By now, it should be obvious to most readers that the blog has not been updated for sometime. Unfortunatley, my new day job keeps me extremely busy. For the near future, I will not be able to blog much (my partners are welcome to continue to post, however).

Thank you, readers, for visiting NoVaPolitics.com.

My latest Seattle Times op-ed is online:

It has been about a year since I left Seattle for a Northern Virginia exurb in a fit of political angst, and the time allows for a bit of measured reflection about the change.

When I lived in Seattle, one of the city’s facets to which I quickly grew accustomed was the integration of Asian Americans into the city’s mainstream life. This was not surprising, of course. While Seattle does not boast a large number of Asians in absolute terms, they form the largest nonwhite population at over 13 percent of the total — a rarity outside Hawaii. [Snip]

Some of the same dynamics are at work in the fast-growing exurbs of Northern Virginia where I now live. The area has had explosive growth in the past several years, fueled by a strong economy, especially in the tech sector and the defense industry, as well as a business-friendly regulatory environment. What was once a sleepy rural area (perhaps akin to the outer Eastside of the Seattle area) now boasts affluent, ethnically diverse communities. [Snip]

The city’s life is overwhelmingly dominated by the industry of politics, which, unlike information technology, is an old business. It requires, by nature, discretion and even secrecy. Where trust and loyalty are at such a high premium, nepotism and clannishness are often rational responses, given that family and friends are generally more trustworthy than outsiders, however capable or intelligent.

Thus, it is not that there is significant racism against Asians. It is, rather, that the system erects a high barrier against late entrants, and Asian Americans tend to be late arrivals, particularly in political terms (a friend familiar with the entertainment industry observed something similar, and perhaps not coincidentally, politics is said to be show business for ugly people).

Read the whole thing here.

For my last day job, I served as an advisor to Morton Blackwell, a noted conservative leader, special assistant to President Ronald Reagan at the White House and the president of the Leadership Institute, which trains the next generation of conservative leaders. I provided Mr. Blackwell with a comprehensive evaluation of Leadership Institute programs and made a series of recommendations on structural and personnel changes that led to a major reorganization of Institute programs and leadership.

In turn, Mr. Blackwell shared with me generously his enormous experience and insight, and taught me all that I know today about politics. I am indebted to him for his instruction and friendship.

I continue to volunteer my time to the Institute and remain a financial contributor.

I was also formerly a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Discovery Institute in Seattle and Washington, D.C. and a frequent op-ed contributor to The Seattle Times and RealClearPolitics (links to my op-eds are found here).

Prior to these positions, I worked in the private sector and the academia.

I hold a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and double-majored in international relations and economics at Brown University. I am a graduate of Stuyvesant High School (the old building, of course!) in NYC.

I was born in Seoul, Korea and spent my youth there.

I edit this blog, NoVaPolitics.com and occasionally guest-blog on DPRK Studies, a weblog about North Korea and the surrounding region.

In addition, I co-founded The Korea Liberator (now inactive), which rapidly became the leading Korea policy weblog in the United States until its unfortunate demise. Other blogs I ran in the past are Guns and Butter Blog and The Asianist (now both inactive).

I brake for guns, dogs and MMA!

[Latest note: This blog remains inactive due to personal changes I have experienced in the past year, but I plan to return to blogging again in the future.]

Richard Falknor, an occasional contributor to NoVaPolitics.com, is a writer, journalist, and a close student of those American and British conservatives who continue to influence modern times. For nearly 15 years, Falknor managed an independent weekly health-business newsletter from the publication’s Prince Frederick, Maryland. office. This five-reporter publication became the ‘bible’ of the home health care industry.

Falknor gained substantial hands-on government experience as an aide to Senator Henry M. Jackson and to a House investigating and Senate legislative committee, then as a policy staffer with U. S. Department of Transportation and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The American Political Science Association named Falknor a Congressional Staff Fellow enabling him to attend Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government where he received his M.P.A. in 1967.

A graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy and the University of California at Berkeley, he received the Army Commendation Medal for his work editing the Seventh Army newspaper in the Cold War Germany of the late 1950s.

Married to Susan Freis Falknor, a professional editor and a published poet, long-time Marylander Falknor keeps his Free State roots, but now lives near the Blue Ridge in Loudoun County.

Today Falknor serves as Executive Vice President of the Maryland Taxpayers Association, Inc.,
and chairs the Maryland Center-Right Coalition.  He is an occasional columnist for virginianewssource.com and authors BlueRidgeForum.