Far East Cynic

To remind me of what I am missing, while I spend each day in one of the dullest cities in the world!

However, Spike channeled Friedman to remind again why I miss Asia.

It actually started well, on Kau Sai Chau, an island off Hong Kong, where I stood on a rocky hilltop overlooking the South China Sea and talked to my wife back in Maryland, static-free, using a friend’s Chinese cellphone. A few hours later, I took off from Hong Kong’s ultramodern airport after riding out there from downtown on a sleek high-speed train — with wireless connectivity that was so good I was able to surf the Web the whole way on my laptop.

Landing at Kennedy Airport from Hong Kong was, as I’ve argued before, like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. The ugly, low-ceilinged arrival hall was cramped, and using a luggage cart cost $3. (Couldn’t we at least supply foreign visitors with a free luggage cart, like other major airports in the world?) As I looked around at this dingy room, it reminded of somewhere I had been before. Then I remembered: It was the luggage hall in the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport. It closed in 1998.

The next day I went to Penn Station, where the escalators down to the tracks are so narrow that they seem to have been designed before suitcases were invented. The disgusting track-side platforms apparently have not been cleaned since World War II. I took the Acela, America’s sorry excuse for a bullet train, from New York to Washington. Along the way, I tried to use my cellphone to conduct an interview and my conversation was interrupted by three dropped calls within one 15-minute span.

All I could think to myself was: If we’re so smart, why are other people living so much better than us? What has become of our infrastructure, which is so crucial to productivity? Back home, I was greeted by the news that General Motors was being bailed out — that’s the G.M. that Fortune magazine just noted “lost more than $72 billion in the past four years, and yet you can count on one hand the number of executives who have been reassigned or lost their job.”

I always want to recall the first time I ever went to Hong Kong. No lie, I was in the bar of my hotel exactly 1 hour and five minutes after exiting the door of the plane. Quick customs, luggage, and straight to the train to Kolwoon.  Cell phone worked as advertised, everything I need to see was within easy walking or riding distance, subway worked well and taxis were affordable.

As Spike notes, “it’s all these little things that you get so used to, that you start to take for granted, and then you go back to the US on a trip and the absence of them is right there, shoved into your face, and you wonder why you put up with it if you’re lucky enough (as I am) to have a choice.”

I’ve  got to get that choice back.

People back here in the land of fat people shopping malls and too many cars, get all spooled up when guys like me say that.  They will inevitably point to street after street of nice little McMansions and ask me, ” how can I say that?”.

Because I don’t need a McMansion-and neither do you.

Just give me a decent apartment, a charged up subway card, and decent selection of night life that I don’t have to risk arrest and losing my license to be able to go to and have a good time at. ( No designated driver lectures are needed either-they don’t help you when you want to go out booming by your self.).

Which brings me back to spread out Hicksville.

Today was one of those days at work that I could have done without. The organization I am working with is going through a lot of “change” right now. A project we had been let lying dormant for good reason-has now been forcibly resurrected and given an unreasonable deadline. Add to that we’ve got folks coming down next week who need to be taken care of.

No wonder I miss the days of going here. Drinking these:

And admiring these:

It will be the same next week………………………………..

Which gives me a whole week to rub it in to Mark that the Seahawks will be watching this on TV.

Which is as it should be! Go Steelers!

It’s not someone you would think of at first thought.

Nixon grimaced at the mention of Watergate. “No. The Lord doesn’t get involved in this type of stuff. Dead Presidents coming to give advice to living Presidents is a program that John Adams started for James Buchanan. Adams was the first one to come back, since it was his idea. Adams figured he could impart some wisdom and thoughtfulness to Buchanan and save the Union. But it didn’t work out. Buchanan is a moron and Adams is an arrogant prick. The two didn’t get on very well. Washington stepped in and saved the day by advising Lincoln. Military advice mostly. Lincoln was grateful. He turned out okay didn’t he?”

Besides, he probably wants to know if Frank Langella got him right.

At the Obama onsen in Nagasaki:

What? There wasn’t one Nigerian they could have hired in Fukuoka? I kind of doubt it.

If Black Face offends you, send them an e-mail.

