Give W Credit where it is due

George W Bush was evidently way smarter than he looked. It was a truly prophetic gesture to refuse to ratify the Rome Statute in 2002 which established the International Criminal Court in Hague, an international tribunal for persecuting war criminals. The USA is in great company here - other countries who refused to join the treaty were Israel, Russia and China. As a result, it turns out that Tony Blair can be tried as a war criminal for the act of aggression against Iraq (a violation of the international law), and W can't!

The movement to have Tony Blair tried as a war criminal is gaining steam in the UK - you can read more here.

Also today read a new article - brilliant and thought provocative as usual - by Paul Craig Roberts "Americans Are Hell-Bent of Tyranny."

Tell Me Who Your Friend is

The USA is squarely on the side of the "young Georgian democracy" in its conflicts with Russia. Here is what I - surprise, surprise! - do not see reported in our American propaganda - eh-h-h - news. The democratic republic of Georgia decided to blow up a WWII memorial. Let me remind you that the Soviet Union was the decisive force in the victory over the Nazi Germany having lost 27 million lives of its own citizens. Among those killed were 300,000 Georgians. Not to worry. The monument was to be demolished to make way for the construction of the new Georgian parliament building (curiously being moved outside of the Georgian capital Tbilisi). Mr. Saakashvili timed the demolition so that it would coincide with his birthday on December 21 (incidentally, that day is also the birthday of another famous Georgian, Stalin). Georgian opposition voiced their protests against the demolition which were, naturally, ignored in the best traditions of the Georgian democracy. Anyway, the blast was eventually held 2 days ahead of the schedule for reasons unexplained to the press. During the explosion a woman and her 8-year-old daughter were killed by a piece of debris which accidentally hit them.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Saakashvili! Hope you get a particularly tasteful tie as a present.

Great friends we have, really! Blowing up monuments to people who defeated fascism (blowing up their own citizens as a collateral damage, too). Huge portraits of Stalin can still be seen on the streets of Georgian cities. What do friendships like that say about us? Oh, wait. I remember that at some point Osama bin Laden was our friend. Never mind!

The news has been reported by Reuters, and some other Western media - but not the US. Oh, no, not the US. We do not report unpleasant news about our dear friends. We are all Georgians here, remember? Count me out.

The Real Size of the US Deficit in 2009 is $9 Trillion

I already mentioned the site http://www.shadowstats.com/ on my blog as a source of information about the economy which does not tweak the economic data to make it more palatable for the general public consumption, and does not put a positive spin on the numbers. The problem is that the site is not free. Well, I stumbled across a source which reports the recent information off that site in the open Internet. And what they are reporting is shocking.

It turns out that the release of an annual US deficit report by the US Treasury will be delayed by two months till at least February 2010. This deficit calculation uses the Generally Accepted Accounting (GAAP) principles, the same which are required of all of the US corporations. And according to the shadowstats website, it is going to show a deficit of $9 trillion in 2009 ALONE.

"The reason why the “official” deficit numbers are so radically different from the real budget numbers for the United States is that with GAAP accounting, the government is not allowed to hide its “unfunded liabilities” off of its balance sheet." You can read more on the story here.

So as a corporation, the US is almost bankrupt: with a $14-trillion-a-year GDP we can't be running annual deficits of $9-trillion for long.

So let us wait till February and see how much of this information we will be able to read in the - what some of my friends consider to be - American news.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

A Bit of the Professional Humor

The Year of My Discontent

I have been wondering why I am so at odds with the world around me lately. Why am I so upset by the realities around me? Why do I feel so disappointed in this country, so betrayed by it? After all, it is not even truly my country to begin with. What do I care if it turned out to be sold out to special interests, and that it lacks freedom of speech, and offers propaganda in place of the news, and substitutes moral values with money and religion?

This is not simply a mid-life crisis, although I concede that my sentiments may be particularly painful because of that, too. I realized after a while that what I am living through is the fall of my belief system, of a certain ideal I had in my mind, a crisis of consciousness. Many people experienced the same in Russia with the advent of perestroika which all of a sudden made it clear that people who had been glamorized throughout the history of the Soviet State were some of the worst and most savage criminals in history, that the society's value system was all based on a myth, that the very idea on which the country was built was stripped of its worth, flogged and spat at in front of our eyes. As a result, a huge void formed in the Russian society in the place where the soviet value system once stood. And that system was an exact equivalent of a religion with its iconostasis, Lives of the Saints, its own Bible and the religious texts. The iconoclasm of the 1990's did not bring in new values to the society, and the gaping hole is being filled with a mix of Orthodox Christianity, cynicism, cult of money and material success, and the emerging nationalism.

Anyway, I did not live through a crisis of consciousness back then because I was raised in an anti-communist household. It was clandestine anti-communism, and I knew from the early age not to repeat elsewhere what I heard at home. My Dad grew up in a village in the Russian North where many political exiles were sent to live. While growing up, he heard them tell stories about Stalin's atrocities, he imbibed the atmosphere critical of the current regime and its ideology. And he generously shared it with me. So I definitely did not partake of the culture of communist brainwashing, and thus the crash of that culture did not affect me as anything but liberation.

What I did believe in were the ideals of a free world. Of capitalist entrepreneurship, reward for hard work, talent, persistence. Freedom of speech, freedom of beliefs. Justice free from ideology. I thought that America was the country that lived and breathed those ideals. We came here in good faith, we worked hard, and without any public assistance ever we made a very good living for ourselves. I did not pay much attention to George Bush the 1st - we were too busy building our life in America back then. I was horrified and disgusted by the immoral rule of Bill Clinton with an orgy of materialistic excesses and consumerism we saw around us. The fact that the sleazy Bill could get away with anything did not sit well with us. We voted for George Bush both times thinking that his Republican ideas will usher in the era of personal responsibility, human decency, hard work. Instead he busied himself with enriching a few people at the top and completely pillaging the country destroying its manufacturing base, unleashing unnecessary wars under false pretenses and brainwashing, brainwashing, brainwashing us.

And then as a final blow and an eye-opener came Georgia. That is Georgian attack on Ossetia which historically has never been a part of Georgia as a country, and which declared its own independence of Georgia at the time when Georgia became a separate state after the fall of the Soviet Union. Georgian tanks rolled into the streets of the sleeping town on Tskhinval in the dead of the night on August 8, 2008 when the world was busy watching the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing. From the antiquity wars were stopped for the duration of the Olympics, so to start a war at the opening of the Olympic Games certainly was a new low in the international relations. And those tanks were shelling residential buildings killing peaceful population, as well as Russian peace keepers who were on the territory of Ossetia by the international mandate. As a response, Russia brought in its own troops, quickly overturned the "brave" US-trained Georgian forces and advanced into Georgia. It was VERY clear who was in the right, and who was in the wrong. But ALL AMERICAN NEWS SOURCES CHOSE to represent the story as a insidious attack of Russians against peaceful pro-Western Georgians. There were more balanced accounts in European mass media, but in the US there was no place for any other view of the situation except the officially endorsed one. That is when the last curtain fell from my eyes, and I realized that our mass media are not interested in reporting news to us, they are not interested in informing us, they are interested in indoctrinating us and carrying out orders coming from some masters invisible to us.

