Dangers of Twitter, Facebook: Beware!

Is technology---in particular the ubiquituous social media---sapping our productivity, our physical and social health, our ability to live better quality of life if we use them wrongly? These are serious questions we as human beings of the 21st century should ponder on carefully and address in this 21st century? Let us change for the better, not worse!

Here's a thought-provoking Bloomberg column (below) by Caroline Baum which expresses a lot of my concerns. Baum has a B.A. in political science from Tufts University and an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University. She lives in West Tisbury, Massachusetts, United States of America.

 

Twitter Saps Productivity, Facebook Makes You Fat

By Caroline Baum Dec 27, 2012 7:30 AM GMT+0800 Bloomberg

Ever since the invention of the wheel in Mesopotamia around 3500 B.C., technological innovation has been improving our lives. Because new devices and processes help us produce more (output) with less (labor input), prices fall, real wages rise and we are all better off. If there is a free lunch in this world, it’s productivity growth.

(Image below sourced from Msshawnblog.blogspot.com)



There is even an economic school of thought, known as real business cycle theory, which views technology shocks as the main driver of the business cycle: not the central bank, not fiscal policy, not animal spirits or expectations.

 

Technology, in fact, is always equated with good: More is better.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for progress, but I keep wondering if some of the latest innovations are productivity- enhancing or just a pure waste of time.

For example, every time I’m in Manhattan, I marvel at the number of people crossing the street or sitting down to lunch with a friend without taking their eyes and fingers off their electronic devices. I can even predict the effect such interconnectivity will have on the individual psyche. Twenty years from now, sociologists and psychologists will publish studies about how the teenagers of today, addicted as they are to texting abbreviated word forms, have trouble relating to one another. Educators will bemoan the inability of the youth of America to write.

(Image below sourced from article.wn.com)

‘Alone Together’

I didn’t have to wait 20 years. Sherry Turkle, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, described this phenomenon perfectly in an April 21 New York Times article titled, “The Flight from Conversation.” She called it “alone together.” It encapsulated everything I had been thinking about for years.

“We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating,” Turkle, a psychologist, wrote. “And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.”

(Image below sourced from businessinsider.com)





Social networking is just such an alone-together pursuit. Last year, Bloomberg journalists were encouraged to set up Twitter accounts. I reluctantly complied. I don’t have a Facebook page, was never tempted to create one and didn’t understand the value of letting friends know that I was eating a peach or walking the dog.

At first I restricted my tweets to my column and blog posts. I never looked at Twitter in between. Then I started interacting with people, and it became contagious, more like a game. Who was retweeting my posts?

How many followers did each tweet produce? What was my tweet-to-follower ratio? My most attention-grabbing tweet was something snarky I wrote on Nov. 14 during L’Affaire Petraeus: “Both Petraeus & Broadwell were married. Yet now she’s his ‘mistress.’ Do we have an equivalent word in English for him?”

I got dozens of suggestions and 50 new followers. But what was the value? It seemed like a huge distraction from my work. If we as a nation are twittering or frittering our lives away, surely it must be manifesting itself in the statistics.

To find the answer, I decided to go to the source on labor productivity: the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I asked one of the economists who works in that division if he could help me determine how my personal productivity was being affected by tweeting. Once I became an expert, I was sure I could extrapolate the results to the universe at large.

You probably guessed: It’s not that easy. In its monthly calculation of output per hour worked, or productivity, the BLS uses revenue, or nominal sales, as a proxy for output. That revenue is then adjusted for price changes.

Total hours worked, which businesses report to the BLS each month, is used as a proxy for labor input. Productivity is computed from the two numbers.

Unadjusted Quality

What about the effect on the quality of my work? If I’m spending more time tweeting and less researching and writing my column, surely the quality suffers.

Goods can be adjusted for quality changes: something the BLS does each month to determine what part of the change in the price of a consumer good is due to improved quality. It’s harder with services industries and is almost impossible for my output. (Readers, however, have no problem providing instantaneous qualitative assessment: It stinks.)

The good news is, until my slacking off starts to affect Bloomberg LP’s sales, my personal productivity isn’t captured in the statistics. The bad news is, I may lose my job.

The difficulty of capturing the Twitter effect in the aggregate data notwithstanding, the productivity-sapping side of social networking doesn’t stop there. A recent study by Keith Wilcox, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, found that Facebook was making people fat. Yes, fat. It seems that social networking improves self-esteem and, in so doing, reduces control over our choice of snacks.

The study said nothing about the effect on productivity. That’s a leap I’m taking. To the extent that obesity and its secondary effects require treatment, it means less time devoted to work.

Does that make sense? I think I will share that idea with my Twitter followers and see what they think. Then I’ll get back to work.


(Image below of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg sourced from shinyshiny.tv)





(Caroline Baum, author of “Just What I Said,” is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

Senator John Kerry would make an ideal U.S. Secretary of State due to his cosmopolitan and liberal mindset, opposite that of his former political rival ex-President George W. Bush who was jingoistic.

Although he is a bemedalled hero of the Vietnam War, he eventually made a courageous stand based on his moral principles and objective analyses to eventually oppose the Vietnam War. He also opposed the Iraq War of George W. Bush. He is a highly-educated and intellident leader, an ideal diplomat for peace in the world.

(This image sourced from esquire.com)





(This image sourced from vanityfair.com)

Obama Turns to Global Traveler Kerry This Time Around

By Laura Litvan - Dec 22, 2012 3:56 AM GMT+0800 Bloomberg.com

Months after passing over Senator John Kerry for a Cabinet post in 2009, President Barack Obama turned to the Massachusetts senator to warn Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai that U.S. support was at risk.
The Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee coaxed Karzai into agreeing to a runoff after a contested presidential election. Kerry “made the kind of difference diplomacy can make,” Michael Mandelbaum, a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said in an interview.

