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James Fallows

James Fallows - James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book, China Airborne, will be published in May.
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James Fallows is based in Washington as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine for nearly 30 years and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of US News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the chair in U.S. media at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.

Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. His two most recent books, Blind Into Baghdad (2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (2009), are based on his writings for The Atlantic; he is at work on another book about China. He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the recent book Dreaming in Chinese. They have two married sons.

Fallows welcomes and frequently quotes from reader mail sent via the "Email" button below. Unless you specify otherwise, we consider any incoming mail available for possible quotation -- but not with the sender's real name unless you explicitly state that it may be used. If you are wondering why Fallows does not use a "Comments" field below his posts, please see previous explanations here and here.

My email spam is sometimes interesting here

By James Fallows
Jun 12 2008, 5:38 AM ET

Nigerian bank-fraud offers? Discount drugs? Male enhancers? Sure, info about all of this still pours in. But every day in China I get messages like the one below, which I don't remember getting anywhere else. Charming, in a "workhouse of the world" way. This is cut-and-pasted exactly as it arrived, except for the XXXd out name of the company in Shenzhen that sent it -- a real company, by the way:

Dear Sir/ Madam,


Good day.


We has started doing research on spiral lead acid battery since 2003.


We are the fourth manufacturer after OPTIMA, CYLON and EXIDE, who can produce spiral lead acid batteries in series.And we are the only one in China up to now.Our products range from 2V, 2.5AH to 12V, 75AH.We adopt automatic production, and got certificate of UL, CE, ect.

We are now looking for strategic cooperator, no matter homeland or overseas, only if you have wished to do business on spiral lead acid batteries, pls feel free to contact with us!

Attached some spec and pictures, pls check it. We are looking forward for your prompt reply.


Thnanks and best regards.


XXXX BATTERY CO.,LTD




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