Tag: Labor Day

War’s reluctant start

It’s true a century ago with the assassination of an Austrian baron. It’s true half a century ago with one ( or two) incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin. It’s true this very Labor weekend, even when we all saw photos of little bodies – dead by chemically induced weapon.

Labor Day traditionally meant as a break for the working class (well, somehow it got co-opted by Congressmen and women as well). Sort of poorman’s vacation e.g. kids back to school, mom back to PT work etc…

Who would want to go shoot down somebody. Not a convenient time. Not in everyone’s mind, nor purview.

It might sell some weapons to take down “creative destruction” weaponry. But in this post-Recession era, it is a reluctant call.

There is no rationality to how war started and takes on a life of its own. I have no prejudice against the Syrian people per se.

After all, Steve Jobs, with Syrian DNA, gave us Apple and the I-phone.

It is more convenient if it were the Chinese, whose money we owe, who crossed the red line

War has always been inconvenient. It destroys at many layers and its effects unending (a century ago, it got the US addicted to war as gold treasure ballooned up , hence, war as economic solution – half a century ago, now, the lingering effect of Agent Orange).

So, why bother?

Acts of aggression take place everyday, everywhere.

Some made the news. Many and most don’t.

But I happened to see the photos (just like I did witness the burning monk, the last chopper and Three-Mile-Island up close).

When you are engaged, you are responsible.

This one matters to me.

Some future misuse of chemical weapons will mater to you and your loved ones.

It’s not enough to turn sword into ploughshares.

Or write a letter or a blog.

There are more effective ways to get your point across.

It’s our century’s dilemma: data rich, but determination poor.

We have become of species of special access (broadband for everyone), but not of anger.

We don’t feel. But then, we will regret (for things we did not do).

President Clinton once made a stop in Ireland to seek consultation from a just-dead poet, before facing E European troubles.

This time, Mr Obama might want to seek consultation from Congress-on-vacation (back in ten) and history book.

All Presidents must face crisis and call to war.

It always has a built-in ambivalence and unintended consequences.

Leaders face fear and challenges but go ahead with gut calls.

Or else, we are all managers, tweaking and cooking the books.

Yes. It’s regional and sectarian. It’s even civil war.

But by zooming out, we realize that chemical weapon violation marks a bookend to humanity.

From here on out, either we say No to “chemical addiction” or we end up using it ourselves.

An assassination there, a regional sea brush here. All seemingly regional and reluctant.

But it’s necessary. To stand (not a cowboy stance, in ready gun-draw posture ) and put down our ploughshares to take up the sword.

Moving on

I read about and followed with much interest the Penn State game this past weekend.

Where is Joe? First he was absent on the side line, where his rolled up pants were a fixture more than signature.

Then he went up on the booth. This past Saturday, he wasn’t there either, nor was his statue. Ohio won, but not as easy.

The Nittany Lions put up a fight “push them back, way back”. Still, a lot went unsaid there. Just moving on. Motion forward.

Aren’t we all!

Labor Day, Memorial Day. First rest a bit, then Rest in Peace.

Moving on.

Self-deception.

Who are we trying to fool, except ourselves?

I read about the original cell which stays on for billions of years. I am glad we could die (rather cancer war than casualty of war). As  far as biology is concerned, we were meant to be immortal, Greek or geek.

But then, with all the abuses and accidents, we have pretty much done it to ourselves (global sales of weapon, pornography and drugs together curtail population explosion).

So we give the workers a symbolic rest, Labor Day. But actually, we meant for factories to have their machines deep-spayed and well-oiled.

Farmers don’t rest on Labor Day. IT supports don’t rest either in colo centers.

Labor Day belongs to the Industrial Revolution, the 2nd wave, with coal as the main source of energy.

I read that in an interview before his death, an out-spoken Cardinal talked about the Vatican being behind two centuries.

He must be referring to the image of  Sheep May Safely Graze while parishioners “flocking” to the only village church.

I think it’s Marshall McLuhan who coins the phrase “global village”. Even then, he  meant the mass brought together by mass media (Tower of Babel analogy) in a one-to-many broadcast. Little did he know, we now have many-to-many conversation, originated and uploaded from the ground level. As of now, everyone got their 15-minute of fame on Facebook (Famebook?) and 140 characters on Twitter (modern-day AP) – as in United Breaks My Guitar.  Perhaps even we, at one time or another, think, maybe the world can use a few personal computers, as Watson used to think back in 1943.

