Neely Tucker

The Apache born near the Gila River in present-day Arizona with the not-very-impressive name of Goyahkla (“One Who Yawns”) rode into history as the legendary Geronimo.
It was his name that the U.S. military chose as the code for the raid, and perhaps for Osama bin Laden himself, during the operation that killed the al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan. That led to the iconic transmission from the raid: “Geronimo EKIA.” Geronimo, Enemy Killed in Action.
In a triumphant moment for the United States, the moniker has left a sour taste among many Native Americans.
“I was celebrating that we had gotten this guy and feeling so much a part of America,” Tom Holm said. “And then this ‘Geronimo EKIA’ thing comes up. I just said, ‘Why pick on us?’ Robert E. Lee killed more Americans than Geronimo ever did, and Hitler would seem to be evil personified, but the code name for bin Laden is Geronimo?”
“It’s how deeply embedded the ‘Indian as enemy’ is in the collective mind of America,” Suzan Shown Harjo said. “To this day, when soldiers are going into enemy territory, it’s common for it to be called ‘Indian country.’ ”

Noam Chomsky, Edward Hermann

Censorship is largely self-censorship, by reporters and commentators who adjust to the realities of source and media organizational requirements, and by people at higher levels within media organizations …
The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda. In countries where the levers of power are in the hands of a state bureaucracy, the monopolistic control over the media, often supplemented by official censorship, makes it clear that the media serve the ends of a dominant elite. It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and formal censorship is absent. This is especially true where the media actively compete, periodically attack and expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest. What is not evident (and remains undiscussed in the media) is the limited nature of such critiques.

Richard Fontaine

Alexis de Tocqueville, George Kennan, Walter Lippmann and others have argued that successful foreign policy requires secrecy, cold rationalism, vast experience, continuity over time – precisely the characteristics that American democracy conspires to prevent in its policymaking. As American foreign policy becomes politicized, policy lurches as administrations change, interest groups hold sway over key issues, and populist and moralistic strains take flight. Is this any way to run a superpower?
Apparently it is. Because for all the downsides of a politicized foreign policy, and despite the mistakes it has made, America has nonetheless enjoyed a remarkably successful foreign policy over the past six decades. It remains the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, and has preserved the American way of life. Perhaps, then, there is an upside to the politics.
The open nature of the American political system permits genuinely new ideas to enter calcified foreign policy debates, which may over time improve the quality of the country’s policymaking. The disjunction between a mature executive branch managing bilateral relationships and an impulsive, populist Congress enables American diplomats to play good cop/bad cop. “Look, I want to help your country. But if you don’t cut out the extrajudicial killings, Congress is going to act, and there’s not a lot I can do about that…”
The political debates over American policy enhance transparency in the minds of foreigners, and may add a degree of predictability to U.S. behavior. And all of this may in the end be an attribute of America’s vaunted soft power – our foreign policy is not made in a hermetically sealed environment by wise-men-for-life but rather rises from the give and take of our democratic process, which at the end of the day is open to all.

Walter Lippmann

The established leaders of any organization have great natural advantages. They are believed to have better sources of information. The books and papers are in their offices. They took part in the important conferences. They met the important people. They have responsibility. It is, therefore, easier for them to secure attention and to speak in a convincing tone. But also they have a very great deal of control over the access to the facts. Every official is in some degree a censor. And since no one can suppress information, either by concealing it or forgetting to mention it, without some notion of what he wishes the public to know, every leader is in some degree a propagandist. Strategically placed, and compelled often to choose even at the best between the equally cogent though conflicting ideals of safety for the institution, and candor to his public, the official finds himself deciding more and more consciously what facts, in what setting, in what guise he shall permit the public to know.
That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough.
The creation of consent is not a new art. It is a very old one which was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy. But it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technic, because it is now based on analysis rather than on rule of thumb. And so, as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power.
Within the life of the generation now in control of affairs, persuasion has become a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government. None of us begins to understand the consequences, but it is no daring prophecy to say that the knowledge of how to create consent will alter every political calculation and modify every political premise. Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.