Chirol does a pretty good deconstruction of why racial identification is,  in fact,  racist.

Lastly, on that point, I will never use the term African-American because it is misused. Only someone who is actually African (say from Nigeria, Malawi etc) and immigrated to the US could MAYBE be called so. But honestly, if you’ve immigrated, you are American now, and nothing else. Blacks are not African in any sense of the word. They’ve never visited Africa, speak no African language, know nothing of their “real” home or its culture and in fact are the product of many mixed African countries. Similarly, there is no such thing European-American for whites. Most everyone who claims to be Scottish, English, German or Italian couldn’t point out that country on a map or name its capital, much less argue they have anything at all in common with those countries culturally, linguistically and so forth.

After work today I went to work out. When I came home I found the S.O. watching C-Span. That’s right C-Span. I almost fell over backwards. She was watching a re-run of the inaugural. As i put away my gym clothes in the dirty laundry, and hung up my suit coat in the closet it dawned on me-this is all very new to her. In Japan there is nothing the equivalent of the Inauguration. Not even going to see the Emperor on the day after New Years. The Prime Minister gets sworn in private-if he gets sworn in at all. He presents his credentials in private to the Emperor. Same thing happens in Britain, with respect to seeing the Queen.

I can’t think of a comparable situation, where a new head of State takes over and 180 million people watch it. ( Maybe a British Coronation-I’ve always had a soft spot for the British Monarchy). Even in India, and they have a population of 900 million. That is unique.

It signifies to me, that despite our political divisions-most Americans want to believe in their government. They want their government to live up to the standards that the founding Fathers laid out for it. ( Even if they did not themselves.)  We’ve not become jaded enough where, unlike Japan, the government comes and goes-but the bureaucracy runs the government day to day.

Maybe it is an illusion. But it’s an illusion worth preserving.

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If I hear the word African American one more time, I’m going to vomit. When did the word “black” fall out of favor? And why? Today’s’ darker pigmented Americans have NOTHING in common with anyone in Africa. Watch some Nigerians in Tokyo some time-or some of the denizens of Djibouti or Kenya, as I have, and you will know what I mean. How come I don’t get to be known as an English American? Its a stupid turn of the phrase. If the President wanted to do something positive right away-he would ban the term.

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Who the f**k came up with the idea of having the poet after the President’s speech? That was just plain stupid. Her poem really made no sense-and more importantly-it disrupted the flow of the ceremony.

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While I was changing clothes at the gym, I happened to witness a conversation between two other men regarding Obama’s birth certificate. Kind of went like this:

“Doesn’t matter if he’s the President-he never showed his birth certificate.  He ain’t no American.”

“But he has produced his birth certificate-you can check it on Snopes or Fact Check.”

“That’s a certificate of live birth-its not the same. In Hawaii anyone can get one”.

Other man shaking his head, ” I was born in Tennessee and my birth certificate says the same thing”.

“Don’t matter”.

“Whatever……..” Turns away and finishes dressing-shaking his head in disgust.

In my mind, I flash into one of those alternate mind scenes like you see in the movies. You know, where I reach into my jacket, pull out my .38 and shoot him. Didn’t want to shoot him, but feel I owe it to him for being a moron.

Then I flash back into reality, finish dressing, and leave the locker room myself.  Walking out the door, I realize that the worst part is that the guy probably thinks he’s smart. Except, he’s not smart-he’s been conditioned by assholes talk radio broadcasters who don’t give a rat’s ass about whether he actually understands anything-only that they make money by getting everyone riled up.

And I again thank my parents for getting me a real education that required rigor, and a need to learn the facts for your self.

Bet he knows who coaches Alabama though.

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I felt sorry for the military folks who had to march in the parade. Their day telescopes when the President is an hour late starting the parade. They had probably been up since 3 am.

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John Cole is right. Andrew Breitbart is a blabbering idiot. Where the hell did I put that imaginary .38?

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John Adams did not attend Jefferson’s inauguration. He just left. ( I’m finishing John Adams this week. Yes,  I should have read it earlier.) I wonder what would have happened if a modern President did that?