(Of course, in the time which has elapsed since the Georgian attack, an official European report has found Georgia as an aggressor, but that information, too, which made headlines in Europe, was printed in small print in the mid-sections of our newspapers and with the headers like "The report blames the war on both, Russia and Georgia." Lies, lies, lies. Seriously, no better than what the communists printed in Russia.)

Then I saw how our newly elected President is interested in solely saving his Wall-Street puppeteers, how he continues to escalate the wars which we cannot afford, and I realized that this country is not at all ruled by a democratically elected President and Congress, but rather by a few special interest groups behind the screens. And that those groups do not hold anything sacred - not their country, not God, not justice, not morals - except the Almighty Dollar. And this is when my internal crisis hit me.

Now I experience a void of values to believe in. Capitalism has disgraced itself in my eyes. Religion holds next to no appeal to me - I see it as an unverifiable tale employed by a religious establishment to provide a fairly good living for themselves. I do not see a change I can believe in. I am lost. I am disgusted. I am coming to realization that the only thing in life worth worshiping and admiring is art and human thought. I am preparing for the internal immigration. Good-bye, America! I believed in you. I was wrong.

My Favorite Poems

I just want to announce that I started a new blog project - completely in Russian - where I hope to collect all of my favorite poems one poem per day. I called it iPoemPod. In case you read in Russian and would like to visit it, here is the link.

Cultural Baggage Filled with Political Correctness

MSNBC today is reprinting an article from CondeNast Traveler with important tips on taboo topics in 12 different countries. The article is placed under a header "Where you should think before you speak" which gives a nice prelude of what will follow. The title is quite idiotic, of course. Uh-h-h-g, the answer to that question would be obviously, EVERYWHERE. The author claims that some topics are to be avoided at all costs in various countries (in fact he labels them as absolutely verboten). Examples are: do not discuss Israel and all things Jewish in Egypt, do not talk about the US and Canadian health care in Canada, do not talk about human rights in China, etc. Amidst the topics encouraged by the author are gastronomic delights and possibly cultural and sports achievement of those countries. In other words, when meeting people from other countries, try to learn as little as possible about how they view really relevant issues, and keep the conversation strictly within the range of small talk pleasantries. Speaking food and sports is probably the least enlightening of all conversations known to men. The author is advising us to do just that.

It is easy to see why he makes this bizarre and, really, stupid, recommendation. He proceeds from the premise that Americans have preconceived notions about those issues, and they may not be possibly interested in what other people have to say about them. There can only be a clash of opinions. He even admits it. Don't mention Jews in Egypt because you may hear conspiracy theories. So what??? Where else will I hear the conspiracy theories? What if I want to make my own judgement about them? Don't discuss Canadian health care with Canadians because they are fiercely protective of it. So what??? What if I want to hear that despite all the perceived drawbacks people are actually quite satisfied to wait for their elective surgeries for a year or more as long as they are free? The recommendation not to discuss the atrocities in Chechnya and Georgia with Russians betrays the author's lack of familiarity with the issue and effectiveness of brainwashing by American propaganda machine. The only atrocities committed in Georgia were those committed by the Georgians against peacefully sleeping Ossetians whose houses Georgian troops were shelling in the middle of the night. Atrocities in Chechnya were committed by Chechen fighters against hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians who used to live in that area - and who were essentially killed or completely driven out of there. Russians would gladly talk with you about those facts.

My feeling is that the author is not trying to prevent us from committing a faux pas, he wants to prevent us from learning stuff which runs contrary to our comfortable cultural stereotypes.

What I absolutely detest about America is our political correctness. No! It is NOT good that we avoid conflicts in our discussions. Because we either never find out that our preconceived notions are incorrect, or our biases and anger settle deeper in our consciousness. I am a firm believer in talking things over, and arguing about them openly, rather than sweeping them under the mat, smiling politely and keeping the conversation down to small talk.

Plastic conversations, plastic people, plastic relationships. If this is the stereotype of an American traveler you want to perpetuate in the world, go ahead and follow the "safe" and patronizing recommendations. Stick to discussing hockey with Canadians. Does anybody else see how condescending and humiliating this advice is to both, Americans and Canadians/Egyptians/Russians, etc.?

What an ugly and barren animal this cross between political correctness and cultural baggage produces!

In Memoriam

Three most handsome male actors of the Russian cinema died this year:

Oleg Yankovskii

Igor Starygin

and Viacheslav Tikhonov.

And then there were none...

Common Sense Helps Smell Corruption

How can you tell when officials have accepted bribes? Easily, actually. You just need to use the power of observation and some common sense. Just like my favorite Agatha Christie's character, Miss Marple, who has spent all of her life in a tiny English village, yet by drawing analogies between the most mundane observable human behaviors, she is capable of solving very intricate crimes.

Say, if you know that your neighbor did not inherit any family wealth, has a home-maker wife, works as a city building inspector, and yet drives a new Lexus and takes 3 vacations abroad every year, you can safely suspect that he takes bribes. Or if a city zoning commission which gives you a lot of grief and denies your petition to extend your deck by ONE FOOT because it will then be encroaching on the 3 yards easement around a sewer line, quickly approves a commercial development despite protests from neighbors, environmental groups, violation of existing zoning restrictions and exorbitant costs involved in moving roads and other infrastructure items - you can be reasonably sure that members of the zoning commission were ECONOMICALLY ENCOURAGED to make the decision in favor of this big developer.

Consider a couple more cases from our recent history as a country. BHG (bovine growth hormone) was approved by the FDA in 1993 as safe for cows after just THREE MONTHS of conducting studies. The BHG is passed to cow milk and milk products which we in turn consume. There have been studies linking this hormone to increased rates of human cancer. The hormone is BANNED EVERYWHERE in the developed world: Europe, Canada, New Zealand - you name it. Is it reasonable to assume that our own FDA was - mmm- economically encouraged to find it safe to use? You decide. I have stuck with hormone free milk products ever since, and I suspect that the FDA authorities have done the same in their personal life.