Enlarge image

Senator John Kerry

Scott Eells/Bloomberg

From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Sudan and China, Kerry, 69, has made at least 30 trips abroad over the past four years, often serving as an unofficial special envoy for the Obama administration.

From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Sudan and China, Kerry, 69, has made at least 30 trips abroad over the past four years, often serving as an unofficial special envoy for the Obama administration. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

6:52

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama named Massachusetts Senator John Kerry as his choice to become the next U.S. secretary of state during a news conference in Washington. The nomination of Kerry, 69, a Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is subject to Senate confirmation. (Source: Bloomberg)

From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Sudan and China, Kerry, 69, has made at least 30 trips abroad over the past four years, often serving as an unofficial special envoy for the Obama administration. Today, the president made it official, saying he will nominate Kerry to replace the departing Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

“Over these many years, John’s earned the respect and confidence of leaders around the world,” Obama said, with Kerry at his side at the White House. “He is not going to need a lot of on-the-job training.”
Republican colleagues predicted in advance of Kerry’s nomination that he would easily win Senate confirmation.

“I don’t foresee a big obstacle,” Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who will become the No. 2 Republican leader in January, said in an interview. “He’s been a good and effective senator.”

Patrician Manner

Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who first became known nationally as a critic of that war, has been steeped in foreign policy issues throughout his career. Traits Republicans ridiculed in his failed presidential campaign in 2004 -- his patrician manner, his fine-grained parsing of language, even his occasional tendency to lapse into French to choose the mot juste -- may wear well on the international diplomatic circuit.

Kerry will be able to follow in the footsteps of Clinton, who is effective partly because she’s a well-known figure globally, according to Joseph Nye, a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Kerry is “a distinguished senator and he’s seen as having a political presence of his own, which is very helpful,” Nye, a former Defense and State Department official who has known Kerry for 20 years, said in an interview.

On foreign policy, Kerry shares Obama’s preference for working through multinational alliances and for avoiding open- ended engagement, such as the Iraq war they both opposed.

“Ideologically, he and the president are in a very similar place,” James Carafano, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said in an interview.

Syria Caution

Kerry’s approach to U.S. intervention abroad has been reflected in his comments on the war in Syria, where he has shared Obama’s reluctance about direct military involvement.

“It would be important not to repeat the mistakes of the past by thinking we can just willy-nilly commit some forces to a conflict without a definition or achievable objective,” Kerry said at a committee hearing on Aug. 1.
Kerry and Obama have political bonds dating to 2004, when the senator gave Obama his breakthrough opportunity as the keynote speaker at the Democratic convention that nominated Kerry for president. The speech turned Obama, a state senator from Illinois running for the U.S. Senate, into a national political star.

Clinton Chosen

In 2008, Kerry backed Obama over front-runner Clinton in the Democratic presidential primaries, only to see Obama reach out and choose Clinton as his first-term secretary of state. In this year’s presidential campaign, Obama prepared for debates with Kerry playing the role of Republican opponent Mitt Romney.
“Nothing brings two people closer together than weeks of debate prep,” Obama said today.

After graduating from Yale University, Kerry volunteered for the Navy. In two tours of duty in Vietnam, he rose to the rank of lieutenant and served on a Swift Boat that traveled treacherous river deltas. He was decorated with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.

“Having served with valor in Vietnam, he understands that we have a responsibility to use American power wisely, especially our military power,” Obama said today.

Kerry came to see the war he fought as futile, and on his return to the U.S. he became a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

‘Last to Die’

“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Kerry said in April 1971, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he would one day lead. On that visit to Washington, he joined other veterans who threw their medals and ribbons over a fence at the Capitol to protest the war.

Kerry made an unsuccessful bid for a House seat from Massachusetts the following year, then worked as a prosecutor before being elected lieutenant governor in 1982 and senator in 1984. For years, he was overshadowed in Washington by the state’s senior senator, Edward M. Kennedy, who died in 2009.

In the 2004 presidential campaign, Republicans portrayed Kerry as flip-flopping on funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They seized on his comment in March 2004 that “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

Kerry said his “inarticulate” phrasing referred to his support for an unsuccessful Democratic alternative that would have offset war costs by reducing Bush’s tax cuts.

Among Wealthiest

Largely because of the wealth of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Kerry is one of the richest members of Congress. His net worth was at least $181.5 million in 2011, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.

Kerry and Senator John McCain, a fellow Vietnam veteran, traveled to Hanoi in 1993. They visited the prison where McCain was held as a prisoner of war for six years. Kerry and McCain, an Arizona Republican, worked together for the normalization of Vietnam-U.S. relations that occurred two years later.
Kerry became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2009, when Joe Biden left the post to become Obama’s vice president.

In February 2009, Kerry was the highest-level U.S. official to visit the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized control of the territory in June 2007. He didn’t meet with Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union.

Afghanistan Dinners

On his visit to Afghanistan in 2009, Kerry met with Karzai five times over five days, including twice over dinner, to broker the terms of a runoff election. Obama later said Kerry was “extraordinarily constructive and very helpful.”

In May 2011, Kerry was the first high-level U.S. official to visit Pakistan amid bilateral strains following the May 2 killing there of Osama bin Laden by U.S. Navy SEALs.

At the Capitol, Kerry worked with the Foreign Relations panel’s top Republican, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, on issues such as a strategic arms control treaty with Russia that they ushered through the chamber in December 2010.

Kerry tried unsuccessfully to push through the Senate legislation intended to curb global climate change. As secretary of state, Kerry may be able to revive interest in the subject as “the recession recedes and you’ve more reminders like Hurricane Sandy,” Nye said.

Kerry also may help negotiate a “status of forces agreement” for U.S. forces to maintain a role in Afghanistan after most troops are withdrawn in 2014, Nye said.

Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, who is in line to replace Lugar as top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee next month, said Kerry is clearly qualified for the Cabinet post.

“He’s lived a life of involvement in diplomacy and issues related to foreign relations,” Corker said.

Is it right for a married guy to fire a beautiful assistant or employee he finds "irresistable" or a temptation? This really happened in USA, recently! The reason for firing seems unfair or even absurd and ridiculous, but in America's dynamic and truly democratic free enterprise system, an employer can lawfully terminate the services of any employee for whatever reason as long as she or he is justly compensated.

This is the essence of free enterprise, employers have the right to hire or fire people and not be compelled to retain employees as long as the employees are properly compensated. The world's two biggest capitalistic economies have proven that this democratic principle works---USA and China.


(Image below sourced from news.com.au)




Read this CNN news report:

Iowa Supreme Court: OK to fire 'irresistible' worker

By Dana Ford, CNN

December 23, 2012 -- Updated 0123 GMT (0923 HKT)

 

 

Worker fired for being 'irresistible'

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Melissa Nelson worked as a dental assistant for James Knight for more than 10 years
• Knight complained Nelson wore tight clothes, was a "detriment" to his family
• Knight's wife demanded he fire Nelson; he did
• The all-male high court rules her termination did not constitute unlawful discrimination

(CNN) -- Can a boss fire an employee he finds attractive because he and his wife, fairly or not, see her as a threat to their marriage?

Yes, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.

"The question we must answer is ... whether an employee who has not engaged in flirtatious conduct may be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction," Justice Edward M. Mansfield wrote for the all-male high court.

Such firings may not be fair, but they do not constitute unlawful discrimination under the Iowa Civil Rights Act, the decision read, siding with a lower court.

An attorney for Melissa Nelson, the fired employee, said the decision was wrong.

"We are appalled by the court's ruling and its failure to understand the nature of gender bias," said Paige Fiedler, the attorney. "For the seven men on the Iowa Supreme Court not to 'get it' is shocking and disheartening. It underscores the need for judges on the bench to be diverse in terms of their gender, race and life experiences."

The case concerns her client's employment as a dental assistant. Nelson worked for James Knight in 1999 and stayed for more than 10 years at the Fort Dodge business.

Toward the end of her employment, Knight complained to Nelson her clothing was tight and "distracting," the decision read. She denied her clothes were inappropriate.

At one point, Knight told Nelson that "if she saw his pants bulging, she would know her clothing was too revealing," the decision read.

At another point, in response to an alleged comment Nelson made about the infrequency of her sex life, Knight responded: [T]hat's like having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it."

During the last six months of Nelson's employment, Nelson and Knight, both married with children, started sending text messages to each other outside of work. Neither objected to the texting.

Knight's wife, who was employed at the same dental office, found out about those messages in late 2009 and demanded he fire Nelson.

In early 2010, he did just that. In the presence of a pastor, Knight told Nelson she had become a "detriment" to his family and that for the sakes of both their families, they should no longer work together, the decision read. Knight gave Nelson one month's severance.

In a subsequent conversation between Knight and Nelson's husband, Knight said Nelson had done nothing wrong and that "she was the best dental assistant he ever had," the decision read.

Nelson filed a lawsuit, contending that Knight fired her because of her gender. She did not say he committed sexual harassment.

In response, Knight argued that Nelson was fired because of the "nature of their relationship and the perceived threat" to his marriage, not because of her gender. In fact, he said, Knight only employs women and replaced Nelson with another female employee.

A district court sided with Knight; Nelson appealed.

"As we have indicated above, the issue before us is not whether a jury could find that Dr. Knight treated Nelson badly," read the high court's decision.

"We are asked to decide only if a genuine fact issue exists as to whether Dr. Knight engaged in unlawful gender discrimination when he fired Nelson at the request of his wife. For the reasons previously discussed, we believe this conduct did not amount to unlawful discrimination, and therefore we affirm the judgment of the district court."

Congratulations to South Korea's first ever woman leader! She will show the world that women can be as gutsy and visionary as male politicos! Best wishes to the people of dynamic South Korea.

Can President Park Geun-hye help rein in or nudge reforms in hostile neighbor North Korea? Can she also persuade the political leaders and people of Japan to not embrace rightwing politics and come to terms with Japan's controversial colonial past like postwar Germany did, in order to help build a brighter future for East Asia? I personally have high hopes and great respect for South Korea's new leader.

(Photo below from reuters.com)



(Image below sourced from forums.allkpop.com)





Here's a news report from Reuters news agency:

Park Geun-hye wastes no time in addressing Japan and North Korea

First woman president takes tough line while promising to spread wealth more evenly

Friday, 21 December, 2012, 12:00 am

 

Reuters in Seoul

• 

Park Geun-hye bows to the nation yesterday. Photo: AP

South Korea's president-elect, Park Geun-hye, used her first major speech yesterday to warn of the risks posed by a hostile North Korea and also fired a political shot across the bows of Japan's incoming prime minister, Shinzo Abe.
Speaking after a visit to the national cemetery, which included a poignant homage at the graves of her assassinated father and mother, the country's first woman leader pledged to spread wealth more evenly.

Park has said she will hold talks with North Korea and resume aid to the isolated and belligerent country, but only if it abandons its nuclear weapons programme. The impoverished North launched a rocket last week that critics said was a test for technology that could be used for a long-range missile that could one day carry a nuclear warhead.

"North Korea's long-range missile launch showed how grave the security reality is that we are faced with," Park said a day after her convincing election win.

She will take office in February and signalled she would continue outgoing Lee Myung-bak's tough line on territorial claims that Japan has on South Korea.

South Korea says Japan, which has similar disputes with China, has not come to terms with its harsh past rule of Korea. Japan says it has paid compensation for the slavery issue and has apologised.

