Sample ballot - Part II (#241, Topic P)

In the Official Specimen Ballot I received yesterday (#240), there is a question on constitutional amendment (the seconf of four), which occupies one-half page of a 7-page ballot. The question's heading is Circuit Court in Banc Decisions; its subheading is "Allows appeals to the Court of Special Appeals froma decision by an in banc circuit court." After a parenthetical comment that the purpose of this is "(Amending Article IV-Judiary Department)", the body of this question reads as follows: "This constitutional amendment establishes the right of a party who did not request in banc review by the circuit court to appeal an adverse decision by the in banc court to the State's intermediate appellate court, the Court of Special Appeals. The amendment provides that a party in a circuit court trial conducted by less than three circuit judges is eligible for in banc review. The amendment establishes that three judges of a circuit court constitute a circuit court in banc. The amendment repeals the authority of the circuit courts to regulate the rules governing in banc circuit appeals, and establishes that the Maryland Rules are to provide the procedure for such appeals. The amendment also eliminates obsolete language pertaining to writs or error from this provision of the Constitution." Following this 131-word explanation, there are two lines, one is "For the Constitutional Amendment" and the other is "Against the Constitutional Amendment." Realizing that, among voters there must be slow ones who may still be in the dark after reading this 131-word explanation (not counting the heading, subheading, and parenthetical comment) -- and I must admit that I am one of them -- the specimen ballot adds, thoughtfully, a page-long Summary of this proposed constitutional amendment (which, at least to me, is equally tense). Were I to read this amendment while standing in a voting booth -- which might take at least 10 minutes -- those people waiting in the line to vote might have a long wait. Let's see how this works out next Tuesday.

Sample ballot (#240, Topic P)

With democracy in USA being equated to voting every 2 or 4 years, opportunities for an ordinary person to gain an understanding of the process are limited. One of the best ways, in my view, is to become an election judge; a few years back, I was fortunate enough to be selected to serve as one -- I learned a lot, and, on top of that, I was well paid. Today, I received an Official Specimen Ballot in the mail, a 36-page (8-1/2 x 11) package, half in English and half in Spanish. Of the 18 pages in English, 7 pages are for the sample ballot proper. A voter is to cast votes for (1) governor and lieutenant governor in a combined ticket, (2) comptroller, (3) attorney general, (4) U.S. senator, (5) congressional representative for our district, (6) state senator for our district, (7) three delegates for the state house, (8) county executive, (9) four at-large county council members, (10) county council member for our district, (11) four judges of the circuit court, (12 - 14) whether to allow three judges (each to be voted separately) to continue in office, (15) state's attorney, (16) clerk of the circuit court, (17) register of wills, (18) sheriff, (19) at-large member of the board of education, (20 - 22) three district-wide members of the board of education, each to be voted separately, (23 - 26) four questions on amendments to state constitution, and (27 - 28) two questions on county's charter amendment. That is a lot of readings to do and a lot of decisions to make. My wife received a similar sample ballot also (each registered vote receives one) and said to me: How do I know the position of each candidate? Good question, but I have no answer. Millions have been spent on this mid-term election (according to a survey, the total spending on campaigns for this mid-term election reached $2.3 billion for the country as a whole -- that is, administrative expenses such as printing and distributing the sample ballots, manning the voting booths, and counting the ballots are not included), but most of the messages focus on the opponent's negative personal traits, and not on what the candidate plans to do once elected or re-elected. I thought I am well read; I don't even know what candidates for the so-called top-of-the-ticket (at least 1, 4, 8 above) plan to do. Even if one has the time (and, being retired, I do have time), reading through even the 16 pages of material in the package is not easy. (In a follow-up entry [#241], I plan to use one of the constitutional amendments (no. 24) as an illustration.) All I can say is that democracy is an expensive proposition, a luxury only rich countries such as USA can indulge in it.