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Something Obama needs to do, while he has the time, is to smack down both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. He needs to take on the Democratic party and show them who is boss and that the time for both of these individuals is long past. Every time I see her smug face on TV, it makes me want to reach for that imaginary .38.

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A lot of people have fantasies about being President. Not me. Being President involves too much compromise ( Unless you are George Bush).  I have fantasies about becoming absolute ruler of the world. With the power to change the world map.

And then I woke up.

It does however have the makings of a future post.

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I found out Obama is a White Sox fan. Is it too early to start impeachment?

Memo to the President:  In real baseball, the pitcher bats.

-10 points for poor judgment.

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Rick Warren was too long.

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I love this quote from Chris Rock:

[Obama is] just one of those guys, you know, like Will Smith. There’s no Will Smith jokes. There’s no Brad Pitt jokes. You know, what are you going to say? “Ooh, you used to have sex with Jennifer Anniston. Now you have sex with Angelina Jolie. You’re such a loser.” What do you say? “Ooh, your movies are big. You make $20 million.” There’s nothing to say about Brad Pitt…[With Obama it's] like “Ooh, you’re young and virile and you’ve got a beautiful wife and kids. You’re the first African-American president.” You know, what do you say?,”

He used that word again. SAY IT! AMERICAN. No preparatory. Just one word please.
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And now its time for beer.

It would seem Wall Street did not have a high opinion of the President’s inaugration speech today:

The first “first” of the Obama administration-the first time the Dow has been below 8000 since, 2004?

Guess that line about the “greed of a few” did not strike a chord, eh?

I think the Chief Justice got the oath wrong in reading it to the new President. Oh well……. (I’m gonna review the video tonight….).

I put my trust in you-you better deliver!

If you don’t, I’ll be here to write about it.

UPDATE! Chief Justice Roberts did get the oath backwards:

The Chief Justice in fact screwed up the oath. The Constitution requires:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Roberts left out the word “faithfully.” (He also said “President to the United State.”) Obama saw the mistake and stopped himself to gave Roberts a chance to fix it. Roberts redid the line, remembering to throw in “faithfully,” but putting it in the wrong place — after President of the United States — and, this time, Obama went along with the wording. Close enough, I guess he figured. I wonder what Barack Obama was thinking. Maybe: Some textualist you turned out to be!

Phrased another way-Supreme Court Justices get nervous too!

This last evening observes the final night of the administration of George W. Bush. As the clock has been ticking down towards a new beginning, his staunchest supporters have been publishing article after article, with a snarky tone, trying to tell people like me that – “See Bush was right all along”.

Even GWB has done it. His final statements, in my humble opinion have been desperate attempts to argue on the stage of history, why he should be vindicated-rather than be remembered as a President in the same league with Harding or Buchanan. He will remind you at the drop of a hat how similar he is to Harry Truman.

Except he isn’t.

For one thing, Truman left the country in better shape than he found it. Second, Truman was a fiscal conservative-while at the same time an advocate for the working man. Third, and most importantly, Truman’s war came as a result of a clear cut attack. Bush’s war(s) only get a 50% credit on that particular score.

Nonetheless, its wrong to say that Bush’s Presidency was a total failure. The fact that the Republic marches on attests to that. Americans are an unruly people and someone has to corral the forces of their unruly government. As all Presidents do, Bush did that-not as well as others but he did not pass on the attempt.

And as The Economist points out, he did achieve some results:

Mr Bush’s presidency is not without its merits. He supported sensible immigration reform. He proposed tighter regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the now-nationalized mortgage agencies. Congress stymied him on both points. He promoted more members of minorities than any previous president; and he also stood up to the Dixiecrat wing of his party, edging Trent Lott, a Mississippi senator, out of his job as majority leader for segregation-favouring remarks. He maintained good relations with India, Japan and, particularly, Africa, where he launched a $15 billion anti-AIDS programme.

Plus, I agree with many of those who make the point that Bush did not wake up each day, saying, “How can I screw up the country today?”. Nor did he believe that he was not doing his best in the decisions he made. As he himself pointed out in his farewell speech, he did not shy away from making decisions.

He just made poor ones-based on good intentions.