But maybe FDA is always quick to approve new and questionable treatments and additives? Let me think... Say, a chicken pox vaccine had been developed and administered in Japan for 14 years with an excellent record of safety, yet our own FDA refused to allow it on our market as being "unsafe" and "unproven" till 1996. Could it possibly be that manufacturers of the vaccine just stubbornly refused to grease the palm? Or that there were no special interest groups behind the vaccine to encourage the FDA to even study the issue (patients obviously are not a special itnerest group, or a group of interest to the FDA). Now the unanimous consensus is that there is a considerable economic impact from administering this vaccine, not to mention lives saved, and days of agony for parents and children.

Other "knee-jerk" quickly adopted policies with disastrous consequences for the country in general were, without a doubt, the Clinton-pushed NAFTA and Bush-pushed Free Trade with China. The speed of passing those sweeping changes speak loud and clear of corruption. The result of those policies were millions of US jobs lost, the almost total destruction of many American manufacturing in many areas, but multi-billion profits for corporations. If you are interested in details on how Bush willingly sold out his fellow Americans to special interest groups in his deal with China, read this summary. Incidentally, I am not sure that the Wall Street bailout was really a case of corruption. Well, in a way it was, but I don't think there was a financial payback to the architects of the bailout. I think their reward is that they are still alive.

What I am saying is that we don't even need to know the details of the shenanigans going on to KNOW that corruption is taking place. Common sense and power of observation is all it takes. If it looks like corruption, smells like corruption, and feels like corruption - in most cases, it IS corruption.

So what are our choices when we smell corrution? Just like the picture at the top of the post says, you can say nothing and hold your breath, or you can pray silently. I would say, prayer is our best strategy now.

The Exodus

America is not a promised land any longer. We still have a large influx of immigrants who may not know better, but some of those who just came - even from refugee camps - are begging to go back home. Professionals who came from other countries are leaving in large numbers. New holders of green cards have no intention of living here. That is the empirical data I see around myself.

In our small Southern US city with its only daily newspaper, two articles appeared in the past two weeks about recent immigrants. One was about the lost boys of Sudan, some of whom are now choosing to go back to their country. Another one - yesterday - was about refugees from Iraq who are BEGGING to go back home. For those who do not read the news: today a blast in Baghdad killed over 110 people. In the mind of these immigrants, it is still preferable to what life in America holds for them. They live in a basement apartment in the "hood" with no heat for a week (the landlord is promising to fix the faulty system, meanwhile the temperatures are below freezing every night). Despite his best efforts, the father was only able to find a job for one day delivering pizza out of the three months they have lived here, and the housing complex is ridden with crime. These immigrants who do not strike me as freeloaders simply see no future here for themselves and their children. They say that America turned out to be the OPPOSITE of what they imagined. These people had been supporters of the American troops back in Iraq, and that fact can potentially pose threat to them upon their return. Before they experienced America first hand, they used to be believers in our values, and our way of life. I can only imagine what kind of message they will be spreading if they ever succeed in returning back to their country.

I personally know several Europeans who recently chose to go back to their countries because life holds more promise there for them and their children. I personally know an international lawyer from China who works in the US as long as money is good, but knows for sure that she will live out her life somewhere in Asia. Her Mother came to visit from mainland China, and has no interest whatsoever in staying here. I personally know several Russian Jews who, after having received a refugee status in the US, have refused to come here where their children are (and have lost the status, by the way). A couple of weeks ago I met another Chinese woman from Shanghai who spoke to me in fluent and accent-free Russian which she learned as a student in Moscow State University 30 years ago - she was visiting her first grandchild born here. Again, she is not considering moving to the US to be with her children even though she would have this opportunity. There was such pride in her voice when she was telling me about how beautiful China now is, how much better they live, she was inviting me to come and see it for myself. Not a word about how imressed she was with the life her children have in the US. (Incidentally, a physican friend of ours who lives in Moscow, Russia, and had worked in the US for a number of months before, recently visited China, and he was so stcuck that he said that America is a backwards jungle village compared to modern Chinese cities.)

My classmate recently won a green card which gives his family an opportunity to move permanently to the US. Well, a US citizenship gives a clear advantage to somebody with a Russian passport because it allows that person to travel freely without asking most other countries for entry visas. So this friend fully intends to spend the required 188 days out of the year in the US to get his American passport in 5 years. But that same friend, who is very critical of the business climate in Russia, and is not a fan of Vladimir Putin and his economic policies, does not have plans to move his business to the US. I guess, as bad as it is in Moscow, it is still better than in the US. My own Mother-in-Law is coming here to get her green card for which we sponsored her, but she, like everybody else I mentioned, has NO INTEREST in moving here.

Asian students are returning to their countries after graduating from American graduate schools in masses. Even American graduates are now looking for Asia to get their jobs. I already wrote about it in one of my previous blogs. But here is a link to an article about this phenomenon again.

While America is waging wars which serve no practical purpose but enriching people financing them, while America is "bailing out" Rothchild's banks in the US, it has ruinined itself as a great country. Personally, I think we are already beyond the point of no return. Our youth has nothing to look forward to, and no great ideals to live for (if you don't seriously consider paying taxes a great patriotic ideal, but even for that you need a job).

Some may say, "Good riddance." If we get rid of some immigrants, there will be more jobs and natural resources for those left. (Incidentally, a former classmate of mine reported from Alberta, Canada where she has lived for the past 10 years that yesterday on a train while talking to her other friend in Russian, she was yelled at by a Canadian: "Shut up, f---g immigrants!")While this may be true, the phenomenon that I am describing is but a symptom that this country does not have appeal for a lot of people who have a choice where to live. And that is a change we better believe in.

What happened with Egypt after the Exodus? They have lived off showing their mummies and ancient ruins? Some future to look forward to.

To Club or Not to Club - that is the Question

OK, so Tiger Woods was having an alleged affair, and on the Thanksgiving Day his wife supposedly gave him a good beating with his own golf clubs. She also smashed the back window of his SUV as he tried to make his bare foot escape from the house. I am sure it felt good (to her). But what has she achieved?

If your husband is simply promiscuous and has affairs here and there every once in a while, that does not pose a big threat to the woman's status as a wife. Yes, she can send a message that it can hurt if he gets caught, and the husband may treat her with the same kind of love and tenderness we reserve for the law enforcement officers, especially state troopers who are out there to prevent us from speeding. So she gets to keep a prisoner, not a husband.

If your husband is truly in love with another woman, your status as a wife is really over. Nominally, he may still be coming home (and bringing some of his paycheck to you), say, for "the sake of the children," or out of guilt, or charity. My feeling is that clubbing in that case, even though emotionally satisfying for the duration of the fight, would only stimulate him to leave immediately notwithstanding the children, and dissipating his feeling of guilt. You would be seen forever as a sore looser and a sorry bitch. He would only be confirmed in his opinion that you are not worth living with. You can toughen it out and hope that the other woman would dump him (which she won't if he is a high earner - and incidentally, from my personal observation that is who younger women invariably "fall in love" with), or that he somehow would get over his love and come back to you. But the family is largely over. And I don't believe he will ever respect you for not setting him free.

