Uncle Walter (Cronkite, not Disney) was heard utter “oh boy” when the first man set foot on the moon. Besides his tears when pronouncing President Kennedy was dead, W.C. rarely showed “subjectivity” on air. When that “on air” red light is on, journalists are supposed to deliver the news (and Walter Cronkite also delivered his…

There is an Opinion piece today in the NYT by Paul Krugman titled ” the Joy of Sachs”. It focuses on government bail out, and urges more reform of the financial system before seeing another bigger one which might involve the whole system, not just a handful of institutions as seen so far. There is…

2 Q figures are showing a Chinese recovery, with growth at 6.9 percent. Wow! The US and EU are all hoping for some green shoots, but in the East, we are seeing Bamboo Shoots. I remember reading Harvey Cox’s Turning East as a part of my college assignments. The author dismissed in conclusion that any…

We got O, the brand from Chicago. Now PM for Paul of the Beatles. This time, PM appeared on the balcony of the Ed Sullivan theatre, to reminisce the concert from the rooftop (Apple building in England, their last public appearance as a group). 45 years is a long time. Back then 73 million were…

The title happens to be one of my favorite films/books. The protagonist, after many escape attempts from a French island prison, finally got away and resettled in Venezuela. All I remember from the story is that there are two types of people: those who are hunters/gatherers (Steve McQueen) and those who are farmers (Dustin Hoffman).…

During the first day of Supreme Court nomination hearing,  I heard the word Empathy in Judge Sotomayor speech. Good to hear that word.  Empathy is to look from the other’s point of view, and hopefully to feel some subjective feelings as well. Her mother, a single mother LPN who got her degree from night school,…

At the closing remark of G-20 meeting, the President commented on having to attend too many summits during his first 6 months in office. He hoped in the future to appear in more productive ones. And he also urged Americans, like myself, to be patient while awaiting the stimulus plan to kick in full gear.…

Paul McCartney started the song with “when we were young, our lives were an open book”. Red Square, 2003. And the fans there ate it up. They had been buying bootlegged Beatles albums on the black market for years before that. Now he was appearing in person. Of course, they hummed along, with welling tears…

I got a chance to visit my parents’ graves over the Fourth of July holidays. I can relate to those Illinois people whose relatives’ graves got exhumed, disembodied and reburied en mass so that the empty lots could be resold (imagine the upcoming court battle between old and new “tenants”). http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-07-10-illinois-cemetery_N.htm All for $300,000.  The…