Via Andrew Sullivan, I read Roger Cohen’s piece in the NYTimes from the 26th. The following note was given to an Afgan released from Guantanamo back in 2006:

“An Administrative Review Board has reviewed the information about you that was talked about at the meeting on 02 December 2005 and the deciding official in the United States has made a decision about what will happen to you. You will be sent to the country of Afghanistan. Your departure will occur as soon as possible.”

That’s it. The whole thing. And that language? Brutal. Orwell guessed 22 years early.

Andrew’s post is here. The NYTimes piece is here.

The past few days have involved a lot of reading of good writing, and a few emails to friends back home, and through all of it I have quickly realized that the biggest problem for me is going to be a lack of stimulating conversation for a while. Between classes and work I have very little free time, and with those two I am either working in broken Chinese (speaking it myself or only understanding little of what is being said), or severely handicapped English with my students and many of the people I work with. Of course, my fellow teachers are all fluent in English and intelligent people, but we also don’t sit around and have the sort of discussions that I would have with friends back home, it being a work environment and all.

The logical next step here is to get out and find those people, but that has been slow in coming. I am not an exceedingly social person as is, and the combination of an unfamiliar place and many excuses to be “busy” have made it even less likely I would find myself out on the town. Hoping this will gradually evolve of course, but for now it looks like I will be relying on lot of reading and some blog posting to keep my own communication skills sharp. [Oh, woe is me, he says from Shanghai.]