Evol

TwEnTy TwO

только русский человек может безошибочно выбрать фон для фотографии.
Only Russian can accurately choose the background for photos.

Led Zeppelin

王蔚

孔子 泰伯 论语
原文只有“子曰：民可使由之不可使知之”十二个字。

1. 民可使由之，不可使知之。
2. 民可，使由之；不可，使知之；
3. 民可使，由之；不可使，知之。
4. 民可使，由之不可，知之。
5. 民可使由之？不。可使知之。
6. 民可使由之？不可。使知之。

Eva Cassidy, Katie Melua

国税庁

平成23年分民間給与実態統計調査
（この調査は標本調査であるため、標本事業所及び標本給与所得者から得た標本値に、それぞれの標本抽出率の逆数を乗じて全体の給与所得者数、給与額及び源泉徴収税額を推計している）

給与所得者：　5,427万人
源泉徴収義務者数：　3,476万人
１年を通じて勤務した給与所得者：　4,566万人　(男性　2,731万人　女性　1,835万人)
納税者：　3,853万人
納税者割合：　84.4％

調査の対象（下図網掛け部分）

	源泉徴収義務者
	民間の事業所	官公庁等
給与所得者	従業員（パート、アルバイトを含む）、役員	国家公務員、地方公務員、公庫職員等（パート、アルバイトを含む）
	全従事員について源泉所得税の納税がない事業所の従事員
	労働した日又は時間によって給与の金額が算定され、かつ、労働した日にその都度給与の支給を受ける者

申告所得税の納税者数は、約700万人。

横山明

国税庁の給与源泉税徴収額は公表されているが、その納税者である公務員を含むサラリーマンの数は公表されていない。ただし、確定申告している人は、カウントされている。（国税庁統計年報書では、１年を通じて勤務した給与所得者とそのうちの納税者とを公表しているが、公務員等は除かれている。公務員等を含めた日本の全納税者数は？
各種統計から出てくる数（日本人の66.4％の人が働いているなど）は明らかに多過ぎる。
2005年11月、内閣府経済社会総合研究所の依頼による調査をした株式会社野村総合研究所の「公務員数の国際比較に関する調査報告書」によれば地方公務員を含めて公務員は2004年に5,383千人（ただし、総務省の「公務員の種類と数」によれば約3,987千人）である。驚くことに、日本国の官民を含めた給与所得者の総数及び納税者数は公表されていないのである（正確には2007年から開示していない）。

Azure 45

           

麻生太郎

• この平等主義思想を作り出したもとは労働価値説だろう。マルクス経済学の中心となる考え方で、人間の労働が価値を生む、というものである　・・・
• 同じ汗をかいても人気グループのコンサート券は高く売れ、麻生太郎が同じコンサートをやっても高く売れないではないか　・・・
• ちょっと乱暴な議論だが、何しろ仏教やキリスト教ですら、この世での平等は唱えなかった。彼らが説いたのはあくまでも、あの世での平等　・・・

Lane Kenworthy

As gender and race have become less significant barriers to advancement, family background, an obstacle considered more relevant in earlier eras, has reemerged. Today, people who were born worse off tend to have fewer opportunities in life.

• An American born into a family in the bottom fifth of incomes between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s has roughly a 30 percent chance of reaching the middle fifth or higher in adulthood, whereas an American born into the top fifth has an 80 percent chance of ending up in the middle fifth or higher. This discrepancy means that there is considerable inequality of opportunity among Americans from different family backgrounds.
• Inequality of opportunity has increased in recent decades. Available compilations of test scores, years of schooling completed, occupations, and incomes of parents and their children strongly suggest that the opportunity gap, which was narrowing until the 1970s, is now widening.
• In a sharp reversal of historical trends, there is now less equality of opportunity in the United States than in most other wealthy democratic nations. Data exist for ten of the United States’ peer countries (rich long-standing democracies). The United States has less relative intergenerational mobility than eight of them; Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom all do better. The United States is on par with France and Italy.