"I will try to work for greater reconciliation, co-operation and peace in Northeast Asia based on a correct perception of history," she said, in an apparent reference to the conflict with Tokyo.

Park, 60, will replace fellow conservative Lee after his single five-year term ends. The slightly built and elegant Park grew up in Seoul's presidential palace during the 18-year rule of her father, Park Chung-hee, who took power in a military coup in 1961.

Park on Tuesday called for national "reconciliation" and pledged again to share wealth more evenly, but offered no clues about how she would implement policies. She is likely to face protests from South Korea's vocal left, angry at the rise to power of the daughter of a man they believe was a repressive dictator.

"This will be a tremendous burden on her ability to govern," political commentator Yu Chang-seon said of Park's heritage. "It effectively means that she could be in direct conflict with half of society ... The first six months will be key."

Compared to the brutal and quite backward Spanish colonizers, the American colonizers in their nearly half-century rule had brought a lot of positive contributions to Philippine economic development regardless of the controversies like the Philippine-American War or unequal treaties like the Parity Rights, U.S. bases agreement before, etc.

Let me share some of the disaster relief and other forms of aid our former colonizer the United States of America (USA) continue to share with us here in the Philippines.

Special thanks to the U.S. Embassy in Manila for providing me these statistics below.

Merry Christmas to all!

(Image of this circa 1945 Philippine postage stamp under U.S. colonial rule sourced from 123rf.com)







(Iimage below of U.S.A. colonial officials in tropical islands of the Philippines sourced from mutantfrog.com)





(An American flag decorates a public transport vehicle called "jeepney" in Metro Manila, the Philippines. This image below sourced from noelmaurer.typepad.com)






U.S. Government Assistance to the Philippines for Typhoon Pablo Relief

FACT SHEET

Manila, December 21, 2012 -- The U.S. Government extends its deepest condolences for the devastation and loss of life caused by Typhoon Pablo (international name Bopha) in the southern Philippines. As the Christmas holiday approaches, we continue to work hand in hand with the Government of the Philippines and non-governmental organizations to make sure that assistance is reaching those who need it most in typhoon-ravaged areas of Davao.  Below is a summary of all activities undertaken by the U.S. Government to assist with the disaster relief effort since December 5.

760,500,000: Total number, in Philippine Pesos, provided by the U.S. Government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), over the past five years to aid with the disaster response in the Philippines.  The United States has been a key partner of the Philippines in providing immediate humanitarian response during natural calamities. The U.S. Government is helping the Philippines cope with the effects of calamities by improving mechanisms to effectively adapt and respond to natural disasters. This includes responses to Tropical Storm Ketsana (Ondoy) in 2009, Typhoon Megi (Juan) in 2010, Tropical Storm Washi (Sendong) in 2011, and Typhoon Bopha (Pablo) in 2012.

291,100,000: Total number, in Philippine Pesos, the U.S. Government, through USAID, plans to provide in emergency assistance to individuals affected by Typhoon Pablo (international name Bopha) in the Philippines. This funding is helping address the humanitarian needs of typhoon-affected populations in Compostela Valley, Davao Oriental, and Negros Oriental provinces, and includes support for emergency shelter, logistics, and water, sanitation, and hygiene activities, as well as the provision of emergency relief commodities and food.

167,000,000: Total number, in Philippine Pesos, provided by the U.S. Government in Fiscal Year 2012, through USAID, to support disaster risk reduction efforts by local governments and communities in the Philippines.

2,100,000: Kilos of rice provided by the U.S. Government, through USAID, and allocated to the U.N. World Food Program for emergency distribution to typhoon victims, along with pulses, vegetable oil, and salt, plus a fortified blended food for pregnant and lactating women, children under five, and elderly.  The donation is worth PHP 102,500,000.

343,278: Kilos of relief goods flown by the U.S. Military to Davao from Manila via two Marine Corps KC-130J Hercules aircraft since December 8.  The relief goods consist of family ration packs, relief aid boxes containing personal hygiene items and clothing, high-energy biscuits, rice, generators, mosquito nets, blankets, sleeping mats, tents and liquid containers.

90,000: Estimated number of displaced people in the Philippines who will receive the rice donation from the U.S. Government, through USAID.

37,980: Square kilometers surveyed for aerial assessments with assistance from the Joint Special Operations Task Force – Philippines (JSOTF-P) to aid the Philippine Government in its search and rescue mission.  JSOTF-P provided the aerial assessments over Davao Del Sur, across Compostela Valley and along the east coast of Mindanao from Davao Oriental to Boston. These observations from the air provided over 600 images to advisers on the ground, in order to assess damage and facilitate follow-on distribution of relief aid and supplies to areas where it is most needed.

20,819: Gallons of water per hour produced by water purification units from the U.S. Marine Forces Pacific Command, with assistance of four experts in water purification.

20,000: Estimated number of families that will benefit from 109 tons of plastic sheeting sent to the typhoon-affected areas by USAID for emergency shelters.  This plastic sheeting was consigned to the U.N. World Food Program for distribution to the various members of the Shelter Cluster, headed by the Philippine Department of Social Welfare and Development.

7,200: Square Nautical Miles searched by the P-3 Orion aircraft to aid search and rescue efforts in the Straights of Sarangani.

113: Number of hours spent flying the KC-130J Hercules aircraft to deliver supplies over 22 flights, since December 8.

7: Response time, in hours, between the Philippine Government request to assist with the typhoon response, and the arrival of the U.S. KC-130J Hercules aircraft in Manila.

(Image below of an American woman teaching Filipino kids English in the 1900s start of U.S. colonial rule, this photo sourced from philippines1900.tumblr.com)

No to trapos, I will vote this good leader! Bro. Eddie Villanueva running for Philippine senator! Let us support him for moral, political, economic and social reforms! His son Secretary Joel Villanueva of TESDA also an outstanding leader! Please share this, also leave your comments below if you wish. New politics!

