Returning to routine after a faraway trip has its irritations, exacerbated by jet lag. Perusing the Trump administration’s report Science: A New Golden Age, I saw little point in writing about the vacuous document, instead recalling what a critic said about the long-ago Olivia Newton-John movie Xanadu, that critiquing it would be like shooting arrows into a ghost.
I resumed my (contract) work for Scientific American, a magazine that changed hands shortly before I left for Southeast Asia. “I shouldn’t write a eulogy for something that’s not dead. But I fear for the future of Scientific American—and science journalism as a whole,” wrote John Horgan, a friend and former colleague. I share such concerns but nonetheless see the publication’s value and prospects as meriting the benefit of the doubt.
Cambodia stuck with me. I was pleased to learn friends plan to travel there, as I’ve info for them including WhatsApp numbers for a driver and a tuk tuk operator. I re-watched The Killing Fields (1984), then saw First They Killed My Father (2017), directed by Angelina Jolie, based on the memoir of Loung Ung. The latter, witnessed through a child’s eyes, is even more harrowing than the former, centered on journalist Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston’s performance conveys he was an asshole) and his assistant Dith Pran.
There’s plenty to criticize about US historical policies toward Cambodia (not just the secret bombings, aimed at stopping North Vietnam’s use of Cambodian territory, but done with little thought for the welfare of Cambodians—but also later US backing, with China, of “Democratic Kampuchea,” a coalition including the Khmer Rouge, to hold Cambodia’s UN seat, in opposition to the Vietnam-installed government). Still, both movies rightly highlight the Khmer Rouge’s extreme evil. As William Safire wrote in 1979, “The blame belongs to the murderers, not to those who disagreed about how or when to resist.”
China’s close to Cambodia today, notwithstanding its onetime backing of the country’s tormentors. As my son noted, the many temples we saw typically had restoration projects funded by China (with one exception, funded by India). Siem Reap’s new airport’s also a China-backed undertaking, part of the Belt and Road infrastructure initiative aimed at bolstering China’s influence. (Similarly, the Encore Theater we attended in Malaysia was China-funded, reflected in the show’s content that emphasized early Chinese contacts in Malaysian history, though this bit of “soft power” didn’t seem pernicious.)
I watched part of The Economist’s interview with Elon Musk, after asking my son to gift it to me (he has a subscription) but not finishing it before the gift link expired. There was much to disagree with in what I saw. I don’t believe AI will be able to do all jobs better than humans in 2036, with residual human work akin to serving home-grown vegetables at a dinner party, a “nice touch” despite flaws not found in store-bought vegetables. I don’t believe that zero people died because of DOGE aid cuts, nor that the Gates Foundation or anyone else could’ve readily stepped in to fix the negative effects of the sudden slashes.
Musk’s cause of data centers in space also should worry even those, like me, broadly sympathetic to technology and capitalism. Space data centers would exacerbate issues of atmospheric pollution from launches, orbital debris colliding or falling to Earth, and light pollution that interferes with astronomy and viewing of the sky. Astronomer Geoffrey Marcy recently wrote that such data centers would be visible in daylight as well as night: “In daylight hours near dawn and dusk, the orbiting computational facilities would appear as a series of industrial objects visibly moving across the blue sky from north to south.”
I recently sat in a rowboat making its way through a Cambodian lake filled with lotus plants. My wife and I held colorful umbrellas against the sun. A local woman rowed us, pausing to demonstrate how the lotus flowers could be turned into bouquets, and the leaves of the plant fashioned into a makeshift hat. The hippies were right to appreciate such scenes.