Wall Street the follower? (#347, Topic M)

The four newspapers I regularly read cover yesterday's "meltdown" in the Shanghai Stock Exchange (#346) somewhat differently. The lead story in today's New York Times does it comprehensively -- showing major stock exchanges' movements in chart form over a 30-hour time period, beginning with the Tokyo Stock Exchange (opening at 8 pm EST 2/25 Monday = 9 am 2/26 Tuesday, local time), down by less than 1%; continuing with SSE (opening at 8:30 pm EST 2/25 = 9:30 am 2/26, Shanghai time), down by 8.8%; then with Europe's and Brazil's, down by 3% and 6.6%, respectively; and ending with the Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down by 3.3%. The Washington Post does it dramatically, with a 4-column headline: "Stock Sell-Off in China Hits Wall Street," and a 15" x 7" chart, in red, on the front page of its Business section, showing detailed movements of the DJIA from Monday's close (12, 632.26) to 12,500 (at 9:30 am), to 12,450 (at about 12:15 pm), to 12,350 (at about 2:15 pm), to below 12,100 minutes before 3 pm (WP gives no specifics, but 2/27's low, reached at that time, was 12,086,86), to 12,216.24 at close. The Wall Street Journal does it analytically, showing two versions of the DJIA in graphic form, one official, and the other recalculated (to adjust for computer delays from 2 pm to 3:30 pm); it covers the story more cautiously: "Market's Slide Spotlights Risks." Invetor's Business Daily covers it sensationally; its headline "China Triggers Global Sell-Off" and an accompanying graph, captioned "Asian Contagion Revisited," seem to attribute every ill to China. Given IBD's editorial stance, this is understandable. What is puzzling to me is a second story by NYT's Shanghai correspondent. Labeling investors in Shanghai as naive, the correspondent cited reasons, such as (1) out of 15 initial public offerings in 2006, 12 had appreciation of 10% or more by yearend, and (2) when a company's CEO was under investigation, its stock went higher. Really. When reading it, I cannot help asking myself: Are there similar phenomena on Wall Street? According to IBD (1/2/07 issue), there were 198 IPOs in USA in 2006: "Restaurant chain Chipostle Mexican Grille started things with a bang in January, doubling on its first day and more than tripling by early May." MasterCard, Crocs, and J. Crew "are still trading at more than double their initial price." On the second point, if my memory serves me, a week or so ago, the CEO of a home-improvement chain in US resigned (along with a retirement package worth more than $200 million), and its stock went up by more than 15%. So, what is new? In any case, today, the price on the SSE rebounds with an increase of 3.8%, and DJIA follows suit with an increase of 52.39 points, or 0.4%. It seems that the Wall Street no longer leads, but follows the Chinese financial markets instead. We'll see what tomorrow holds.

Financial market melt-down (#346, Topic M)

The lead story in this morning's NPR program concerned a 9% decline in Shanghai Stock Exchange's index, said to be the most severe in a decade. This decline had a domino effect, affecting first European markets and then the Wall Street -- suggesting that (1) international financial markets are intimately linked, and (2) China is now a major player in these markets -- after all, its index showed an increase of some 48% in 2006, whereas that on Wall Street was only 14%. On Wall Street, not sure why the market dropped in China (as far as I could gather, it was due to the Financial ministry's invoking new rules to tighten margin-purchase of securities and, thus, to rein in rampant speculation), conventional wisdom seemed to attribute this drop to a slowing of China's industrial growth. If so, this would adversely affect the demand for raw materials -- particularly copper, aluminum, and oil. Thus, shares of companies producing these industrial materials led the market down -- slowly though consistently at first, relentlessly as it gathered steam, and dramatically when programmed trading took over at 2:59. At 2:59, before programmed trading kicked in, the market, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, was about 12,350, down by about 260 points, or 2%. As soon as programmed trading began, trading volume soared as to completely overwhelm NYSE's computer system -- the volume was over 2 billion shares, a record. But, even more dramatic was its effect on the DJIA -- in a matter of 60 seconds, at 3:00, the DJIA dropped by another 160+ points. At one point, the DJIA was down by 560+ points -- said to be the most severe after the market reopened on 9/17/2001, after the 9/11/2001 incident. As the market closed at 4:00, the market was down by a solid 416 points, slightly less than 4%. After the market closed, the financial punditry had a field day, asking one another what might be in store tomorrow. Their vagueness was matched only by their verbosity. At 8:00 pm EST (9:00 local time), the stock market in Tokyo opened (a leading stock was down by 3%); the Shanghai Stock Exchange opened at 8:30 (9:30 local time), but I did not hear anything. We'll wait for tomorrow's morning papers to find out -- whether the meltdown was a one-day event or whether it would last for a while. I suspect the former, but I am no financial pundit.

"Contending with Endless International Conflict" (#345, Topic F)

Our retirement community has a Lifelong Learning Center, offering courses and lectures from time to time. The topic for today's hour-long lecture is captioned above. It was a follow-up lecture on "The Clash of Civilizations," which was given a couple of weeks ago, which I missed. Despite snow on the ground, about 50 fellow residents were in attendance today. (The flyer announcing the talk said that the earlier lecture attracted 85.) Our lecturer opened the lecture by asking attendees to provide a single word that best captured the reason for conflict. "People," one ventured; no. "Religion;" no. "Envy;" no. "Freedom;" no. "Survival;" no. "Greed;" no. It turned out that the word our lecturer had in mind is Difference. Difference? After some discussion, I ventured that since difference in physical features can never be erased, thus, conflict, were difference used as the criterion, can never be resolved. I mentioned that, in China, the approach is "Live and let live." Before I could say another word, I was asked to stop -- "I just want a short comment or question. You should give an hour-long talk yourself." So I shut up. To a large extent, the lecture was off-topic. After an hour, as the talk was at the tail-end of a Q&A period, I left and returned home for lunch, as I promised my wife before going to the lecture.

