacking #NutritionalScience #TheCatalyst #HarmonicNexus #Longevity #HealthOptimizationFormal Citation:Liu, X., Baecker, A., Wu, M., Zhou, J., Jin, Z., Mu, L., He, N., Rao, J., Lu, Q.-Y., Li, L., Zhao, J.-K., & Zhang, Z.-F. Tea Consumption and Liver Cancer: A Population-Based Case–Control Study in Eastern China. Nutrients. 2025; 17(16), 2647. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu17162647Medical & Legal Disclaimer:Disclaimer: The information provided in this content is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or professional health advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your diet, health routine, or medical treatment plan. This content is strictly non-monetized and produced for the advancement of public scientific literacy.Alchepharma,Ralph Turchiano,tea consumption and liver cancer,green tea liver benefits,EGCG cancer prevention,how to protect liver from alcohol,hepatitis b liver cancer prevention,green tea polyphenols,reverse liver damage naturally,liver health optimization,tea brewing temperature for health,catechins and antioxidants,best tea for your liver,natural liver detox,alcohol oxidative stress liver,EGCG anti-inflammatory,daily tea consumption benefits

In this episode of the Epigenetics Podcast, we talked with Kunal Rai from MD Anderson Cancer Center about his work on active DNA demethylation and its role in cancer progression. A major part of the conversation covers his postdoctoral work on active DNA demethylation. He describes how he identified an AID-MBD4-based mechanism, later supported by GAD45, and how this work showed a role for DNA demethylation in early neuronal differentiation and in colon cancer initiation. We then discuss his move into his own lab and his work on melanoma progression. He explains how he used broad epigenomic profiling, chromatin state analysis, and 3D chromatin methods to study enhancers and chromatin organization, and how these approaches helped reveal changes linked to cancer progression. Another topic is his work on epigenetic regulators such as RNF2 and KMT2D. He describes findings on polycomb and trithorax-related factors, including tumor-suppressive roles for KMT2D in melanoma and lung cancer, and how KMT2D loss affects cell phenotype and metabolism. Finally, we talk about lab organization, collaboration, and newer technologies. He says his group works across multiple cancer types and increasingly includes immunology, single-cell methods, spatial epigenomics, and clinical translation, while still using ChIP-seq, CUT&RUN, and CUT&Tag where appropriate. References Fiziev, P., Akdemir, K. C., Miller, J. P., Keung, E. Z., Samant, N. S., Sharma, S., Natale, C. A., Terranova, C. J., Maitituoheti, M., Amin, S. B., Martinez-Ledesma, E., Dhamdhere, M., Axelrad, J. B., Shah, A., Cheng, C. S., Mahadeshwar, H., Seth, S., Barton, M. C., Protopopov, A., Tsai, K. Y., … Rai, K. (2017). Systematic Epigenomic Analysis Reveals Chromatin States Associated with Melanoma Progression. Cell reports, 19(4), 875–889. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2017.03.078 Terranova, C. J., Tang, M., Maitituoheti, M., Raman, A. T., Ghosh, A. K., Schulz, J., Amin, S. B., Orouji, E., Tomczak, K., Sarkar, S., Oba, J., Creasy, C., Wu, C. J., Khan, S., Lazcano, R., Wani, K., Singh, A., Barrodia, P., Zhao, D., Chen, K., … Rai, K. (2021). Reprogramming of bivalent chromatin states in NRAS mutant melanoma suggests PRC2 inhibition as a therapeutic strategy. Cell reports, 36(3), 109410. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109410 Related Episodes Epigenetic Signatures During Aging and Cancer (Alena van Bömmel) Epigenetic Mechanisms in Breast Cancer (Luca Magnani) The Effect of Histone Demethylases on Gene Expression and Cancer Cell Stability (Johnathan Whetstine) Contact Epigenetics Podcast on Mastodon Epigenetics Podcast on Bluesky Dr. Stefan Dillinger on LinkedIn Active Motif on LinkedIn Active Motif on Bluesky Email: podcast@activemotif.com

Good afternoon, I'm _ with today's episode of EZ News. Tai-Ex opening The Tai-Ex opened up 57-points this morning from yesterday's close, at 45,890 on turnover of 8.4-billion N-T. However, the main board surged nearly 400 points within ten minutes of the opening bell to bounce back over the 46,000 mark, as investors were boosted by Nvidia's latest quarterly results - which beat expectations. AI-related and heavyweight electronics stocks are in focus this morning. Lawmakers to vote on drone procurement bills today Lawmakers are voting today on competing (競爭的) drone procurement (採購) bills. The vote had originally been scheduled for tomorrow. However, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu proposed bringing it forward during cross-party caucus talks. The legislative caucuses agreed to move up the vote to allow lawmakers to return to their districts to inspect damage caused by the recent heavy rains and flooding in southern Taiwan. However, the D-P-P, K-M-T and Taiwan People's Party caucuses failed to agree on key aspects of the bills, including which ministry will oversee the drone procurement program, the budget for drone procurement and whether annual spending caps will be imposed. ASF found in** pig carcass in Kinmen and pork shipments suspended** The Kinmen County Government has suspended shipments of pork and processed pork products to Taiwan proper and other outlying islands after a African swine fever was detected in the carcass of a pig that had washed ashore. The suspension (暫停) of shipments of processed pork products runs until next Monday. Live pigs from Kinmen are already banned from being shipped to Taiwan proper and other outlying islands under existing regulations. According to Kinmen County Department of Economic Development, the pig carcass was found on the shoreline at Wu-sha-jiao in Jin-ning Township on Saturday by Coast Guard personnel. County animal health officials disinfected the site as well as the surrounding area. USArmy to spend $2B to build nuclear microreactors at 5 bases as US seeks to ramp up nuclear power The US Army is set to spend $2-billion dollars to build nuclear microreactors (微型核反應爐) at 5 bases as the country seeks to ramp up nuclear power. AP's Lisa Dwyer reports Canada PM to Address EU Parliament Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will address the European Parliament next month in a high-profile visit that underscores Canada's push to deepen ties with Europe. The announcement Wednesday comes after a sharp break with the United States under President Donald Trump as the trade war escalates. The prime minister will also attend the European Union's annual State of the Union address. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is scheduled to deliver her annual address Sept. 16. Carney is expected to speak the following day. The visit comes days after U.S.-Canada trade talks collapsed and Trump imposed new 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, prompting (推動，使) Ottawa to announce retaliatory tariffs. Carney has set a goal of doubling Canada's non-U.S. exports over the next decade as he seeks to reduce the country's economic dependence on the United States. That was the I.C.R.T. EZ News, I'm _. －－－－以下為 SoundOn 動態廣告－－－－ 準備賣房嗎？ 即日起至12月31日， 把房屋專任委託給台南住商不動產，即可參加「好友五吉」抽獎活動，賣房抽五機~有機會抽中最新 iPhone 18！ 錦上添花, 好運大獎拿不完! 詳情請洽台南住商任一加盟店。 https://sofm.pse.is/9kbkd3 -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

State Sen. Nick Collins says his name was left off some ballots at a South Boston polling station, where he is facing a primary challenge from Latoya Gayle, who has Mayor Michelle Wu’s backing. Collins called for an investigation, while city officials said voters were immediately provided with the proper ballots once the error was identified. The ballot issue comes amid Collins’ ongoing political disagreements with Wu, further heating up the South Boston primary. Collins joined Dan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 4210 │ August 25, 2026 Anthropic admitted degrading their own AI's output quality to comply with EU watermarking law. Mike Adams says that changed the entire race. WHAT THIS EPISODE COVERS  Scott Kesterson sits down with Mike Adams for their first conversation in a year, opening with the oracle versus librarian framework both have independently arrived at — AI as a tool for research and task execution, never as a divine verdict-giver — and using the Chinese farmer Wu's destroyed sesame crop as the case study for why blaming AI rather than human accountability misdiagnoses every failure. Adams delivers the most significant claim of the interview: Anthropic publicly admitted to watermarking all model outputs under EU law by statistically biasing token selection, a technical concession that provably reduces output quality, while China's DeepSeek, Qwen, and other open-published models have pulled ahead of the US frontier labs specifically because Chinese companies shared their research openly instead of hoarding it as classified defense technology. The conversation closes on the sovereign computing model both are independently building — desktop AI on AMD's Strix Halo chip, open-weight models run locally on solar power, and a coming economy where owning hardware and generating your own energy matters more than money, because decentralized cognition is, in Adams's words, the single greatest threat to globalist control of what people are allowed to know. KEY QUESTIONS ADDRESSED  What did Anthropic publicly admit about watermarking their AI model outputs to comply with EU law — and why does Mike Adams argue this technical concession provably reduces the quality of every response, even for US domestic users who never consented to it? How did China overtake the US in the AI race — and why does Adams argue that China's strategy of openly publishing research papers and sharing innovations like sparse attention mechanisms and KV cache compression across companies proved more effective than the secrecy-driven US model treating AI as classified defense technology? What is the sovereign computing model Scott and Mike Adams are both building — and why does running open-weight AI models locally on solar-powered hardware represent, in Adams's words, decentralized augmented cognition and the single greatest threat to globalist controllers who have always sought to limit public access to knowledge? ABOUT BARDSFM BardsFM is a daily independent podcast covering faith, liberty, history, and information warfare. Hosted by Scott Kesterson — combat veteran, documentary filmmaker, and rancher. Over 4,100 episodes and 50 million lifetime downloads. New episodes every weekday. bards.fm This episode was researched and produced under the Spatial Terra Intelligence Methodology (STIM v5) — the analytical framework built by Scott Kesterson — with AI-assisted research synthesis at a 70/30 human/AI authorship ratio, fully disclosed. All analysis, conclusions, and editorial judgments are those of Scott Kesterson. BardsFM's archive includes hundreds of episodes on prayer, scripture, and walking the Way of Christ — available free in the full episode catalog. DOWNLOADS Citizen's Guide - Community Organizing Against Data Centers: click here Citizen's Guide - Auditing Automatic License Plate Readers: click here Citizen's Guide - Auditing Your State's Driver License Data: click here AFFILIATE LINKS Bards Nation Health Store: www.bardsnationhealth.com MYPillow promo code: BARDS >> Go to https://www.mypillow.com/bards and use the promo code BARDS or... Call 1-800-975-2939.  EMPShield protect your vehicles and home. Promo code BARDS: Click here Treadlite Broadforks...best garden tool EVER. Promo code BARDS26: TreadliteBroadforks.com EnviroKlenz Air Purification, promo code BARDS to save 10%: www.enviroklenz.com Morning Intro Music Provided by Brian Kahanek: www.briankahanek.com Founders Bible 20% discount code: BARDS >>> TheFoundersBible.com Windblown Media 20% Discount with promo code BARDS: windblownmedia.com White Oak Pastures Grassfed Meats, Get $20 off any order $150 or more. Promo Code BARDS: www.whiteoakpastures.com/BARDS Mission Darkness Faraday Bags and RF Shielding. Promo code BARDS: Click here DONATIONS: If you wish to support this podcast directly you can donate here... DONATE: Click here MAILING ADDRESS: Xpedition Cafe, LLC Attn. Scott Kesterson 591 E Central Ave, #740 Sutherlin, OR  97479