Good news for Asia and for the dynamic nation of South Korea! The daughter of the late great leader Park Chung Hee is---I believe---headed for election victory in South Korea tomorrow. South Korea is one of the most admirable nations in Asia, surpassing even its former colonizer Japan from Olympic gold medals, Samsung electronics success to pop culture exports like Korean TV shows or Gangnam Style!

I foresee Ms. Park Geun Hye tomorrow to not only become South Korea's first female leader, but also the first woman to head a nation in north Asia.

(Image below sourced from reuters.com)








(This Nov. 14, 2011 Korea Joongang Daily photo and news caption below sourced from  mengnews.joinsmsn.com)

Representative Park Geun-hye, third from left, former chairwoman of the Grand National Party, commemorates the 94th birthday of her father, former President Park Chung Hee, at his birth place in Gumi, North Gyeongsang, yesterday. A five-meter statue of Park was unveiled. By Gong Jeong-sik

(Image below and news sourced from Associated Press, November 2, 2012)

Park Geun-hye, presidential candidate of the ruling Saenuri Party, burns incense in front of the tomb of her father and former authoritarian President Park Chung-hee at National Cemetery in Seoul, South Korea. Park attempts to become the country's first female president and keep the government in conservative hands in the Dec. 19, 2012 election. She has been in the public eye longer than either of her rivals and is a skilled political operator, but she is also hounded by her late father Park Chung-hee's complicated legacy, which continues to divide many South Koreans.

Ban widespread private ownership of guns! Less proliferation of guns in USA, the Philippines & the world is one practical way to promote peace and order! Why do we allow too many guns? How much more violence and deaths do we allow before we ban ownership of firearms? Wake up!



(Image below from zazzle.com)


Please read this article from The Telegraph newspaper to realize the dangers of widespread gun ownership...

(This image below sourced from keepschoolssafe.org)

Mass Shooter Adam Lanza 'Spent Hours Playing Call Of Duty'

 

By Barney Henderson

The Telegraph

December 18, 2012

Connecticut school massacre gunman Adam Lanza spent hours playing violent video games such as Call Of Duty in a windowless bunker, according to an interview with a plumber who worked at the family home.

Lanza killed 20 children aged six and seven and six adults at Sandy Hook elementary school having previously shot dead his mother Nancy last Friday. He then shot himself dead. Police are still searching for a motive.

It has emerged that Lanza spent his time in the basement of the family’s four-bedroom home in Newtown playing video games, such as Call of Duty and obsessing over guns and military equipment, according to an interview in The Sun with plumber Peter Wlasuk.

Call Of Duty is controversial because of its violent content. The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK banned daytime advertising of the game earlier this year.

“It was a beautiful house but he lived in the basement. I always thought that was strange,” said Mr Wlasuk, who went into the basement on several occasions while working at the house.

“But he had a proper set up down there — computers, a bathroom, bed and desk and a TV. There were no windows.”

“The boys were fans of the military. They had posters all over the wall in the basement.

“They had one poster of every piece of military equipment the US ever made.

“It was a huge poster with every tank every made. The kids could tell you about guns they had never seen from the 40s, 50s and 60s.

“The kids who play these games know all about them.

“I’m not blaming the games for what happened. But they see a picture of a historical gun and say 'I’ve used that on Call Of Duty’.”

It has also been claimed that Nancy Lanza taught Lanza to handle firearms to instill him with a “sense of responsibility” and even took him to the shooting range just days before the atrocity.

Lanza was apparently so emotionally detached in his teens that school officials assigned him a psychiatrist. They feared that he might harm himself, but did not regard him as a danger to others.

Lanza, a painfully shy computer “nerd” who was said to have had a development disorder, “loved being careful” with guns and “made it a source of pride”, according to friends of his mother Nancy.

Mrs Lanza, a gun enthusiast who owned at least five weapons and was the first victim of his rampage, introduced Adam and his older brother Ryan to firearms at a young age. Indeed, she took her younger son to a local firing range just days before the rampage, CNN reported.

“She told me she had wanted to introduce them to the guns to teach, especially Adam, a sense of responsibility,” a friend told NBC television.

“Guns require a lot of respect and she really tried to instill that. And he took to it. He loved being careful with them. He made it a source of pride.”

Triumph of Reproductive Health (RH) bill in the Philippines today---December 17, 2012---in the legislature is a decisive victory for the democratic principle seperating the church and the state! It is also a victory of common sense over dogmatism!

Family planning is pro-life, pro-women, pro-poor. The future of the Philippines is now better! Advance Merry Christmas!




(Image below sourced from likhaan.org)








(Image below is sourced from planetphilippines.com)

Congratulations to Philippine Senator Loren Legarda for supporting the pro-women, pro-life, pro-poor Reproductive Health bill today on Dec. 17, 2012! Good news for family planning!

Let us vote for and re-elect Senator Loren Legarda in 2013 for her enlightened politics; for her championing women and family issues; for her environmental, anti-poverty, small & medium-scale enterprises, disaster preparedness, peace, cultural and many other advocacies!








Sen. Loren Legarda said that the RH bill won't kill babies, but will actually protect and care for babies in the wombs of their mothers. She said in the vernacular Tagalog: "Ang RH bill ay malayo sa isang batas na kikitil sa buhay ng mga bata, bagkus ay para maalagaan sila sa sinapupunan ng ina."

Congratulations to Philippine Senator Edgardo J. Angara for supporting and voting "Yes" to the pro-life, pro-poor, pro-women and pro-progress Reproductive Health Bill today on Dec. 14, 2012!