Call center (#344, Topic D)

One reason we went to the beach over the weekend was to set up a DSL connection. Apparently, the demand for DSL service was extremely high, as we had to wait for 5 weeks; our appointment to get connected was set for 2/23. As it turned out, we were invited for dinner on Thursday, 2/22; repeated calls to Verizon, asking whether our account could be serviced in the afternoon of 2/23, were merely answered by a recorded message; we did not receive acknowledgment of any kind. As the dinner invitation was for an important occasion, we took a chance by attending it and then left for the beach early Friday morning. Luckily, Verizon's service technican came around 12:30, so our chance-taking paid off. (Hey, maybe the Year of the Golden Pig is good for us.) We also booked Verizon to do the internal connection, knowing that we would be unable to do it ourselves (the DSL service in our apartment was done by a consultant, and he had a hard time connecting). And a good thing that we did. Doing the connecting was indeed difficult, as the Verizon technician had to call his technical support staff for guidance. What I overheard was indeed a revelation. Though I did not know to whom he was talking, I suspected that that person was in a call center perhaps on the other side of the globe. Apparently, the question our technican had was somewhat advanced, above the level of that support staffer's capabilities. Our man repeatedly said to the other party: "I told you I already had that," "You are repeating yourself," "You don't know what you are talking about." After a while, our man demanded that he talk to another support staffer or to a supervisor, on the ground that "I cannot understand you." At first, this demand was resisted, but was later honored. There was a clear change of our man's attitude, saying to his new contact (who appeared to be a woman) "I am glad you said that," "Thank you for telling me that," "You made my day," etc. So, after I was able to sign on, our man said that he had a hard time understanding the first staffer's enunciation -- blurred and fast -- further strengthening my suspicion that that staffer was with a call center on the other side of the globe. I asked our man to confirm my suspicion, he merely shrugged. I mentioned to him that at least he was able to talk to two live persons; all I was able to connect was with recorded messages of one type or another -- a 24-hour technical support line was a mere recorded message; a forwarding telephone number was answered by a message I consider inexcusable: "This number cannot be reached from your area." Any way, I was happy that I was able to get DSL connection without too much inconvenience.

Freedom of speech in action (#343, Topic A)

At the beach, other than shopping (Rohobeth DE, with 4 discount shopping malls next to one another totalling 200+ brand-name stores with thousands of parking spaces, and with no sales-tax to boot, is a shopper's heaven), the alternative is to read newspapers -- most newspapers published on the East Coast are available. In today's Washington Post, one of its headlines is: "Terrorist" Remark Puts Outdoorsman's Carrer in Jeopardy." The remark, according to the story, written on his blog, is thus: "Excuse me, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I see no place for these [military-style assault] weapons among our hunting fraternity." The writer, despite his spending "much of his life writing for prominent outdoor magazines, delivering lecutres across the country and starring in cable TV shows about big-game hunting in the West," was quickly shot/shut down. Within days, his TV program on the Outdoor Channel was cancelled, the National Rife Association announced suspending professional ties with him, his editorship with Outdoor Life magazine "came to a sudden end," and Remington Arms and other "biggest names in gunmaking" "severed all sponsorship ties ... immediately." According to a fellow gun-owning-writer, this persona non grata "has been a voice for these people -- for hunting and for guns -- and they just turned on him in an instant." NRA's contention was: "Our folks fully understand that their rights are at stake," while Outdoor Life's editor-in-chief commented that "they ['terrorist'-rifle-owning' hunters] don't like to be called terrorists." So much for freedom of speech in action in USA.

Boogle brain buster (#342, Topic L)

I am at the beach with very little to do. Reading local free weeklies, I came across a feature captioned above. I first encountered Boogle perhaps half a century ago, when I was walking in downtown Chicago one afternoon. At that time, Boogle was brand new; its inventor, in promoting his game, set up shop at one of the bookstores, complete with a young lady at the store's entrance, inviting passers-by to play a game with the inventory. The prize was to be a set of this new game. Well, with very little to do, and with cost-benefit clearly in my favor, I took the challenge and sat down in one of the seats. Three or 4 other contestants were already seated. So, after I joined in, the game was on, which lasted probably 5 minutes (after its rules were explained to ghe group). As luck had it, I was able to form, among other words, two 7-letter words (the longer the word, the higher the score). Thus, I beat the inventor hands down, and was given a set of the game. Later, I gave the game to our son. In today's feature, the 16 characters (4x4) are as follows:
CMME
ORTN
OAAF
BTLE
Each 3-letter word is worth 1 point; 4-letter, 2 points; 5-letter, 3-points; 6-letter, 4 points; 7-letter, 6points; 8-letter, 10 points; 9+-letter, 15 points. To form a word, letters must be contiguous; thus, COAT is a good word (2 points) but COME is not. Today's feature also has a feature not in the original game (when the 16 words are randomed formed) -- by putting "special-busting words into the grid of letters." The puzzle contains an 11-letter word beginnigh with C, a 9-letter word beginning with E, and a 7-letter word beginning with T. I was able to form the 11-letter word as well as the 9-letter word, but I could not find the 7-letter word beginning with T. I then spent about 10 minutes and was able to form 19 3-letter words, 17 4-letter words, four 5-letter words, and two 6-letter words. Adding the 11-letter word and the 9-letter word, my score was 103. (Scoring 151+ points, one is rated Champ; 101-150, Expert; 61-100, Pro; 31-60, Gamer; 21-30, Rookie, 11-20, Amateur; and 0-10, "Try Again.") I probably shall return to DC before the next issue of this weekly is out, so I shall not have a chance to see how this 7-letter word beginning with T looks like.

