Tag: John McCain

Learning as motivator

From papyrus to paper, from microfiche to microphone, we use technology for knowledge transfer.

Learning is a great motivator. Once started it never stops (in my death-bed, I probably still ask the attending nurse what all those charts mean, and why not this and that).

Don’t believe in learning curve (as if once you got over it, you own it. There will always be pace learning i.e. know, forget, know again as if for the first time).

Politicians on their first term barely learn how to get back from the underground of the Capitol or stay out of SE part of town (I heard it is now quite gentrified).

Coursera has been a great success. It harnesses technology to extend learning to the mass. Technology as slaves, not masters.

Lift them up, not put them down. I enjoy reading about the Indian IT and call center folks enjoy their night out at a disco, Chinese tourists flocking the streets of Paris or Vietnamese students coming to CAL State. Let them come. With traveling comes learning. With learning people are more open-minded.

Here in Vietnam, cable TV shows Hollywood car chase, guns blazing etc… With exposure  comes the exercise of choices.

Tolstoy doesn’t believe in true freedom of choice (free will vs predestination).

Still, the urge to learn, to discover, to connect and to advance one’s self is innate

The only difference between acquiring information online vs at Ivy League institutions is the socialization of knowledge. Upper-class kids would meet and marry (imperial alliance model) one another, hence perpetuating the ruling class.

But in those far-away lands (Timbuktu), with internet, who can stop a genius from acquiring information about protons, neutrons and electrons. Physics is physics. International grad students might stick out like a sore thumb given their speech and dress code (formal).

I saw kids in the Mekong Delta riding bikes, then crossing a river on ferry to get to school. And that’s on a sunny day. When it rains, I don’t see how they can get to school in dry uniforms (one heart-broken story last year. A boat full of students sunk and students never made it to school).

Learning as motivator.

Then, shoes and broadband. Thomas Friedman, author of the World is Flat, had similar ideas in the NYT today.

Learning as motivator.

The things they carry. Turn those swords into plowshares.

Angel of Death into Angel of Learning, Agent Orange into Agent of Change.

Broadband for rural, broadband against ruin.

Nobody can stop a man from learning. Not even in the confine of a prison.

Senator McCain was detained for a while in Hanoi Hilton. He now sits on Senate committees. Tell me he did not learn a thing or two while being detained.

Learning takes many forms and takes place when least  expected (even from the bottom).

To learn one must first be humble and teachable. One must be motivated even on a ferry-boat or one’s death-bed.

Mountains and mole hills

It’s not that safe at Safeway, if you decided to munch on one of their merchandise (eat-now, pay-later vs pay-now, eat-later), as one pregnant Honolulu tourist found out.

http://news.yahoo.com/pregnant-mom-says-sandwich-arrest-horrifying-214407004.html

We learned in this AP article that no one stopped to say,” this has been taken far enough” i.e. we have made mountains out of mole hills.

If only the SEC regulators got the same zeal!

Still, property loss (especially eatable ) stirred more passion than job loss, until the author of “Pour your heart into it” decided to address it, $5 at a time.

Starbucks‘ Chairman decided to aggregate all the “Brother can you spare a dime” signs on a full-page NYT ad. “It costs a lot to look cheap”, says Dolly Parton. One unintended consequence of Occupy is regular homeless can blend in with Ivy League grads in tent cities (I was involved with mobile soup kitchen in wintry Boston, so I had some exposures to the brutal NorthEast weather).

Speaking of weather, it rained yesterday on the trick-or-treat parade.

It rained on policies which had tried to revamp the economy. One bright spot: Target which had some success with Cheap-Chic campaign, already set its Black Friday opening at zero hours.

Synchronize your watch!

I am sure our First Lady would want to pencil that in.

Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, they found “Abels” in Cain‘s closet.

The nail that sticks up must be hammered down.

There will be many more debates to contest and contrast, but not conceal.

The Huntsman’s daughters are also out on their own campaign (Remember Scott Brown‘s daughters? Or McCain‘s and Cheney’s?) I am seriously thinking of  stapling my daughters’ pics to my CV.

Use all your resources.

Follow the money.

And forget not your fellow-men.

If they stole, it was their fault.

But if many had nothing but to steal, then it’s our fault.

Once in a while, I went on YouTube and clicked on “He ain’t heavy, He is my brother”. It brought back memories of my time in Junior High, watching upper class men perform in Talent Show. Those guys went on to excel in school and in society.

They showed us what loyalty meant (defending your school honor and one another), what patriotism meant (losing lives and limps), and what winning meant (together and not being a lone wolf).

That song got a long tail and a lot of mileage (reaching 2 million hits). It was popular at the time when the nation refused to acknowledge its enlisted men. Yet, less than a decade later, in pardoning bigger crooks, they made mole hills out of mountains.

Somewhere, someone ought to stop and say “this has gone far enough” instead of waiting for justice from the Nine, while the 99 felt left out.  That “someone” was somewhere else, certainly not in Honolulu and not at Safeway at the time of the incident.

P.S. As of this edit, Safeway dropped the charge, but the offenders were still banned from shopping at Safeway for one year (start counting the day!!!).

http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-safeway-drops-sandwich-theft-charges-022842086.html  Wonder if there were a Vietnamese sandwich shop (Banh Mi Ba Le) where they get a bite?