The Suez crisis 50 years ago (#239, Topic F)

Exactly 50 years ago today, a British-French-Israeli alliance invaded the Suez Canal, in the so-called 6-day war. To mark this occasion, yesterday's New York Times had a long op-ed piece, "Stuck in the Canal". Being by a history professor in Boston, the piece was, to my way of thinking, unusually frank, even brunt, mincing no words. It began by saying that "It [the Suez crisis] was the moment when America pushed out the Europeans and then tried to take their place -- and the reverberations are still felt today." Claiming that "Britain and France had gone to war [against Egypt] in order to keep their empires," the author felt that they committed faux pas by keeping the Americans "in the dark" and by lying about Israeli's involvement. USA, it seems, had no quarrel with UK-France's action, only with their timing: "President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary [John Foster] Dulles believed that [Egypt's] Nasser should be overthrown -- some day." But Ike was "angered by British wartime colleagues who had lied and deceived him", saying that "nothing justified double-crossing the United States." This anger had an unexpected consequence: "the Treasury Department threatened to withdraw support of British currency unless the British Army left Egypt." Britain withdrew, Nassar was saved, and the "Suez crisis was over." Ike thought that his actions demonstrated that "unlike the British and French, Americans were not imperalists -- but the third world remained unconvinced. And in Europe, skeptics clamied the episode showed that the Americans intended to steal the empires of Britain and France." And Israel fared no better: "providing evidence to enemies who had asserted all along that Israel was no more than a European imperalist itself." The end result was that Britain decided to follow US's lead while France "began to build the atomic bomb." Interesting history and sober reading.

Minimum wage in USA (#238, Topic M)

The miminum hourly wage in USA is $5.15. Over a year's time, a person working 2,080 hours (40 hours x 52 weeks) earns a total of $10,712. Deducting income taxes and social-security withholding, one's net earning is approximately $8,000. To a person living in a third-world country (where everything, particularly food and shelter, is low-priced), $10,000 or even $8,000 is a lot of money. But, everything is relative; in USA, one earning $10,000 a year is living below the poverty line. Interestingly, in USA, despite this below-poverty-line minimum hourly wage, it has not been changed in a decade -- it stood at $5.15 for ten solid years. During this period, salaries of members of the Congress have been adjusted ten times -- like clockwork, once a year, every year. A couple of days ago, I saw a TV image (produced by CNBC, a business-oriented program, not a campaign ad) showing the amount of time needed to earn $10,000 by various entities. Leading the pack is a financial-service institution (the one the current Treasury secretary served as its CEO before resigning to accept his new position); it takes that institution a solid 80 seconds to earn $10,000. After a couple of other listings (I did not read fast enough to catch their identity), the TV image gives "member of the House" -- he/she needs six days to earn $10,000. (In all fairness, this is a tongue-in-cheek calculation. A member of the house earns, in 2006, $165,0000. During the year, the House met 95 times/days. Thus, a member of the House earned $1,736 for each of these 95 days, or $10,000 in slightly less than 6 days of attendance.) In the caboose position is the minimum-wage worker; he/she needs 48.5 weeks to make $10,000. In today's Washington Post, I read that six states (Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio) have a ballot initiative, to be voted upon on November 7, on raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to (for Ohio) $6.85 and indexed to inflation. It is about time. In any case, I am for it (#231).

祗許官兵放火, 不許百姓點燈 (#237, Topic F)

While listening to the presenter at the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace yesterday (#236), on nuclear testing and such, I could not help being reminded of a Chinese couplet, the title of today's entry. These two lines, in English, may be rendered thus: Setting fire by government officials is allowed; lighting lamp by ordinary citizens is disallowed. (In olden-day China, candles were the source of illumination.) The etymology of this couplet is rather complex, but the sentiment it expresses is straight forward: One in power may do whatever one pleases; one who is powerless cannot do, even on a much smaller scale, what is completely legitimate and routine. Early in yesterday's presentation, the presenter asked a rhetorical question: If Afghanistan had nuclear arms, would USA invade it in 2001? He did not answer the question; it would be interesting if he did. (Though, based on his subsequent presentation, I am inclined to think that he would answer it in the negative.) How would I know? I am assessing it in terms of my own research, on the Opium War of 1840. While doing my readings, I often asked myself this very question: Were China equipped with the modern weaponry at the time (which would be cannons and gunboats), would a rogue state such as Britain dare to provoke China into war by violating her waterways? No, no, NO. Weaponry in the hands of imperialist powers is intended to be used offensively; such powers, to make their invasion easier with as little military casualties as possible, prefer that those targeted for invasion possess nothing comparable. Not for defensive purposes, not even as a deterrent. Of course, weak nations would not possess any such weapons any way. But, were such weapons in their possession, it would cause an invading power to, at least, "think twice" (using yesterday's presenter's words). Is this a bad idea?

Carnegie Forum: Rogue States in 19th and 21st centuries (#236, Topic F)

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace offered a forum on "Deterring America: Rogue States and the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction" this morning, presented by a man (BA Harvard, PhD Oxford, and LLB Yale) who has just published a book on this subject. The book approaches the subject from three aspects: theoretical (deterrent theory), historical (asymmetrical contests in ancient Greece), and prescriptive (export control of nuclear material, counter force, interdiction). The more lectures of this type I attended, the more I see the resemblance to world situation 165 years ago. Thus, during the Q&A period, I said the following: "US has said that whichever country strikes US, that country will be completely demolished. Thus, it is unlikely that North Korea would deliver the first strike. Your historical research covers ancient Greece, which is inadequate -- Korea is in Asia; it would be more relevant to cite historical references with an Asian context. I am currently doing research on the Opium War, from a Chinese point of view. In the 1830~40, China had 29% of the world's wealth while Britain had less than 1%. Indeed, at that time, Britain was a rogue state -- using free trade of opium as the excuse to provoke China into war. China lost because she did not have the most modern weaponry at the time. Korea was colonized by Japan for the same reason. So, North Korea undertook nuclear tests as a deterrent -- as a defensive measure against imperialistic aggression. My question: Why should US fear?" The central point of the presenter's answer, as far as I could gather, was that his research is done "from the US's point of view." Later, another listener asked: "Why does US need thousands of nuclear weapons?" (A couple of days ago, I read that US is now replacing/updating 2,400 of its nuclear arsenal.) To which the presenter said: "The question by the gentleman before you (nodding in my direction) also implied as much. I really do not have an answer." The forum was advertised for last 2 hours, but it lasted barely 60 minutes.

Architects Maya Lin and Frank Gehry (#235, Topic I)

The current issue of US News and World Report features America's Best Leaders; for architects, it selects Frank Gehry. A year or so ago, the 1818 Society (an association of World Bank retirees) sponsored a visit to the Corcoran Museum, having an exhibition honoring Gehry and showing off his design for the museum's extension, the winner of a world-wide competition. Earlier, Gehry's design for a museum in Balboa Spain made that town famous (it became a tourist attraction and, thus, a cash cow). Our local museum's board of directors apparently wanted to duplicate this feat. According to the docent who accompanied us on this visit, the budget for this extension was some $50 million! Being a bean-counter, I immediately expressed my displeasure. Why spend $50 million for a simple (to me) face-lifting renovation? Washington is not Balboa; one goes Balboa, perhaps, to see the museum. But one comes to Washington to conduct business -- even as a visitor, with so many attractions to cover, one is unlikely to rank a visit to a fee-paying museum among one's top priorities. Besides, with the museum next to the AFL-CIO headquarters, with the organization representing the working class and with its building facade non-descript, it is, at least to me (being a member of the working class), an insult. The docent, needless to say, made an unconvincing effort to defend the board's action. Later, as I read in the papers, the board reversed itself and the museum director resigned. The architect worthy of being honored by USNews is, in my view, Maya Lin, the architect who designed the Vietname Memorial on the mall. According to a documentary on Lin's accomplishment, her design, done when she was a mere student at Yale, encountered tremendous resistance. I can never forget the facial expression of this project's main sponsor, a businessman made rich by his Federal government contracts and made famous by his manipulating to become a 3rd party presidential candidate. His obvious disdain -- exhibiting his undisguised racism and discriminatory attitude (Lin is a Chinese-American woman) -- was barely bearable; indeed, he made Lin cry on several occasions. He actually wanted to torpedo the project by withdrawing his financial support. So what? Lin's design survived and, indeed, it has become one of Washington's most visited attractions. Lin was in Washington last Wednesday to give a talk; afterward, she was asked a question. It seems that another Vietnam Memorial is being planned, and she was aske how she felt. She chose not to answer it, which incurred the displeasure of the Washington Post reporter who covered the event, who said, in no uncertain terms, that she should have answered it. What a sadistic town Washington is!