Alibaba Group is seeking to raise about HK$80 billion ($10.2 billion) through a new share placement in Hong Kong, which, if completed, would become the world's third-largest primary follow-on offering this year, behind only those placed by Alphabet and Intel.阿里巴巴集团正寻求通过在香港进行新股配售筹集约800亿港元（约合102亿美元）。若顺利完成，这将成为今年全球第三大主要增发融资，仅次于Alphabet和英特尔。The placement, announced on Sunday, would mark Alibaba's first new share sale since its Hong Kong listing in 2019. More striking is where every dollar raised is headed — the company plans to use 100 percent of its net proceeds to strengthen its artificial intelligence capabilities, including expanding and upgrading AI infrastructure.此次配售于8月23日宣布，将是阿里巴巴自2019年在香港上市以来首次增发新股。更引人注目的是募资的用途——公司计划将所得净额全部用于强化人工智能能力，包括扩建和升级AI基础设施。Several sources close to the matter told China Daily that the offering was oversubscribed within an hour of its launch. One source close to the company disclosed that sovereign wealth funds and some long-term institutional investors showed keen interest.多位知情人士对《中国日报》表示，此次配售在启动后一小时内即获得超额认购。一位接近公司的消息人士透露，主权财富基金和一些长期机构投资者表现出浓厚兴趣。Right after the move, Alibaba's Chairman Cai Chongxin and CEO Wu Yongming bought a combined about HK$120 million of Alibaba shares.配售完成后不久，阿里巴巴董事长蔡崇信和首席执行官吴泳铭合计购入约1.2亿港元的阿里巴巴股票。Guo Tao, deputy director of China Electronic Commerce Expert Service Center, said: "Alibaba's placement also has benchmark significance for China's AI industry. Alibaba's continued expansion in AI capital spending could accelerate development across China's domestic AI supply chain, from AI chip adaptation and intelligent computing centers to liquid-cooling systems."中国电子商务专家服务中心副主任郭涛表示：“阿里巴巴的配售对中国AI行业也具有标杆意义。阿里巴巴在AI资本支出方面的持续扩张，可能会加速中国国内AI供应链的发展，从AI芯片适配、智能计算中心到液冷系统等各个环节。”As the AI race shifts from a technology contest into a "capital endurance race", raising equity gives Alibaba longer-term funding while sending a vote of confidence through the broader sector, Guo said.郭涛表示，随着AI竞赛从技术较量演变为“资本耐力赛”，股权融资为阿里巴巴提供了更长期的资金支持，同时也向整个行业传递了信心。The aggressive spending comes as AI emerges as an increasingly important growth engine for Alibaba.在积极投入的同时，AI正日益成为阿里巴巴越来越重要的增长引擎。The company reported revenue of 268.95 billion yuan ($37.5 billion) for its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, with net profit attributable to shareholders of 10.54 billion yuan.公司截至6月30日的第一财季营收为2689.5亿元人民币（约合375亿美元），归属于股东的净利润为105.4亿元人民币。Alibaba CEO Wu Yongming told analysts after the earnings release that annualized recurring revenue from AI-related products was expected to approach $10 billion in the next quarter. AI-related product ARR had already surpassed 49.5 billion yuan in the first quarter, Wu said.阿里巴巴首席执行官吴泳铭在财报发布后对分析师表示，AI相关产品的年化经常性收入预计将在下一季度接近100亿美元。吴泳铭称，AI相关产品ARR在第一季度已超过495亿元人民币。Jiang Han, a senior researcher at market consultancy Pangoal, said: "Alibaba's organizational restructuring was effectively designed to build a vertically integrated, full-stack AI operation, lowering transaction costs and speeding the deployment of new technologies. The improvement in commercialization returns mentioned by Wu is a direct monetization of that full-stack capability." Jiang added that Alibaba's AI investment was beginning to move from simply "burning cash" toward generating its own financial returns.市场咨询机构盘古智库高级研究员江瀚表示：“阿里巴巴的组织架构调整实质上是为了构建一个垂直整合的全栈式AI运营体系，以降低交易成本、加速新技术部署。吴泳铭提到的商业化回报改善，正是这种全栈能力的直接变现。”江瀚补充说，阿里巴巴的AI投资正开始从单纯的“烧钱”转向产生自身的财务回报。Alibaba's fundraising also comes as the AI sector's capital requirements are ballooning globally, pushing companies to seek ever larger pools of financing.阿里巴巴的融资也正值全球AI领域资本需求急剧膨胀之际，这促使各家公司寻求更大规模的融资。Anthropic confidentially filed for a United States' initial public offering in June and could list as early as October, with a targeted valuation of as much as $2 trillion. OpenAI is also targeting a potential fourth-quarter listing, while its valuation in private markets stands at around $850 billion.Anthropic已于6月秘密向美国提交首次公开募股申请，最早可能于10月上市，目标估值高达2万亿美元。OpenAI也计划在第四季度可能上市，其在私募市场的估值约为8500亿美元。Alibaba's HK$80 billion placement puts China's largest tech firms squarely into that global capital race. But raising more money does not remove the biggest uncertainty hanging over the AI boom — whether commercial returns can keep pace with the extraordinary amount of investment.阿里巴巴800亿港元的配售将中国最大的科技公司直接推入了这场全球资本竞赛。然而，筹集更多资金并不能消除AI热潮中最大的不确定性——商业回报能否跟得上巨大的投资规模。Investors are already showing some caution. Alibaba's US-listed shares closed at $119.34 on Monday, down 8.57 percent, while its Hong Kong-listed shares ended at HK$112, down 8.54 percent.投资者已表现出一定程度的谨慎。阿里巴巴美股周一收于119.34美元，下跌8.57%；港股收于112港元，下跌8.54%。"The biggest risk investors need to watch is not that AI fails, but that the pace of AI commercialization fails to keep up with capital spending. In the end, this competition will not be about who spends the most. It will be about who can make returns on AI investment exceed the cost of capital first," Jiang added.“投资者需要关注的最大风险不是AI失败，而是AI商业化的速度跟不上资本支出。最终，这场竞争不是看谁花得最多，而是看谁能率先让AI投资回报超过资本成本，”江瀚补充道。net proceeds /net ˈprəʊsiːdz/净所得oversubscribed /ˌəʊvəsəbˈskraɪbd/超额认购sovereign wealth funds /ˈsɒvrɪn welθ fʌndz/主权财富基金benchmark significance /ˈbentʃmɑːk sɪɡˈnɪfɪkəns/标杆意义supply chain /səˈplaɪ tʃeɪn/供应链liquid-cooling systems /ˈlɪkwɪd ˈkuːlɪŋ ˈsɪstəmz/液冷系统capital endurance race /ˈkæpɪtəl ɪnˈdjʊərəns reɪs/资本耐力赛aggressive spending /əˈɡresɪv ˈspendɪŋ/积极投入