Finally, after many years of struggle, family planning will have a chance to help women and poor families in the Philippines to have a better quality of life.

I just want to share this speech of the third-termer Senator Ed Angara, who is running for governor of Aurora province next year and whose son Congressman Sonny Angara we in the Philippines should vote for senator next year 2013.

Ed Angara photo below sourced from accralaw.com





Sonny Angara photo below sourced from philstar.com







EXPLANATION OF SENATOR EDGARDO J. ANGARA'S "YES" VOTE TO THE RH BILL

I vote “YES” to enacting the RH bill into law. It’s an affirmation of our basic human rights, especially the rights of women, and the right to reproductive health.

At the moment, we have to respond to the challenges that threaten our country:

1,000 women continue to die yearly during pregnancy and childbirth;

about 150,000 children are born from teenage mothers every year;

women who cannot support their children put them into orphanages or labor work;

we have almost 2 million orphans from 0 to 17 years of age, and about 4 million child laborers ages 5 to 17; about 9,000 Filipinos are afflicted with HIV/AIDS;

and, at 100 million, we’re the 12th most populous country in the world.

These numbers will continue to rise, if not for the enactment of the RH bill. The RH bill’s provisions on family planning information and services, emergency obstetric care, and reproductive health education intend to respond to these challenges.

We have to consider that maternal deaths due to pregnancy and childbirth are unique to women alone. Without family planning, women will continue to bear children. As they do so, they continue to be exposed to the risk of life-threatening complications. And so, they will need to have access to obstetric services. Failure to provide such services Mr. President, constitutes discrimination against women, because it is only women who face this risk of dying, once pregnant.

On top of these, the United Nations General Assembly ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1979 to address these very issues. The CEDAW was agreed upon by 177 states, including the Philippines. CEDAW mandates that states should provide services that prevent maternal deaths and provide family planning information and services, among others. It has been more than 30 years since that agreement, and yet we haven’t done anything about these issues.

Today I do not just speak as a long-time advocate of public health legislation, and the principal author of PHILHEALTH Law and the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers. Today I speak as both a lawyer and a lawmaker. 

I acknowledge the grave concerns of my fellow Roman Catholics and our leaders in the clergy. I do not see anything in the RH law that forget the moral dimensions of sexual relations, which undermine the Filipino family.

In the first place, the RH bill does not legalize abortion.

Second, unwanted pregnancies are the leading cause of half a million abortions yearly.

Third, the RH bill does not impose any family planning method, but leaves the Filipino couple free to choose whichever method they want.

Finally, to withdraw from enacting the RH bill because one church opposes it is inconsistent with our constitution of the separation of the church and state. We have to consider that not all Filipinos are Catholics. While Catholics comprise 70 percent of our population, we also have Muslims, Protestants, Buddhists, non-believers, and others. Regardless of religion, it is the right of the state to enact the bill for the best interest of our nation, especially for our mothers, our wives, and our sisters and daughters.

Mr. President, today I vote as a Filipino, a lawyer, a public health advocate, a husband, father, and grandfather. I vote YES to the RH bill. May God bless our people.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Even the most freedom-loving Western media guilty of gender bias when depicting women in sex scandals or extra-marital affair controversies! This is even worse in other male chauvinist societies? Agree?

Illustration by Tracy Ma

Every Mistress Needs Someone to Play Sugar Daddy

By Susan Antilla Dec 3, 2012 7:30 AM GMT+0800

I know we’re just settling in with our popcorn for the scene where the lawyers and PR handlers transform disgrace into opportunity for the players in the David Petraeus story.

Already Petraeus is on the contrition circuit, saying last week he “screwed up royally.” Why next thing you know, he will be nominated to replace Hillary Clinton at the State Department. ]

 

 

(Susan Antilla has written about Wall Street, financial regulation and business for three decades.)


 “Act II: The Image Rehab,” could we clear up this business about how women get depicted when the stuff hits the fan in a scandal?

Some of you are feeling sad that Petraeus, the retired four-star U.S. Army general who had an affair with the author of his biography “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus,” had to quit his job as Central Intelligence Agency director last month after admitting to an extramarital affair. “They threw this poor fellow to the wolves,” celebrity divorce lawyer Raoul Felder told the Daily Beast’s “Beast TV.”

Poor fellow, indeed, getting his reputation tarnished for engaging in indiscretions with Paula Broadwell, a married woman who surely must be responsible for the fall of our military hero, considering media commentary that dubbed her a slut and a cunning seductress.

How could this bad result have come to such a good guy?

“From what we know now, he wasn’t an alcoholic or a drug addict -- something that might impair his thinking,” wrote columnist Susan Reimer in the Baltimore Sun. In fact, “he did nothing truly weird, like Rep. Anthony Weiner, who sent those cell-phone pictures of his crotch to random women.”

Behold Man

He probably wasn’t a bank robber or an animal abuser or an inside trader, either, and from what I can tell, the only things he is guilty of are cheating on his wife and a surfeit of professional preening.

But there is something a little bit off when one party to a sex scandal is congratulated for the sins he managed not to commit while the other gets attacked as “a shameless, self promoting prom queen,” which is the way Broadwell was described by an unnamed military officer in the blog Business Insider. (Memo to Mr. Unnamed Military Officer: Next time you get on the phone for a media interview, show a little military-style courage and attach your name to those smears.)

Petraeus is no stranger to self-promotion himself, and several writers have called him out both for his assiduous courting of the reporters who covered him and for his tacky decision to adorn his civilian clothes with military medals for a recent speech in Washington.