Movie: "Take the lead" (#234, Topic D)

Having spent the day at the Library of Congress doing research, I decided to give my brain a rest for the remainder of the day by taking on our community's free movie in the evening. It is on ballroom dancing; I thought it would do nicely. But I was wrong. The movie's focus was on students in a mixed neighborhood; it depicted, very quickly, the burdens these young people had to ensure: (1) a young man, whose father was an alcoholic unable to hold onto a job; he hit his son (whose part-time earning supported the family) hard when the latter came home -- after work to find the refrigerator empty without food -- and dared to suggest that his father sober up; (2) another young man, whose elder brother died on account of a drug overdose; and (3) a young woman who had to do her homework while waiting for the metro, since, upon returning home, she would have to take care of her younger sister while their single mother worked overtime to make ends meet. The thought occurred to me that these young people lack (1) self-confidence, (2) attention, and (3) opportunities, which may all be attributed to their poor family and community environment. In came Pierre Dulane, a professional dancer (the movie is based on his real-life experiences), who gave these youngsters attention and opportunties (to which they pooh-poohed at first), and through which he built up their self-confidence -- by teaching them ballroom dancing. With these students' peer performance at 4th percentile level, spending valuable extracurricular time on ballroom dancing attracted unacceptable performance rating (for the school's principal) from the school system's evaluator, as well as no-confidence from their parents. (I thought to myself: were I a parent in that school, I probably would have reacted similarly.) Then came the punch line. The dance instructor, using the principal (an open-minded woman with no experience in ballroom dancing) as his partner, said, after a brief demonstration of basic ballroom steps, that ballroom dancing builds up first, trust; then, cooperation; and then, dignity. Very thought provoking (and I thought I was able to relax for some 90 minutes!). In another scene, a fellow student said to his dancing partner: you look different when you dance. To which she said: I feel calm; I feel peace. Very sobering. The movie features dozens of professional dancers; the three tango dances are original and beautifully choreographed; and, of course, the music is equally beautiful. After the movie was over, I thought I needed to jot down my impressions -- time to bed is the time not to think.

Clinton and Gingrich on C-SPAN Radio (#233, Topic P)

C-SPAN TV has a sister station, C-SPAN Radio, which provides commercial-free coverage of speeches/press-conferences by VIPs either live or only days old. It is a good source of information that is not readily available in print media. I stumbled onto it recently, to which I now set my alarm as my morning call. Yesterday, I woke up to a speech by former president Bill Clinton at a public forum held at Georgetown university. The occasion was to commemorate his presidential-candidate speech given at the same university 15 years ago. When I tuned in, Clinton was in the midst of talking his administration's having a budget surplus, citing the advantages of a balanced budget to middle-income households, particularly on interest and on funding for social security. He then asked his listeners (apparently GU students) to be more inquisitive, more doubting, and less accepting without thinking. A passage I remembered the best are words to the following effect: If members of Christianity [GU was founded by Jesuits], Judaism, Islam -- and, for that matter, Hinduism and Buddhism -- claim that their religion is the truth, they do not know what they are talking about. This morning, it was former Republican speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich, speaking at Johns Hopkins University. He was probably on a book-promotion tour, as his speech made frequent reference to what he wrote in this "little book." His message: USA, vis-a-vis the world, has two options: either an elegant decadance (his words) or competition; he, of course, urged his audience, university students mainly, to elect the latter course. During the Q&A session, a student asked: Why not offer cooperation as another option? In response, Grinich admitted that the two options he offered for USA (and, perhaps, written up in his book) were intended for dealing with China; with China, cooperation is not an option. Very sobering.