Transfusion‑Associated Circulatory Overload (TACO) remains among the most serious and misunderstood adverse events in modern medicine. This podcast episode explores how clinicians can recognize TACO quickly and manage it safely, distinguish TACO from Transfusion-Related Acute Lung Injury (TRALI), and prevent TACO from future occurrences through smarter transfusion practices.About Dr. Wu:Dr. Ding Wen Wu, MD, PhD, is a Clinical Professor of Pathology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Medical Director of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at NYU Langone Hospital–Brooklyn. She earned her MD from Shanghai Second Medical University and her PhD from the University of Notre Dame, followed by pathology residency training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a Transfusion Medicine fellowship at the New York Blood Center. Throughout her career, Dr. Wu has held leadership positions at several major academic medical centers and health systems. She is dedicated to advancing patient care, clinical research, and excellence in transfusion medicine and laboratory practice. Dr. Wu has received multiple Outstanding Teaching Awards in recognition of her passionate commitment to the education of pathology residents, an honor bestowed through resident nominations at several institutions.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is urging private property owners not to lease parking spaces or lots to ICE. The move comes amid growing tensions between Wu and the Trump administration over immigration enforcement in Boston. Is the mayor overstepping her authority by telling private property owners who they can and cannot lease their property to?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Continued conversation about how Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is urging private property owners not to lease parking spaces or lots to ICE. The move comes amid growing tensions between Wu and the Trump administration over immigration enforcement in Boston. Is the mayor overstepping her authority by telling private property owners who they can and cannot lease their property to? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers are finding a foothold in the United States' autonomous-driving market as suppliers of purpose-built vehicle platforms, even as steep tariffs and security restrictions keep Chinese-branded EVs out of US showrooms.尽管高额关税和安全限制使中国品牌电动汽车无法进入美国展厅，但中国电动汽车制造商正以专用车辆平台供应商的身份，在美国自动驾驶市场找到了立足点。Since 2024, Chinese new energy vehicle manufacturer Zeekr has shipped more than 3,200 minivan-like CM1e vehicle platforms — including over 2,600 this year — to the US, where Waymo is its only known partner, business magazine Forbes reported, citing data compiled by US research firm ImportGenius. New York-based investment research firm Moffett-Nathanson estimates that Waymo is receiving around 300 units per month.据商业杂志《福布斯》援引美国研究公司ImportGenius汇编的数据报道，自2024年以来，中国新能源汽车制造商极氪已向美国运送了超过3200个类似小型货车的CM1e车辆平台——其中包括今年以来的2600多个——其已知的唯一合作伙伴是Waymo。总部位于纽约的投资研究公司Moffett-Nathanson估计，Waymo每月接收约300辆。"What Waymo needs is not an ordinary passenger car, but a purpose-built robotaxi platform with a flat floor, low step-in height, sliding doors, ample space and suitability for high-frequency operations," said Zhang Hong, a senior NEV industry expert at the China Automobile Dealers Association.中国汽车流通协会新能源汽车行业高级专家章弘表示：“Waymo需要的不是普通乘用车，而是一款专用机器人出租车平台，要求地板平整、离地间隙低、配备滑动门、空间宽敞，并适合高频运营。”"European and US automakers would struggle to meet such demand at short notice, while China's supply chain can quickly tailor a platform to Waymo's needs," he added.“欧美汽车制造商很难在短时间内满足这样的需求，而中国的供应链可以快速根据Waymo的需求定制平台，”他补充道。This advantage is reflected in the cost structure. In July, Philipp Kampshoff, McKinsey's global co-leader for automotive and assembly practice, wrote that Chinese automakers are "producing at 30 percent lower bill-of-materials cost and 30 percent lower capital expenditure".这一优势体现在成本结构上。7月，麦肯锡全球汽车与装配业务联合负责人菲利普·坎普肖夫撰文称，中国汽车制造商“在物料清单成本和资本支出方面均低30%”。Kampshoff added that in addition to the cost advantage, Chinese vehicles are often more technologically advanced than their Western counterparts and favored by younger consumers.坎普肖夫还指出，除了成本优势，中国汽车通常比西方同类产品技术更先进，也更受年轻消费者青睐。Dense industrial clusters产业集群密集Zhang, the NEV industry expert, attributed part of that advantage to China's dense industrial clusters, which bring together battery makers, electric-drive suppliers, automakers and engineering teams, thereby accelerating the transition from prototype to mass production.新能源汽车行业专家章弘将这一优势部分归因于中国密集的产业集群——电池制造商、电驱动供应商、整车厂和工程团队汇聚于此，从而加速了从原型车到量产的转化。For a robotaxi operator expanding into new cities, he said, delivery speed and a platform designed for fleet use may outweigh the tariff bill.他表示，对于向新城市扩张的机器人出租车运营商来说，交付速度和为车队设计的平台可能比关税账单更重要。The arrangement has survived a sharp increase in US trade barriers. Washington increased the Section 301 tariff on Chinese EVs to 100 percent in September 2024, followed by a separate 25 percent tariff on imported automobiles taking effect in April 2025. Together with the standard 2.5 percent duty on passenger cars, covered China-built EVs can face tariffs of 127.5 percent.这种合作模式经受住了美国贸易壁垒大幅提高的考验。华盛顿于2024年9月将针对中国电动汽车的301条款关税提高至100%，随后于2025年4月对进口汽车单独征收25%的关税。加上乘用车2.5%的标准关税，中国制造的电动汽车面临的总关税可达127.5%。"Tariffs can keep out some consumer cars, but they cannot block commercial fleets' real demand for mature, low-cost and customizable platforms," Zhang said.“关税可以阻挡部分消费级汽车，但无法阻挡商业车队对成熟、低成本、可定制平台的真实需求，”章弘说。US security rules have also shaped the division of work. The US Department of Commerce's connected-vehicle rule restricts China-linked vehicle connectivity and automated driving software from model year 2027 onward, while restrictions on covered connectivity hardware will take effect from model year 2030.美国的安全规定也影响了分工。美国商务部关于联网汽车的规定，从2027年车型年起限制与中国相关的车辆联网和自动驾驶软件，而针对联网硬件的限制将从2030年车型年起生效。In this regard, the imports are not finished robotaxis. Zeekr ships vehicle bodies and chassis without autonomous driving systems. Waymo then installs its sensor and computing system at a factory in Mesa, Arizona, and validates the vehicles for intelligent passenger service.因此，进口的并非成品机器人出租车。极氪运送的是不含自动驾驶系统的车身和底盘。Waymo随后在亚利桑那州梅萨的一家工厂安装其传感器和计算系统，并对车辆进行智能客运服务验证。"US companies can reduce costs through such cross-border specialization while keeping algorithms, data and operating platforms at home," Zhang said, adding that, more broadly, the model points to continued cooperation in less sensitive manufacturing, even as competition in software and data intensifies.“美国公司可以通过这种跨境专业化降低成本，同时将算法、数据和运营平台留在国内，”章弘说，并补充道，从更广的视角看，这种模式表明，即便在软件和数据领域的竞争加剧，在敏感度较低的制造环节仍会保持合作。"It (the cooperation pattern) would likely be that China provides the manufacturing backbone and the US controls the intelligent systems, with each side retaining the most critical part of the value chain," he said.“（这种合作模式）很可能是中国提供制造基础，美国控制智能系统，双方各自保留价值链中最关键的部分，”他说。Warning for Chinese EVs对中国电动汽车的警示However, Zhang added that the model also carries a warning for Chinese companies: If they remain only hardware suppliers, the higher-margin service revenue and customer relationships still stay with their US partners.然而，章弘补充说，这种模式也给中国企业带来警示：如果它们仅作为硬件供应商，利润率更高的服务收入和客户关系仍掌握在美国合作伙伴手中。"Auto exports were once judged largely by shipment volumes. But today, the more important question is what enables Chinese automakers to establish a lasting presence after entering an overseas market," said Wu Songquan, a senior expert at the China Automotive Technology and Research Center.中国汽车技术研究中心资深专家吴松泉表示：“汽车出口曾主要以出货量来衡量。但如今，更重要的问题是什么能使中国汽车制造商在进入海外市场后建立持久的市场地位。”"Chinese automakers now face far more than product competition in global markets. They must navigate an entirely new environment shaped by tariffs, regulatory compliance, localization, supply-chain security, data rules and industrial policy," Wu said.“中国汽车制造商现在在全球市场面临的远不止产品竞争。它们必须应对一个由关税、合规监管、本地化、供应链安全、数据规则和产业政策共同塑造的全新环境，”吴松泉说。autonomous-driving /ɔːˈtɒnəməs ˈdraɪvɪŋ/自动驾驶purpose-built /ˈpɜːpəs bɪlt/专用定制的steep tariffs /stiːp ˈtærɪfs/高额关税higher-margin /haɪə ˈmɑːdʒɪn/利润更高的shipment volumes /ˈʃɪpmənt ˈvɒljuːmz/出货量regulatory compliance /ˌreɡjʊlətəri kəmˈplaɪəns/合规监管localization /ˌləʊkəlaɪˈzeɪʃən/本地化

Episode 4207 │ August 17, 2026 An oracle ends the not knowing. A librarian leaves you responsible. Most people are turning AI into an oracle without realizing it. WHAT THIS EPISODE COVERS Scott Kesterson opens with corrections to last week's surveillance coverage before building a full theological framework around a single Hebrew word, kesem — divination, the practice of consulting a procedure outside God's authority to escape the weight of a decision — and applies it directly to how Americans are using AI and surveillance technology as oracles rather than librarians, demanding verdicts instead of doing the accountable work of verification. Scott dismantles the crowd-sourced Flock camera maps people are misreading as proof of surveillance gaps, walks through Kentucky's new law requiring visual verification before any ALPR-triggered traffic stop, and uses Ring's cancelled 2025 partnership with Flock to show that Americans built the largest private surveillance network in the country one household at a time and only objected once they lost control of who could view it. The episode closes on the Chinese farmer Wu, who destroyed 25 acres of sesame crop by blindly following an AI herbicide recommendation without a patch test or expert consultation, and the biblical distinction Scott draws from 1 Samuel 15 and Proverbs 16: the sin is not the tool, it is surrendering the accountability that was always yours to carry. KEY QUESTIONS ADDRESSED What is the Hebrew concept of kesem, divination — and why does Scott argue that using AI, license plate cameras, or any data tool as an oracle rather than a librarian repeats the exact sin condemned in Deuteronomy 18 and 1 Samuel 15? Why do the crowd-sourced Flock camera maps circulating online lead people to draw false conclusions — and what does Kentucky's new law requiring visual verification before any ALPR-triggered traffic stop reveal about the gap between what the technology shows and what it actually proves? What really happened when a Chinese farmer's AI-recommended herbicide destroyed his sesame crop — and why does Scott argue that blaming AI for the outcome, rather than the farmer's failure to patch test or consult an expert, is the same accountability-avoidance driving fear-based narratives about surveillance and artificial intelligence across the board? ABOUT BARDSFM BardsFM is a daily independent podcast covering faith, liberty, history, and information warfare. Hosted by Scott Kesterson — combat veteran, documentary filmmaker, and rancher. Over 4,100 episodes and 50 million lifetime downloads. New episodes every weekday. bards.fm This episode was researched and produced under the Spatial Terra Intelligence Methodology (STIM v5) — the analytical framework built by Scott Kesterson — with AI-assisted research synthesis at a 70/30 human/AI authorship ratio, fully disclosed. All analysis, conclusions, and editorial judgments are those of Scott Kesterson. BardsFM's archive includes hundreds of episodes on prayer, scripture, and walking the Way of Christ — available free in the full episode catalog. DOWNLOADS Citizen's Guide - Community Organizing Against Data Centers: click here Citizen's Guide - Auditing Automatic License Plate Readers: click here Citizen's Guide - Auditing Your State's Driver License Data: click here AFFILIATE LINKS Bards Nation Health Store: www.bardsnationhealth.com MYPillow promo code: BARDS >> Go to https://www.mypillow.com/bards and use the promo code BARDS or... Call 1-800-975-2939.  EMPShield protect your vehicles and home. Promo code BARDS: Click here Treadlite Broadforks...best garden tool EVER. Promo code BARDS26: TreadliteBroadforks.com EnviroKlenz Air Purification, promo code BARDS to save 10%: www.enviroklenz.com Morning Intro Music Provided by Brian Kahanek: www.briankahanek.com Founders Bible 20% discount code: BARDS >>> TheFoundersBible.com Windblown Media 20% Discount with promo code BARDS: windblownmedia.com White Oak Pastures Grassfed Meats, Get $20 off any order $150 or more. Promo Code BARDS: www.whiteoakpastures.com/BARDS Mission Darkness Faraday Bags and RF Shielding. Promo code BARDS: Click here DONATIONS: If you wish to support this podcast directly you can donate here... DONATE: Click here MAILING ADDRESS: Xpedition Cafe, LLC Attn. Scott Kesterson 591 E Central Ave, #740 Sutherlin, OR  97479

