Confucian Ethics and Chinese Kindness

I read a couple of interesting opinion pieces in the Straits Times today. One was by Chris Patten, Chancellor of Oxford University and former governor of Hong Kong, who wrote on the positive role of religion in society. He closed by saying "we should listen to the core messages of all these great religions, above all the Confucian golden rule that we should never do to others what we would not like to be done to us."

I find that Westerners regularly prefer to elevate the morals of non-Western societies and religions above the dominant religions and cultural norms of the West. It was curious to me that Patten chose to elevate the Confucian "golden rule" above every other religious teaching. And it struck me that the message boiled down to the Google motto of "Do no harm."

In contrast to the Confucian teaching, the Christian "golden rule" taught by Jesus in the Bible is to "Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you."

Also in the Straits Times today was an article by Ho Ai Li entitled "Hard to be kind in China," in which she talks about the Chinese cultural norm of not offering help to people in public, even to those who are injured. She contrasts this with the American preference for volunteering to help strangers in need.

How do her observations relate to the Confucian and Christian teachings in their societies? Whereas the Confucian teaching is a matter of restraint, not acting in a certain way, the Christian teaching is a matter of activism, acting in a certain way. Christians, and the societies with strong Christian influences, are taught to actively reach out to do good to people, especially people in need. That emphasis is not as strong in societies with Confucian influences, which tend to emphasize minding your own business and not getting involved in other peoples' (or countries') affairs. We can see this in Chinese versus Western foreign policy as well as in individuals' social behavior.

I wonder if Chris Patten sees a correlation, and would prefer above all that individuals and societies stay out of others' lives?

Social Networking Revolution

I read today that Facebook has changed the way people relate to each other more than anything else since the introduction of the post office.

Do you think that is true? How has Facebook changed the way you relate to others?

An editorial in today's Straits Times by Robin Dunbar of Oxford University stated that "Emotional closeness declines by around 15 percent a year in the absence of face-to-face contact, so that in five years someone can go from being an intimate acquaintance to the most distant outer layer of your 150 friends."

How does Facebook affect that dynamic? I know it occasionally reminds me of my distant friends, but I am not sure it actually brings many of them closer to me. Maybe if I was better at broadcasting what I am thinking and feeling and doing, it would help others feel more emotionally connected to me. But I have to face it, I am not a broadcaster by nature. I am more interactive and inquisitive in relationships, not a pacesetter or opinion sharer.

Where to Retire in the US?

Not the best places, but the WORST states to retire in listed here:

Illinois, California, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Nevada.

States with the highest cost of living in the third quarter of 2010 were, in order, Hawaii, Alaska, California, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Vermont and New Hampshire, according to a Missouri Economic Research and Information Center analysis. The District of Columbia also makes the list.

States with the greatest tax burdens after New Jersey were New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Hawaii, California, Ohio, Vermont, Wisconsin and Rhode Island, joined by the District of Columbia.

Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin joined California as the 10 most fiscally troubled states.

In a related survey, USAA and Military.com announced this week that Waco, Texas, tops the first-ever "Best Places for Military Retirement" list. In its report, USAA and Military.com focused on U.S. communities that offer "a high quality of life and help maximize military retiree benefits as service members manage their 'first retirement' from the armed forces and begin planning their 'second retirement' from civilian life." Other places on that list included, in order, Oklahoma City; Austin, Texas; College Station, Texas; Harrisburg, Pa.; San Angelo, Texas; Madison, Wis.; Pittsburgh; New Orleans; and Syracuse, N.Y.

Concentrate to breed happiness

“We see evidence for mind-wandering causing unhappiness, but no evidence for unhappiness causing mind-wandering,” Mr. Killingsworth says.

What psychologists call “flow” — immersing your mind fully in activity — has long been advocated by nonpsychologists. “Life is not long,” Samuel Johnson said, “and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.” Henry Ford was more blunt: “Idleness warps the mind.” The iPhone results jibe nicely with one of the favorite sayings of William F. Buckley Jr.: “Industry is the enemy of melancholy.”

Secret Ingredients to Happiness

Well, they're not really secrets.

But with the way people ignore them, you would think nobody believes in the importance of sleep, diet, and exercize.

I mean, really, how many people do you know who take really good care of themselves? If they are, then they must not be working very hard, are they? And if they aren't busy getting ahead, how can they be happy?

Come to think of it, I know a lot of busy and unhappy people. Maybe they should read this article from Gallup Management Journal.