"Brand Names In China Have Familiar Ring" (#232, Topic B)

Today's Wall Street Journal has a tongue-in-cheek front-page story (B1), datelined Shanghai, complete with a color photo montage, showing an emblem by Starbuck and another one by a home-grown coffee-house chain. According to the story, the two emblems are "nearly identical." Well, for me, admittedly slow, I would have a hard time noticing their subtle resemblances -- unless one makes a close study (discussed below). At a first glance, the Starbuck emblem is written in English; that for the home-grown chain, in Chinese. Is English "nearly identical" to Chinese? Not in my book. The center in Starbuck's emblem features a young lady with long hair covering a part of her upper body and a crown of some sort (Starbuck is too rich for a retiree like me to frequent, so it is conceivable that I have not interpreted the meaning of this symbol correctly). The center of the home-grown chain's emblem is much more down to earth: it shows, simply, a white cup with wavy air over it to suggest that its content is hot. Is a depiction of a young lady and of a cup "nearly identical"? Anyone who can see (no linguistic dexterity is needed) would probably answer it in the negative. Oh, yes, there are similarities: (1) both emblems have circular designs, and (2) the background in both emblems are green in color. These two features are clearly "nearly identical" -- but no different from saying that all laptops (such as the one, by HP, on which I am preparing this entry) are nearly identical, because all have rectangular boxy design and black color. The WSJ story continues by saying that Wal-Mart and 物美 (a home-grown department-store chain using these two Chinese characters as store names) "have a familiar ring". (The WSJ story only gives the home-grown chain's name in English transliteration; their Chinese original are my deduction.) How did I get this deduction? From the management of that Chinese department store chain quoted in the WSJ story: the name is derived from a popular Chinese saying: 價廉物美 (price reasonble, product attractive). The WSJ story gives one the impression that, because of Wal-Mart's incursion into China, the Chinese people should no longer be allowed to use this common saying? If this sounds far-fetched, it has actually happened. In the 1920s, 麻將 (Mah-Jong) was in vogue; an enterpring American Standard Oil representative in China, one named Babcock, took a liking to it, transliterated the two words into English, as Mah-Jongg -- and proceeded to trade-mark it. He actually took people to court for using the English transliteration until he was reined in. Still, notice the subtle difference in my rendition (with one g, which is beyond the trade-mark's reach), and not one with two g (said to be protected by his trade-mark). How do I know? At one time, I was doing research on the history of this fascinating Chinese invention. In a book on this game I wrote, in English, I had to represent it as Mah-Jong (again, one g). Such is life in a globalized world where whatever the superpower says, the rest of the world follows.

Democracy in USA, circa 2006 (#231, Topic P)