Chief Illiniwek (#341, Topic A)

The lead news in this morning's PBS broadcast concerned the "death" of Chief Illiniwek, who danced to native music at University of Illinois' sports activities. The death was forced upon the university administration by NCAA, on the ground that the Chief is one of the "hostile and abusive racial/ethnic/national origin mascots." I beg to disagree. When I was a student at UI, the Chief's performance was always dignified; indeed, I enjoyed being exposed to some authentic native culture. Later this morning, I read, in today's Washington Post, columnist Robert Novak's essay, (I did not know that he is a second-generation fellow Illini) captioned "Death of the Chief." He was blunt: "The death of the Chief epitomizes some unsavory aspects of contemporary American public life: political correctness, hypocrisy and bureaucratic tyranny." Indeed it is. Novak continued by wondering whether the state name, Illinois (meaning "tribe of superior men"), should be abandoned. Clearly not so, though the phrase Fighting Illini is also disallowed. What a shame.

Noodles (#340, Topic I)

Our retirement community is full of people with talents. One of the joys is to read our community's monthly newsletter -- edited by an energetic fellow retiree who doubles as reporter, writer, copy editor, composer, and art designer -- the only role he does not perform is probably being the publisher, which is done by our management office. When I started to do my blog, he came to our unit to interview me and then wrote an excellent column. The newsletter also has several interesting columnists, one of which, for want of a better term, is a food historian. In the current issue, she writes about noodles. It is so interesting and packed with so much valuable information that I cannot resist quoting her at length. She opens with the following: "Noodles are ... believed by many to be Chinese in origin. ... The Chinese culture considers them to be a symbol of longevity and eating them brings long life." Well, "eating them brings long life" may be an exaggeration, but, noodle as a symbol of longevity is certainly intuitive. Indeed, in China, one eats a bowl of noodle on one's birthday. During the Lunar New Year, we eat rice cakes 年糕, which are homonyms to another phrase 年高 meaning "reaching new high in the new year." Sorry, I digressed. Our columnist then says: "The earliest printed record of noodle use appears in a book written during the East Han Dynasty (25-220 CE). These original noodles were made from millet ground into flour. ... By the time of the Sung Dynasty (900-1218 CE), selling boiled noodles had become a thriving business. Marco Polo is said to have marveled at the number of noodle shops when he visited Hangchow in the 13th century." After two paragraphs on the dissemination of noodle to "Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and the Philippines," and on the many ways of preparing noodles, she ends with a teaser: "The Italians love their pasta. Did Marco Polo really bring the noodle back from China?" For the answer, we'll have to wait for the next month's newsletter. Stay tuned.

Mah-Jong (#339, Topic G)

On Lunar New Year's eve, my wife and I were invited to a dinner party, which was preceded by playing Mah-Jong for a few hours (#337). While I have written a book on this game (The Happy Game of Mah-Jong, 1996), for want of time, I rarely play. The last time I played was probably five years ago, on a cruise from Los Angeles to Mexico, with my sister, brother-in-law, and their friends. Thus, the hostess for the New Year's eve party was hesitant to invite me to play, for fear that I was too rusty. In reality, Mah-Jong is a simple game to learn and, once learned, can be played even after an absence of decades. (I am, of course, referrning to the classical Chinese version of Mah-Jong. In the American version, "rules are frequently changed, winning hands are arbitrarily determined, a simple and happy game made mercilessly rigid and incomprehensible" (quoting from the preface to my book). Mah-Jong is a good vehicle to keep one's mind active (playing Mah-Jong is encouraged in senior centers, both here and in China); conversely, a person with an active mind usually plays well. Playing well means (1) formulating an overall plan for the hand early (not unlike playing declarer in a bridge game, where one decides on a plan before playing the first card from dummy), (2) playing with little hesitation (since subsequent plays are mere executions of this overall plan), (3) pausing only when new tiles picked up offer a new challenge, requiring one to evaluate whether it is cost-effective to work toward an even higher-scoring combination (in bridge, when confronted with an unfavorable trump distribution, the declarer, to fulfill the contract, must decide whether to squeeze, to throw in, and such). In any case, on this New Year's eve, I had a good account of myself, being the big winner at our table; two of the highest scoring hands were by me. (Indeed, playing on the Mexico cruise, one of my winning hands had the highest score.) True, I made a few mistakes (discarding a tile that would have allowed me to move in a more lucrative direction and such); but, also true to the game, I never attempted to retrieve the discarded tile. I simply charged that to experience. After the game, the hostess wondered whether I could fill in (to be the fourth) as needed; I plan to play my next game in five years' time.

US detention of Latin-American Japanese during WWII (#338, Topic J)