Episode 507 - Leonardo Soto Pete's Percussion Podcast Principal Timpanist for the Houston Symphony (TX) Leonardo Soto stops by to talk about his main gig, teaching at the University of Miami (FL), working at summer festivals, secrets of auditioning, and maintaining a busy schedule (03:35), his previous orchestral jobs at the Detroit Opera (MI) and Charlotte Symphony (NC) and his experiences on the audition circuit later in his career (33:45), growing up in Chile, his father the drummer and pop musician, the legacy of Chilean orchestral percussionists, studying percussion in Chile, and the challenges of equipment and music resources in the country (45:20), his master's degree work at Carnegie-Mellon University (PA), studying with Tim Adams and (later) Tom Freer, early audition experiences, and learning English through Seinfeld and the Rush Hour movies (01:04:05), and finishes with the Random Ass Questions, including segments on student learning styles, his sporting activities and doing cardio, playing athletic timpani music, Rafa Nadal, Chilean soccer, cooking mishaps, great books, and seeing the artwork in The Vatican (01:27:20).Finishing with a Rave on the 2026 documentary Cookie Queens (02:04:55).Leonardo Soto links:Leonardo Soto's Houston Symphony pageLeonardo Soto's University of Miami pageLeonardo Soto's Remo pageTimpani Concerto - Andy Akiho (Leonardo Soto, soloist)Previous Podcast Guests mentioned:She-e Wu in 2025Pablo Rieppi in 2024Andrés Espinoza in 2018Other Links:Matthew StraussBrevard Music CenterGrand Teton Music FestivalNational Youth OrchestraTom FreerTim AdamsCloyd DuffSteven ReinekeSvet StoyanovJoseph PetrasekEdward StephanMingyu SonLuft MalletsRichard WeinerShannon WoodLa Sonora de Tommy ReyThe All-American Drummer: 150 Rudimental Solos - Charley WilcoxinEtudes for Timpani - Richard HochrainerRafa NadalThe Inner Game of Music - Barry GreenCity Lights trailerCinema Paradiso trailerThe Undefeated Mind - Alex LickermanThe Alchemist - Paulo CoehloMeditations - Marcus AureliusMyriam HernandezThe VaticanRaves:Cookie Queens trailer

How do we bridge the gap between Eastern and Western medicine and create a holistic approach to patient care in order to get the best possible fertility results? Today on Fertility Forward, we welcome the founder of NYC Acupuncture + Wellness, Dr. Ting Wu, to discuss her integrative East Asian medicine approach to women's health, fertility, and reproductive wellness. Tuning in, you'll hear all about how research and perception of East Asian medicine have changed over the last decade, her unique approach to HPA (Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal) axis and how it helps with fertility issues, and more! We delve into how Dr. Wu is working to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western medicine within her patient care and the power of collaboration, before discussing the importance of listening to your own body above anything else when it comes to your health. Our guest even challenges us to do an internal audit of our lives. Finally, and as always, we all talk about what we are grateful for today. Thanks for listening!  

When Michelle Wu was first elected mayor, she promised to transform Boston's streets. Her plans for bike lanes and public transit were ambitious but achievable, she said. Now, 5 years later, street safety advocates are wondering, what happened? Wu's streets champion, Jascha Franklin-Hodge, left city hall last year. After months of reflection, Franklin-Hodge talks to Say More's Anna Kusmer about why progress is so hard in Boston, and why people deserve better. Email us at saymore@boston.com.

『真正的獨立，是心靈的自由。』  「你不花我的錢，跟我在一起要幹嘛？」 一篇放閃文引發全網「27項拜金清單」大亂鬥！明明是小倆口甜甜蜜蜜，為什麼陌生網友會集體大崩潰？ 這集海苔熊帶大家從心理學看透愛情與金錢裡的集體焦慮，送上 5 個金錢與被愛的精華剖析： 【矛盾的金錢心理】 8成人嘴上喊男女平等，行為卻高度傾向男方買單？看懂想法與大腦劇本的落差。 【拜金清單的焦慮】 為什麼酸民非要證明別人很糟？從「向下比較」看懂那些刺耳留言背後的脆弱自尊。 【金錢是蜜糖或控制】 「你不花我的錢要幹嘛」是愛還是控制？從「投資模型」辨識金錢背後的附帶條件。 【坦然被愛的能力】 被請客就代表不獨立？依附理論告訴你：能安心收下對方的照顧，需要極大的安全感。 【解套金錢老劇本】 別被網路清單綁架！用 3 個提問檢視關係，與另一半建立專屬於你們的金錢默契。

I interviewed Singing Chen about The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up: "After the sudden death of his wife, Guan discovers her unfinished novel — a tale intertwining the endangered clouded leopard and the Rukai tribe's sacred origin myth, which tells of their descent from the elusive animal. Grief-stricken and seeking connection, he sets out on a surreal journey into dreamlike scenes — a maze of the subconscious, mistshrouded forests, ancient tree hollows and symbolic inner landscapes. Adapted from a short story by acclaimed Taiwanese author Wu Ming-Yi, The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up is a single-user, free-roaming VR experience that blends literature and memory into an intimate exploration of love, loss and self-reflection." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Exploration of indigenous myths [9] as the protagonist goes on an epic journey into these imaginal (or real) realms [9]. It's a husband whose's wife [7] has died [8], and he's picking up clues from her work [10] as a writer as he explore her office [10], gets lost within a maze [12], and then he embarks on this adventure [9] deep into nature and the forest [4] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Blends a number of different spatial capture techniques from traditional CGI modeling to Gaussian Splats. Very high resolution spatial capture. Lots of theme park type of feel whilst exporing the maze portion, and recreated a spatial journey where you feld like you had some wandering agency. But it was all still very contained and constrained, but felt like a bit of using your body movemnt to edit and pace through the piece. You're mostly an invisible ghost without any embodiment, although there are some scenes where you have agency to move around, but there's other scenes where you're more of an invisible audience. Some incredible technical breakthroughs to fuse it all together.2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Very narrative and story-driven overall, with a lot of influences from the cinematic tradition, especially during the first half. There's some cinematic cut scenes inspired from film. Some spatial embodied movement of spatial storytelling, The last half involves more of theatrically staged dialogue, where the overall spatial context stays static, and so the experience of time is more like being at a thearical play. Having volumetrically captured actors actually makes a huge difference in communicating the subtleness of emotionality via their facial expressions that is much harder than how emotions are captured on film. This piece stands in the volumetric capture techniques, fused with traditional CGI as well as with Gaussian Splats.3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Based upon a book, and so it has quite a literary feel, but also some scenes with extended dialogue. Overall, it's a bit of a mystery as the husband investigates the research archives of his wife, who was digging into an indigenous myth, and he comes to find out that it is completely TRUE. So there's lots of elements of magical realism, but also poetic dreamlogic and spatial storytelling. The maze scene has some post-it notes that deliver voice over. It's a single-player experience, but you share spatial contexts with some volumetrically-captured performances.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No real narrative agency, but there's a chance to explore a room of objects, but also the maze scene gives the experience of a lot of agency as you can chose how you move through and at what pace. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Grief from a death and loss, and going on a spiritual adventure, to find connection. From the description about the book author that inspired the piece, they say, "he weaves dreams, memory and multiple dimensions of time and space has long inspired me." Turning inward to explore spatial contexts that symbolically represent an inner journey of discovery. "Grief-stricken and seeking connection, he sets out on a surreal journey into dreamlike scenes — a maze of the subconscious, mist-shrouded forests, ancient tree hollows and symbolic inner landscapes" Artist Statement: "Wu Ming-Yi is one of Taiwan's most influential contemporary novelists. The way he weaves dreams, memory and multiple dimensions of time and space has long inspired me. When the chance came to adapt The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up into VR, I knew it would be a daunting yet necessary journey. Wu's writing evokes vivid imagery, spatiality and bodily presence — qualities that resonate with VR's immersive nature. Through free-roaming exploration, I aimed to recreate a journey of loss, memory and Indigenous mythology. This project is a dialogue between literature, technology and emotion — one that seeks to spark empathy across cultures." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEUki2mN-ps This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham's Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies, anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism (UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017). Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham's Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies, anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism (UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017). Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham's Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies, anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism (UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017). Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham's Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies, anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism (UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017). Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham's Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies, anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism (UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017). Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Good afternoon, I'm _ with today's episode of EZ News. Lai boards coast guard vessel to observe coastal defense President Lai Ching-te boarded a Coast Guard Administration vessel in New Taipei's Bali District to observe coastal defense (海岸防禦) operations during the Han Kuang military exercise. According to the Presidential Office, Lai received briefings (簡報) on the patrol vessel's equipment and coastal strike operations. He also inspected its missile launcher system and learned about its configuration and operational readiness (作戰準備狀態). Thursday marked the second day of the Han Kuang exercise, with drills in the north focusing on coastal defense and other defensive operations. Typhoon Dolphin moves west Meteorologist Wu De Rong says Typhoon Dolphin appears to be moving further west even as it continues to weaken. The Central News Agency cites Wu as saying that while the system is expected to pass near the Ryukyu Islands today, uncertainty in its projected track (預測路徑) is increasing, making it less likely that the storm might miss Taiwan completely. Because of this, Wu is warning of intense rainfall in northern Taiwan and later in central and southern Taiwan tomorrow through the early morning of the 10th. While temperatures are expected to drop in parts of Taiwan, eastern Taiwan may experience extreme heat due to downslope warming (下坡增溫) caused by air descending over the mountains. Strong wind gusts are also expected across Taiwan, and residents are advised to take precautions. National Central University planning Arctic expedition Members of the National Central University's Polar Institute are taking part in what is Taiwan's first ever independently planned expedition (考察／探險) to the Arctic. According to the university, a 30-member team will be spending 12 days near Norway's Svalbard archipelago (群島), which is located midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The team includes scientists from Academia Sinica, the National Taiwan University and the National Academy of Marine Research. The university says although Taiwan is not an Arctic nation, changes in the Arctic could have long-term consequences for Taiwan. UKRAINE WARNS ALLIED AIR DEFENCE MISSILE SUPPLIES DOWN BY A THIRD AS ZELENSKY URGES URGENT ACTION AHEAD OF WINTER Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine has hit more oil facilities deep inside Russia. The attacks are part of Kyiv's effort to undermine (削弱) Moscow's wartime economy. Meanwhile, Russian drone and glide bomb attacks across Ukraine killed at least three civilians and wounded 22 others. Zelenskyy is urging his allies to supply interceptor missiles to bolster (加強／強化) Ukraine's air defenses. William Denselow reports from Brussels. That was William Denselow reporting. Iran reviews ban on US ships An Iranian parliamentary committee is ​reviewing a preliminary bill ‌that would bar (禁止) U.S., Israeli and ​other "hostile" vessels from ​transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The ban was reported by Iran's semi-official ​Fars news agency… and its citing a lawmaker. The draft bill would impose ​fines (處以罰款) of up ​to 20% of a ship's ‌cargo value for violations of the proposed restrictions. The lawmaker said ​the ​legislation was still under expert review ​and that ​parliament had invited specialists to submit recommendations before the ​draft is ​finalised. Canada climate change wildfires In North America, a new analysis (分析) found that climate change created conditions that led to Canada's Wildfires… even though the Trump administration thinks otherwise. Ed Donahue explains. That was the I.C.R.T. EZ News, I'm _. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