Personally, I would let him go. In other words, Jenny Sanford, not Elin Woods. Oh, naturally, I would keep the money, but I would not want to touch his clubs.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Starbucks Going Out Of Business

In this new and growing economy, here is a list of 2009 Retail Store Closings. New Liquidations and Consolidations Predicted Throughout 2009.
[Source: About.com]

2009 Retail Industry Stores Closing, Including Chains Going Out of Business:

This list is arranged in descending order, according to the total number of store closings planned for 2009. It was last updated on 11-15-09.

2,639 General Motors
960 Blockbuster
789 Chrysler
567 Circuit City
461 KB Toys
450 Movie Gallery (Game Crazy, Hollywood Video)
365 Ritz Camera
273 Starbucks
287 Goody's
265 Jones Apparel Group (2009 & 2010)
240 Waldenbooks
191 Zale Corporation
175 Van Heusen
163 Ann Taylor (by 2010)
161 InkStop
160 Family Dollar
150 Popeye's (AFC Enterprises)
135 S&K Famous Brands Inc.
130 Advance America
129 Boater's World
125 F.Y.E. (Trans World Entertainment)
121 Eddie Bauer
118 Office Depot
117 Rite Aid
104 Finlay Enterprises
102 Payless Shoes

See the complete list here.

How the Federal Reserve (Central Bank) Bankrupts the Nation

For anybody interested in the true history of the world - say, how Hitler came to power and rebuilt Germany from total ruins in 5 short years, who bankrolled the Russian Revolution, why we had the Great Depression, why President Kennedy was assassinated, who rules the USA, and who orchestrated the current economic crisis, read this short and informative history of the Federal Reserve. For anybody who prefers to not know what makes the world go round, just ignore it. I don't blame you - ignorance is bliss.

Imperial Decline is NOT the End of the World

A Harvard History Professor Niall Ferguson published an article in Newsweek today called "An Empire At Risk" about the obvious decline of the USA as a global superpower. Our greed and corruption on the high level of government is finally taking its well deserved toll and bringing the country to a logical end of its short by historical standards world dominance. In other words, the US has had its 15 minutes of fame on the world arena, and the time is up. Politicians can still be blah-blah-blahing about the need to send more troops here and there, to bankroll color revolutions in the former Soviet Republics, but the truth of the matter is, thankfully, that we are fiscally bankrupt, and are really already at the mercy of our creditors.

Far from perceiving it as a tragedy, I see it as a very liberating change. Empires have collapsed in the past, but it did not mean the end of the world for citizens of those countries. In fact, those societies acquired higher moral ground. Consider the case of the British Empire which was ruthlessly robbing half the world. Consider the German Empire under Hitler. Both Brits and Germans still live well now, but they are not ashamed to look in the eyes of the world any longer. The acute phase of the collapse is unfortunately going to hurt, but we will emerge as a society which can, hopefully, finally respect itself, and possibly even have some true respect in the world. Just like in Rome they literally built new structures of the old stones, so will we eventually rebuild, and possibly, like the Italians, even completely eliminate the "emperors" of our times who brought us to the destruction (the Rothschilds, Rockefellers and other shadowy rulers of the US pulling the strings behind the curtains). Maybe, like modern Roman, we will even be showing tourists ruins of our Wall Street for money.

P.S. Interestingly enough, a book called "The Decline of the Dollar Empire and The End of Pax Americana" was published in 2003 by two much ridiculed Russian economists, Kobiakov and Khazin. In it they talk about the exact scenario we are now seeing right in front of our eyes. The link is to the Russian text of the book - I am not aware of an English translation of it.

What I am Particularly Thankful For

There is a Russian joke which goes like this: A poor guy prays to God and asks to help him for he is living with a wife and 5 kids, and a paralyzed Mother-in-law in a 1-room tiny house. God tells him to get a goat. The guy is surprised, but doesn't dare to ignore the divine advice. He gets a goat, and a year later, asks God again for deliverance of his impossible circumstances: he lives with his wife, 5 kids, a paralyzed Mother-in-law and a goat in a tiny 1-room house. God tells him to sell the goat. The guy does it, and the next day praises the Lord: "Thank you, God! Life is great!"

As we celebrated Thanksgiving, I am sure we all gave thanks for still being around, for friends, family, good health, good fortunes, a roof over our heads, the food on our tables, etc. For a number of years Thanksgiving has had a special significance for me. Here is my personal Thanksgiving story.

Five years ago on a Thanksgiving Day, members of my extended family numbering 30+ people made a trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon staying in its only "hotel" (a dorm, really) "Phantom Ranch." The trip was organized 2 years prior to its inception because beds at the "Phantom Ranch" can be booked two years in advance, and are gone within minutes of becoming available for this time of the year. When we were asked whether we wanted to participate in this special family adventure, we enthusiastically agreed for it seemed like a great trip some time in the distant future which might never come. But it did come, and we had to go. Anyway, the trip down (1 vertical mile) took 5 hours. By the time we got to the bottom, I had a pretty bad premonition about what was expecting us on the way out tomorrow.

When we got to the Ranch, it turned out that a dead tourist was evacuated from Colorado River at that particular spot earlier that day - the guy fell over from his raft into the river, and as I soon learned from a documentary book appropriately named "Death in the Canyon," people die not from drowning, but from hypothermia if they are not pulled out of the frigid water within minutes. I was too tired to empathize with the unfortunate soul. All that occupied my mind at that point was that there WAS a way out by a helicopter. I inquired around to see what it would take to get evacuated from the stupid ranch short of dying for it. I was told it cost about $5,000. That seemed like a great deal! Alas, one also had to have a life threatening injury. I briefly considered breaking my arm or a leg, but I was too ashamed to desert and leave my 9-year-old son make his way out of the Canyon.

The next day was pure and undiluted hell. You really do not care in the least about the spectacular views which open up in front of your eyes for the duration of the trip. At some point all I could think about was that if I stop, I won't be able to start going again. It was like doing lunges for 8 hours straight, with a back pack, too.

So-o-o-o... This brings me to the point of the today's post. Every Thanksgiving I am particularly thankful for the fact that I am celebrating this holiday not at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Can Israel do no wrong?

I invite you to read a rather horrendous account of what life is like for Palestinian inhabitants of the city of Hebron on the Israeli-occupied West Bank. This is a diary written by two American women who visited that place with a group of political activists. Here is an excerpt of what they saw:

"The souks, Old City markets, have wire screens or makeshift netting overhead: insufficient protection for attacks from [Israeli] settlers living on the floors above. The wire screens are heavy with trash, bricks, giant concrete chunks, and exploded plastic bags that contained human waste when they burst onto the people and racks of goods below. Hisham told us one young man was in a coma after a sharpened metal rod came through the screen and penetrated his skull. Now, when one looks up, one can see piles of objects that got caught in the screen: crowbars, bricks, stones, chairs. While walking through a market, we saw a settler woman throw sand from her third story apartment down at a crowded market where Palestinians were shopping. It fell on a Palestinian woman's head, as well as on one of our delegation members, Eddie, who because of being Mexican-American has often been perceived to be Arab on this trip. [...]

Solidarity activists escort [Palestinian] children to school to protect them against stone-throwing [Israeli] settlers, and walk with herders to their grazing lands. Settler children throw stones at Palestinian children on their way to school -- children under 14 cannot be held responsible, Mikhael told us, so they are careful about who throws the stones. One school finally had to change its hours and days so that the children would not be walking to school when settler children were home to attack them -- they're the only Palestinian school not open on Saturdays, and the kids have no recess so they can leave early enough to get home safely. "

Read the whole account here.

It is really unfathomable how the very people who endured such atrocities towards themselves just for their ethnicity, can horribly mistreat other people based on their religious/ethnic identity. Why we choose to look the other way is beyond comprehension. This is racism, pure and simple. I am glad to see that there are Israelis who speak up against it. It is too bad that our propaganda machine we call news media would not report true stories like this one so that the people of this country could make a balanced opinion on what is really taking place in Israel.

A New War SurTax - a Brilliant Idea!

A couple of Midwest congressmen (one is a US Senator) are proposing a new surtax on the "rich" (people making over $200 or $250K) to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not a secret that wealthy people tend to be more conservative in their political preferences, and hence are more likely to support those totally unnecessary wars which they sincerely believe or hypocritically proclaim to be protecting our "safety." I totally agree that we need to invite weatlhy war supporters to put their money where their mouth is, and hope that all of a sudden they will realize that all those wars do exactly what they were meant to do - that is not to fight terrorism, not to "keep America safe", but to enrich a bunch of companies (and kill a few hundred thousand of Iraqis and Afghans in the process - but who cares and who counts, right?). Meanwhile, I hope that high US earners who do not support these wars will start to think seriously about emigrating from the US. Maybe this in turn will send a message to our government. The more I think about it, the more New Zealand appeals to me. Read the whole story here.

Sharing a Great Resource

I just came across a fantastic blog Oh Bummer, and I would really like to share this resource with my readers. Here are some excerpts from their article exposing the real reasons for Mr. Obama's recent visit to Asia:

"Do you know the real reason that Obama is in China?[...] He's trying to pry open Chinese markets to US financial services. [...] This just proves that the outsourcing of jobs, the off-shoring of businesses, and the "free trade" laws are mainly the work of cutthroat American corporatists not the "rascally Chinese" as the media would like everyone to believe. China is not destroying America; blue-blooded, brandy-guzzling, Harvard-educated Americans are. It's just good-old-fashioned class warfare....and our class is losing. For those who want to know what Obama's trip is really all about; ignore Obama altogether and read Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's article in the Wall Street Journal, "The Road Ahead for Asia's Economies." It tells the whole story. Geithner candidly admits that US markets will remain stagnant for years to come and that other emerging nations (i.e. China) will have to develop their own domestic markets so that Wall Street speculators can attach themselves parasitically to a more succulent host. [...] Summary: Geithner and Co. see the US economy languishing in a low-grade Depression for the foreseeable future, therefore, Wall Street must progressively move its base-of-operations eastward.This is the real reason behind Obama's trip to China. There's no truth to the rumor that US policymakers care about "currency manipulation" or the ongoing looting of the American middle class. That's rubbish. China's "dollar-peg" essentially serves the interests of the giant multinational corporations and Wall Street speculators who own the media, the courts, the congress, the White House and most of the country." You can read the whole article here.

Another recent fascinating article on that website is devoted to the analysis of the amendment passed by the House Finance Committee on Friday, November 20, mandating the first ever audit of the ominous organization the Federal Reserve. This is tantamount to casting the first serious challenge to the current financial elite governing the country from behind the scenes. Read the article here.

How Many Oranges does it Take to Make One Apple?

Feminists and the politically correct junkies must be pretty pleased by the recent trend in the US medicine: since 2003 the number of female medical students has surpassed the number of their male counterparts. Hallelujah!

Not so fast! Societies blessed with socialized medicine have long been complaining about problems associated with prevalence of female physicians. Some went even so far as to call training women in medicine a waste of time. Their rationale? Women tend to work fewer hours, take less call and retire earlier than their male colleagues. Women in our society are still widely expected to carry the brunt of child rearing, to take care of the elderly parents, and to keep the home, hence their inability to keep as crazy a work schedule as their male colleagues.

The latest study published in "Medical Economics" journal issue on October 23, 2009 has found that in terms of hours worked per week, there is now practically no difference between male and female primary care doctors. So were our critics wrong? Not really. In that equal number of hours, male doctors saw an average of 102 patients per week, whereas female physicians averaged 78 patient visits per week. So female doctors' productivity was just 76% of that of males, all other factors being equal. In other words, it takes more than one woman doctor to replace a man.

Why this is happening is beyond the scope of this short article. I suppose that women simply take more time to talk to their patients, to hold their hands, to let them cry on their shoulder. Who do you prefer to see as your doctor: male of female? I like females, hands down.

The problem the society is facing, though, is that with more women entering the field of medicine, we need to budget many more jobs for them to see the patient numbers previously seen by men. The matter is further exacerbated by the fact that potentially 30 million new patients will soon have medical insurance, and will be making regular appointments to see their primary care doctors. This will inevitably create a tremendous bottleneck: more patients, and a larger proportion of less productive doctors.

It gets worse. If we want to curb or even cut the cost of providing medical care while throwing 10% more patients into the mix, this means that doctor's compensation will go down. Becoming a physician is a long process of very intensive study. And then in their professional capacity, one has to deal with cranky people at all hours of day and night who are in pain and who expect you to take care of them. If on top of that the pay is not good (and the pay has been going down for the US doctors in the past 10 years - and will inevitably go down considerably with the health care reform), the brightest males start looking elsewhere to utilize their brains. Female dominated field of medicine is what inexorably awaits us in the future. Consider the trend in all countries with socialized medicine: up to 86% of physicians in the Soviet Union were women, half of all doctors under 40 in Canada are females, etc. And once the brightest males stop coming to the medical schools, the caliber of students will become to degrade, and mediocrity will start creeping in. This vicious circle will keep feeding on itself. Eventually, just like every people have the government they deserve, every nation has the quality of doctors commensurable with their compensation from the society. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Somehow we all understand that bankers deserve the $50 million bonuses - the industry argues, that if you don't pay them, the most talented [crooks] won't come. (And how much do they exactly have to study to become the most talented crooks on Wall Street? Four years? Wow!!!) Do you seriously expect the best and the brightest people in the nation to spend at least 11 years of exhaustive training to be getting less than $100,000 a year in return? Dream on.

Tu l'as voulu, George Dandin!

Sincere Gratitude

Oprah has announced the end of her talk show in September of 2011. Did you notice the symbolism of the date? This is meant to feel as a new 9/11. Impressive, most impressive! But you are not a Jedi yet! Anyway, better late than never.

I am very thankful that this uneducated woman who mistakenly concluded that because she became rich she also somehow became smart, is finally resigning. Lately, she became quite dangerous. With her endorsements of dubious alternative medicine methods and with her army of faithful followers, this woman was responsible for the death of several people. Remember her endorsing a plastic surgeon with as many as 11 malpractice suits against him? He killed another patient who decided to trust him with a liposuction surgery after taking Oprah's word for his "qualifications". What about her promotion for a guru who had two people die recently in his sweat lodge? We also have a close friend who went through a lot of stress when a miraculous "comprehensive" blood test advocated by Oprah had mistakenly found her to have pancreatic cancer (the diagnosis which has since been disproved through a lot of expensive testing, and through the course of time).

They say that wisdom comes with age. Oprah is a sad case when the age came alone. In two years she won't be dispensing her unqualified advice any more. Amen!

Fear Factor

FINALLY, it has been found via statistical methods that annual mammograms do not save lives. A government panel concluded that there is no need for women in their 40s to undergo that torturous test annually, and recommended that they be done bi-annually for women over 50. What are the facts? It turned out that not all breast cancers are the same: some are fast growing and aggressive, and basically whether you catch it early or late, they are going to kill you anyway. (They will start treating you earlier, so you will have a longer period of suffering from chemo and radiation before you die.) Some breast cancers are very non-aggressive and slow growing, and whether you catch it today or two years from now does not make a big difference - your prognosis is going to be fairly favorable anyway.

But this flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that early diagnostics saves lives. That is exactly what it is: conventional wisdom. In the Middle Ages, conventional wisdom taught that mice were born from filth. EVERYONE knew it. Also, witches worked up the storms. Drought was a God's punishment for sins. Anybody who would have argued with that would have been ridiculed or worse, persecuted.

Similarly now, when FACTS show the TRUTH, the facts are objected to. Who is raising objections? Radiologists. Hello! Their livelihood depends on every woman getting an annual mammogram, which they can then follow up with largely unnecessary ultrasounds, breast MRIs, etc. What do they cite as their evidence? That somebody was diagnosed early, and they are still alive. Great! And then there are scores of cases which they do not quote when someone was diagnosed early, and they still died. Or when someone was diagnosed with a large tumor, and they are still alive. Notice that radiologists are not up in arms against the government's panel's finding that breast self-examinations are useless - even though that also flies in the face of what doctors have been preaching for decades. Why are they not debating that? Could it possibly be that those "tests" were free anyway? If you do not see a self-serving interest there, then maybe you don't laught at the Chick-Fil-A Cow Mascot holding a sign reading "Eat Mor Chikin" either.

What is at work here? Fear factor. We are afraid of dying from cancer. We BELIEVE that early diagnosis of breast cancer can save our life even when it is shown not to be the case. And some groups are using our fear to make us doubt the facts, and look as our saviors in the process.

And then we are asking ourselves the question: why is American medicine so expensive even though all our stats show we are ranked #37 in the world for the outcomes? Really, why?

What are they smoking at Fox News?

Sarah Palin's book is out. I already saw an ad on the Internet offering it for $4.99. Not good enough for me, frankly. From what I am hearing from the left and from the right, the book is filled with settling scores with ... staffers! Quite an accomplishment for someone Fox News considers a formidable presidential candidate for 2012. That is exactly what we should be looking for in the country's leader - chastising house maids, reproaching the cook, blasting off aids, being petty and vindictive... Yeah, I get it. According to Fox (and it seems like the book itself), Sarah looked stupid during her campaign interviews not because she is stupid, but because McCain staffers "mishandled" her. Seriously, what are they smoking there?

Let us just remember a few highlights from those interviews. When asked what constituted her foreign experience, Ms. Palin stated that 1) Putin flies over Alaska, 2) she visited 3 foreign countries (on her way to a campaign trip to Iraq the plane made a fueling stop in Ireland, and she mistakenly thought that while in Iraq she went a few feet across the border into Kuwait - that makes 3, you know; Sarah DOES know how to count to 3). When asked which newspapers she reads on a regular basis and which news media form her world view, she answered: "Well, all of them." Katie Couric was embarrassed by this answer and pressed some more asking her to name just a few. Like a parrot, Sarah could only repeat: "Like I said, all of them."

Those were not tricky questions, you know. Not for anybody with anything more on their shoulders than a pretty face with a nice hairdo. Those were not the strategically worded questions meant to "get her."

Does anybody seriously think we need to know more about this woman? She twists facts (3 countries???), she does not read, she cannot answer simplest questions, she is pathetically uninformed, she has never had enough curiosity to travel (just don't tell me that it is cheaper to hire a helicopter and get a gun to shoot wolves with from the air than it is to go to, say, Canada on a weekend trip) - a formidable candidate indeed! Well, if that is the best the Republican Party can do, this is a sad day for the party.

Fox states that the Left fears and hates her. Well, I am not the Left, so what would I know? But I don't fear her. I despise her. Oh, and I fully give her credit where it is due. She is pretty, she is in great shape, she has good hair and a great rear end. And that is - well - the end of it.

In Defence of Alternative Medicine

$320,000,000 DAILY FUEL BILL for the Marines alone in Afghanistan

I came across a most interesting column by Paul Craig Roberts, an economist who used to be one of the masterminds of Reaganomics serving as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan. He held a number of high and prestigious academic positions, is an author of numerous books, and as a persona non grata in the American mass media, he can be called an American dissident. He was awarded Legion d'honneur, the highest French Order, by French President Francois Mitterrand. You can read the text of his column from which I borrowed the title of the today's post here. In it, he discusses how needs of the US citizens are thrown under the bus by our government which minds almost exclusively interests of the financial elite, and of the military-industrial complex. (For example, we the people are being charged $400 per GALLON of fuel used by our troops in Afghanistan, and we spend those gallons like there is no tomorrow while arguing with straight faces that we do not have enough money for the national health care.)

On the other hand, here is a permanent link to the list of all of his columns.

I consider myself lucky to have discovered such a distinguished, well-informed and intelligent source of information and interpretation of the current situation.

P.S. My Russian-speaking readers can read an excellent in-depth interview with Paul Craig Roberts to a Washington, DC - based correspondent of a Russian news site slon.ru here.

Class Action Lawsuit - Anyone?

This is a call for action.

Like I have said before, my daughter's car was recently totaled in an accident at the fault of another driver. The other driver's insurance company is Geiko, and they are offering to pay my daughter what a "comparable" car costs in dealerships which are about a 100 miles away from where we live (there are no cars like hers in our city which are comparable in age, mileage, options, and conditions).

Here is what they are NOT offering to cover: the dealer's fees which amount to $550-$600, and which she will be required to pay at ANY used car dealership. So essentially, they are leaving her $600 short if she were to replace her old car with its equivalent. In other words, through no fault of her own, she incurs a loss, and she is asked to please pay $600 to obtain a replacement.

Geiko refused to budge on their offer of the settlement for the car, and they justified it by the fact that they "never" compensate anybody for those dealer's fees. Which leads me to believe that a class action lawsuit may be in order because thousands of people are wronged like my daughter is now.

I consulted with a friend who is a personal injury lawyer, and he told me that unfortunately in the state of North Carolina, my daughter won't be able to sue Geiko directly, because she is a "third party": the contract is between the other driver and Geiko, and my daughter can only sue the other driver for that shortage of the funds. And then the other driver may potentially sue her insurer. Which pretty much rules out a class action lawsuit in our case. However, in some other states, lawsuits like that ARE allowed, and I would very much encourage some young and ambitious attorney who may be hungry for a big case to try it on. Insurance companies are getting away with this injustice, and it should be stopped.

Laugh of the Day

The Spirit of the Times

I have heard about the movie "Zeitgeist" from my overseas friends. I am not sure where you can watch it in the US, other on YouTube. The whole movie contains 3 parts, one of which offers a very different version of the events of 9/11 from the one we were officially told. Below you can find links to the 4 segments of that part about 9/11. I want to say that I would be delighted to disbelieve the scientists and engineers who discuss their findings in this movie, but the evidence presented by them would have to be refuted with equally solid proof. If somebody knows of such proof, please send it my way. "Evidence" like "this could not have happened because this would be crazy!" does not sound convincing to me. The links I am providing are to 4 segments of that Part Two of the whole movie. The entire length of these four segments together is about 35 minutes long. Watch it and judge for yourself. Oh, and by the way, the German word "Zeitgeist" means "the spirit of the times."

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

An American Virtue

In Russia, tattletaling was a big vice. It was unconditionally despised. Snitches could be even beaten up starting from an early age, and nobody would feel sorry for them. I think the rationale was that we were all feeling oppressed by the system, and any actions which helped the system and harmed the position of individual members were frowned upon. Actually, gloomy, frowned faces are what any American who goes to Russia sees a lot on the Russian streets - Russians do not have a habit of smiling unless something amuses them.

Russians who come to the US are struck by the opposite things: lots of smiles, and the fact that people are not ashamed to tell on you. Russian forums often discuss this seeming discrepancy - how your coworkers can be smiling to you cheerfully one minute, and reporting you to the boss for being 2 minutes late the next minute. That is the main reason why many Russians condemn American smiles as fake and insincere. (Personally, I prefer a fake smile to sincere scorn, but I will acknowledge that I do not attribute any feeling of a benevolence towards me to any person who smiles to me.) A couple of things happened this week which I wanted to mention as an example of what I am talking about.

My Russian friend sends her daughter to a nice private school in our area. Two days ago, her daughter came home with the news that the principal chastised the teachers for displaying pictures of their drunk behavior at a party on Facebook pages where they could be easily seen by the students with whom many teachers are Facebook "friends." An act of stupidity - no doubt! But the most shocking part is not what those teachers did, but how the students found out about this email. It turns out one of the teachers - who did not go to the party - read that email out loud to the students. Simply for the pleasure of reporting the bad behavior of others. Personally, I would fire that teacher on the spot, but I am afraid my American readers would mostly disagree.

Another story on the same day. A Russian friend manages a furniture wholesale company. Recently, a few of the sales reps of another large furniture company have asked her if they could sell her company's furniture to their retail clients. She does not have a policy of exclusive representation, so she had no problem with that. The sales reps are hurting in this downturn because their income is strictly based on commission, and their orders are down (whereas mortgages remain the same, and need to be paid every month). So these reps were selling her furniture for a few months until someone reported them to the original company for which they have worked. It turns out, that the other company did expect them to represent only their furniture, even if they could not maintain their living doing that. And some well-meaning company adherent felt it proper to report his brethren who have strayed off the path of righteousness.

I don't know about you, but cases like this make me disgusted. I think all too often people here do not make a difference between reporting somebody with a simple goal of getting them into trouble as opposed to telling whith the purpose of preventing someone from getting hurt.

On the Lighter Side

Over the years I have clipped and collected a few of my favorite cartoons which I will be sharing with the readers of this blog from time to time.

Who do you love more: Mom of Dad?

Have you ever been asked who you loved more, Mom or Dad? What a stupid question to ask, right?! Don't you think it is equally stupid to ask people to choose between their country and their religion? Yet we are asking them to do just that when we send Muslims in our military to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq. The wars we are fighting there may not be overtly religious wars (and understandably, they are being fought for purely economic, not religious or political reasons), but the divide between the sides is along the religious lines.


If we continue to stubbornly oppose the fact that Muslims should not be asked to choose their country over their religion, we risk having many more Maj. Nidal M. Hasans. We will breed a strong fifth column in our military. After all, we did not send Japanese Americans to fight with Japan in World War II.

I am not saying that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in our military forces. But they absolutely should not be required to serve in combat against Islamists. To ignore the obvious fact of their split loyalties is to make a grave mistake.

On Asians in the US

In my previous post I made an observation that since Asian immigrants in the US expect so much more of their children, and their children are pushed so hard that they actually meet their parents' expectations and vastly outperform their American peers, the US has not chance to win the competition with Asia. I wanted to expand on the topic.

I recently participated in a discussion on that same topic on one of the online forums. One of the participants noted that the number of Chinese and Korean students among the top high school and university graduates, as well as the best graduate students and postdocs is disproportionately high. However, that rich crop of hardworking mid-range scientists rarely produces any truly outstanding minds who become leaders in their scholarly fields. In other words, they are diligent followers, but not visionaries. And the reason for that may lie in their culture of implicit obedience to the elders. Growing up, they follow their parents' and teachers' demands to the t without questioning them whatsoever. They are extremely diligent in learning by heart the knowledge which is given to them by the authority. Yet, when it comes to creativity and the need to take the untrodden road, they feel lost.