His golden child though, Paul Wolfwitz, reminded us that just having good intentions is not enough:

“No U.S. president can justify a policy that fails to achieve its intended results by pointing to the purity and rectitude of his intentions,” – Paul Wolfowitz, “Statesmanship in the New Century,” in Kagan, R. and Kristol, W, eds. Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy, San Francisco, 2000, p. 335.

In that regard, I would agree with those who believe that Bush’s greatest failure was not that he tried to do things-but that he failed to adjust or abandon them when they went hideously wrong. Consider Iraq, as Jack Colwell points out:

The president never told former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “Rummy, I want you to mess up the occupation of Iraq, lose as many troops as possible and keep that thing going badly.” His mistake was not removing the inept Rumsfeld long before he finally did. Bush was stubborn, but not intent on evil.

He wanted to do well-but quite simply he was not equipped intellectually, emotionally, or academically to achieve it.

In particular, Iraq became the single thing that overwhelmed his ability to do anything else.  It made any attempt to reform Social Security, fix education, or even act on any of the rest of his domestic agenda, dead on arrival.

Unlike so many, I don’t tear into him so much about Katrina. Because a lot of the blame for the immediate reaction lies with the government of the city itself. It was the President’s responsibility to kick start the process when it was not working though. But Ray Nagin deserves a public flogging more than Bush does. It is interesting how Nagin gets a pass though.

But Iraq-surge or nor surge- is an event that can be blamed solely on George W. Bush.  4, 455 dead Americans and over 30,000 wounded,  hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, and millions of refugees who had to bear the price for his folly.  Bush in his press conference said that many of the results of the Iraq War were a disappointment.

No sir, Mr President. As Ed Rollins pointed out, ” A disappointment is when you’re a football fan and your team lost in the playoffs or in the national championship game.”

Iraq is  not just a disappointment-its a f**king tragedy.  One that has lasted six years already and will go on for many more. We should be under no illusions that Iraq will be stable or peaceful, or that its political divides have been overcome. There are some promising developments, and  hopes that the fragile security gains will hold and that the coming rounds of elections will produce a more stable Iraqi political order. But we should not count on all of that  coming to pass. Fundamentally, Iraq’s interests are not allied with those of the United States. That divergence will grow, not shrink, as the years pass.

It will be Obama’s mess, like Korea’s was Eisenhower’s to clean up. Even the problems with the economy pale in comparison with the tragedy of Iraq.

James Fallows had an e-mail that sums things up nicely:

I too thought the final Bush press conference was a remarkable performance; if an actor were to memorize and replicate it, it would seem like something out of Eugene O’Neill, staged in a barroom, and we might feel pity. The inept man without words realizes that he cannot say what he must say: an admission of failures across the board, a realization that his pipe dreams were deadly, an understanding that his nation and the world now hold him in low esteem and wish him gone. And not to be able to say these things is to remain their captive forever. But there is no expiation for Mr. Bush, and that is the objective tragedy. How can he live without awareness?

Nothing in his [administration]
Became him like the leaving it.

I’ve always been ambivalent about Martin Luther King Day. Since his birthday falls on my mother’s birthday,  I would just as  soon celebrate her birthday. Her dreams and visions for me had a lot more to do with where I am now ( for good and ill) than anything Martin Luther King did. On the other hand I was always in favor of anything that would give me a day off from work.

As an aside, I find it interesting that companies that extol diversity-such as my own-don’t really give you MLK day off, which is what found me at work earlier. Unable to accomplish much by the way, since our federal government masters DO have the holiday off.  (I  do enjoy the lack of interruption though and its allowed me to get some things done).

And has King’s dream been accomplished? Maybe. Just electing a black President though is not it however.  Because I still believe there is a racial divide in this country. Not like their was in King’s era to be sure-but the simple truth is that whites and blacks still don’t view the world from the same point of reference.

And that,  to me, is a problem. A problem I am not sure how to rectify. But it needs to be rectified so that the country can move forward together.

I found it interesting that when polled, 2/3 of Blacks think King’s dream has been fulfilled. 2/3′s of Whites don’t.

I would submit that King’s dream is still unfulfilled-but that’s because his dream got derailed. The legal obstacles are gone- to success by anyone regardless of skin color-but the mental ones remain.  So too do the financial obstacles. On both sides of the aisle.