So how did the United States get here? Why did it falter where other nations have not? And how can it fix the problem? On the right, a standard proposal is to strengthen families. On the left, a recent favorite is to reduce income inequality. And everyone supports improving education. To know which proposals would work best, it helps to understand the roots of the new opportunity gap.

白石理

幸せと感じるのは人それぞれであろう。あえて大まかに言えば、恐怖や欠乏を持たないで生きることができるとき、自分の望みが実現するとき、自分が大切にされているとき、自分の資質が生かされ、伸ばすことができるとき、生きがいを見つけたとき、そして本来の自分になれたと思うとき、など。しかし、人が幸せに生きるのは、それぞれの個人の課題であるとともに、社会の課題でもある。
個人の幸せは社会のあり方と切り離して考えることは出来ない。社会の在り方、社会が目指す方向を決めるのは政治である。市民一人一人が政治に関わり、自由に考え、意見を述べ、選択に責任を持つ。これは、民主主義の原則である。そこには、人を大切にする社会、言葉を変えて言えば、人権をまもり、尊重する社会を実現するために、市民一人ひとりがもつ力に対する期待がある。
少数であっても、ひるんだり、あきらめたりしないでもよい。沈黙してしまって、数を頼む人たちの思うままにならないように。人としての幸せも人権も、数の問題ではないのだから。

CreativES

---

クリエイティブスは様々な企業間・作品間のコラボレーションを実用的に生み出し、ＷＥＢスタンダード世代による最先端のノウハウで ＩＣＴやＷＥＢテクノロジーを用いた、実験的で斬新なエンターテイメントのプロデュースを行います。
2010年3月9日に開催された 初音ミク による世界でも他に類を見ない「バーチャルアーティストのコンサートライブ」を制作。
同期投影ライブシステムを考案し、企画・制作を行いました。

Dana Robinson

10 reasons to dump a guy… immediately!

1. He calls women the “B word”
2. He’s attached to his mother’s apron strings
3. He’s only interested in himself
4. He has unresolved addiction issues
5. He’s not honest and/or trustworthy
6. His relentlessly negative outlook
7. He’s got Peter Pan Syndrome
8. He lacks ambition
9. He’s a cheater
10. He isn’t good boyfriend material

Русский человек

Русские рекламисты говорят: “Наш товар – самый лучший в мире”,
европейские рекламисты говорят: “Наш товар – самый лучший в Европе”,
евреи говорят: “Наш товар – самый лучший на этой улице”.
В реализм поверить проще всего!

Hitoshi Oonuma

Excellent médecin, très humaine, très consciencieuse, à l’écoute de son patient et respectueuse de l’intelligence de son patient. L’un des meilleurs médecins que j’ai rencontré.

姜尚中

東日本大震災を第二の敗戦、終戦と言う人がいます。確に似た面がないわけではありませんが、３・１１は８・１５とあべこべのことが起きたと私は思います。それは「国破れて山河あり」でなく、「山河破れて国あり」ということです。

白戸三平

鼠は何のために生まれて来たのか。ただ猫に食われるだけなのか。猫に食われるためだけに生まれてきた鼠って何だ。ただ、窮鼠猫を噛むっていうじゃないか。もしかして、猫に鼠が一かじり立ち向かった記憶が次の鼠に伝えられているかも知れない。自分は日本の歴史の中で、きっとそういう歴史があったんだろうと思う。それを漫画の中で取り上げてみたい。

若い人から、社会主義の国はきらいだときいた。日本ならば、たとえ失敗しても、いっちょうやってやろうという夢があるとのことである。その夢とは、どんなものだろう？まずしい社会においては、夢もまずしくなることが恐ろしい。まずしい社会においては、小さな夢のために大きなことをしなければならない。我々の祖先も、そして現代のわれわれも、そのまずしい社会に生きている。そして、この物語の主人公たち-カムイ、正助、竜之進らも、結局、小さなことのために大きなことをして、消えていったのである。しかし、人びとのあとには、人々がつづき、そしていま、われわれがあるののである。