Not OK to be a bigot

From Christianity Today:

David Gushee of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good said politicians who were using the mosque issue for political gain "deserve neither our sympathy nor our acquiescence, but only our condemnation." His words for Christians who opposed the mosque were just as pointed.

"For those mainly conservative Christians who are responding to this and other mosque projects with open expressions of anti-Muslim hatred, and open rejections of the principles of religious liberty from which Christians themselves daily benefit, shame on you! As a fellow Christian, I say that you bring dishonor to the name of Jesus Christ, you directly disobey his command that we love our neighbors, and you drive the watching world even further away from any interest in the Gospel message!" said Gushee.

China Becomes World's Second Largest Economy

China continues phenomenal growth, but as it becomes more developed, that will be harder to sustain. It is much easier to grow 10% when average income is $3,600 (China's) than when it is $46,000 (US's). Look at how the predictions of Japan's ascendancy fizzled. I do not believe there are the cultural pre-requisites in either Chinese or Japanese society for allowing their sustainable rise to the top. Good Q - what would those cultural characteristics be?

Tokyo said that Japan’s economy was valued at about $1.28 trillion in the second quarter, slightly below China’s $1.33 trillion. Japan’s economy grew 0.4 percent in the quarter, Tokyo said, substantially less than forecast. That weakness suggests that China’s economy will race past Japan’s for the full year.

Experts say unseating Japan — and in recent years passing Germany, France and Great Britain — underscores China’s growing clout and bolsters forecasts that China will pass the United States as the world’s biggest economy as early as 2030. America’s gross domestic product was about $14 trillion in 2009.

“This has enormous significance,” said Nicholas R. Lardy, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It reconfirms what’s been happening for the better part of a decade: China has been eclipsing Japan economically. For everyone in China’s region, they’re now the biggest trading partner rather than the U.S. or Japan.”

For Japan, whose economy has been stagnating for more than a decade, the figures reflect a decline in economic and political power. Japan has had the world’s second-largest economy for much of the last four decades, according to the World Bank. And during the 1980s, there was even talk about Japan’s economy some day overtaking that of the United States.

But while Japan’s economy is mature and its population quickly aging, China is in the throes of urbanization and is far from developed, analysts say, meaning it has a much lower standard of living, as well as a lot more room to grow. Just five years ago, China’s gross domestic product was about $2.3 trillion, about half of Japan’s.

This country has roughly the same land mass as the United States, but it is burdened with a fifth of the world’s population and insufficient resources.

Its per capita income is more on a par with those of impoverished nations like Algeria, El Salvador and Albania — which, along with China, are close to $3,600 — than that of the United States, where it is about $46,000.

How to Change the World

Here is a brilliant story. Go to the link to find the key to creating change.

When Jerry Sternin arrived in Vietnam, the welcome was rather chilly. The government had invited his employer, Save the Children, the international organization that helps kids in need, to open an office in the country in 1990 to fight malnutrition. But the foreign minister let Sternin know that not everyone in the government appreciated his presence. The minister told him, "You have six months to make a difference."

Sternin had traveled to the country with his wife and 10-year-old son. None of them spoke the language. "We were like orphans at the airport when we arrived in Vietnam," he said. "We had no idea what we were going to do." Sternin had minimal staff and meager resources.

The conventional wisdom was that malnutrition was the result of an intertwined set of problems: Sanitation was poor. Poverty was nearly universal. Clean water was not readily available. The rural people tended to be ignorant about nutrition.

That analysis was, in Sternin's judgment, TBU -- true but useless. "Millions of kids can't wait for those issues to be addressed," he said. If addressing malnutrition required ending poverty and purifying water and building sanitation systems, then it would never happen. Especially in six months, with virtually no money to spend.

When Values Replace Ethics

Wow, a spot on analysis from Dennis Prager:

Opponents of the popular expression of conservative opposition to big government, the tea party, regularly note that tea partiers are overwhelmingly white. This is intended to disqualify the tea parties from serious moral consideration.

But there are two other facts that are far more troubling:

The first is the observation itself. The fact that the Left believes that the preponderance of whites among tea partiers invalidates the tea party movement tells us much more about the Left than it does about the tea partiers.

It confirms that the Left really does see the world through the prism of race, gender and class rather than through the moral prism of right and wrong.

One of the more dangerous features of the Left has been its replacement of moral categories of right and wrong, and good and evil with three other categories: black and white (race), male and female (gender) and rich and poor (class).