Yesterday, Lunar New Year's Day was indeed a joyful one (#337); today, the second day of the Year of the Pig, began better than I had reason to expect but ended rather miserably. One of the problems of living in our retirement community is that we have only one indoor parking space; thus, my car is left outdoors. Ten days ago, I neglected to turn off the lights on my car; as a result, the battery went dead. It was jumped; according to AAA, it would be ok if I drove or kept the car running for 30 minutes. I did what I was told. But, when I tried to drive the car a few days later, perhaps due to the single-digit temperature, the battery was dead again. So, I made arrangements to have my car serviced, which is today. Little did I know that it is a holiday today; so, the traffic was light, and the AAA towing service, which was to come "in 90 minutes," actually showed up in less that 20! Reading Washington Post at the shop, I came across an ed-op piece by two California congressmen, one Democrat and the other Republican, entitled "Justice for the Forgotten Internees." According to the piece, "[an] estimated 2,300 people of Japanese descent from 13 Latin American countries ... were taken from their homes and forcibly transported to the Crystal City camp during World War II. The U.S. government orchestrated and financed the deportation of Japanese Latin Americans for use in prisoner-of-war exchanges with Japan. Eight hundred people were sent across the Pacific, while the remaining Japanese Latin Americans were held in camps without due process until after the war ended." Reading it, I was miserable. I asked myself: Were there international laws? Were these Latin American countries mere US colonies? Is this another example of "Do what I say, don't do what I do"? Perhaps one is not supposed to remember events taking place more than half a century ago? While I deeply detest what the Japanese militarists did to people of Chinese ethnicity before and during WWII, as a fellow Asian-American, I empathize with these Japanese-Americans -- and now Latin-American Japanese. Indeed, I could only shake my head while reading this piece. Luckily, shortly thereafter, my car was serviced and ready to go. The shop being a favorite place for me to visit (we became friends rather than customers; indeed, for this visit, my wife made more than 2 dozen Chinese snacks, each in the shape of a gold nugget to celebrate the Lunar New Year, for the owner and his staff), I got off rather lightly. As to the battery, even though it was completely my fault, I was not charged (the battery is still under warranty). So, half wary and half happy, I drove home in time for lunch.

Chinese New Year celebration (#337; Topic K)

Yesterday was Lunar New Year's eve; one of our fellow residents, the dean of residents of Chinese ethnicity in our retirement community, invited my wife and me to her unit for a game of Mah-Jong and a pot-luck party -- both are traditional events during the Lunar New Year celebration among relatives and close friends. In China, playing Mah-Jong or other games of chance (technically Mah-Jong, not unlike contract bridge, is not a game of chance) by members of different generations was/is? invariably not done -- except during the 3-day Lunar New Year celebration period. My being invited to play Mah-Jong yesterday reminded me of a scene, some 70 years ago, in Shanghai. One night during the Lunar New Year period, my grandmother played banker in a game known as Pai jiu (with 32 tiles, each showing a different combination of two dice (a few are paired), similar to domino). Betting against her were her grandchildren, none older than 10 -- I was the first son of grandmother's first son, thus, the oldest, and I was probably 9. Throwing the dice to decide the sequence of gathering tiles, she would say: "Let me win H.F.'s bet (my Chinese name)." There are 6 betting positions in Pai jiu -- three outright (comparing one's holding with the banker's holding one-on-one) and three hedged positions (one's bet is on two outright positions; if one of these two positions wins but the other loses, it is a draw; for a better to win, both outright positions must win.) I was a conservative player, usually making hedged bets. (To discourage players making hedged bets, only players making outright bets were allowed to handle the tiles. Thus, I usually stood on the edge of the gaming table.) Thus, in effect, my grandmother was saying her hand would be better than two of the three outright positions. I did not mind her saying so, realizing that, deep in her heart, she cared a great deal about her grandchildren. Indeed, the hong bao (red envelope) she gave to each of her grandchildren would be at least 100 times their individual bets on the gaming table. After an hour or two, the game would be over and we would gather around to have lunch or dinner. A joyful gathering that allowed members of different generations to have a good time together. Oh, these are the good old days. Now, of course, my grandmother was long gone; even my wife, my grandmother's granddaughter-in-law, has become a grandmother herself.

China's antisatellite-missle test - III (#336, Topic F)

Today is Lunar New Year's eve; I was planning to write something about the charming things we do during this family-oriented period. This idea, however, is trumpted by an important interview I read in today's Wall Street Journal -- of Tom Schelling, last year's Nobel laureate in economics, whose specialty is the application of game theory to negotiation, by Michael Spence, one of Schelling's students at Harvard and himself a Nobel laureate in economics, in 2001. The interview covered a lot of territory. Let me cover only its last segment, on China. Schelling said: "I believe we do not pay enough attention to China. China has a small, well-managed nuclear arsenal, which they never brandished or threatened to use. China does not react well when we treat it as if if were irresponsible. Recently China conducted a test and shot down a satellite, and was criticized for contributing to the militarization of space. What appears not well known in the U.S. is that China has been trying to negotiate treaties on outer space, antisatellite weapons, and limiting the production of fissile material for a number of years, and has not been able to get the U.S. to participate. Since we are clearly developing antisatellite capabilities, accusations against China for escalation are viewed by them and others as hypocritical." Well said. Since I am not in their league, it is vain to say that I could not say it any better. I did, along with my good friend Anonymous, comment in earlier entries (Anonymous, in comment to #314; mine, as #317) that China attempted to interest USA in agreements concerning the outer space and antisatellite missiles, but her efforts were brushed aside. At that time, presumably, China did not have the capability. Now, she has -- at least on a par with USA's. Well, with this, let us say goodbye to the Year of the Dog and welcome, in a few hours' time, the Year of the Pig. (It is already the morning of the New Year's Day of the Year of the Pig.)