とかく人は、隠されたものを見たがるものだ。ところが、ふし穴ではないが、見えているが見えないものもある。草を食べる動物がある。その動物を捕える肉食動物がいる。野うさぎを食べつくしてしまえば、天敵である山猫も滅びてしまう。動物でも植物でも、死ねばさまざまの菌類が分解し、無機物へと還元してしまう。その無機物をもとにして、植物は再生する。もし、この世に菌類というものがなければ、地球は動植物の死骸に埋もれて廃墟と化していることだろう。ところが、菌類はキノコやカビをのぞけば、人の眼にふれることはない。木が倒れ家の屋根をとばされて風の存在を知り、水にもぐって空気のありがたさを知る。だが、人はまわりをうかがう己の姿には、なかなか気づかない。作中の登場人物たちも私も、見えないものを見ようとして、己らの姿を見ることが出来なかった。0 はいまだに健在である。

Google

AveryProg

There's an article currently on the Rec List, which quite like about the murder suicide rate in the US. It's an excellent diary.
However, it does one thing at the end of the diary, which is very common all over the web: It trusts the top line number of search results found by a Google search as accurate, and uses it as data to help prove a point.
That would be fine, except that number is complete fiction (i.e., Google search results number is completely made up.)
I don't point this out to minimize the topic, or criticize the diarist in any way. But I do want to make sure, that as a reality based community, we're using good data.
I have done work for Google Search, and was told as much flat out. This was shocking, to say the least. I have always trusted that number, and it's always so BIG! Somehow knowing that there were ten million results for "laughing goat" gave me perspective on my place in the universe.
Unfortunately, that top line number is made up out of thin air. Well, more likely it's based on a complex algorithm probably using a statistical extrapolation of the number of results found. However, in any case, it's always wrong. By a lot. I once blew someone's mind at a dinner party who just finished writing his sociology thesis based on the number of Google results found for specific Google Search result totals.
Oops.

哈尔滨工业大学 (Harbin Institute of Technology)

     
Harbin Institute of Technology is widely recognized as one of the top universities in China and consistently ranked among the best engineering schools. The school is also member of the C9 League. A 2009 analysis of research citations by Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators found HIT among the top 1% of institutions in the fields of Material Science, Chemistry, Engineering and Physics.

Sober Look (Walter Kurtz)

Number of FT articles containing “yen” (source: Merrill Lynch)

---

Google Search for "JPY"

Michael J. Casey

After locking horns with U.S. officials for two decades, Japanese financial authorities have developed a fine art for avoiding Washington’s reproach whenever the yen exchange rate drifts too low for America’s liking.
Their latest lobbying victory was sealed when the Group of Seven industrialized nations gave indirect approval to the monetary stimulus measures that have caused the yen to lose 17.5% against the dollar in five months and enraged many of Japan’s competitors. By arguing that such policies are driven by “domestic objectives” and not by desires for weaker exchange rates, the G-7 gave a green light to further yen weakness, much to the relief of Japan’s powerful export industry. Even though the resulting selloff was later cut short as various G-7 officials suggested that the group still harbored some concern about the yen’s swift descent, the document itself reads as a clear endorsement of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to pressure the Bank of Japan into a more accommodative policy stance.
It is worrying that Prime Minister Abe shows disregard for the Bank of Japan’s independence and perhaps he should avoid uttering the word “yen.” But the truth is Japan needs a weaker currency. The rest of the world will just have to get used to that.

Currency Thoughts (Larry Greenberg)

Much has changed since my first stint in the New York Fed’s Foreign Department. U.S. daily currency market turnover then was less than $3 billion, whereas global turnover now exceeds $3 trillion per day. Currency quotes in 1975 would be posted hourly on a blackboard in the N.Y. Fed trading room. Now trades are made, quotes read, and analysis seen instantly with the click of a computer key. I’ve seen the dollar range as high as 3.478 against the D-mark in February 1985 and as low as the euro-translation value of 1.2195 earlier this year. I’ve watched dollar/yen range between 308 and 79.85. In the co-habital evolution of telecommunications and global currency markets, I am ready for the next frontier, which is why I am launching this blog.

Larry Greenberg

Prior to the summer of 1971 when most dollar exchange rates were fixed, a dollar was worth 360 yen. In the 1970s, Japan’s currency appreciated 50% to 240 per dollar, and it climbed another 67% to 144/USD by the end of the 1980s. When the euro was launched at the end of 1998, one only needed 113.5 yen to obtain a dollar and 133 yen to get a euro. Little net movement occurred between then and the start of the world financial crisis in early August 2007 when a dollar and euro fetched 119 yen and 134 yen. However, the yen has been stronger than 90/USD since mid-2010 and pricier than 80/USD for almost two months. Early this week, it touched 103.89 per euro, its strongest level against the common European currency since June 14, 2001. Since the outbreak of the financial crisis just over four years ago, Japan’s currency has advanced about 56% against the dollar and some 27% relative to the euro.
This chronic strength in the yen violates many conventional wisdom about what factors make a currency strong or weak.
Japan is basically on it’s own so far as intervention is concerned, and to intervene heavily and frequently would violate its written pledge as a member of the G20 and G7 to “refrain from competitive devaluation of currencies.”

Google

USD/JPY (1 month)	USD/JPY (3 months)	USD/JPY (6 months)
USD/JPY (1 year)	USD/JPY (5 years)	USD/JPY (10 years)

Andrew E. Kramer

Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, strongly indicated that the United States did not intend to censure Japan for weakening its currency over the last several months, something that has aided Japanese exporters and angered its competitors.
Initially, it seemed the world’s largest economies might agree on a firm statement at the end of the meeting to condemn a currency war, or competitive devaluations. This tactic is now widely seen as a beggar-thy-neighbor approach to creating growth that would ultimately harm a global recovery and is understood to be a cause of the lingering nature of the depression in the 1930s.
Mr. Bernanke, an advocate of the loose monetary policy in the United States known as quantitative easing, but also a student of the Great Depression, suggested a distinction should be drawn based on the intention of the monetary easing.
“The United States is using domestic policies to advance domestic agendas,” Mr. Bernanke said. “We believe that by strengthening the U.S. economy, we are helping to strengthen the global economy as well. We welcome similar approaches by other countries.” He said he endorsed an earlier statement at the meeting from Christine Lagarde, the director of the International Monetary Fund, who had said the risk of a currency war was “overblown.”

ハジュン・チャン

世界経済を破綻させる23の嘘

第１の嘘　市場は自由でないといけない
第２の嘘　株主の利益を第一に考えて企業経営をせよ
第３の嘘　市場経済では誰もが能力に見合う賃金をもらえる
第４の嘘　インターネットは世界を根本的に変えた
第５の嘘　市場がうまく動くのは人間が最悪（利己的）だからだ
第６の嘘　インフレを抑えれば経済は安定し、成長する
第７の嘘　途上国は自由市場・自由貿易によってのみ富み栄える
第８の嘘　資本にはもはや国籍はない
第９の嘘　世界は脱工業化時代に突入した
第１０の嘘　アメリカの生活水準は世界一である
第１１の嘘　アフリカは発展できない運命にある
第１２の嘘　政府が勝たせようとする企業や産業は敗北する
第１３の嘘　富者をさらに富ませれば他の者たちも潤う
第１４の嘘　経営者への高額報酬は必要であり正当である
第１５の嘘　貧しい国が発展できないのは起業家精神の欠如のせいだ
第１６の嘘　すべて市場に任せるべきだ
第１７の嘘　教育こそ繁栄の鍵だ
第１８の嘘　企業に自由にやらせるのが国全体の経済にも良い
第１９の嘘　共産主義の崩壊とともに計画経済も消滅した
第２０の嘘　今や努力をすれば誰でも成功できる
第２１の嘘　経済を発展させるには小さな政府のほうがよい
第２２の嘘　金融市場の効率化こそが国に繁栄をもたらす
第２３の嘘　良い経済の導入には経済に関する深い知識が必要