But that self-promotion hasn’t led to any portrayals of Petraeus as “a shameless self promoting prom king.”
I have, though, seen a lot of stories that referred to Broadwell as Petraeus’s mistress. And so has J. Nathan Matias, a research assistant at the MIT Center for Civic Media who studies gender representation in the media. Matias used a news database called Media Cloud to get an idea of how Petraeus and Broadwell were being depicted in mainstream media and in blogs, and noticed that the word “mistress” was being used in such varied places as USA Today, Newsweek and Slate.com. Bloomberg View and Bloomberg Businessweek have also referred to Broadwell as his mistress.

“If I were trying to write a piece, I wouldn’t refer to her in that kind of possessive way,” Matias told me. “I’d try to find language where I’d say they were having an affair, and identify her in terms of who she is in society, just as they are identifying Petraeus.”

Readers coming across the word “mistress” tend to visualize a woman who provides sex in exchange for cushy, rent- free living and a lot of high-end shopping, Matias said. That label is “kind of demeaning” in any event, he said, but doesn’t even apply in the case of Broadwell, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, a West Point graduate and recipient of two master’s degrees.

Lost Virtue

“She is getting the typical response to the scarlet letter woman -- he is a man, so he’s weak, but she is crazy, demonic and a threat to national security,” said Victoria Pynchon, a blogger on negotiation and women’s issues at Forbes.com. “He’s mostly getting a pass, and the women in this story are getting no pass.” Equal treatment in the media would at least make Petraeus the sugar daddy to Broadwell’s mistress, wouldn’t you think?

In a blog post that managed to squeeze in the word “slut” four times, the conservative commentator Robert McCain noted that Broadwell had conducted interviews with Petraeus while the two were jogging, which apparently is reason to conclude “the slut was very cunning in her seduction.” Even the Washington Post found a way to present her as conniving, noting that she was “willing to take full advantage of her special access” to Petraeus while researching her book.

Petraeus, meanwhile, was described by an unnamed friend (does anyone talk for the record on this story?) as being “vulnerable” after leaving the camaraderie of the military to take the CIA post.

In the Baltimore Sun story, the author suggested “we need to learn to get past these bimbo eruptions.” Bimbo, from dictionary.com, is “an attractive but stupid young woman, especially one with loose morals.” What we really need to work on is getting journalism schools to teach students the apparently lost art of looking up words in the dictionary.

(Susan Antilla, who has written about Wall Street and business for three decades and is the author of “Tales From the Boom-Boom Room,” a book about sexual harassment at financial companies, is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

Why we should all support Reproductive Health (RH) bill in the Philippines. It is pro-life, pro-women, pro-poor and pro-progress. This is not abortion, it is a lie to equate RH to abortion. In fact, RH bill can help minimize the many illegal, immoral and tragic abortions happening nationwide every year!



I am disappointed by the delaying, obstructionist and other tactics of the anti-RH politicians in our House of Representatives and the Senate in the Philippines. These are some of the reasons why we should strongly and decisively support the RH bill in the Philippines NOW:

1. RH Bill is pro-life---The United Nations, World Health Organization, the Philippines' Department of Health and others have repeatedly said that the lives and health of numerous women and children are endangered by lack of adequate informations and options regarding family planning and reproductive health needs. Let us allow people not only access to life, but better quality of life too.\

The UN Population Fund, in a separate statement, said the Philippines was unlikely to achieve its millennium development goal of reducing maternal deaths by three quarters and providing universal access to reproductive health by 2015. It said it had “extensively studied” the proposed RH law which once passed could “vastly improve health and quality of life” in a country where a third of the population live on less than a dollar a day.

(Image below from lizashut.blogspot.com)





2. RH Bill is pro-women---I strongly believe that women should have the right to control their destiny, to have options regarding reproductive health based on their individual conscience and cultural/religious beliefs. Women should have the right to choose when to give birth and how many kids they want.



3. RH Bill is pro-poor---It is tragic that majority of people in our Philippine society do not have access to reproductive health options, services and informations just because they are poor, thus we have the phenomenon of the poor becoming increasingly and almost perpetually in the bondage of economic poverty with more kids than they could support and educate.

Responsible parenthood or family planning is beneficial to all people, let us allow the RH bill to give everyone in our society equal access to reproductive health. 


(Image below from amocielo.com)






(Image below sourced from spot.ph)

USA and China can be strategic & capitalist partners, according to a British columnist of Bloomberg who was educated at Oxford and the London School of Economics

My Comments:

It is interesting how the decline of a superpower and the emergence of a new superpower (actually resurgence or revival of its ancient superpower status) often sparks off headline-grabbing arguments and conflicts, but I agree with British columnist Clive Crook that America and China are actually similar in capitalistic economic ethos and have so much interlinked strategic interests.

This British analyst is also correct in reminding America that his own home country, Britain, was once also the biggest world superpower which had difficulty adjusting and coming to terms with its declining status vis-a-vis the then rising new superpower USA over a century ago.

I'm sharing below this wise and optimistic column by Clive Crook, which essentially also points to the reality that our world can and should be a win-win place, no need to be a zero-sum game scenario. Let us build a more progressive, positive, harmonious and dynamic world!


It is good to witness the rise of the 21st century world which seems to be becoming multi-polar, diverse, and with no longer any one superpower dominating or bossing the rest of the world, but a brave new world where all nations big or small shall be equal and respected.

(Image below sourced from studentsforlife.org)

Read this column below and share your comments at the end of this blog post?

Note: Clive Crook was born in Yorkshire, educated at Bolton School; Magdalen College, Oxford (where he was a foundation scholar); and the London School of Economics.

After leaving university he was an official in H.M. Treasury and the Government Economic Service. Crook worked for 20 years at 'The Economist,' variously serving as economics correspondent, Washington correspondent, economics editor and deputy editor. In addition to writing for Bloomberg View, Crook is a senior editor of 'The Atlantic' and a contributing editor of 'National Journal.'