*Before a child ever learns language, the nervous system begins writing scripture. Every embrace becomes a sentence. Every absence becomes a definition. Every inconsistency becomes a prophecy. Long before consciousness asks, “Who am I?” survival has already answered, “Become whoever keeps you connected.” Need performs a miracle. It keeps the infant alive. Then, unnoticed, the miracle becomes a monarchy. The architecture that once served survival quietly begins governing identity. Self-worth becomes negotiated. Love becomes verified. Presence becomes performance. Effort becomes evidence. The first environment does not merely teach relationship. It teaches consciousness how to interrupt itself. Perhaps this explains why so many adults call it discernment while living almost entirely inside inherited conclusions. They believe they are evaluating another human being, yet every act of vetting first passes through an invisible inheritance that predates memory itself. The Mother Room has already translated reality before reality has been allowed to speak. Perhaps every wisdom tradition has been circling this same mystery from different horizons. Jung asked whether we remain possessed by what we refuse to see. Krishnamurti questioned whether observation can exist before conclusion. The Dao refuses to force the river because the river never forgot how to become the ocean. Wu wei suggests that life's deepest intelligence appears when compulsion releases its grip. Attachment theory describes the earliest architecture through which safety becomes internalized. Different languages. One investigation. What keeps consciousness from participating in life before it organizes life into something familiar? Relationship therefore becomes something far more unsettling than romance. It becomes the only place where the architecture protecting yesterday collides with the life attempting to arrive today. Every demand for proof. Every craving for reassurance. Every fear of abandonment. Every insistence that love continually demonstrate itself. Each may represent a single movement wearing different disguises: the original pattern asking existence to obey the laws that once made survival possible. Then letting and vetting cease to describe dating strategies. They describe two civilizations living inside one psyche. One civilization believes love must first be secured before it can be trusted. The other discovers that love does not arrive through control, but through participation. Perhaps the greatest relationship never begins between two people. Perhaps it begins the moment consciousness withdraws its unconscious allegiance from yesterday's survival and allows today's embodiment to complete a sentence that fear has interrupted since childhood. Not because love finally arrived. Because the interruption finally departed. CORE PREMISE Every river already knows where it is going. Only the banks believe they are directing the water. Human consciousness appears to carry a similar misunderstanding. Nearly every moment becomes an attempt to negotiate with reality. Accelerate this. Delay that. Keep this. Prevent that. Predict them. Manage uncertainty. Control outcomes. Even love quietly becomes another engineering project. An invisible assumption governs nearly every decision: Life requires my management before it can be trusted. Yet every wisdom tradition eventually arrives at an altogether different possibility. The deepest intelligence may never emerge through greater control. It may emerge only after control exhausts itself. Relationship therefore presents one of the most demanding laboratories a human being will ever enter. Two conditioned identities arrive carrying thousands of conclusions about safety, intimacy, commitment, conflict, masculinity, femininity, trust, abandonment, betrayal, desire, permanence, and love. Each attempts to organize reality around those conclusions. Very little is actually allowed to reveal itself. Perhaps this explains why so much energy becomes invested in determining whether another person deserves entry into our life while almost no attention is given to whether life itself has been allowed to introduce us to ourselves. Vetting asks: “How do I determine whether this person fits the architecture I already possess?” Letting asks: “What architecture within me keeps interrupting reality before reality finishes speaking?” That second question is profoundly Daoist. Because Daoism does not begin with controlling the current. It begins with noticing that the current was already moving before you arrived.

*Before a child ever learns language, the nervous system begins writing scripture. Every embrace becomes a sentence. Every absence becomes a definition. Every inconsistency becomes a prophecy. Long before consciousness asks, “Who am I?” survival has already answered, “Become whoever keeps you connected.” Need performs a miracle. It keeps the infant alive. Then, unnoticed, the miracle becomes a monarchy. The architecture that once served survival quietly begins governing identity. Self-worth becomes negotiated. Love becomes verified. Presence becomes performance. Effort becomes evidence. The first environment does not merely teach relationship. It teaches consciousness how to interrupt itself. Perhaps this explains why so many adults call it discernment while living almost entirely inside inherited conclusions. They believe they are evaluating another human being, yet every act of vetting first passes through an invisible inheritance that predates memory itself. The Mother Room has already translated reality before reality has been allowed to speak. Perhaps every wisdom tradition has been circling this same mystery from different horizons. Jung asked whether we remain possessed by what we refuse to see. Krishnamurti questioned whether observation can exist before conclusion. The Dao refuses to force the river because the river never forgot how to become the ocean. Wu wei suggests that life's deepest intelligence appears when compulsion releases its grip. Attachment theory describes the earliest architecture through which safety becomes internalized. Different languages. One investigation. What keeps consciousness from participating in life before it organizes life into something familiar? Relationship therefore becomes something far more unsettling than romance. It becomes the only place where the architecture protecting yesterday collides with the life attempting to arrive today. Every demand for proof. Every craving for reassurance. Every fear of abandonment. Every insistence that love continually demonstrate itself. Each may represent a single movement wearing different disguises: the original pattern asking existence to obey the laws that once made survival possible. Then letting and vetting cease to describe dating strategies. They describe two civilizations living inside one psyche. One civilization believes love must first be secured before it can be trusted. The other discovers that love does not arrive through control, but through participation. Perhaps the greatest relationship never begins between two people. Perhaps it begins the moment consciousness withdraws its unconscious allegiance from yesterday's survival and allows today's embodiment to complete a sentence that fear has interrupted since childhood. Not because love finally arrived. Because the interruption finally departed. CORE PREMISE Every river already knows where it is going. Only the banks believe they are directing the water. Human consciousness appears to carry a similar misunderstanding. Nearly every moment becomes an attempt to negotiate with reality. Accelerate this. Delay that. Keep this. Prevent that. Predict them. Manage uncertainty. Control outcomes. Even love quietly becomes another engineering project. An invisible assumption governs nearly every decision: Life requires my management before it can be trusted. Yet every wisdom tradition eventually arrives at an altogether different possibility. The deepest intelligence may never emerge through greater control. It may emerge only after control exhausts itself. Relationship therefore presents one of the most demanding laboratories a human being will ever enter. Two conditioned identities arrive carrying thousands of conclusions about safety, intimacy, commitment, conflict, masculinity, femininity, trust, abandonment, betrayal, desire, permanence, and love. Each attempts to organize reality around those conclusions. Very little is actually allowed to reveal itself. Perhaps this explains why so much energy becomes invested in determining whether another person deserves entry into our life while almost no attention is given to whether life itself has been allowed to introduce us to ourselves. Vetting asks: “How do I determine whether this person fits the architecture I already possess?” Letting asks: “What architecture within me keeps interrupting reality before reality finishes speaking?” That second question is profoundly Daoist. Because Daoism does not begin with controlling the current. It begins with noticing that the current was already moving before you arrived.

Takara turns the G1 Predacons into Autobots, third party Dr. Wu has some new micromaster scaled G1 figure redecos, and the UK exclusive Titan Powerplex becomes a real, official toy. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 706 – Playing With Powerplex appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

Takara turns the G1 Predacons into Autobots, third party Dr. Wu has some new micromaster scaled G1 figure redecos, and the UK exclusive Titan Powerplex becomes a real, official toy. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 706 – Playing With Powerplex appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

Thousands signed a letter accusing Wu of slow-walking the transportation safety agenda she ran on. But the tragedy is also personal for the mayor. Gag once interned in Wu's old city council office.