Institutions and individuals, both are behind the times. I caught myself a few months ago in a moment of prejudice. I heard a ringtone rap music. Not from urban blacks. But with Central Vietnamese accent. The combination shocked me, then it delighted me the second time around. But my knee-jerked reaction was “you must be kidding?” One would expect to hear Northern Vietnamese accent  in songs, not Central, and when it comes to rap music, it’s the American quintessential, not Vietnamese. If this long Depression does us any good, it’s a wake-up call. It humbles us . Yes, it’s the “end of men” as titled in an upcoming book, but by the time the “end of women” comes about, it’s the beginning of the machine age.

The point is, early adopters will keep on adopting (space tourism, echo tourism, edu- tourism, medi-tourism )

And the richest among them, will keep moving beyond Beverly Hills and Betty Ford clinics to “the Island” to do some serious make-over (spare body parts replacement and rejuvenation). Versailles-style ($17,000 leather boots).

Go ahead and protest. Show some guts and show some skin. By the time we do, they no longer find some use for fur coats to cover their once wrinkled bodies. They already got new ones put in. Talking about moving on. Just make sure we don’t become the Pharaohs of the 21st century, embalming ourselves to no avail.  Where is Joe Pa? Ohio won again. Shuck!

Rough “road” to learning

 Please fasten your seat belts.

The road to learning is rough: one has to survive the transportation to and fro, bullies and academic pressures.

“it’s the same river, same ferry, and coconut trees along the banks, but, it’s different today. The difference is, …today, I am back to school” (paraphrasing a poem by Thanh Tinh)..

When their age, I got picked up by various adults in my household: father, brother, sitter and sister (my mom was a school teacher at another school, so she couldn’t have due to schedule conflict). They picked me up by VeloSolex and Mobylette. Twice my little foot got stuck in the back wheel (once I ended up in the emergency room).

Rough road to learning.

Seeing school children in An Giang getting ferried to school brought back some memories (last week, on PBS Newshour, on the subject of the Keystone pipeline,

one commentator even mentioned that current climate change was due to global increased energy consumption in countries like Vietnam and China etc… That prompted a rebuff from the environmentalist, who said “how much an average Vietnamese uses energy per day compared to the developed world”. We should chroma-key in above picture to make his point).

School could never equip us with survival instincts.

The best teachers can do is to create a sense of normalcy, habit-forming, and hopefully,

plant a desire for further learning.

Besides, they already got “tiger moms” at home who ensure conformity to village life.

Those are end-products based on century-old Mandarin system (to supply new blood to run the admin system).

Except now, we don’t face shortage of labor at all (fewer people are required to produce the same amount of agri and aqua products, fewer employees per factory/offfice square foot etc…No more “where is the white-out”.

Yet, children are risking their young lives to get to school across the river.

Quite a “distant” learning.

Could someone throw a safety jacket?

Here, people blog about  (wearing) “White after Labor Day“.

I just hope that one of those children will make it to the big city, and propel into the big league (statistical outcome of a large gene pool of 90 million). Perhaps through IT, or Math (one already won the most prestigious award).

One charity in the West was exposed for trying to build schools in Afghanistan while pocketing the rest.

He even wrote a book about it. PR man. Opportunist man. Spare a jacket?

I am sure these schoolchildren pick up on some survival skills during their one-hour commute (team work, social awareness etc..) before setting foot in the classroom.

And should one of them be drowned, (as already happened) I hope for the rest a quick move forward over survivor’s guilt.

Those scars take a long time to heal.

I know what I am writing about.

I still have the aching ankle ground by Mobylette to prove it.

It took place from a rough road back from school.

It’s the same road that I saw every day, but the difference was, that day, was the day I arrived home via the hospital. Rough “road” to learning, I tell you.

If you could read me

You would find that I am surprised by the number of employees Google and Apple employed only 75,000 combined (compared that with HP, GM or US Government‘s).

You would find that I still remember “the jumpers” on 9/11, and that we lost good men and women on United Flight 93, as well as Peter Jennings of ABC News.

You would find that after the ATT and T-Mobile proposed merger (or blocked, if DOJ won), I would be at a total loss in a post-telecom world (now they call it Information Technology, once convergence is completed). if Bill Gates, then, at the top of his form, couldn’t see the relevance of the Internet, then who would? Now, people are rolling out 3-D TV‘s and Google glasses.

Speaking of which, the price of contact lenses never dropped in the 30 years.