Don't get a job...

...go on a mission!

Seth Godin writes:

Everyone's model of work is a job

That's the conclusion of a very long essay on startups by Paul Graham, and it's an insightful quote.

The reason you feel most comfortable with a job (unless, like me, you're in the minority--a job would destroy my psyche) is that you've been brainwashed by many years of school, socialization and practice. I pick the word brainwashed carefully, because it's more than training or acclimation. It's something that's been taught to you by people who needed you to believe it was the way things are supposed to be.

The less a project or task or opportunity at work feels like the sort of thing you would do if this is just a job, the more you should do it.

4 Choices for Democrats

I think this article in the NY Times insightfully protrays what has happened in the first year of the Obama Administration, and what the Democrats can now do about it...

Therefore, they counseled, the new administration should move cautiously to rebuild trust before beginning a transformational agenda.

The Obama administration interpreted the political climate in an entirely different way.... the administration interpreted the 2008 election as a rejection of not only George W. Bush-style conservatism, but also Bill Clinton-style moderation. The country was ready for a New Deal-size change. It had a leader in Barack Obama who could uniquely inspire a national transformation.

As happens every four years, hubris defeated caution, and the administration began its big-bang approach.

As always, it backfired. Instead of building trust in government, the Democrats have magnified distrust.

Scary Deficit Numbers

Just how much is the deficit piling up? And how will we ever climb out of the debt hole? This article in Kiplinger's has the sobering numbers...

In fiscal 2009, federal debt held by the public jumped by a third, to $7.8 trillion. At the end of fiscal 2008, debt held by the public measured 41% of GDP. By 2014, it’ll equal a whopping two-thirds of GDP.

The interest payments on the debt will be staggering. They could soar to as much as $800 billion a year by the end of this decade, gobbling up 16% of the total budget. Indeed, servicing the debt may become the single biggest item in the federal budget, surpassing Medicare, defense and Social Security.

Building a Tribe of 1,000

This has given me a vision for who we want to reach in CRMS. I want a tribe of 1,000 spiritual leaders fanatical about empowering others.

First, organize 1,000

Kevin Kelly really changed our thinking with his post about 1,000 true fans.

But what if you're not an artist or a musician? Is there a business case for this?

I think the ability to find and organize 1,000 people is a breakthrough opportunity. One thousand people coordinating their actions is enough to change your world (and make a living.)

1,000 people each spending $1,000 on a special interest cruise equals a million dollars.

1,000 people willing to spend $250 to attend a day-long seminar gives you the leverage to invite just about anyone you can imagine to fly in and speak.

1,000 people voting as a bloc can change local politics forever.

1,000 people willing to try a new restaurant you find for them gives you the ability to make an entrepreneur successful and change the landscape of your town.

Even better, coordinating the learning and connections of this tribe of 1,000 is not just profitable, it's rewarding. If you can take them where they want to go, you become indispensable (and respected).

What's difficult? What's difficult is changing your attitude. Instead of speed dating your way to interruption, instead of yelling at strangers all day trying to make a living, coordinating a tribe of 1,000 requires patience, consistency and a focus on long-term relationships and life time value. You don't find customers for your products. You find products for your customers.

The Changing American Face

will be older and less white...

The United States has 308 million people today; two-thirds are non-Hispanic whites.

The total population should climb to 399 million by 2050, under the new projection, with whites making up 49.9 percent of the population. Blacks will make up 12.2 percent, virtually unchanged from today. Hispanics, currently 15 percent of the population, will rise to 28 percent in 2050.

Asians are expected to increase from 4.4 percent of the population to 6 percent.

The point when minority children become the majority is expected to have a similar delay of roughly eight years, moving from 2023 to 2031.

The population 85 and older is projected to more than triple by 2050, to 18.6 million.

Public Confessors

Interesting observation about the characteristics of America's public confessors in this prescription for Tiger's rehabilitation. What does this say about the American psyche?

The comeback trail for Woods has been blazed by many who preceded him; in fact, it's been obvious almost from the first.

What's required is the public confessional. Fortunately, one thing our culture has in surfeit is public confessors.

My prediction is that Tiger will eventually go on a national TV program and confess all. Undoubtedly, he will have his pick of venues, all of which are probably already clamoring to offer him a platform on his terms. He need only settle on his preferred atmospherics.