What's the most powerful tool in any classroom? In the age of AI, education advocate Matt Wu still believes it's the people. In this hopeful talk, he discusses the nonprofit he leads, Schoolhouse, which pairs students with peer tutors from across the globe, building the crucial human connection that every person needs to thrive. Peer tutoring isn't just teaching students how to learn concepts, says Wu. It's teaching them how to better understand one another. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Get your note pads out. This episode is packed with a bunch of information for anybody who is interested in getting into the Music business. Dula and myself had the pleasure of having a conversation with Matthew “M80”Markoff. Some of you may not be familiar with the name, but his resume speaks for itself. From working with everybody from the WU to Snoop to Kurpupt, he's been an A&R and music attorney for the past, 20 years. Great stories, and a lot of information. ENJOY!!

In a highly unusual move in the insular world of Massachusetts politics, Wu is the first mayor in recent memory to openly campaign against state senators who have blocked her priorities.

So BW2 Galvatron has a full reveal this week, TFcon show off one of the con exclusives and more Micromaster sized guys from Dr Wu

It's the Wimbledon 2026 1st Round Show. We'll cover all of the following: Ben Shelton's gutting 5th-set tiebreak loss to Otto Virtanen, Serena Williams' comeback effort--- a loss to Maya Joint. Jannik Sinner found himself down 2-1, but survivied Miomir Kecmanovic. Novak Djokovic came through a high-quality battle with Yibing Wu, and more! 0:00 Intro 1:20 Virtanen d. Shelton 17:19 Joint d. Serena 29:49 Sinner d. Kecmanovic 36:10 Draper Withdrawal 38:10 Djokovic d. Wu 42:45 Mensik d. Samuel 46:12 Swiatek d. Townsend 47:52 Saffiulin d. Rublev IG: https://www.instagram.com/gillgross_/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gill.gross24/7 Tennis Community on Tribe: https://tribechat.com/gillTwitter/X: https://twitter.com/Gill_GrossThe Draw newsletter, your one-stop-shop for the best tennis content on the internet every week: https://www.thedraw.tennis/subscribeBecome a member to support the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvERpLl9dXH09fuNdbyiLQQ/joinEvans Brothers Coffee Roasters, the Official Coffee Of Monday Match Analysis... use code GILLGROSS25 for 25% off your first order: https://evansbrotherscoffee.com/collections/coffeeAUDIO PODCAST FEEDSSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5c3VXnLDVVgLfZuGk3yxIF?si=AQy9oRlZTACoGr5XS3s_ygItunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/monday-match-analysis/id1432259450?mt=2 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dr. Wu has a super small Sixshot coming soon, TFC toys shows off a transforming cobra rattler from G.I. Joe, and we get early hints of Hasbro's next Titan figure coming in 2027. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 701 – Great Balls Of Steel appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

央行最新預測把台灣2026年經濟成長率上調到9.45%，而看起來消費者物價指數好溫和啊，這是一個完美的消息嗎？大家不要高興得太早⋯⋯ 問題是：如果經濟成長這麼強，為什麼通膨預測還能維持在相對低的水準？我們就來探究原因吧。 先講結論：好消息是：股票也許還會急漲急跌，但是存股的人在黃仁勳團隊以及護國神山的庇蔭之下，這幾年不用太擔心， 但是．．多數人會承受到的經濟體感，可能並沒有數字看起來那麼完美！ / 「台南寢具南霸天」的億進寢具，千坪現代化廠房、全台超過 40 家直營門市、年營收破 6 億，這次是我們第一次合作，也特別提供比周年慶還優惠的價格回饋給朋友們，送紗布超吸水運動毛巾+超細丹天絲枕套！ 請看優惠連結