English is not an easy language (#335, Topic L)

In an earlier post, I mentioned that a reader in Ann Arbor felt a notice he saw in a hotel room in Manaus, Brazil, was worthy of writing a letter to the editor of Wall Street Journal (#332) -- and editors at WSJ felt that it was worthy of publishing. A friend asked me how that notice was phrased. Here it is: "Press 9 and we will come to take off your clothes." It is unlikely that our letter writer was concerned with the fine distinction between we shall and we will; more likely, it was the phrase take off that prompted him to write -- after "wacking English" in Beijing "made [the letter writer] laugh." Is the notice really that bad? Is it wrong, grammatically speaking? Given my limited understanding of the English language, I have to confess that I cannot find anything wrong with this notice -- grammatically speaking. Perhaps the letter writer felt that the phrase take off has only one meaning. If so, I have news for him. Dictionary: Macmillan, which is intended for high-school students -- or for people like me -- finds the verb take so difficult that it adds (and defines), after the main entry, more than a dozen prepositional phrases -- from take after, take back, take down, take for down to take to, take up, and take up to. As to take off, one of the phrases defined, the dictionary offers no less than 5 different meanings -- "a to remove, as a garment; b to deduct, to subtract; c to imitate; d to rise up in flight; e to depart, leave." Frankly, I am more interested in knowing how people to whom English is the first language handle their mother tongue. Yesterday, I wrote about the presidential news conference (#334). Today's Washington Post has a long story on that event. At one point, the president asked a reporter: "Michael, who do you work for?" Who? not whom? It is understandable that Americans want non-native speakers of English to have a good command of the language; fair enough. But, please show us the way; set a good example. Show us how English should be used; spare us the nitpicking. Spare us a tree or two.

Presidential news conference (#334, Topic R)

One of today's Wall Street Journal editorials, commenting on the just concluded 6-nation meeting on North Korea's nuclear program, is labeled "Faith-Based Non-Proliferation Pact." At 9:30, the President held a news conference, carried live by CNBC. The shot showed the president standing behind a podium, with a huge red carpet -- for Valentine's Day, no doubt -- covering the vast ground separating him from the journalists. Perhaps influenced by the word faith I read earlier, I thought the setting resembled the interior of a church, with the one behind the podium pontificating. As the president spoke, he somehow began comments with "I believe." On the North Korea agreement, he said: "I believe it's an important step in the right direction." Fair enough. He also said: "I believe that success in Baghdad will have success in helping us secure the homeland;" "I believe [in the Middle East policy];" "I believe [in NATO's stabilizing influence in Afghanistan];" "I believe [in securing the border]" About the same time, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was testifying before a Senate Committee. At first, CNBC showed both the president speaking and Bernanke testifying on a split screen -- side by side. About 10 minutes later, CNBC dropped the president's image and focused on Bernanke's answers to various senators' questions. Why so? I ask myself. Clearly, both the president and Bernanke were making forecasts -- one on international politics and the other on international political economy -- both are, of course, vital. Was it because the former's forecast lacked fact-based documentation while the latter's forecast was more solidly grounded? In any case, as far as I could gather from their non-verbal gestures and body languages, the latter had more confidence or self-confidence. But, of course, confidence or self-confidence is not in the same league as faith. Saying "I believe" undoubtedly moves confidence or self-confidence to a higher level.

Here is to you, whose native tongue is English (#333, Topic L)

A week or so ago, the Wall Street Journal had a front-page story, complete with color photographs, headlined "Tired of Laughter, Beijing Gets Rid of Bad Translations." This apparently has made many readers laugh. Indeed, in today's WSJ, a reader, in a letter to the editor, said as much. He then wrote about a notice he read in a hotel in Manaus, Brazil. I must admit that I have never been to Manaus. According to National Geographic's World Map, Manuas is strategically located on the Amazon River, and has an airport -- but, it is certainly not in the same league, in terms of population, as Ann Arbor (the letter writer's hometown) or NYC, where WSJ is headquarterd. So, let's see how WSJ fares, in its own paper -- in its own language, English. Every day, a two-column-wide section on page A1, captioned "What's New," serves as an annotated index to that day's stories. Today, the lead entry under Business and Finance begins with this sentence: "Home Depot said it would considering selling or spinning off its wholesale-supply business to focus on its retail operations, bowing again to pressure from activist investor ..." Considering, selling, spinning, bowing -- they are participles; where is the verb? On today's B1, WSJ's Hong Kong correspondent offers this gem in his column: "Sometimes, my Chinese colleagues nap at their desks during lunch." Having touted how good Chinese food is in the same column, one wonders why this correspondent's Chinese colleagues would prefer napping to enjoying their lunch. Let me hazard a guess. Our esteemed WSJ correspondent meant to say during their lunch period. Today's WSJ also has an 8-page special advertising section, touting "focus on energy," in which leading oil companies each has a full page ad. One leads off with the following: "There are 193 countries in the world. None of them are energy independent." None are; not none is? English is not my native tongue, but I cannot laugh at what I have read or what I have captured here. I do wish to plead, however, that a person whose native language is English be more tolerant of those who are trying their best to speak the language. To err is human; indeed, to err in a language not your own is to be expected.

Freedom of speech in action (#332, Topic D)

Every Sunday, the Washington Post has a column by its ombudsman. In last Sunday's (2/11/07) column, she talked about editing supervision over blogs posted on WP's website. In particular, she said she was flooded with complaints against an entry, posted in January, concerning the troops in Iraq. Somehow, the following sentence appeared in that post: " it was an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary -- oops sorry, volunteer -- force that thinks it is doing the dirty work." Yesterday's WP had a follow-up story on that post; in it, the executive editor of washingtonpost.com was quoted as saying "We certainly apologize for using it [the word mercenary] on the site. ... I know it offended a lot of people, but I don't think it's something he should be fired for." Was he or was he not fired? I am too stupid to tell from reading that follow-up story, though it mentioned that the blogger apologized "for his 'blasphemy'," and that he was ambushed "in a parking lot, called his remarks 'disgraceful,' and said that The Post and NBC News, where [this blogger] works as an analyst, will be 'forever tainted' by the incident." Today's New York Times has an editorial, "The Courage of Others' Convictions," concerning the Dixie Chicks, a trio of female vocalists who won three top awards (album of the year, record of the year, and song of the year) at the Grammy Awards last Sunday. It seems that, back in 2003, the lead singer, in a concert in London, said that she was ashamed that President Bush was from her home state of Texas (she opposed the Iraq war). Since then, according to the editorial, "their music was boycotted and banned by country music stations, their CDs were burned and smashed, and group members' lives were threatened." The editorial continues to say that "The Chicks' offense was ... labeled unpatriotic." The editorial ends with a reference to another incident more than half a century ago: "Lililian Hellman scalded an Academic Awards ceremony in 1977, 25 years after she defied the House Un-American Activities Committee." Today's WP also carries a story that two bloggers on the staff of a presidential candidate on the Democractic side were fired for using languages that infuriated people in power. So much for freedom of speech.