He can talk to Oprah Winfrey if he wants nurturing commiseration. Larry King for a veneer of newsiness. Diane Sawyer for condescending solicitude. Matt Lauer for sensitive, manly contrition. Barbara Walters to display inner turmoil and personal growth.

Thank Who?

I noticed that we no longer thank God on Thanksgiving, it is now a day of national appreciation to each other...

From President Obama's Thanksgiving Proclamation:

I encourage all the people of the United States to come together, whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place where family, friends and neighbors may gather, with gratitude for all we have received in the past year, to express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own and to share our bounty with others.

A mechanical brain coming your way

in another decade, just about the time I'll need one...

Computers capable of mimicking the human brain's power and efficiency could be just 10 years off, according to a leading researcher at IBM.

Political Action

From my former economics professor...

No statement is more unnecessary than the statement that the government should "do something" about some issue. Politicians are going to "do something," whether or not something needs to be done, and regardless of whether what they do makes matters better or worse. All their incentives are to keep themselves in the public eye.

Before Jackie Robinson...

...there was Kenny Washington. Another testament to UCLA's excellence in athletics, and pioneering in breaking the color barrier.

From Sports Illustrated:

Three men deserve enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame -- as a player in at least one case, as a contributor in all three.
The easiest argument to be made is on behalf of UCLA's Kenny Washington. Acclaimed as the best college player of 1939 in a vote of the men who faced him, Washington nonetheless went undrafted and unsigned by the NFL because of the owners' "gentlemen's agreement." Thus through the early '40s he played four seasons in the Pacific Coast Football League, which he dominated, even as he suffered several knee injuries. He passed, ran and commanded the defensive secondary. By the end of his minor league career, mostly with the Hollywood Bears, Washington had taken on placekicking duties too -- kicking lefty, on account of those knee injuries' ruling out use of his right leg.
When the Rams finally signed him in 1946, Washington was well past his prime, yet he turned in three creditable NFL seasons, including a 1947 campaign in which his performance -- he led the league in total yardage, average yards per carry (7.4) and the longest run from scrimmage (92 yards) -- hinted at what he could have done if only he hadn't been cheated of six years. Upon Washington's death in 1971, former Rams teammate Bob Waterfield said, "If he had come into the NFL directly from UCLA, he would have been, in my opinion, the best the NFL had ever seen."

LA - Deli Capital of America

From David Sax, author of "Save the Deli"

Yet Los Angeles delis have managed to thrive in a niche market. Acre for acre, Sax maintains that Southern California boasts "more delicatessens of higher quality, on average, than anywhere else in America." He commends Nate 'n Al in Beverly Hills; Factor's in Pico-Robertson; Junior's in West L.A.; Greenblatt's on the Sunset Strip; Art's in Studio City; Canter's in the Fairfax district; and the various Hat locations.

But Sax reserves his highest praise for Langer's, near MacArthur Park -- where the pastrami sandwich "encapsulates perfection at every turn" -- and Brent's in Northridge and Westlake Village -- which he calls "absolutely sensational."

Where New York delis tend to be cramped and covered in an intangible layer of old world schmutz, Los Angeles delis are the height of midcentury, suburban modernity. If New York delis are as intimate and familiar as your bubbe's kitchen, then Los Angeles delis, with their spacious banquettes, polite wait staff and abundant parking, are like younger, sexier spokesmodels for the deli world.

Guess These Destinations

Aerial views from the LA Times...

Engalnd Travel Ideas

From the LA Times, retracing the steps of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson:

In early April 1786, they set off on a six-day tour west from London along the Thames River Valley, then north toward Birmingham before circling back to the capital. Of course, I couldn't re-create their itinerary exactly. Some of the places they saw are long gone, in private hands or utterly transformed, like touristy Stratford-upon-Avon, which I'd seen before and therefore skipped.

But others -- Blenheim Palace and the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, for instance -- remain open to visitors who follow in the great Americans' footsteps, which help to explain their times, very different characters and complex relationship.

California Travel Suggestions

From the LA Times:

15 places to visit to see the real California...

Perfect Church Size?

From Seth Godin:

Dunbar's number is 150.

And he's not compromising, no matter how much you whine about it.

Dunbar postulated that the typical human being can only have 150 friends. One hundred fifty people in the tribe. After that, we just aren't cognitively organized to handle and track new people easily. That's why, without external forces, human tribes tend to split in two after they reach this size. It's why WL Gore limits the size of their offices to 150 (when they grow, they build a whole new building).

If a church is going to create community, should it limit its size to 150 adults? Then "hive-off" new groups where people know each other, multiplying instead of expanding?

Evaluating Obama's Foreign Policy

An alarming evaluation of President Obama's foreign policy, or lack of. I do not know how accurate or objective these criticisms are, but they certainly do not paint a hopeful picture. Read the article for specifics.

All of Obama's campaign and inaugural talk about "extending an open hand" and "engagement," especially the multilateral variety, isn't exactly unfolding according to plan. Entirely predictably, we see more clearly every day that diplomacy is not a policy but only a technique. Absent presidential leadership, which at a minimum means clear policy direction and persistence in the face of criticism and adversity, engagement simply embodies weakness and indecision.

What we are learning about health care coverage

Michael Barone of USNWR says we are learning more and more about health care coverage. It will cost a lot of money! And no one wants to pay for it. He gives specific examples, but here is his conclusion:

So the learning process may not be over. We know now that it costs a lot of money to pay for insurance policies with expanded coverage for an expanded number of people. And we know that no one wants to pay the price.

We may be in the process of learning something else. Which is that insurance coverage that further insulates patients from costs results in unanticipated increases in health care spending. Yes, it bends the cost curve, but in the wrong direction. That's what has happened with the much-praised Massachusetts system.

Democratic leaders may still have the votes to jam something through. In which case it could, as the Atlantic's Megan McArdle predicts, "spin out of control and eat a gigantic hole in the deficit." Who's going to pay for that?

The Walmarts of Christianity

I like megachurches. I started attending one in 1974, and have been in them ever since. I think megachurches can do everything small churches can do, and they usually do them better.

I like small churches, too. I just wouldn't want to attend one...

The number of megachurches has grown steadily for the last four decades. Researchers say there are now at least 1,350 such churches nationwide, more than double the number a decade ago. [193 in CA, 191 in TX]

They draw an average of 4,100 weekend parishioners. By contrast, most U.S. churches attract 500 people or fewer on Sundays.

"They are essentially re- creating a small-town milieu and giving folks . . . a place to plug in and share experiences with like-minded people," said sociologist Scott Thumma of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research in Connecticut, who studies the megachurch movement.

But the growth also has sparked criticism that large churches are siphoning people away from smaller congregations.

It's Not About Winning

A sad lesson, from Michael Jordan. Upon his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the man considered by many to be the greatest NBA player of all time just seemed petty. He used the speech as a chance to put down his rivals, from his high school coach to opposing players and coaches throughout his career.

It is so sad to see when people are driven, not to excel - but to beat others. To prove (to themselves) that they are better than others. It must come from a deep insecurity.

"Jordan revealed himself to be strangely bitter. You won, Michael. You won it all. Yet he keeps chasing something that he’ll never catch, and sometimes, well, it all seems so hollow for him."

Brought to you by the same people...

...who brought you Social Security and Medicare.

According to President Obama, that is the reason to not fear that his health care proposal will be "socialism" or a "government takeover" of health care.

Hardly reassuring to me, when I consider that Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid currently account for one third of the US government Federal budget, are leading to larger and larger budget deficits, and no one has a proposal on how to prevent them from going bankrupt as the population ages in the next 30 years.

As I understand it, the main point of the health care proposal is for tax payers to pay for medical insurance of the 30% of people who cannot afford it. So then they can go to the doctor more often, because it is already paid for by insurance. And the process is managed by the government. And somehow this will lower the cost of health care for everyone...

President Obama says we will pay for the cost of this increased coverage by eliminating all the current waste and inefficiency in the health care that is already managed by the government. Then with this expanded coverage, government will get more efficient and less wasteful.

From the opinion piece on President Obama's speech in the LA Times:

"The challenge for those who want a comprehensive bill is more in the politics -- in particular, the allegation that "Obama-care" is a government takeover of the healthcare system, burdening taxpayers with a ruinously expensive new obligation. The president offered a persuasive response to part of that critique, making the case that the flaws in the current system threaten all Americans. He soft-pedaled the controversial"public option" plan, and portrayed his plan as a melding of Republican and Democratic ideas with the same moral underpinning as Social Security and Medicare. Those initiatives were also branded "socialism" or a "government takeover," Obama noted, subtly warning opponents that they risk being on the wrong side of history."

(One of) My Dream Vacations...

Now this article describes the way I want to see New Zealand - in a VW Vanagon!

"Imagine the most beautiful places you've ever seen -- Grand Teton, Big Sur, Alaska's Inside Passage -- cram them all into a skinny strip of land, and that's New Zealand. We'd wanted to visit the Pacific island nation even before director Peter Jackson made the landscape a star as the setting of the "Lord of the Rings" movies. One friend told us that of all the dream destinations of his childhood, it was the one that proved every bit as glorious as he'd imagined."

Leadership for Gen F

Gary Hamel wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal about how "Generation F" - the Facebook generation - will change expectations in the workplace.

Here's his list of 12 characteristics of online life he believes will be applied to the work environment:

All ideas compete on an equal footing.
Contribution counts for more than credentials.
Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.
Leaders serve rather than preside.
Tasks are chosen, not assigned.
Groups are self-defining and -organizing.
Resources get attracted, not allocated.
Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.
Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.
Users can veto most policy decisions.
Intrinsic rewards matter most.
Hackers are heroes.

Are these global characteristics??? Are you seeing them affect your context? How will they shape Asian cultures, like Singapore's? How will they shape the Church around the world? How will they affect the people you lead, and your leadership style?

No Scalejacking

I resonate with this way of thinking from Seth Godin, and want to live it out in my life and work.

Will you join me in resisting scalejacking? Let's reject the quest for size and do all we can for the ones who need and want our service! Sounds like Jerry Maguire's manifesto.

Scalejacking - Dave Balter coined this great term. It describes the quest of marketers for size at all costs. Because marketers were raised on the scale of mass—TV, radio, newspapers—they have a churn and burn mentality. The internet turns this upside down. The internet is about who, not how many. The internet lets you take really good care of 100 people instead of harassing 2,000.

Yet, panicked marketers still look for scale (How many followers can we get? What can we do with a Facebook fan page?) and then hijack that attention, hoping to filter out the masses and get a few sales.

Scalejacking inevitably tarnishes most communities, because individuals (people) hate being treated like numbers just standing by to be filtered.

Stephen Stills wrote, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with." I think he was wrong. On the Internet, the mantra that works is, "Be with the ones you love (and the ones that love you.)" Ignore everyone else. It doesn't have good internal pentameter, but it's true.

Changing US Demographics

What will the US look like in 20 years? The ethnic makeup of the country is rapidly changing.

Young Americans who are minorities outnumber young whites in almost one of every six U.S. counties. It's a demographic wave that is transforming more parts of the nation and raising questions about who is a minority.

The multiplying effect of diversity is rapid. In 2008, 34% of U.S. residents were minorities, but 48% of babies born in the USA were minorities. The number of white youths has dropped 5.3% since 2000 while the young minority population grew 15.5%. "It will be hard to define who is a minority in the future...."

Change is happening so quickly that the youngest Americans are much more likely to be minorities than those who are a few years older, says Johnson, who did the research with Daniel Lichter, demographer at Cornell University.

Among youths ages 15 to 19, 60% are non-Hispanic whites. Among those 4 or younger, 53% are white.

A London Guide

London sounds like a great vacation!

The London I've finally discovered is as rumpled and comfy as old corduroy (which I like) and as stylish and smug as the sassiest fashionistas (which I don't).

But what a buzz fest. London is a city on the verge of a nervous breakdown yet so sated on its own glories that nothing seems to bloody bother it. At this European crossroads, I found the mad pace and the musty masterpieces a perfect contrast. Just when you can't take another minute of London's twitchy streets, you can slip into some spectacular ancient hall and, like Sherlock Holmes himself, spend an afternoon seeking Anne Boleyn's bones.

Or, more festively, you can take a day and just sample the pubs, which are everywhere, a drinker's dream.

What's Really Happening in Iran

Read about social, political, and religious realities in Iran from this fascinating article in Mission Frontiers from Sep-Oct 2008:

"By the late 1980s, the number of Persian Muslim-background believers had grown into many thousands. Then in the 1990s, two things converged to turn this momentum into one of the greatest watershed events in the history of Persian Christianity. The first was a wave of government-organized crackdowns and assassinations of Christian leaders....

In the year 2000, Christian satellite broadcasting began beaming the gospel to almost every home in Iran. This was made possible by the fact that millions of satellite dishes had been illegally smuggled into Iran by corrupt members of the same government that had outlawed them. The Christian satellite programs became a lifeline for the church in Iran. Much more, when the Iranian people learned that the government was trying to scramble the broadcasts, they became an overnight sensation. Recent nationwide surveys reveal that over 70% of the population is watching Christian satellite programs. These same surveys indicate that at least one million have already become believers, and many millions more are on the verge. This growth has happened so fast, the underground church can hardly keep apace....