Illustration by Niv Bavarsky

Why China and the U.S. Can Be Capitalist Comrades

By Clive Crook, Bloomberg.com

Dec 5, 2012 7:30 AM GMT+0800

 

China's growth has slowed a bit this year, but the surge in vivid predictions about the country’s future continues to amaze observers. This observer, at any rate.

Experts foresee imminent financial collapse or an uninterrupted rise to economic preeminence. The ruling Communist Party will either loosen or tighten its grip. The consequences for the U.S. and the rest of the world will be either benign or disastrous.

 

Clive Crook is a Bloomberg View columnist and member of the Bloomberg View editorial board.

Perhaps bewildered by my first visit to Beijing and Shanghai in more than 10 years, not to mention the jet lag, I find these contending inevitabilities unconvincing. Little in life is certain, and that probably goes double for China.

Nobody could have predicted the country’s economic performance since Deng Xiaoping began his economic reforms in 1979: 30 years of growth at 10 percent a year. In the past 10 years alone, gross domestic product per person has increased two-and-a-half times, in inflation-adjusted terms. Consumption has grown more slowly than output, admittedly, because investment has increased its share of the total, but still. It’s astonishing, and it most likely understates the pace of economic progress in places like Beijing and Shanghai.

Knowing the numbers and understanding that these new world cities aren’t representative of the whole country doesn’t prepare you for their vibrancy and prosperity. And what I recalled from my previous visits didn’t prepare me for the eagerness to engage and the openness of the businesspeople and scholars I’ve been meeting.





















(Image below from forbes.com)

Optimistic Outlook

The same questions preoccupy Chinese and American thinkers alike: How long, if at all, can growth at anything like this rate continue, and, if it does, will it drive China and the U.S. toward confrontation? With all due timidity, and despite some dangers in the economic outlook, I lean to optimism on the economic question. I will go into the reasons next week. On the geopolitics, for reasons I will go into now, I lean to optimism as well.

In judging the likelihood that China and the U.S. will come to blows, it’s important to remember that they now share a common religion: capitalism.

A great deal is made of the supposedly fundamental differences between China’s economic model and the one that prevails in the West. It flatters everybody to think in these terms. You can’t have the superior model if everybody’s model is essentially the same.

China talks about “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Western analysts about “state capitalism.” Market-based economies do come in different versions, of course. American capitalism is different from French capitalism, which is different from South Korean capitalism, which is different from Singaporean capitalism, the version that first impressed Deng. But they are family. China is another sibling. You just have to discount the age difference.

Various branches of government still play a big role in the Chinese economy, to be sure. State-owned enterprises still account for between 25 and 30 percent of industrial output, down from more than 80 percent in the late 1970s. Some of these SOEs are huge and celebrated as national champions, an idea not unheard of in Europe. But they continue to dwindle in aggregate, and they are increasingly exposed in varying degrees to market forces.

This isn’t a blend of socialism and communism kitted out with optional extras. It isn’t market-Leninism. Thirty years on, China is a capitalist country.

Therefore, the contest between China and the U.S., if it happens, won’t be about which of two bitterly opposed ideologies survives. Both might wish to deny it, but they find themselves on the same side in that particular struggle.

(Image below sourced from washingtonpost.com, it shows USA President Barack Obama with outgoing China President Hu Jintao)

Greater Transparency

In the political as opposed to economic realm, of course, that isn’t true. Chinese politics is no longer totalitarian, but it’s authoritarian. Dissent of certain kinds is repressed, though critics who respect the bounds get a hearing. The Chinese want greater transparency, accountability and a crackdown on corruption, but they aren’t clamoring for the vote. America’s contempt for this system, and China’s resentment of U.S. contempt, give them something to fight over if they choose to.

In matters of war and peace, interests usually matter more than values. China is acutely sensitive to the risks posed by its extended land borders. It sees its modern history, with good reason, as a series of depredations by hostile neighbors. As it gets richer it will do what most rising powers have done -- attend to its security by increasing its military capabilities. The U.S. understands this and sees its own interests at risk.

It’s already happening. China’s gathering strength and recent new assertiveness in foreign policy are stirring concern in the region and beyond. When the Obama administration announced its “pivot to Asia,” it was affirming its commitment to the prevailing regional order, the rise of China notwithstanding.

The danger is plain, especially because the U.S. has sensitivities of its own. Even as its economy resumes a healthy rate of expansion, America will have to cope with relative decline. The U.S. will grow, but China will grow faster. By mere weight of population its economy will soon be bigger -- and eventually, much bigger. Nothing in America’s history has prepared it for this. Take it from a Brit: It may take some getting used to.

Yet the great capitalist convergence, if it continues, will in crucial respects push the other way and promote peace. Cross- border capitalism -- globalization, if you prefer -- creates mutual dependence. Countries bound together by flows of goods, services, capital and people, as China and the U.S. increasingly are, gradually come to see that they succeed or fail together.

The dangerous fallacy that trade is a zero-sum game is tenacious, but as economic interdependence increases, the mutual benefits become more obvious. Also, with rising prosperity, people have more to lose. Fear of conflict -- not war by remote- control, but one that would put everything at risk -- will surely rise.

Interaction at every level should be the order of the day. Familiarity will breed friendship, I’m convinced, as Chinese and U.S. attitudes are often comically similar. Prickliness over sovereignty and an exaggerated belief in national exceptionalism are the most salient examples. Neither country willingly cedes control to outsiders. Neither can abide being bossed around. Both are entirely convinced of the rightness of their ideas.

If America wants to understand China, it could start by better understanding itself -- and vice versa. Then, if China can moderate its sense of grievance over past injuries, and the U.S. can curb its desire to tell everybody else how to live, a genuine partnership between the two superpowers is achievable.

(Clive Crook is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)


(Image below of China's next leader Xi Jinping and USA Vice-President Joe Biden, souced from wreporter.com)