Category: Historical

Well, I’m all set for my trip Quebec this weekend! Have a good weekend!

One additional item cut from the budget completely was the OSRP (Outstanding Scholars Recruitment Program) scholarship, which provided a varying amount of money to NJ high school seniors based upon certain academic credentials from high school. This program influenced my decision to Rutgers, as I had not originally intended to go to Rutgers at all. Now, I have both a degree and I have emerged from college loan-free, which I have found provides a strong advantage when compared with other recent college graduates. Word of this cut left me extremely disappointed…

Two interesting points (I thought so, anyway) I would like to raise from tonight’s RAA Board of Directors meeting I attended tonight.

1. Instead of applying to Rutgers College, Livingston, or several of the other schools, they will now apply to the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. They will then be placed in to the “appropriate” school as defined by admissions. I assume that students interested in Pharmacy, Engineering, and other speciality schools will still have to indicate that they would like to apply to such schools. I also will go out on a limb and assume you must still have an “F” under gender on your driver’s license to get in to Douglass.

2. The second point is the emphasis placed surrounding the state budget cuts. The allocation to Rutgers will be cut 12% from the prior year, which was already cut mid-year last year. A 4.5% tuitition hike has been proposed to cover some of the cuts as well as the overall increase in expenses, but that won’t cover the whole shortfall.

From the state’s point of view, I can understand. They’re facing an incredible shortfall, in part as a result of the fiscal policy of the prior administration, which cut taxes and increased spending at a time of record government revenues that unsurprisingly turned out to be unsustainable.

In truth, the part that I find frustrating is the fiscal policy at the federal level. While the states have a certain responsibility to cover their own shortfalls, in place of a “silly” (in my opinion) dividend tax cut that will benefit relatively few, the money would be much better spent aiding the states. I have read in several places (and will seek out sources in the near future) that the amount of money from the federal government sent to public higher education institutions has fallen over the past several years/decades. So, it would not be out of character for the federal government to renew their assistance to important social goods such as education. After all, which serves as a better future investment, a dividend tax cut that does little for many, or ensuring that the next generation of Americans is better educated than the previous?

Can it be? The bearish sentiment of the US Business Outlook section of BusinessWeek (April 28) is starting to brighten up?

Given the bounce in household spending, it now appears that the weak winter data were distorted by the temporary effects of severe weather, war worries, and higher energy prices, all of which are now turning around. That was true for industrial production, which fell 0.5% in March, after a 0.1% dip in February. Excluding a weather-related drop in utilities output, production fell only 0.2% last month, and all of that reflects a drop in only one sector, auto output. Even there, the return of cheap financing should boost car sales this spring and lift production schedules.

Just two weeks ago we were reading how the end was near (April 14).

THE GROWING CONCERN is that the economy’s weaker-than-expected showing so far this year will continue into the second half. The main worry is consumer spending, which fell in January and February and doesn’t appear to be bouncing back in March, according to weekly store surveys. That suggests that real consumer outlays, as they enter into the gross domestic product data, grew at an annual rate of only about 1% in the first quarter. That would be the weakest quarterly showing for consumer spending in 10 years.

Oh well, now we just need to get through “this sham of a recovery”.

I’m quite excited, coming in the next few weeks are the theatrical releases of the X-Men and Matrix sequels. While I normally don’t care much for big budget action movies or sequels, I’m thrilled for these two!

I was reviewing the SARS Worldwide Infection Count, and I noticed something I thought intriguing. Though Japan often receives a great deal of prestige and respect in certain areas within the world, the lack of SARS cases can be used as an indicator of one of two things. It either indicates that despite Tokyo’s reputation as a major international destination, it has remained farther outside the interconnectedness that has come about through the process of globalization over the past ten years, or, that Japan’s healthcare system is inadequate and unable to identify the disease.

Dogs and Demons, a well-written examination of modern Japan, paints a critical picture in both these areas. According to Kerr, doctors, inventors, and other professionals, often at the top of their professions, are leaving the country to head overseas. Corporations, too, are looking outside Japan; Sony was willing to take massigve losses in Hollywood when it purchased Columnia Pictures: there would be no purpose in buying or developing Japanese movie studios, since the Japanese movie industry had almost completed collapsed. The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), set up a fund to invest in entrepenuers, but JETRO has a condition that young tigers move to the United States and learn how to do business there. Okabe [owner of a company that makes software for digital effects] sells software in the United States because he cannot find buyers at home. But perhaps the most distressing point he makes is the fate of the ex-pat community.
The elite of fast-track investment bankers who were stationed in Japan transferred to Hong Kong and Singapore in the early 1990s, leaving second-string players in Tokyo. Long-established foreign communities in Kobe and Yokohama, dating to Meiji days, have shrunk to nearly the vanishing point, and international schools are closing.