With mid-term election in USA rapidly upon us, the airwaves are full of election-related programs. At the Delaware beach earlier this week, C-SPAN, the public-service TV channel, beamed a live debate between two congressional candidates vying for a seat in Pennsylvania. The program opened with the moderator asking the incumbent, a Republican, about his personal residence. It seemed that he and his family live in a spacious 6-bedroom house in a prestigeous neighborhood, but, for the record, he is said to live in a modest 3-bedroom house in a so-so neighborhood. This caught the incumbent by surprise -- I was equally surprised at first, but I soon realized that the question dealt with an important issue: a candidate's honesty and integrity. The incumbent realized as much; unable to offer a cogent answer, he began by saying that, as a person, his first duty is to his family -- no quarrel there, though it is beside the point. Realizing as such, the incumbent, without missing a beat, began to accuse his challenger about a point the latter supposedly made (presumably on an earlier debate) but utterly irrelevant to the question posed by the moderator in this telecast. And the program went downhill from there -- irrelevant, evasive, finger pointing, and barely civil. Any debate on "Big Decisions of 2006" types of questions(#229)? They certainly escaped me. With 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats up for election/re-election in November 2006, there are probably thousands of such debates going on every day, with considerable effort and at substantial expenses. Of course, the electorate needs to be educated. When one adds other contests at the state or county level, the number of such debates would probably be in the millions. At the beach, I read that the two candidates for Delaware's attorney general position had amassed "war chests" exceeding $1 million! Why is the attorney general position elected rather than appointed (as at the Federal level)? I don't know; all I know is that Delaware is one of the smallest states in the Union. How much money is needed to mount all contests at all levels in all states in the Union? Billions? Tens of billions? I shudder to think. But, of course, a rich country such as USA has to set an example on how democracy is to be run.

Is this USA in 2006? (#230, Topic A)

I always enjoy Courland Milloy's column in the Washington Post -- well written, informative, trail-blazing, and unafraid to take a stand when needed. Today's column, however, is more disturbing than a lot of other readings I have had in a long time -- and I consider myself well-read. Entitled "Hate Is Always in Style At a Gathering of the Klan," he began with a concise historical summary: "the KKK was infamous for rallying in the light of a burning cross, then heading off to burn your home, bomb your church, drag you from your bed for a lynching. All with impunity. Klansmen were once powerful as well as ruthless, killers by night who melded into the ranks of upstanding ... citizens by day. Among them were judges and police officers." Presumably, this was then. Then he continued: "And they were still rallying into the 21st century." How so? How did Milloy know? Well, last Saturday, he attended a KKK rally at Harper's Ferry "to celebrate [the 147th anniversary of abolitionist John] Brown's being captured and hanged 'by his greasy neck', as one Klansman put it." So that was the occasion and this is how Milloy knew. After commenting on "'white power' graffiti found this year in Charles County" (#226), he quoted the head of the World Knights as saying, at Saturday's rally, "'All white people know that there is not a black person on earth who is equal to them.'" So, is this USA in 2006? With this first-hand account of such events, which take "Tens of thousands of dollars in taxpaper money" to mount (to guard the safety of these Klansmen "in white sheets and pointy hoods" as well as to loop off "a huge swath [of public land] off-limits to the public"), one is forced to answer it in the affirmative.

Democracy in action, 2006 (#229, Topic P)

Our retirement community, with some 10,000 senior citizens in residence, is said to constitute a powerful voting bloc. Thus, residents began to receive, months earlier during the primary season, flyers and recorded telephone messages touting various candidates. Now that the primary season is over but the voting season is rapidly upon us, our community community's Center for Lifelong Learning and the League of Women Voters co-sponsored a public forum, "Big Decisions of 2006," this afternoon. I attended it out of curiosity. The forum featured a Democratic representative (from Maryland's State Senate), and a Republican representative (from Montgomery County's Republican Central Committee), with a former foreign correspondent, now a resident at our community, as the moderator. Questions were to be in written form and sent to the moderator, who read selected ones for the two representatives to answer. What questions were asked? (1) Should Maryland allow slot machines? (One represenative answered it affirmatively, since states bordering on Maryland [Pennsylvania, Delaware] have them, raking in $1 million in net profit every day!) (2) Should the Inter-county connector be built? (This issue was talked about for some 50 years, and was recently resolved in favor of building it. The questioner seemed to want the issue reopened.) (3) What is the poverty-line income? (A question that by itself, in my view, is a time waster for this occasion; but it was read and a member of the audience took a stab at it.) (4) Is there too much concentration in media ownership? (The moderator took the question himself and blasted bloggers for expressing opinions, thereby squeezing newspaper reporters, who are fact-finders, out of their jobs.) (5) What should USA do as its population reaches 300 million mark? (The two representatives used this question to talk about illegal immigration.) I ask myself: Are these Big Decisions of 2006 questions? Perhaps the last two qualify. (There is an interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal, entitled "400,000,000"; it favors more immigration.) I actually wrote down a question, but it was not selected: "Should minimum wage be raised? If the answer is affirmative, should it be voted upon by itself (rather than be coupled with a bill on making estate-tax reduction permanent)?" Oh, well. This is democracy in action, 2006 style.