Last time we spoke about the battle of Shanggao. From late March to early April 1940, Japanese forces attacked Shanggao in Jiangxi with a multi‑pronged offensive. Chinese commanders used elastic defense and coordinated counter-moves, trading space for time through layered positions until the Japanese advanced into prepared strongpoints. As the 34th Division moved toward the town, assaults repeatedly hit ridges and bridge lines held by the 74th Corps. Heavy air strikes caused chaos, but timely flank redeployments prevented a decisive breakthrough. During the crisis around March 21–24, Chinese units maneuvered an encirclement and executed a controlled breakout at the critical moment. After intense fighting and bombing, the Japanese were routed and fell back to their original positions. The wider war did not change, yet Shanggao proved that disciplined Chinese planning could reverse Japanese offensives against superior initiative and numbers.   #207 Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. By the spring of 1941, the War of Resistance against Japan had been grinding for nearly four years, and the map of China looked increasingly like a wound. Japan controlled the coastal cities, the major river valleys, and most of the productive lowland plains of the north and east. The Nationalist government had retreated far inland to Chongqing, governing a rump state of mountainous hinterland, foreign sympathies, and diminishing resources. The war had long since ceased to look like a conventional conflict between organized fronts and had settled into something grimmer and more ambiguous — a slow war of attrition fought in the mud and rocks of the Chinese interior, punctuated by Japanese offensives designed not to end the war but to compress it, to squeeze the Nationalists tighter with each season until surrender became a rational calculation rather than a humiliation. Japan had tried other methods first. In the late 1930s, Tokyo made serious overtures to Chiang Kai-shek's government, proposing a negotiated settlement that would see China aligned with Japan and the puppet Wang Jingwei government elevated as the vehicle for that arrangement. Chiang refused. He had gambled, and would continue to gamble, that the war in Europe would eventually draw in the Western powers, that American patience with Japanese aggression would run out, and that time was ultimately on China's side. The strategy required suffering in the present to buy survival in the future. Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the subsequent expansion of war across Europe only reinforced Japan's desire to accelerate its operations in China before the international situation made them impossible. By 1940, Japan signaled it intended to resolve the "China Incident" — the bureaucratic euphemism it used to avoid officially acknowledging that it was fighting a full-scale war — once and for all. The question was where. The front was hundreds of miles long. The Japanese army in China was stretched thin despite its nominal strength. Spectacular victories in the lowlands had failed to produce the political capitulation Tokyo expected. And in the mountains of Shanxi Province, a particular irritant had been festering for three years — one that the Japanese could neither ignore nor seem to dislodge. The Zhongtiao Mountains rise along the southern edge of Shanxi Province, running roughly east to west for some two hundred miles, forming a natural wall between the loess plateaus of Shanxi and the plains of northern Henan below. The range is not dramatic by Chinese standards — it is not the soaring, cloud-piercing landscape of Sichuan or Yunnan — but it is rugged, deeply ridged, and extraordinarily difficult to move through quickly. For a defending army with knowledge of the terrain, the Zhongtiao range was close to ideal. For an attacker, especially one dependent on mechanized firepower and coordinated logistics, it was a nightmare. Chinese forces had occupied the Zhongtiao Mountains since 1938, following the fall of Taiyuan and the retreat of Nationalist forces from the broader Shanxi campaign. At a moment when much of northern China was collapsing around them, the garrison there dug in and refused to move. Over the following three years, the Japanese Army mounted thirteen separate offensives against the Zhongtiao position. All thirteen failed. The mountains held. Chinese soldiers would later call it the "Eastern Maginot Line," a nickname that was simultaneously a boast and, in retrospect, a warning — the original Maginot Line, after all, had also been considered impregnable until the enemy simply went around it. But the strategic importance of Zhongtiao went beyond prestige. The mountains commanded the northern approach to the Yellow River crossings — the great geographic boundary that separated Japanese-controlled northern China from the Nationalist-held central and western regions. From their positions in the mountains, Chinese troops could threaten Japanese supply lines, protect their own river logistics, and maintain at least a symbolic presence north of the Yellow River. As long as the Zhongtiao garrison held, Japan could not claim complete control of northern China. It was also a potential launching point for a Chinese counteroffensive, should one ever become possible. The Japanese understood this perfectly. By 1940, eliminating the Zhongtiao position had become not merely desirable but strategically necessary. The First War Zone command responsible for the Zhongtiao garrison was, at least on paper, an imposing force. Between 170,000 and 180,000 men were deployed across the mountain range and its approaches, drawn from multiple armies and organized into several large groupings. The 5th Army Group under Zeng Wanzhong held the central area. The 14th Army Group under Liu Maoen operated in the eastern sector. The 4th Army Group, known as the "Iron Pillar of Zhongtiao" for its tenacious defense of the position over three years, was stationed as the backbone of the force. Individual armies were spread across specific nodes: Pei Changhui's 9th Army at Jiyuan in northern Henan; Zhao Shiling's 43rd Army at Yuanqu at the southernmost tip of Shanxi; Tang Huaiyuan's 3rd Army and Kong Lingxun's 80th Army in the Wenxi and Xiaxian areas; Wu Shimin's 98th Army at Dongfeng Town; Wu Tinglin's 15th Army near Gaoping. The man responsible for holding all of this together was Wei Lihuang, a gifted commander and one of Chiang Kai-shek's most capable generals. Wei had organized the Zhongtiao defense from the beginning, and his strategic instincts were widely respected. He was, by most accounts, the indispensable figure in the garrison's survival. The problem was that Wei had made powerful enemies. His refusal to participate in anti-Communist friction operations — at a time when the Nationalist government was increasingly focused on neutralizing the Communists even at the cost of Japanese resistance — had alienated him from a circle of powerful rivals, including the influential Hu Zongnan. Outmaneuvered at court, Wei was summoned to Chongqing in early 1941 and, under the pretext of strategic consultations, was effectively detained at Mount Emei. He never returned to his command in the Zhongtiao Mountains. The army he had built was left without its architect. The garrison that remained was compromised far beyond its missing commander, however. Three years of static defense had created conditions that corroded military discipline in predictable and insidious ways. Supply lines were unreliable, rations were short, and the soldiers garrisoning remote mountain positions had turned, by necessity and then by habit, to the local economy to sustain themselves. A bustling illicit trade in grain and opium had sprung up across the mountain zone, with Chinese troops selling what they could and buying what they needed from merchants who operated equally comfortably on both sides of the Japanese-Chinese frontier. This was not merely a logistical failure. It meant that Japanese intelligence had abundant commercial cover to infiltrate the garrison area, that security was a fiction, and that the defensive posture of the entire force had quietly shifted from warlike readiness to something closer to bureaucratic occupation. The Japanese had not missed any of this. For months before the offensive, Japanese intelligence agents had worked their way into the garrison's supply networks, trading relationships, and eventually its command structure itself. Japanese special forces had identified key headquarters positions. Informants had mapped the positions of individual units, traced the routes between them, and assessed the readiness of the men holding them. By the spring of 1941, Japanese planners believed, with considerable justification, that they could paralyze the entire Chinese command system within an hour of opening fire. This was not boasting. It was reconnaissance. Back in Chongqing, the intelligence picture was worse than unclear — it was actively distorted. The Nationalist intelligence apparatus issued warnings about Japanese troop movements near the Zhongtiao perimeter in April 1941, but the warnings were partial, their significance disputed, and the political will to act on them absent. A series of conferences were convened at Luoyang, the regional headquarters. Fortification orders were issued. Additional supplies were promised. Almost none of the follow-through actually materialized. The garrison's most powerful formation, the 4th Army Group, had already been transferred away from the area. Its absence left a hole in the defensive line that no amount of paper orders could fill. On the Japanese side, the operation that would eliminate the Zhongtiao garrison was carefully and systematically prepared. It was codenamed the "Central Plains Campaign" — a name that reflected its true ambition, which was not merely to take a mountain range but to reshape the strategic geography of the entire region. The operation was assigned to the North China Area Army under Lieutenant General Tada Shun, an experienced commander who had studied the Zhongtiao problem for years and had a clear understanding of why previous offensives had failed. The core of the attacking force was seven divisions: the 33rd, 35th, 36th, 37th, 41st, and 21st Divisions, along with several independent mixed brigades, puppet Chinese formations, cavalry, and a substantial artillery and air component. The 3rd Air Group, operating from airfields at Yuncheng and Xinxiang, would provide tactical air support throughout the operation. In total, the frontline assault force numbered approximately 100,000 men. This was not a repeat of the previous thirteen offensives, in which the Japanese had probed and pressed at the mountains frontally. This was a comprehensive annihilation plan. Tada's design exploited the geographic shape of the Zhongtiao position itself. The Chinese garrison occupied a roughly crescent-shaped area, with its back to the Yellow River and its front facing north and east into Japanese-held territory. The obvious previous approach — attacking from the north — had failed repeatedly because the terrain favored the defenders. Tada's solution was to attack from three directions simultaneously, with the town of Yuanqu on the Yellow River as the primary objective. Yuanqu was the hinge of the entire Chinese position: it controlled the main river crossings, served as the central supply point for the garrison, and sat at the narrowest point between the mountains and the water. If Yuanqu fell, the Chinese would be cut off from their supply line and divided into two separate pockets. Then each pocket could be destroyed at leisure. To execute this, Tada organized his forces into three attack groups. The eastern group, built around Lieutenant General Harada Yukichi's 35th Division with elements of the 21st Division and the 4th Independent Cavalry Brigade — totaling roughly 25,000 men with armor, artillery, and supporting puppet forces — would drive westward along the Daoqing Road, pushing through Jiyuan and Mengxian toward the eastern flank of the Chinese position. The northeastern group, under Lieutenant General Shozo Sakurai commanding the 33rd Division and an Independent Mixed Brigade, would descend from Yangcheng southward, striking at the middle of the Chinese line. The western and northwestern group, the largest, comprising the 36th, 37th, and 41st Divisions along with the 9th and 16th Independent Mixed Brigades, would push southward from multiple points between Sangchi and Zhangdian, driving straight for Yuanqu. The final element of the plan was the most audacious. Japanese special forces and paratroopers were to land behind Chinese lines on the opening night of the offensive, targeting the Chinese headquarters and communications nodes. If the Chinese command could be blinded and paralyzed in the first hours of the battle, resistance would collapse before it could organize. Given the penetration of the garrison by Japanese intelligence, the paratroopers knew precisely where to go. From late April, Japanese forces quietly moved into their assault positions. Supply dumps were stocked. Artillery was registered on Chinese positions. The attack was set for the morning of May 7, 1941. Everything was ready. The battle opened before dawn on May 7, and it opened everywhere at once. On the eastern front, Harada's 35th Division and its attached formations crossed the start line and drove westward in three parallel columns along the Daoqing Road. More than 5,000 infantrymen, 1,000 cavalry, dozens of artillery pieces, over 100 tanks and armored vehicles, and the supporting puppet troops of Zhang Lanfeng and Liu Yanfeng poured into the Chinese-held area around Jiyuan and Mengxian. The assault had an almost mechanical quality — it moved at the pace of its armor and artillery, methodically grinding through whatever lay in its path. On the northeastern front, Sakurai's 33rd Division descended from Yangcheng with more than 10,000 men, striking at Wu Shimin's 98th Army at Dongfeng Town. Wu was one of the more aggressive Chinese commanders in the garrison, and he did not wait to be overwhelmed. He threw his forces into active resistance on multiple axes, contesting each Japanese advance rather than simply absorbing it. In the fighting around Wangcun, his troops achieved one of the campaign's rare Chinese tactical successes, routing approximately 2,000 Japanese attackers and killing more than 700, including Colonel Hamada, a Japanese regimental commander. It was a genuine local victory, but it could not change the larger picture. On the western and northwestern front, the main Japanese force pushed south with its eyes fixed on Yuanqu. The coordinated weight of three divisions and two independent brigades, all moving along converging axes, was designed to be overwhelming. Individually, a Chinese unit might hold a ridge or a pass for a day. Collectively, there was no way to stop what was coming. And that same night, as the Chinese scrambled to respond to attacks on every side, Japanese paratroopers landed near Chinese headquarters positions. They found what intelligence had promised: a command system already in disarray, staffed by officers who had received no coherent orders and had lost communications with most of their subordinate units. The Japanese were not wrong when they predicted they could paralyze the Chinese command within hours. By the morning of May 8, the Chinese First War Zone headquarters had effectively ceased to function as a coordinating body. Individual armies would fight on, but they would fight alone. The second day of the battle brought the decisive blow. On the afternoon of May 8, the 9th Army under Pei Changhui — already reeling from the pressure of the eastern Japanese columns — abandoned the cities of Ji and Meng and fell back westward. The withdrawal opened a path through the Chinese line, and the Japanese exploited it immediately. That evening, with the assistance of paratroopers who had secured key access routes overnight, Japanese forces reached Yuanqu on the Yellow River's northern bank and took it. The fall of Yuanqu changed everything. At a single stroke, the Chinese garrison's supply line from the south bank of the Yellow River was severed. The main crossing points were in Japanese hands. The two halves of the Chinese position — those to the east of Yuanqu and those to the west — were now separated, unable