This alone would seem to account for much of the discrepency among the SARS case count. After all, even as domestic tourism waned, the number of Japanese traveling abroad nearly quardupled, from 5 million in 1985 to almost 16 million people in 1998. By 1999 this had risen to a record 17 million, with no end to the increase in sight; significantly, a high percentage of these travelers were what the Japan Travel Bureau (JTB) calles “repeaters”, for whom travel abroad is a “habitual practice.” So, it is very likely that in fact tourists and business travelers have come and gone to Hong Kong and other infected regions. Why, else, then might there not be a larger incidence of SARS? After all, even Vietnam has identified more than sixty cases.

A single quote from the book, which is an exercept from an interview with a section chief at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, from March 29, 1997.

Interviewer: Does the Ministry of Health and Welfare have any policy for dealing with dioxin?
Section Chief: There is no policy whatsoever.
Interviewer: Has the MHW conducted any investigation concerning dioxin?
Section Chief: No idea.
Interviewer: Do you have any idea how much dioxin is out there?
Section Chief: No, we have not.
Interviewer: Have you set any guidelines for dioxin?
Section Chief: No, we have not.
Interviewer: Do you plan to?
Section Chief: No.
Interviewer: Do you have controls on dioxin emissions?
Section Chief: No.

In an example of incredible ignorance, a government official is essentially indicating that, in 1997, they have no concern over one of the most toxic substances known. How can it be that the second largest economy on the planet is run by a government that, in 1997, indicated it had no awareness of the issue. According to enjet.org, The International Agency for Research on Cancer [IARC] –part of the World Health Organization –announced February 14, 1997, that the most potent dioxin, 2,3,7,8-TCDD, is a now considered a Class 1 carcinogen, meaning a “known human carcinogen.” and that A draft report released for public comment in September 1994 by the US Environmental Protection Agency clearly describes dioxin as a serious public health threat. Would it then be any surprise that such a government would not be able to adequately identify any potential SARS cases, even if there were more than 2?

I truly enjoyed my time in Japan (both times) for the culture, both modern and “historical”. I specifically read news articles from Japan, enjoy consuming Japanese anime, and try to search out translated works of Japanese literature. I plan to take up the language (I’m registering for a language course at the Japan Society in New York at the end of May/beginning of June). But when I read Alex Kerr’s book, it had confirmed something I felt was strange during my two week trip and reconfirmed during my brief stopover in January. The homogenous nature of the population, the intensely youth-focused populare culture, and the “concretization” of the landscape are all very obvious, once you really look. It is unbelievable that a country could have no non-concrete-basin rivers, or, of that size, to have more dams than the United States. Reviewing the SARS cases just brought home some of the points made in the book.

A comment from a SARS article on BusinessWeek:

SARS is causing economic havoc across Asia, threatening countless small businesses with bankruptcy and large ones with big losses. But some companies long ago set up contingency plans in response to September 11, anthrax attacks, and other disasters that they are now getting a chance to test out — and adapt to meet a new kind of threat.

“Divide to survive” is the essence of all these strategies. FedEx Corp. (FDX ), which has a major operation in Hong Kong, broke its call center staff into two teams and located them on different floors. If SARS closes down one call center, FedEx has another with 40 operators at the ready. “We are also taking critical work groups and splitting them into isolated cells, so if there is a case of SARS, we can continue with the others,” explains David L. Cunningham, president of FedEx’ Asia Pacific operations.

I just find it interesting that businesses, in order to cope with unspecified threats, are adopting a cell model, splitting groups in to autonomous units that can function regardless of whether another group is disrupted. After all, isn’t that how Al Qaeda operates?

From a business perspective, the added layer of redundancy must be nice, but I imagine that it takes its toll on productivity and resource management.

This weekend through yesterday featured great progress in finishing up the new Zelda game. Not only did I manage to catch up to most of my co-workers, but I just need to round up a few triforce maps and their shards and its on to the end (I hope!). With any luck, I’ll be done before I leave for Quebec this coming weekend.

Speaking of which, it is unfortunate that my French is not better. I was trying to read the descriptions of some theatre performances for Saturday night, but I couldn’t be sure I understood everything I was reading. And, unsurprisingly, they didn’t necessarily post English descriptions. So, I’m still trying to decide if I want to see “Il etait une fois un cabaret”, even if I don’t know for sure what it’s about.

There was some quality Zelda progress today. This weekend I completed both the Earth Temple and the Wind Temple. Now it’s off to find the eight triforce shards! 🙂 Isn’t my life so exciting?

In other news, the standard Easter festivities were quite pleasant this year. I’m not sure if my family was more mild, or I’m simple more used to them. But, I won’t ask, I’ll just accept and be happy. So, Happy Easter!

Damn! Damn damn damn! I’m stuck in Zelda. Wholly, 100% stuck. This should be easy, too, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do and I really, really don’t want to cheat by looking it up on the Internet.