Ha-Joon Chang

As if being a businessman, novelist, tax collector, political commentator and spy wasn’t providing sufficient stimulus, Defoe was also an economist. This aspect of his life is even less well known than his spying. Unlike his novels, which include Robinson Crusoe, Defoe’s main economic work in 1728, A Plan of the English Commerce (henceforth A Plan), is almost forgotten now.
Daniel Defoe’s fictional hero, Robinson Crusoe, is often used by economics teachers as the pure example of ‘rational economic man’, the hero of neo-liberal free-market economics.
The kind of economics that underpins Defoe’s Plan is exactly the opposite of Robinson Crusoe economics. In A Plan, Defoe clearly shows that it was not the free market but government protection and subsidies that developed British woollen manufacturing. Defying signals from the market that his country was an efficient raw wool producer and should remain so, Henry VII introduced policies that deliberately distorted such unwelcome notions. By doing so, he started the process that eventually transformed Britain into a leading manufacturing nation. Economic development requires people like Henry VII, who build a new future, rather than people like Robinson Crusoe, who live for today. Thus, in addition to his double life as a spy, Defoe also led a double life as an economist—without realizing it, he created the central character in free market economics in his fictional work, yet his own economic analysis clearly illustrated the limits of free market and free trade.

Hanna Rosin

Busyness is a choice, but it’s not a choice choice; it’s more like a condition we are passively not resisting, a trap we can’t see our way out of. This revelation came to me the other day when I talked to an acquaintance who is a book binder. I had visited him expecting a respite from my harried screen-centric existence, an afternoon full of unusual smells and textures. But his life was just as insane seeming as mine. He had clients hassling him on email to get projects done faster, lost packages he needed to track and an inbox that was equally oppressive. Everything is sped up; stay at home moms are just as manic as I am about getting through their day.
In my better moments I aim to live the way Katie Roiphe suggested in her Financial Times response to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s piece: We should embrace the chaos, screw the balance, revel in those days when we get home too late and wake up groggy to a toddler sticking Band-Aids on our half open eyes, and then steal some more sleep by handing over a box of cookies. But the same thought keeps coming back to me: I don’t want to be busy. I don’t want all my friends to start their messages to me with the sentence “I know you’re really busy but …” Anyone have any advice?

Esther Zuckerman

Americans are working really hard. Perhaps too hard. 80 percent of 1,000 U.S. workers surveyed worked after leaving the office. People check their email in bed in the morning (50%), before 8 a.m. (68%), after 10 p.m. (40%), when they are out with their families (57%), and when they are at the dinner table (38%). And 69 percent say they can’t go to bed without doing so. All of this means we are almost working an entire extra day of work from home.

Derek Thompson

Library of Congress

James Truslow Adams stated that the American dream is “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
Were homesteaders who left the big cities of the east to find happiness and their piece of land in the unknown wilderness pursuing these inalienable Rights? Were the immigrants who came to the United States looking for their bit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their Dream? And what did the desire of the veteran of World War II – to settle down, to have a home, a car and a family – tell us about this evolving Dream? Is the American Dream attainable by all Americans?
Some say, that the American Dream has become the pursuit of material prosperity – that people work more hours to get bigger cars, fancier homes, the fruits of prosperity for their families – but have less time to enjoy their prosperity. Others say that the American Dream is beyond the grasp of the working poor who must work two jobs to insure their family’s survival. Yet others look toward a new American Dream with less focus on financial gain and more emphasis on living a simple, fulfilling life.
Thomas Wolfe said, “…to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity ….the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him.” Is this your American Dream?

Michael

What in the world has happened to the children of America? All over the United States kids are acting like half-crazed monsters, but most people seem to think that this is “normal”. American kids today are selfish, self-centered, sadistic, cruel, disrespectful, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, boastful, unforgiving, incredibly brutal and they possess very little self-control whatsoever. They feel entitled to everything, but they don’t want to work for any of it. They are absolutely addicted to entertainment, and they know very little about self-sacrifice. Disciplining children is not considered to be “politically correct” in America today, and with each passing year these little hellions get even worse. So what in the world is our country going to look like when all of these out of control kids grow up?

