Profile avatar
aabastian.com
Freelance Journalist, Professional Interpreter. @ForeignPolicy, Journal of Burma Studies, Honorable Mention “Japanese Carp”-75th Writers Digest Competition, @WIROB, Pan-Asia, 19th C, China/Taiwan https://aabastian.com Book forthcoming 2025 Washington, DC
145 posts 1,582 followers 7,462 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
Posts 29 Comments 21

trade secret: historians actually include all years in the history books

submitted 8 days ago • 6 comments

This is very grim: huge cuts for US foreign aid for #Burma #Myanmar humanrightsmyanmar.org/america-cuts...

submitted 15 hours ago • 0 comments

One journey map near complete for the book! (I’ve contracted with an illustrator.)

submitted 23 hours ago • 1 comment

A colleague just shared this photo of the French ambassador’s lady liberty statue dressed in Ukraine’s flag.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Trump aligning with Putin should actually be harder than it looks. The globe balances itself with poles. One heavy axis at the United States requires two counterweight axes in China & Russia. If the U.S. weights with Russia, one of the other two will need to move another direction to rebalance.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

The EEOC filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk's company, Tesla, alleging it allowed "severe racial harassment" of Black employees including “frequent direct verbal racial attacks” and the “constant presence of racist graffiti evocative of lynchings.” Every story about these cuts should say that.

submitted 2 days ago • 26 comments

Jack Weatherford's new book on the Mongol Empire and its sea power #histbookchat #sinology

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

They fucking lost the Daily Fucking Mail. My God.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Ok. Blow horns is a bad idea. So how about this? Ukraine Wear Ukraine 🇺🇦 paraphernalia. Flags Bring small flags of different colors. Code them with meanings. Red—against the constitution. Green—acceptable. Orange—Fact check needed. Yellow—slow down. Purple—follow up needed. Etc.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Nothing going on in the U.S. is surprising me at all because this ongoing pandemic has taught me people are willing to sacrifice those even those closest to them for a hamburger in a restaurant

submitted 3 days ago • 14 comments

Honestly, watching a show like Devil in the Family about Ruby Franke makes me remember why it’s so hard to publish a book with Mormons for mainstream audiences.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Wear Ukraine shirts/paraphernalia and pipe over his speech with blow horns. He’s had no respect for anything, why should he have free reign over the mic?

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

I really hope Kevin Franke takes a lot more time before he marries again. But watch him dive in really fast again… Mormon marriage pressure is real. And lots of women will go for him.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Whether or he is controlled by Putin, as horrible as that thought is, is a secondary consideration.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

This scrum of pot-bellied, sunken-chested betas trying to bully an all-black clad badass Eastern European wasteland survivor while dressed like Men’s Wearhouse mannequins is peak cinema.

submitted 3 days ago • 3410 comments

Leader of the free world.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Zelensky got a win by being televised standing up to Trump and Vance. Trump and Vance are taking a serious backlash at home. And hopefully across the world.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Zelensky is every person around the world who ever wanted to stand up to the United States, and specifically Trump and Vance. Trump and Vance played out an extension of Russian aggression, and got a man very versed on how to deal with Putin.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Watching Putin’s little stooges try to bully Zelenskyy in our goddamned White House is pretty repulsive.

submitted 3 days ago • 508 comments

One of the most powerful political cartoons I have seen. Follow the artist at @ellabaron.bsky.social.

submitted 8 days ago • 171 comments

The near lack of klan activity in Utah was interesting to me so I looked it up. Turns out they hated Mormons. www.uen.org/utah_history...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

I celebrate the 80% of Germans who did not vote for the far right. Do not make 19.6% of German voters into "the" German people (again). "The" German people don't exist! The German population is diverse and divided, but voted overwhelmingly for liberal democratic parties. #BTW25 #GermanElection

submitted 8 days ago • 152 comments

This is what leadership looks like.

submitted 8 days ago • 6 comments

A bass drum The Blue Syncopators that played aboard the ships of the Ocean Steam Ship Company, better known as The Blue Funnel Line. It’s dated as from the 1940s/1950s. Famously the Blue Funnel line, often with majority ethnic-Chinese crews, connected Liverpool with Shanghai and Hong Kong

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

A lot of signs Trump won’t be able to consolidate the military behind him. Saideman has some interesting thoughts. I’ll add my own potential division points below.

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

Mothballs are purchased, A sigh: waistcoats put away. Bombay Winter fades.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

The most interesting thing to watch right now is Musk/Trump’s take over of DoD (military). DoD is the other bastion of raw power (besides treasury/financial). The DoD originally won (a more logical, surgical cut) as we got the news earlier today. But that news got rewritten later in the evening.

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Is “king” really going to play better in the U.S. than “dictator”?

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Trump does imperialism like he’s echoing left-wing radio and just off stabilizing the antennae during a staticky movie. Thats not how the British colonized the world.

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment