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.

That is JANE!

We are remodeling the Master Bath. The contractor who came to give me an estimate eyed the artwork we have displayed next to the shower. This reminded me of another occasion when a contractor saw the same images. We have two acrylic sketches hanging in the bathroom - nude studies which my husband painted years ago when he went to a nude painting class. The model's name was Jane. Each week he was coming home with a variety of nude paintings labeled "Jane." He would pile them up in various places around the house, and at some point it started to feel like Jane was a character in our lives. I encountered her naked body everywhere I turned. So I asked him to stop putting her name on the paintings making her just an anonymous nude. Then one day, a contractor came to my house. I had unmarked nude studies drying out on the dining room table. He looked at them with some interest, turned to me and asked me if they were pictures of ME. I hastily explained that that was JANE. Since then I never objected to he name being clearly marked on the paintings.

Shadow Government Statistics

A friend of mine brought to my attention an interesting website: http://www.shadowstats.com/. It offers interpretation of the US economic data devoid of government manipulations to make it look what it wants it to look like. The new materials are available to paid subscribers only, but the Archives are an open read to the general public. You can find their archives here (look on the right-hand site). For example, I found a report on their consumer liquidity of mid-September 2009 which demonstrates that in 2008 the inflation-adjusted household income was actually lower than that in 1973.

What I read on that site is more in tune with what I see around me: despite the omni--repeated mantra that the US economy has entered the growth phase, it feels like the real chill of the Great Recession is just setting in. As one oriental saying goes, "Even if you say the word 'sugar' a hundred times, it is not going to taste sweet in your mouth." The website http://www.shadowstats.com/ is not trying to sugar coat our statistics.

Putting Things in Perspective

Exactly one week ago, my daughter got in a car accident in which her car was totalled. My day started with a phone call from her cell phone. When I picked up the line, a male voice asked me if I was Mrs. So and So. I said, "Yes." He identified himself as a police officer and informed me that my daughter was in a car crash. I asked him if she was alive. He said, "Yes," but they are preparing to take her to the hospital. In my further short conversation with him I found out that she was mostly OK, but shaken up and crying, and that is why he called himself. This opened up a saga of doctor visits, insurance filing (she was not at fault), adjuster negotiations, and looking for a car replacement. But looking on the bright side of things, it could have been much, much worse.

Then on Tuesday morning of this week we found out that my son's classmate and a friend had committed suicide the night before at his own house. Just a few hours prior to that my son invited him to hang out on his school bus before the driver got in. They talked and joked around, and the boy asked him how it would make my son feel feel if he (this boy) killed himself. My son thought this was a purely theoretical questions, and told him that it would put him through such incredible pain that he doesn't even want to think about it. Later than night he send an IM via Facebook to one of the girls in class, and a SMS message to another one saying that he is going to go shoot himself. One thought this was a stupid joke, and the other one did not even check the message till next morning. By then the boy had long been dead of a gun shot wound to his head.

For us this was two hits and two misses in the last 7 days. It was a lot worse for the parents of that boy. I can only repeat my advice to all of the parents to talk to their children and to maintain as close connection to them as possible. And also to quote Nabokov (from memory, so it may sound a bit different verbatim): "Spoil your children, ladies and gentlemen. Who knows what they will have to experience in the future."

What's Funny About This? This is Just the Truth!!!