Kate Taylor

In a culture where to be busy is to be successful, is it possible for men or women to take the time to actually be content with their work or home lives?
If work seems to be an eternally growing list of events and responsibilities, home life is just as bad.
Is there anything wrong with this exhausting check list if it allows everyone to thrive at home and at work?
Working mothers have been told what they “should” be doing since they entered the workplace. Second wave feminist ideals and traditional business smarts dictate that keeping up with the men at work means putting in the hours in the office, networking and following in the footsteps of earlier leaders. The study of child development creates a check list of how to best raise children, and shames those who aren’t meeting these requirements. Our social lives, spiritual lives, even love lives, become a stale count of what we “should” be doing to be successful. All of these things are based in pretty firm evidence. However, achieving them everything we “should” would require time we simply do not have, leaving men and women burnt out and unhappy.

Соң-Көл

Oasis Overland

 

Turkey, Iran, The 'Stans & China (15 Weeks) Silk Road from Istanbul to Beijing
Days 1 to 7 - Turkey (Istanbul, Gallipoli, Troy, Ephesus)
Days 8 to 17 - Turkey (Turquoise Coast, Olympos, Cappadoccia)
Days 18 to 25 - Turkey (Nemrut Dagi, Lake Van, Dogubeyazit)
Days 26 to 43 - Iran (Tabriz, Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz, Yazd, Damghan, Mashhad)
Days 44 to 48 - Turkmenistan (Ashgabat, Kara-Kum Desert, Kunye Ugench)
Days 49 to 58 - Uzbekistan (Khiva, Bukhara, Kyzylkum Desert, Samarkand, Tashkent)
Days 59 to 64 - Kazakhstan (Aksu); Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek)
Days 65 to 78 - Kyrgyzstan (Lake Issyk-Kul, Lake Song Kol, Tash Rabat, Torugat Pass)
Days 79 to 86 - China (Kashgar, Taklamakan Desert, Kuqa, Turpan)
Days 87 to 96 - China (Gobi Desert, Dunhuang, Jiayuguan, Xiahe)
Days 97 to 105 - China (Chengdu, Xi'an, Beijing)

Tim Kreider

If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”
Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work.
Even children are busy now, scheduled down to the half-hour with classes and extracurricular activities. They come home at the end of the day as tired as grown-ups.
The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it. It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school — it’s something we collectively force one another to do.
Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.
Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is indispensable to the brain.

Patrick Jenkins

The United States emerged from World War II as one of the great financial super powers of the world. Those children of the Great Depression, turned heros of the “War to End All Wars” came home; reared a small family, bought a modest house and saved a lot of money. This frugality mixed with asset ownership set the Middle Class of America apart from any other nation. Assets historically reserved only for the wealthiest (including education, health care and transportation) were affordable to the middle class of America.
These pioneers went on the found lart companies that families could work at for generations like IBM, General Electric, and Ford. It became the norm to stay with a company for your entire career, then the company would stay with you through retirement.
This model proved unrealistic for employers in the 1970′s and Government began to step in and attempt to provide those same union benefits to all Americans. The unintended consequences of this action slowly began to undermine the buying power of the middle class and gained momentum until the costs of providing too much for too many has taxed the United States into a two class society…the “have’s” and the “have-not’”.
65 years after the heros of World War II returned home, the society they build is now left to the history books. Americans are now required to go about providing for their own families, building their own retirements, and paying for the benefits of others in a society where only 52% pay income taxes.

Jerry Harkins

Pete Seeger tells a story about a king who asked his wise men to reduce all the world's knowledge and wisdom to a single book he could use to educate his son. It took them nearly a year and, when they were done, the king challenged them to distill the book down to a single sentence. Five years of intense labor and constant debate followed until, at last, the wise men were able to agree on the sentence, "This too shall pass." Again the king sent them back to the academy. "Find me," he commanded, "the single word my son can live by, the irreducible essence of everything we know." Ten years passed. At length, the sages, old, gray and worn with disputation, returned. "Sire," said their leader, "the one word at the heart of all wisdom, is 'maybe.'"