This may be very true. Consider the economic miracles of Japan, Korea, and lately China. They may be great copying what the Western civilization has designed - they may be making better cars, computers, electronics than us. But what have they invented? Chinese dry wall, adding melamine to milk for babies and the like come to mind. But those are hardly inventions which propel the humankind forward. So the hope for the Westerners lies in their irreverence to the authority, in their creative free mind. Our niche will be to become inventors, designers, and intellectual leaders.

Interestingly, a few days ago I also had an encounter with an Oriental family of mixed heritage where both spouses are Ivy League educated professionals. They live in an area with a high concentration of Asian population. Even though they like to be able to expose their children to their ethnic culture in that community, they are worried that their American-born and American-raised children won't be able to compete with their first-generation peers from other Asian families. The wife told me: "I am not going to push my kids as hard as our parents had pushed us. And that may make them lose in the intense competition with other Chinese and Korean children." I suppose, here lies the second hope for America: that once the extremely hard working first generation of Asians partake of our culture, it will assume our more relaxed ways, and in turn will loosen the standards for their prodigy. And maybe then we will have a larger number of top scholars and inventors of Asian origin.

On Virtue of Simplicity

This is a short remark born from watching a "thriller" "Stay" with my favorite Ewan McGregor. The only thrill was to see that it actually ended. A movie which is announced to be only 1 hour and 39 minutes long felt like a 6-hour long ordeal. The creators of the movie were obviously concentrated on playing mind games with the viewers. Well, I can enjoy those often times, but this was one of those not infrequent occasions when the seeming complexity was hiding a void of content.

I have come to the conclusion a while back that most complicated ideas can be conveyed in a clear and simple manner. This concerns art, too. When the form is the end to itself, we are never dealing with a great work of art. Convoluted way of expressing one's thought often simply guises the lack of meaning, and also exposes the narcissism of the author. In other words, a thought does not have to be pretentiously expressed to be deep. Actually, it almost never is.

America Doesn't Have a Chance

A few days ago we went to meet with the world-famous cellist Yo-Yo-Ma as a part of the lecture series. This was the occasion where he not only played, but also talked with the public. Most of the talk was surprisingly trivial (our daughter said that he "played it safe," which of course, sucks all the life out of the talk), but one thing really struck me. He started off by saying that he was going to play the very first piece of music his Dad taught him at the age of 4. This was the first time ever the little boy held the bow in his hands. What was that piece of music? It was Bach's cello suite No.1. Here is a YouTube video of Yo-Yo-Ma playing the prelude from that suite. It was not adapted, shortened or in any way made easy for the player who barely left his infancy age. By the time he turned 5, Yo-Yo-Ma learned three suites by Bach. That was the beginning of his music career.

Before he started playing, Yo-Yo-Ma asked the public to think what emotions they would be experiencing when listening to the music. After he was done, he asked the audience to share what they thought. (The thoughts were extremely "profound," like "peace," "joy," "contentment," and the performer didn't fail to praise the listeners with each revelation: "Wow, this is so deep! You guys are the best! Great observation!" I don't know what was more annoying, that condescending and childish attitude or the inane public comments.) I did not share what I thought with him because while he was playing, my main thought was that America has no chance whatsoever as long as Asian parents have such high expectations of their children, and their children deliver.

Nobody in the US would dream about sitting their 4-year-old down and making him learn unadapted Bach. (Mind you, Yo-Yo-Ma's Dad had no indication he had a future genius in front of him - this was literally the first time ever that the kid was in front of an instrument; this demonstrates that a Chinese parent would not hesitate to raise the bar this high for a perfectly average child.) We in the US do not set expectations nearly as high as Chinese parents do. In a way, the competition is already lost. A bit more time needs to pass for it to become evident even to us.

On Videotaping and Learning to Drive

I rarely find parent-teacher conferences worth my time. In 20 minutes we cast a cursory glance over my son's grades, ask him a pro forma question of what he would like to change and how, and then leave. Nothing learned, an hour wasted. I do attend them dutifully, though.

Yesterday, we had a conference scheduled. My husband happened to have a day off, so he attended it as well. On the way to school, our son was marvelling at the fact that Dad was coming along and teasing him whether he knew the names of any of his teachers. My husband responded with dignity that he had attended parent-teacher conferences in the past. To be fair, I confirmed that during our son's Middle School years he did attend ONE teacher conference, to which my husband defiantly retorted: "And that is all there was!"

Anyway, we teased Dad some more about it when our son's adviser lauded the fact that the whole family showed up. To which the adviser said: "Well, you are doing better than me!" And he proceeded to share his own story. Years ago, he was in magazine publishing business which kept him travelling away from home for two weeks out of a month. Naturally, that made him miss many of his children's events. Then one day there was a kindergarten graduation ceremony for his son to which he barely made it rushing madly from one of his trips. He got there after it had already started, got a seat in the back row and was very proud of himself for not forgetting to bring a camcorder. He videotaped his son, and his wife was very happy to see after the ceremony that her husband did manage to attend. Feeling like a super Dad, he told his son that they will now go home and watch him on TV. When they started watching the tape, his wife asked with amazement: "Why on earth did you tape ... Manny?" It turned out, he videotaped the wrong kid. His explanation was that from such a distance all blond 6-year-olds look the same. "Were you in a dog house after that?" I asked. "No," he said. "I had to change careers."

And there was another great story which is a good analogy for situations when we feel overwhelmed when starting something new. Our son just started high school this year, and it was not a very happy start. He felt lonely and rushed, overworked and confused. Since he was getting an 'A' average in all of his classes, many of them advanced, the school did not seem to be aware of the problem, and I had to bring it up to their attention about a month ago. Well, this time his adviser shared another personal story on when he first started driving a car. He got his learner's permit, and his Dad told him that he can drive himself to school one day with his Father in the car, of course. The boy was very happy. He felt that he already knew how to drive, and the school was just 2 miles away. Well, in those 2 miles he was completely exhausted. He said he left the car all sweaty feeling like he had worked a long day. He realized that on the road he had to keep track of so many things at once (traffic signs, lights, pedestrians, other drivers, keeping the speed limit, giving a turn signal, etc.) that it was overwhelming. He could not see how he would ever find driving natural and relaxing. Yet it did happen to him in due time, just as it happens to all of us. And especially as women, we can drive, talk on the phone, put make-up on, feed the kids and interrupt their fights all at the same time.

So this was the first time when we left enriched with two thought provoking parables. By the way, my husband then remarked that even though the adviser goofed up with the videotaping, he got a great story which would not have been if not for his silly mistake. I am sure next time when my husband forgets to take the time off to attend our son's teacher-parent conference, he will have some great story to tell.