If you could read my mind, you would say I am crazy to be bothered with world events.

With technology and its ever-shortened cycles (Editor of Techcrunch even stepped down to handle CrunchFund), we need algorithms like Summl to sort out relevance for us.

I forgot to plug-in the landline wire after the Cable guy had installed my video, broadband and phone. It’s a sign that I am so used to wireless devices.

If you could read my  mind, you would know I long for “Yesterday” , not so much for the brick phone (Motorola) with accompanied battery pack. A lot of people still enjoy having their 2500 phone set, with its loud and reliable ring tone for incoming calls (for outgoing calls, the ringing  was “manufactured” by the phone company while waiting for the call to be connected). BTW, a friend noticed that in the US , graves sites are often hidden among well-manicured lawn. Yes, it’s a country that looks forward to  the future, unlike in Italy, where there is a profession called Restoration (Art).

If you could read my mind, you would know that I respect my colleagues who day-in-and-day-out , post relevant and professional tips that pay-forward.

If you could read my mind, you would know that I have never been good at being a fake, so I might as well be authentic.

If you could read my mind, you would know that you and I have been bystanders watching systemic and structural changes (outsourcing and automation).

It happened even when we were asleep. It’s like when your kids all of a sudden need new uniforms, a set of bras, a larger pair of shoes. Before you know it, the frog could no longer flex its muscles having enjoyed a slow-heated bath for too long.

If you could read my mind, you would know I dread the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

I can’t explain to my kids what Post-traumatic stress is e.g. exiling from home, a marriage break-up, a job disappearance etc….  I might be over-protective, but I know they grow up with situation awareness, limited options, forced choice, like the jumpers’ on 9/11 as they escaped the towering inferno, even for a brief few seconds of free-falling.

Wonder if we could read their minds on that fateful  day!

reverse culture shock

After a transitory lay over at a third country, I found myself in one of the entry points, in this case, Atlanta:

Southern hospitality, chicken recipe, and of course, airport price tagd. Ten bucks, with no drink. Welcome back, Mr Nguyen.

I prepare my breakfast now. No longer a Saigon sitting down on a low stool, ordering broken rice and pork chops (with fish sauce and hot chili pepper over it).

Instead, breakfast consists of oatmeal, coffee and grapefruit juice. All the supposedly healthy diet for sterilized living.

The news said we were pulling out of Iraq, but no we don’t. Thousands will be staying behind until next year.

Blair is still the un-appointed spoke person on the subject, and even foreshadowing the next war.

This long holiday will bring back workers who are exhausted, consumers who are burned out and soldiers who face labor-surplus economy.

Even the Web is purported to be dead (Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine). In its wake, we found thousand of offsprings aka apps.

In telecom, we thought caller ID was an intrusion. Wait until call centers crawlers pulled up every bits of credit info about you and I before we got a “hello, may I help you”.

It will be caller FICO.

It wouldn’t be strange if the fast food industry started to size their serving according to customer’s profile the way Coke added sugar according to regional preferences:

larger burgers in the South, trimmer ones for NY City, for instance. BK was sold for a whopping 3.3 B yesterday. Location, location, location. Instant access to thousands of location worldwide, near McDonald’s. K Mart, even during bankruptcy, still made a profit on prime real estate.

Back to reverse culture shock. I got up early, way early this Labor Day weekend. In the dark, I wondered where I was. Then I realized things haven’t changed a bit. All those awful stats such as 4% unemployment back in 2000, now nearing 10 in 2010 etc… Land of the free. There are tons of work to be accomplished, but Congress is not going to take on serious tasks before going home. So they say. I went to a Metro PCS store just to be sent home at 9:15 AM. Sorry, HQ won’t open until another hour (KS).

I understood Metro to be a MVNO, hence no instant access to Sprint central computer. I understood America original design of checks and balances. I understood the victimized mentality of citizens facing big bureaucracy. Speed of change varies according to institutions. But it is still a shock to come back to a place where services are not up to standard, but pricing remains at yesterday’s high. We are trapped in a time warp, thinking we are still in post-war period, when the GI bills will make everything OK for returnees i.e. a Chevy in the driveway, and a chicken in the pot. Well, look at car sales figures. GM predicts worse sales, and of course, BK was sold. It is the equivalent of Pepsi on the chopping block.  Give me a few more days. I hate it, but will have to get used to it. Remember 2000 and Y2K? Every decade comes with its own black eyes.