What is democracy - III (#331, Topic P)

When I am using my computer, I usually have TV in the background. Last night, PBC showed a BBC segment on Russian President Vladimir Putin at the international security conference in Munich. Today, the Washington Post has this as its lead story, quoting Putin as saying: "Russia is constantly being taught democracy, and the people who try to teach it don't learn it themselves." I must admit that, though I have tried, very hard, to learn what democracy is, I have never been able to put my hands on a book on what democracy is. I have to infer that democracy is easier said than done. Indeed, while reading today's WP story, I thought, maybe, I should compile one myself, using what I have gathered in recent months as a starting point. I was thinking of the following entries. "(1) Democracy means voting. (2) A precondition to voting is to have a campaign chest -- for the 2008 election, the minimum is $50 million; $100 million is better. (3) Because voting is expensive, it needs to be done only once every four years. (4) After you have voted, retire and come back in four years; your vote is valuable." Then, in another section of today's WP, I read another lead story, by a retired Army lieutenant general who also was a former director of the National Security Agency and now is a Yale professor -- certainly much more authoritative and, indeed, sober. He wrote, inter alia, the following: "First, the assumption that the United States could create a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq defies just about everything known by professional students of the topic. ... [Neoconservative agitators] ignored our own struggles over two centuries to create the democracy Americans enjoy today. ... Second, to expect any Iraqi leader who can hold his country together to be pro-American, or to share American goals, is to abandon common sense. It took the United States more than a century to ge over its hostility toward British occupation. (In 1914, a majority of the public favored supporting Germany against Britain.)" The last sentence, in brackets, is certainly a revelation. After reading it, the quote I frequently make comes to mind again: "Do what I say; don't do what I do" -- or, what I did, for that matter.

Arithmetic puzzle (#330, Topic N)

From time to time, Washington Post has an arithmetic puzzle. Whenever I see one, I am always reminded of the time I took the entrance examination to a prestigious middle school in China. This was a playing-field-leveling device, allowing candidates who had only a couple years of English to solve problems that require little narrative. In today's WP, I see the following puzzle, where I = 5 and N = 1:
RED
RED
RED (+
-----
WINS

I solved a similar puzzle at that entrance exam; with that, I was admitted -- to the A section, no less -- despite my low proficiency in English. The answer to today's puzzle in WP will be given in Monday's edition, 2/12. Unable to resist the temptation to see whether my mental capacity has deteriorated to that below a 12-year-old (as I was at the time), I hazard a solution below:
R = 8; E = 3; D = 9; W = 2; S = 7. We'll see how I fare Monday.

Applying Sun Tzu to war of politics (#329, Topic P)

In an earlier post (#327), I mentioned that, in my view, "Politics is a zero-sum game at its purest. Its rules of engagement are cut-and-dry (vote count), its decision criterion is clear-cut (majority/plurality wins), and its result is cut-throat (winner takes all)." This quote is from the preface to my translation of Sun Tzu's Art of War (as The Art of Leadership by Sun Tzu); it was published in October 2000, a month or so before the November 2000 presidential election in USA. When I was doing entry #327, PBS's second installment of "The Supreme Court" was in the background. With this juxtaposition, I could not help recognizing the irony of what I was relating. For the 2000 presidential election, the voting results from Florida were crucial -- the candidate winning Florida would win the presidency. So, while it seems that counting votes cast by citizens in Florida would be doubly important at this critical juncture, what actually took place was the reverse. In the second installment of "The Supreme Court," the court actually took action to stop vote counting in Florida. On the criterion of "majority/plurality wins," given the peculiar provisions in the constitution (stating that the right to vote for the presidency vests with the electoral college), a candidate with the largest number of total votes cast by all citizens in all states and jurisdictions is not necessarily the president-elect -- this happened in two previous elections, and it happened again in 2000. My good friend, Anonymous, in commenting on entry #327, suggested a good way of leveling the playing field -- "forcing each Presidential candidate to run on US$5.0 million each." But, war -- and, by extension, politics -- is invariably an exercise in, using a word in vogue, asymmetry. (Only in war games, such as Xiangqi or the western chess, do the two teams begin playing with a level playing field.) I have read, on many occasions, that restricting spending money in political campaigns is a freedom-of-speech violation. Besides, what can $5 million do? We are talking billions!

Voting in congress (#328, Topic P)

It is always interesting to read how the congress spends its time when it is in session. The most pressing topic confronting it at the moment, it seems, is to debate/vote on President Bush's "surge" of troop deployment in Iraq. Indeed, today's Washington Post has this as its front-page story; its headline says: "7 GOP Senators Back War Debate: Lawmakers Had Blocked Action on Troop Resolution." Reading in context, it seems that, last week, the Senate's minority leader, using procedural tactics, allowed the debate to go on and on -- thereby delaying, if not preventing, a vote on the issue itself. If a democracy's signal feature is to vote, it is really interesting to read that, once elected, a senator or a representative would prefer not to vote -- at least not to vote on substantive matters. A columnist in today's WP comments: "The result of [the minority leader's] tactics is that no resolution will be passed by the Senate anytime soon." He then follows with this gem: "The White House was overjoyed." Interesting. Today's WP, on A2, has a chronology of work done by the house yesterday. Voting on a bill "commending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln volleyball team." Voting to remember "a deceased NASCAR driver." Voting to name "a court house in Duluth, Minn." Voting to honor "the grandfather of two congressmen." And a "full debate, ... congratulating the Indianapolis Colts for winning the Super Bowl." Two Indiana Republican representatives asked for "unanimous consent to add to the Congressional Record the names of all the members of the Colts offense, defense, substitutions and the coaching staff." Another Republican representative, from Tennessee, even added that Peyton Manning, Colts' quarterback voted the MVP, "is married to a Chattanooga girl." Interesting. Really interesting. A member of the Congress spends many millions of dollars to be elected, and earns between $135,000 and $165,000 per year. And then votes as "people's representative." Well done.