K.C.Ling, R.I.P. (#228, Topic N)

Returning from the beach to attend K. C.'s (#223) funeral service, held this morning, I was overcome with emotions. K.C., seven years my senior, had a life that was representative of many people of Chinese ancestry born in the 1920s -- received secondary and baccalaureate education in China in the 1920~30s, forced to move about in China during the Sino-Japanese wars in the 1930~40s, honored to be selected to receive postgraduate education in USA in the 1940~50s, returned to China to serve the motherland as professionals, and came back to USA after being recruited as senior staff members by international organizations such as the World Bank. (I hasten to add that I am unqualified to be, and am not, a member of this distinguished group.) At the personal level, K.C.'s experiences were somewhat comparable to mine -- K.C. revisited his birthplace after an absence of 31 years (in my case, after 32 years); K.C. probably (if I read his bio correctly) never saw his parents again when he returned home (in my case, my mother passed away when I was 11; my father passed away in 1970 when I was a visiting professor in India; thus, I had no opportunity to see either of my parents again when I returned to Shanghai in 1981 as a visiting professor). At the professional level, K.C. was 'way ahead of me -- after many WB assignments in Malaysia, Thailand, and Nepal, K.C. was able to focus his attention on China's power-generation projects when she became a WB member in 1980; he was in charge of 11 such projects in China, including the Three Gorges project, for which he was honored by China's premier when it began operation in 2002. While at WB, K.C.'s motto was: 利用餘力，回饋祖國 (Use my remaining energy to serve the motherland). At the funeral service, one of K.C.'s former WB colleagues praised K.C. with these words: 堂堂正正做人，規規矩矩做事 (As a person, open and straight-forward; as a professional, correct and precise). Well said. K.C. has set a good example for me -- how to behave myself as a person, and how to conduct myself as a professional.

Democracy viewed in 1787 (#227, Topic P)

From time to time, my brother-in-law forwards me interesting e-mails he received from others. A couple of days ago, he sent me the following, written in 1787 by History professor Alexander Tyler at the University of Edinburgh: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictorship." He continued: "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations, from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence: 1. From bondage to spiritual faith; 2. From spiritual faith to great courage; 3. From courage to liberty; 4. From liberty to abundance; 5. From abundance to complacency; 6. From complacency to apathy; 7. From apathy to dependence; 8. From dependence back into bondage." According to Law professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University in St. Paul MN, "United States is now [2006] somewhere between the 'complacency and apathy' phase ... with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the 'government dependency' phase." Very interesting. Most of Tyler's observations, made some 220 years ago, are equally valid now. However, on one point, I think Tyler got carried away -- he somehow used greatest civilizations and democracy synonymously. While a democracy may last some 200 years (Tyler's analysis is based on the Athenian version of democracy [#188]), a great civilization lasts much longer -- in China's case, some 25 times longer, and counting.

Depressing news (#226, Topic A)

Sunday's Washington Post carried an Haiku (a word of Japanese origin, meaning: life in a snapshot), written by a handsome 17-year-old Indian man (as shown in the accompanying photo). Whenever he went to an airport to catch a flight, he would be stared at by young children, causing them to cry and, as a result, causing their parents to call the police, who invariably would search him, causing him to be late for his flight. Although he wrote in good humor, he was understandably upset as well. A couple of days earlier, WP carried another story about another Indian, a professional obviously well-to-do, placing a deposit to buy a $500,000 second home in Arizona, sight unseen. When he presented himself to complete the sales transaction, the seller, a construction company, refused to settle. Though the potential buyer received some $125,000 as compensation, after he won a suit he filed, it was clear that he was not happy that he was unable to buy that second home. A couple of days before that, WP carried, on its front page, a color photograph showing "KKK" vandalized on the window of a home in Charles County in Maryland, and "White Power" on the side of a car parked in front of that home. No suspect was identified. Charles County is the same county in which, a couple of months ago, about a dozen unoccupied brand-new homes were set on fire, on account of their owners being African-Americans. It is reading news like these that depresses me. Perhaps I should stop reading papers as well?