I’m not going to earn any diversity points for what I am going to say next:  Martin Luther King’s dream did not include baggy pants, “doo-rags”, backward hats, and hip-hop.

I personally believe that there are two parallel cultures evolving today with respect to race. There’s only room for one. “American” culture-as a I knew it-is dying slowly. When it does, be careful what takes its place.

King’s dream, I believe,was an America where skin color did not matter. However I also believe he wanted a country that had shared values-yes, American values-and that part of his dream seems to be off track a bit.

I’m not sure how to get it back.  The Atlantic has an interesting article about what I’m talking about:

“I think white people feel like they’re under siege right now—like it’s not okay to be white right now, especially if you’re a white male,” laughs Bill Imada, of the IW Group. Imada and Newman-Carrasco are part of a movement within advertising, marketing, and communications firms to reimagine the profile of the typical American consumer. (Tellingly, every person I spoke with from these industries knew the Census Bureau’s projections by heart.)

“There’s a lot of fear and a lot of resentment,” Newman-Carrasco observes, describing the flak she caught after writing an article for a trade publication on the need for more-diverse hiring practices. “I got a response from a friend—he’s, like, a 60-something white male, and he’s been involved with multicultural recruiting,” she recalls. “And he said, ‘I really feel like the hunted. It’s a hard time to be a white man in America right now, because I feel like I’m being lumped in with all white males in America, and I’ve tried to do stuff, but it’s a tough time.’”

It’s probably a part of why I want to go back to Asia.  There-its not left to doubt there that I am a second class citizen. I can revel in my uniqueness and live quite well in my little Gaijin / Gweilo world. ( And the fact tha-for the immediate future at least-Gaijins /Gweilos can still make out like a bandit with women.   ).

However, the current situation here at home is a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. America descended from an English culture. Despite slavery, which many of the founding fathers recognized would have to go, the English values gave the new Republic a solid foundation upon which to build. Unlike Asia-which does judge a man by the color of his skin and is not going to change that way of business anytime soon ( at least as long as large Chinese majorities have anything to say about it)- America has evolved into a country where it does not matter what the color of your skin is. But there is still a need for a common culture-and for better or worse, that culture is the “white” English one.

I truly believe that was what King’s dream really was. I don’t believe he wanted to burn the house down-he wanted to make it stronger, by including more people in its foundation.

Now in the brave new world of the 21′st century, that makes me a racist. Just like I get branded as a mysoginist because I favor a predominately male military. Neither description of me is true.

In the Atlantic article, the author sees the change that is coming as a bridge to a necessary future:

There will be dislocations and resentments along the way, but the demographic shifts of the next 40 years are likely to reduce the power of racial hierarchies over everyone’s lives, producing a culture that’s more likely than any before to treat its inhabitants as individuals, rather than members of a caste or identity group.

That maybe, but nations still need to have a common demoniator of something. I really wonder whether we will be able to find our way to that common ground of social belief. No doubt we will-but it will come long after I am gone. Probably when we have intermarried to the point that racial distinctions have no meaning. (Arthur C. Clarke believed that would happen by around the year 2150). If so what will bind us together then?

Wear shoes that don’t shock him!

AGAIN!

Just finished watching the Steelers beat the Ravens. ( Almost literally if you saw the hit Mcgahee took during the fourth quarter).

Yes we can!

The password is: Rasterbate.

As a young teen, I had the hots for Elizabeth Montgomery.  I am fairly certain I was not alone in this. I always thought she was a great actress and God took her from us too soon.

So I got a real kick out of this You Tube clip posted by Phibian.  If you are over 45 tell me those boots don’t bring a pitter patter to your heart. You know you can’t-unless you are gay.

Yes, women are on my mind tonight. Pour me another!

UPDATE: This is probably as good a place to reignite the old debate-Ginger or Mary Ann? Tell us why!

Here in the land of no fun……..

S.O. is sick. It’s 14 degrees outside,  I have to work on a Saturday, and guess what I haven’t had in more than few days?  To say I’m tense is more than an understatement.  My every other thought is only about this:

Screw beer-I’m heading straight for the Scotch.