Presidential race and Sun Tzu (#327, Topic P)

In 2000, when I translated Sun Tzu's classic as The Art of Leadership by Sun Tzu, I wrote 26 case studies specific to the book (two each for its 13 chapters). Of these, 11 are on USA's 2000 Presidential nomination process. In the preface, I explained my reasoning for including these cases as follows. "Sun Wu's leadership concepts and planning emphasis adapt well -- perhaps even better -- to politics. Politics is a zero-sum game at its purest. Its rules of engagement are cut-and-dry (vote count), its decision criterion is clear-cut (majority/plurality wins), and its end result is cut-throat (winner takes all). " In my very first case study, labeled Republican Party Presidential Nomination for 2000 - The Iowa Straw Poll, I discussed how a candidate may use the Iowa Poll and Sun Tzu's 5 factors of success in war (#326) to self-assess his/her relative attractiveness. Now that the 2008 nomination process is upon us, I am tempted to do the same. Though the earliest primary is about a year away, hopefuls are already jockeying for position. Indeed, a story in today's Washington Post states, in passing, that many have "referred to [this year's money race] as the first presidential primary." Fund raising may be equated to "Support", Sun Tzu's 5th factor of sucess in war, which he elaborated as "military organization, administrative direction, and fiscal appropriations." Fund-raising allows a candidate to ask himself/herself questions such as, as noted in my case, "Are my resources adequate? Do I have a support advantage?" According to today's Wall Street Journal, "on July 1, 1999, Mr. [George W.] Bush reported raising a record $36 million in six months. Within days, two Republican hopefuls ... dropped out of the race. ... By the end of the year, [two more] also quit after lagging in the money race." For the 2008 race, in reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, as of 12/31/06, Rudolph Giuliani, formerly mayor of NYC, led the Republican candidates with $2,093,993 in his campaign chest; among Democrats, Sen. Hillary Clinton, #1 among all candidates, had $11,021,087; Sen. Chris Dodd, #2 overall, had $4,925,913; Sen. Joe Biden, #3 overall, had $3,598, 479; and Sen. Barack Obama, #4 among Democrats and #5 overall, had $516,553. Several campaigns "are shooting for about $30 million [in their campaign chests] in that first [quarterly] report" due 3/31/07. At the moment, there are about 10 Republican candidates and an equal number of Democratic candidates. I also read that, to be viable, a candidate must generate between $50 million and $100 million. Thus, for the 2008 race, we may look forward to campaign spending of between $1 billion and $2 billion. My, my, democracy is an expensive proposition.

Sun Tzu on authority to declare war (#326, Topic C)

After President Bush talked about "surge" in troop deployment in Iraq, I came across several essays on the authority to declare war in USA. Interestingly, for a topic as important as this, a story in TIME suggested that Founding Fathers never gave an unequivocal answer. Thus, I read, with great interest, an op-ed piece in the 1/31 issue of Washington Post. Responding to that piece, I submitted a letter to the editors of WP. Given my batting average on this front (about .020), I was not surprised that my submission did not appear in print. For the record, this submission is reproduced below.
Sun Tzu's Art of War (c512 BCE) begins with "War is a major affair of the State." In my translation of this classic (as The Art of Leadership by Sun Tzu, published in 2000), I provided the following annotation: "Affairs of the State are the domain of heads of state; of these, only two, deemed major, expect the head of state's personal attention: officiating in ceremonies honoring past kings and deciding whether to engage in war." After saying that "For better understanding, [war] needs to be delineated into five factors and analyzed separately," Sun Tzu offered "Direction," dealing with the decision to engage in war, as Factor 1, and "Commandership," dealing with the conduct of war, as Factor 4. He then subtly suggested that, for best results, the latter be delegated to another person. (Sun Tzu's work was intended to be read by heads of state.) America's Founding Fathers seem to have come to the same conclusion. As succintly stated by Fred Barbash, "Why Would Congress Surrender?" [Jan 31], they vested the Congress, which, collectively, represents the head of a democratic state) with the authority to "declare war" (Article I of the Constitution), while making the president the commander-in-chief in Article II.
While doing this entry, my TV in the background is tuned to C-SPAN2, showing Secretary of Defense Gates's testimony before a Senate Committee. A Republican senator from South Carolina, in his commentary, says: "We cannot have 435 commanders-in-chief or 435 secretaries of state." The implication is that the conduct of war is best given to the president -- which is not inconsistent with Article II of the Constitution. The question of who has the authority to declare war -- or its converse, to end a war -- is not addressed. Again, it is strange that an issue as important as the authority to declare/end a war is still under debate in a democracy that is more than 200 years old.