Clinical depression ~ brain cancer (#224, Topic D)

At yesterday's Tai Chi class, Wang Lao-shi, one of our TC teachers, displayed copies of a book by a Mr. Chen, a TC master from another club -- mentioning that proceeds from the sale of these books were for his memorial fund. Memorial fund? Has he passed away?, I asked. Yes. Of what? Brain cancer -- not only that, one of his students, who died recently, was also of brain cancer. So, in a span of few mintues, I learned of three brain-cancer cases (at that time, I only knew that K.C., a fellow student, had brain cancer; I did not know that he had died the day before [#223]). After our class, I asked Lu Lao-shi, another TC teacher, who has studied Chinese medicine for a long time and who has made a practice of integrating his knowledge in Chinese medicine into TC movements, the cause of brain cancer. His answer: clinical depression. He cited a recent study, from an autopsy done in Australia, of a TC-practicing patient died of brain cancer: he was found to have cancer cells all over his body -- but, being a practitioner of TC and being physically healthy, his immune system was able to control all these cancer cells, except those in his brain. The study contended that (1) as to brain cancer, physical health was not as important as mental health, and (2) those with clinical depression are less likely to keep an upper hand in combating brain-cancer cells. I have seen Master Chen in action twice, once at one of our club's year-end celebrations, and another time at a public performance in a theater, a duo with his wife accompanied by eight flutes playing classical Chinese music. In both instances, Master Chen, perhaps in his 50s, was robust and fit. So, Lu Lao-shi's answer makes great sense. By the same token, hearing this answer, alone, would make one depressed. If, on top of that, one is fed with a daily dose of depressing news, such as I have been, one is twice as likely to be clinically depressed. If, on top of both, one has to digest these daily doses of depressing news for the purpose of doing blogs, as I have been doing since last December, one is, possibly, thrice as likely to be clinically depresed. Perhaps I should stop doing this blog?

Brain cancer (#223, Topic D)

For several weeks, K.C., the oldest student in our Sunday Tai Chi class, did not show up. Telephone calls made to his home were merely tape-recorded and not answered in person. In today's TC class, a fellow student mentioned that K.C. had brain cancer; other than that, she had no further information. At about 9 pm, a former president of our TC club called to say that K.C.'s wife informed her that K.C. had a brain surgery yesterday, and that he passed away shortly thereafter due to after-surgery complications. Before retirement, K.C. was a dedicated senior staff member at the World Bank. Among his numerous assignments over some 30 years, he was in charge of a major power-modernization project in China; for that, I was invited to join him to assess power management's computerization needs, for which I visited six provincial capitals as well as the Power Ministry's headquarters in Beijing. For TC, K.C. and his wife were already members when my wife and I joined the club about 6 years ago. K.C. was about 8 years my senior, so, at that time, K.C. just became an octogenarian. At first, he showed up three times a week (Sunday afternoons and Tuesday and Thursday evenings); later, he came only on Sundays, since driving during late evenings became inadvisable -- indeed, we quit going to the evening sessions ourselves after we moved to our retirement community last year. K.C. enjoyed playing Mah-Jong; he probably played at least once a week. At the end of each TC session, I invariably asked him: How did it go? He was ahead more times than being behind, a mark of a good player. The last few times I saw him at TC sessions, he would leave after about 1-1/2 hours (the session lasts 2 solid hours), which, frankly was long enough, even for me. We'll miss him, a true professional and a true friend.