to reinforce one another. The double encirclement that Tada had designed on paper became a physical reality on the ground. The trap had closed. May 9 brought further disaster. Japanese forces captured Wufujian, another significant point in the Chinese rear. And on this day the battle's human cost began to register in the most stark terms possible. Wang Jun, commander of the newly formed 27th Division of Kong Lingxun's 80th Army, was killed in action fighting in the southern Shanxi mountains. Major General Chen Wenqi, deputy commander of the 24th Division, died in fierce combat near Taizhai Village. And Major General Liang Xixian, having retreated with the remnants of his force to Taizhai and found every route blocked — his options reduced to surrender or death — walked into the Yellow River and drowned himself. He was not the last Chinese officer to choose death over capture. The loss of three generals in a single day was not merely tragic. It reflected something about the nature of the battle that the casualty statistics alone could not capture: the Chinese officers who fought most fiercely and refused to abandon their positions were precisely the men dying, while the broader institutional structure that should have supported them had already failed. The garrison was being consumed from its fighting edge inward. Over the following two days, the Japanese methodically tightened the ring. The eastern column, having taken Yuanqu, split into two prongs: one drove eastward, capturing Shaoyuan by the morning of May 12 and linking up with the forces that had been pressing westward from Jiyuan; the other drove westward to Wufujian, joining with the troops already there. The inner encirclement was now complete and continuous. The Yellow River crossings along the entire Chinese front were blocked. There was no route south that wasn't already under fire or in Japanese hands. The fighting in the mountain passes was, by all accounts, ferocious. At Fengmenkou — a critical pass that both sides recognized as a key chokepoint — the Chinese 9th Army committed the main force of its newly formed 24th Division along with elements of the 54th Division, fighting for every ridge and ravine. The Japanese sent reinforcements and simply absorbed the punishment, pressing forward until numbers and artillery told. By May 12, the position at Jianshan had been surrounded as well, and the outer ring of encirclement had sealed. The Chinese armies in the Zhongtiao Mountains were now divided into isolated pockets, each fighting separately, each trying to find a gap in the Japanese lines that simply wasn't there. Beyond the mountains, the Chinese high command in Luoyang was issuing desperate orders. Units that had already been overrun were instructed to hold positions they no longer occupied. Army commanders who had lost contact with their corps were told to coordinate with formations they couldn't reach. The gap between the orders flowing from headquarters and the reality on the ground had become absolute. The First War Zone command was, in practical terms, a spectator to the destruction of its own army. Of all the days in the three-week battle, May 13 was perhaps the most devastating for Chinese morale. At Cunbu, in the western sector, the 3rd Army under Lieutenant General Tang Huaiyuan had been surrounded and cut off. Tang was among the finest officers in the Nationalist army — a career soldier of exceptional ability, admired by subordinates and superiors alike, the kind of commander who by his personal presence could steady troops on the edge of breaking. He had led the 3rd Army in continuous fighting since May 7, conducting a fighting retreat that had preserved more of his force than most. But there was nowhere left to retreat to. Cunbu was surrounded on all sides. The Yellow River was behind him. The Japanese were in front. Tang Huaiyuan sat with his surviving officers and told them that he would not surrender. Then he shot himself. He was fifty-seven years old. On the same day, Cun Xingqi, commander of the 12th Division, was hit eight times during close combat and died on the field. The tally of dead general officers had now reached five in the space of a week. Tang Huaiyuan's death, unlike the others, resonated as something more than a military loss. He was a symbol of what the Zhongtiao defense had once represented: the possibility that courage and skill could compensate for disadvantages in firepower and logistics. His death seemed to say, loudly, that that possibility was exhausted. Chiang Kai-shek, when news reached him in Chongqing, personally ordered that Tang Huaiyuan be posthumously promoted and honored. The gesture was well-intentioned and entirely beside the point. Tang was dead. His army was destroyed. The gesture could not undo either fact. With the double encirclement complete and the primary Chinese resistance broken, the Japanese Army entered the second and less dramatic but equally brutal phase of its operation: the systematic clearance of what remained. Beginning around May 15, Japanese units shifted from the headlong offensive drives of the first week to methodical sweep operations, moving through the mountain terrain in organized formations, pressing into each remaining pocket and eliminating whatever resistance they found. The Yellow River's northern bank was secured by Japanese forces who established posts at the crossing points, blocking retreat and interdicting any resupply attempt. From the western front, sweep operations continued in a series of movements that lasted until well into June, each one driving Chinese remnants further into smaller and more untenable positions. Japanese after-action reports from this period read with the clinical detachment of men doing carpentry rather than fighting: so many positions cleared, so many prisoners taken, so many bodies counted. For the surviving Chinese forces, this period was one of desperate improvisation. With coordinated resistance impossible and every organized position either taken or surrounded, the remnant armies broke up into smaller columns and attempted to find their own routes out of the encirclement. Their experiences varied enormously depending on their starting position, the initiative of their commanders, and fortune. The remnants of the 3rd Army and 15th Army, under Zeng Wanzhong of the 5th Army Group, managed to push through to Yellow River crossings in the west and get their men across to the south bank, eventually reorganizing at Luoyang and Xin'an. The 93rd Army, which had occupied positions in the northeast, shook off the Japanese pursuit with sufficient speed and organization to cross at Yumenkou and escape into Hancheng County in Shaanxi Province, preserving more of its fighting strength than most. Wu Shimin's 98th Army — whose fighting at Wangcun had been one of the campaign's genuine bright spots — was pushed northward into the Taiyue Mountains, conducting guerrilla operations as it went. Wu himself was wounded during the withdrawal and would spend months recovering; he never fully recovered his health, and would die by suicide the following year. The 43rd Army under Zhao Shiling, which had held Yuanqu before its fall, managed a fighting withdrawal toward Fushan and Yicheng in the north. Pei Changhui's 9th Army conducted several days of guerrilla operations along the Daoqing Road before finding crossings at Xiaodukou and Guanyangdukou and getting across the Yellow River to safety. By May 27, the great majority of the Zhongtiao Mountain garrison had either been destroyed, captured, or withdrawn. The mountains that had held for three years were in Japanese hands. The battle, for all practical purposes, was over. The two sides emerged from the battle with starkly different accounts of what had happened, and the gap between those accounts is itself revealing. Japanese operational records claimed that their forces had killed approximately 42,000 Chinese soldiers on the battlefield, taken around 35,000 prisoners, captured enormous quantities of weapons and supplies, and inflicted total Chinese casualties exceeding 100,000. Against this, Japanese headquarters reported their own losses as 673 killed and 2,292 wounded — a ratio so lopsided that it seemed to describe a completely different kind of warfare. Whether or not the precise numbers are accurate, Japanese sources were consistent in portraying the battle as a catastrophic one-sided rout. The Chinese government's official figures, presented to the public and to allied nations, told a very different story. Nationalist records acknowledged approximately 13,751 officers and soldiers killed, wounded, gassed, or missing, while claiming Japanese casualties of around 9,900. These numbers, by the standards of the actual fighting and the geographic scale of the defeat, strained credulity. They were the numbers of a government that needed, for political and morale reasons, to minimize a disaster it could not afford to fully acknowledge. What is beyond dispute is the strategic result. The Zhongtiao garrison, which had held for three years against thirteen prior offensives, had been destroyed in twenty days. The last significant Nationalist Chinese presence north of the Yellow River in the region had been eliminated. Japan now controlled the northern bank of the river for a substantial stretch, had secured its supply lines through southern Shanxi, and had opened the door for future pressure on Luoyang and ultimately Xi'an. The mountain barrier that had allowed Chinese forces to threaten Japanese logistics was gone. It would not be rebuilt. Six senior Chinese generals had died in the battle: Wang Jun, Chen Wenqi, Liang Xixian, Tang Huaiyuan, Cun Xingqi, and others in the fighting. Their deaths were individually remarkable — men choosing death over surrender at rate that reflected both the desperate conditions of the battle and a code of honor that many of them explicitly invoked in their final moments. They were also, in aggregate, a measure of how completely the officer corps had been consumed. In the decades since the battle, historians have returned repeatedly to the question of why a position held for three years collapsed so completely in three weeks. The answers are neither simple nor flattering to the Nationalist government, and they were debated with bitter intensity in Chongqing even while the battle was still being fought. The most immediate cause was the removal of Wei Lihuang. This was not merely the loss of a capable general — it was the destruction of the institutional knowledge and personal relationships that had made the defense function. The Zhongtiao garrison was not simply a collection of soldiers in mountain positions; it was a system, carefully constructed over three years, that depended on specific command relationships, established logistics arrangements, and particular allocation of resources. Wei had built that system. Without him, and without any adequate replacement, it became something far more brittle than it appeared. Below the level of high command, the garrison's gradual corruption was an equally powerful factor. The trading networks, the opium commerce, the penetration by Japanese intelligence — these were not incidental problems but symptoms of a deeper institutional failure. An army that has spent three years in static defensive positions, chronically undersupplied and without a meaningful offensive mission, tends toward exactly this kind of decay. The Nationalist government's decision to prioritize anti-Communist friction operations over Zhongtiao's fighting readiness had removed the 4th Army Group — the backbone of the defense — and had consumed Wei Lihuang's attention and political capital at the worst possible moment. The Japanese plan, too, deserves credit it rarely receives in Chinese accounts of the battle. The three-pronged converging attack on Yuanqu was not simply overwhelming force applied to an obvious target. It was an elegant solution to the genuine tactical puzzle that the Zhongtiao mountains presented, exploiting the garrison's geographic vulnerability with a precision that turned the defenders' mountain terrain from an asset into a trap. The use of paratroopers to decapitate the Chinese command in the opening hours was a sophisticated operational concept that worked almost exactly as designed. Tada Shun was not lucky. He was thorough. Finally, there is the question of Chiang Kai-shek's own priorities. His reported weeping upon receiving news of the defeat was genuine, in the sense that the loss clearly shocked and grieved him. But the decisions that led to the defeat — Wei Lihuang's removal, the transfer of the 4th Army Group, the neglect of fortification and resupply in the months preceding the battle — had been made in Chongqing, not in the mountains. The Zhongtiao garrison had been strategically sacrificed, piece by piece, for political calculations in the internal factional struggle between Nationalists and Communists. Whether Chiang understood the cost of those choices before May 7, 1941, is debatable. After that date, it was difficult to pretend otherwise. The fall of the Zhongtiao Mountains did not end the War of Resistance, but it substantially worsened China's strategic position in the north. Over the following months, Japan used its consolidated control of southern Shanxi to increase pressure on the Yellow River line and probe toward Luoyang. The surviving Chinese armies, reorganized south of the river, were in no position to counterattack. The mountains themselves, stripped of their garrison and secured by Japanese occupation troops, became part of the extended Japanese occupation zone — a territory to be administered and exploited rather than contested. For the men who had fought there, the battle left wounds that went beyond the physical. Entire armies had to be rebuilt from remnants. Officers who had retreated, whether under orders or on their own initiative, faced boards of inquiry in an atmosphere of recrimination and blame-seeking. Some were cashiered. Some faced criminal proceedings. The search for culpability — which was genuine enough, since the failure was genuine — tended to fall on those least able to defend themselves rather than on the senior commanders and political figures whose decisions had created the conditions for defeat. The posthumous honors awarded to Tang Huaiyuan, Liang Xixian, Wang Jun, and the other officers who died in battle were heartfelt, and they were also convenient. The heroic dead could be elevated without requiring the living to answer uncomfortable questions. Their sacrifice was real. The system that wasted it was also real. In the broader history of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain tends to be overshadowed by more famous engagements — Shanghai, Nanjing, Taierzhuang, the later battles along the Salween. This is partly because the Chinese side lost comprehensively and had little interest in memorializing the loss, and partly because the battle's significance was more strategic than dramatic. There was no great last stand, no single moment of heroism sufficient to redeem the catastrophe. There were only men dying in mountain passes, generals walking into rivers, and an entire defensive system disintegrating under the weight of its own contradictions. What the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain represents, in the end, is a case study in how military positions are really lost. They are rarely lost on the battlefield alone. They are lost in the staff meetings where capable commanders are removed for political reasons. They are lost in the supply depots that never get restocked. They are lost in the informal economies that grow up when institutions stop functioning. They are lost in the intelligence assessments that are written and ignored. They are lost, finally and irreversibly, in the early morning hours when the guns open simultaneously on three sides and the men at the radios discover that no one is answering.     I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. On May 7, 1941, Japan opened a three-front assault on Zhongtiao Mountains; paratroopers disrupted command night. With the 9th Army withdrawing, Yuanqu fell on May 8, severing supply and trapping the garrison. Fighting raged through May 13, costing generals, until Japanese sweeps cleared pockets; survivors escaped south of Yellow River.

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