SuperBowl evening at our retirement community (#325, Topic D)

After posting my entry yesterday (#324), at 6:15 pm, and then dinner at home, my wife and I, at 7 pm, left for our retirement community's clubhouse for a Fireside Forum on Eleanor Roosevelt. At the clubhouse, we went to the foyer, where there is a fireplace and two 50" HDTV mounted on walls. I thought the forum would be held at that cozy foyer and, thus, was disappointed to see only 4 people sitting nearby, three women and 1 man. As it turned out, the talk was to be held at the auditorium (the auditorium was closed for some time for renovation); the four residents were watching the Super Bowl, which, by that time, was about 10 minutes old, with the score 14-6 Bears. The auditorium has 500+ seats; when the talk started at 7:30, there were about 300 in attendance. After introduction, the speaker, a U of Maryland professor (who was, at one time, a Washington Post reporter) thanked the attendees for attending, mentioning, specifically, the sub-freezing temperature and the Super Bowl. The talk was shorter than expected (lasting but 40+ minutes), though it was followed by a fairly long Q&A period. Unable to contain myself, as usual, I asked: "You talked about drug use and addiction in the family. To what extent was opium a factor?" (My wife and I went in early, at about 7:15, and were able to find good seats: the fourth row near the podium, with an unobstructed view of the speaker.) She looked at me, and, without missing a beat, said: "You mean the Delano family and their opium trade in China." She said a few words on this and then went on to say that one of the family members did have an addiction to opium, caused by using it, medicinally at first, for knee pain. As we passed through the foyer on our way to the parking area, there were only three in front of this 50" HDTV -- two women and 1 man. One woman volunteered the score at that point: 22-17 Colts in the 3rd quarter. Upon returning home, I was able to turn the TV on, mainly as background, while working on my computer. I saw the opening kickoff return (when the game was barely 14 seconds old), witnessed a few plays in the 4th quarter, and knew the final score was 29-17 Colts. I did not see any of the commercials (at $2.6 million per 30 seconds), though it became a hot topic in the media (the Wall Street Journal has a 1-1/2-page coverage in today's edition)

Super Bowl XLI (#324, Topic G)

In the last decade or so, among professional sports in USA, the biggest game is, most likely, the Super Bowl, whose 41st encounter will be held this evening in Miami, beginning at 6:30. Ticket to today's game, according to CNBC, were offered by scalpers at $10,000 each a few days ago, but down to $2,000 each last Friday, and even to $1,700 each on the internet. The minimum wage in USA, before it was adjusted to $7.25 over a two-year period last week, was $5.35 per hour -- it would take a hamburger flipper, earning the minimum wage, almost 1900 hours -- 10+ months -- to make $10,000 before taxes; a Super Bowl game will be over in 3 or 4 hours. With 6 billion people watching over TV around the world, a 30-second ad costs more than $2 million. The economics of professional sports is staggering. The biggest game begets the biggest gaming (there is no gambling in USA, only gaming); I would not be surprised if several billion dollars were bet on the game's outcome. One columnist predicted a score of 31-28 Bears, on the ground that Chicago Bears are strong on defense. And, in tense games, defense tends to shine over offense. I have seen Super Bowl only once, VII, between the undefeated Miami and Washington Redskins, in Los Angeles -- at that time, I was on leave to a Federal government agency from my professorship at U of Washington, and was on business in Los Angeles that weekend. I managed to buy a ticket just outside the stadium -- at face value, for $20, if my memory serves me. The stadium was not full, and the game (the first time I ever watched a professional football game in person) was the dullest I had witnessed up to that time. (Miami won, 14:7.) I have since seen two other pro football games, one 2 or 3 years ago in Washington (the security check was extremely tight, spoiling whatever fun there was), and the other last Christmas eve in Detroit, between Lions and Chicago Bears. Again, if my memory serves me, during the entire second quarter of that Lions-Bears game, neither team made a first down; it was punting back and forth for the entire 15 minutes, though the game, during the second half, was quite exciting. Using this game as a gauge (at that time, Detroit's record was 2-12, one of the poorest, while Chicago's was 12-2, one of the best), I do not think this XLI encounter will be a high-scoring game, nor do I think Chicago will prevail. Of course, I have never seen Indianapolis Colts in play, so the above is merely heresy on my part. At 7:30 tonight, our retirement community has a Fireside Forum, feathering a speaker on Eleanor Roosevelt. My wife wants to go to listen to that lecture. Since I do not watch ballgames over TV anyway, we'll be at the Fireside Forum. It would be interesting to find out how many others from our community (which has a population close to 10,000) would be there. We'll see.

"Articulate" (#323, Topic A)

A couple of days ago, a presidential candidate, in throwing his hat into the Democratic-party- primary ring, commented, when asked by a reporter, that a fellow presidential candidate (#310) was "the first African-American who is clean, articulate". The comment was intended to be a praise (certainly, it was not meant to bring about any controversy) , but the media took it differently, accusing this newest presidential candidate with tinges of racism. This brings back an issue that has been on my mind for, by now, 20+ years. It was 1985; I was interviewed by the World Bank Group for a position, and talked to quite a few staff members in the process. At that time, I was in the academia for over 30 years and a tenured full professor for over 20, with dozens of papers and 8 books under my belt. After I joined WB, I somehow got to read some of the notes written by people I talked to. One said that I was "articulate." While a lot has taken place over the 20+ years, and while my memory has been deteriorating by the day, somehow, this word left a strong impression with me -- I always thought it was a strange word, but I could not put my fingers on why I thought it this way -- until now, until I read the various commentaries by the punditry on this current event. It is racism -- subtle, yes; almost unnoticeable, yes; probably unintended, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Still, it is racism. The implication is that you -- I -- being not a WASP, cannot be expected to speak the WASP language in complete sentences, let alone in grammatically correct sentences. When you -- I -- prove to be beyond this normal expectation, the only adjective that comes to a WASP's mind is articulate. So, this 20+ year-old puzzle is solved. Q.E.D. Thank you, senator from a state in which I have an oceanfront condo for 30+ years.