Starting churches in Iran is easy! Everywhere you go to evangelize, people are ready to receive the gospel, or they have already become believers through satellite broadcasts. ”Training leaders is also easy, remarks another leader. The government has left young people with nothing to do. So believers spend time with one another every day. They are constantly gathering for prayer, Bible study and evangelism. When a group reaches 25 people, they divide in half and begin again. Within two years, a new believer is expected to become a leader of a new house-fellowship and a discipler of new leaders...

Cars, cars, cars

The growth of the car market in China will cause huge headaches, where roads are built for bicycle traffic and there are few parking lots for all the multistory apartment buildings. It will also keep pressure on oil prices for years to come.

China is on track to sell 11 million vehicles this year, according to the China Passenger Car Association. That would be up 17% from 2008, and a stunning 20 times the number of vehicles sold in China just a decade ago. Zhang says this year China likely will overtake the USA, where expected sales are around 10 million units, and become the world's biggest car market for the first time.

China's 1.3 billion people "are simply wild about cars," says Michael Dunne, a Shanghai-based managing director of J.D. Power and Associates, an auto industry group. He says the surprising strength of China's auto market has been driven not just by economics, but also by a kind of psychological shift that has come with prosperity.

"There is the thrill of individual mobility, going from point A to point B in their own time, and on their own terms. But it's also an opportunity to declare and project their own success," Dunne says....

U.S.-style suburbs, where cars are a virtual necessity, are sprouting everywhere....

China has one-seventh as many autos on the road as the USA, Dunne estimates, but nearly twice as many traffic deaths — 73,484 last year, according to the Chinese government.

USC sports statistic

No, not how many championships they have won, but how much they pay for their championships.

How much the school values football is reflected in Carroll's $4.4 million compensation package, the richest of any private university employee in the United States, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Surprising statistic

...on American political opinions. I would have guessed Americans favor liberalism over conservatism.

White House advisers add that Obama will be pushed only so far to the left, and with good reason. Only 19 percent of Americans, after all, identify themselves as liberal, compared with 36 percent who say they are moderate and 41 percent who say they are conservative, according to the latest poll by Democracy Corps, a Democratic think tank.

Miss California Not PC

Wow, she got lambasted!

...asked about her views on same-sex marriage during the nationally televised Miss USA pageant. Although she said she believed people were entitled to do as they liked, she said marriage should only be recognized as an institution between a man and a woman.

Prejean lost the pageant (she was runner-up to Miss North Carolina, Kristen Dalton). But her statement quickly became fodder for the ongoing culture war over same-sex marriage. Gay-rights activists criticized her, while her backers said she was being unfairly attacked.

She gave the WRONG ANSWER! That is not acceptable, even though most people agree with it. One can say that in private, but not in public!

"You have to understand we never want to take away a girl's beliefs or her voice," Lewis said. "But when you wear the title that says 'I represent everyone,' you can't then polarize the people you represent."

Who are the "people she represents" anyway? Apparently only people who favor same-sex marriage, the only ones deserving an opinion. If she had answered that she favored same-sex marriage, apparently that would not have been polarizing, but would have been considered appropriate for the people she represents.

What a mess our society is in...

One of My Heroes

John Wooden is a great coach and a great man, and is never shy about sharing his honest opinion. Yet he has so much integrity and ability, that people do not mind his strong opinions.

WOODEN REMAINS full of life and surprises. He pulls a silver cross from his pocket, the metal rubbed worn, although the alpha and omega symbols remain visible.

"I don't know how many people know this, but I had this in my hand the whole time I was coaching," he says, putting his palm out to show how he wedged the cross between his index and middle fingers. "My minister gave me this when I went into the service in 1942 -- the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end."

Scary Stats

The numbers get even more mind-boggling...

Already, in the first six months of this fiscal year, the federal deficit is running at $956.8 billion, or nearly one seventh of gross domestic product — levels not seen since World War II, according to Wrightson ICAP, a research firm.

Debt held by the public is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to rise from 41 percent of gross domestic product in 2008 to 51 percent in 2009 and to a peak of around 54 percent in 2011 before declining again in the following years. For all of 2009, the administration probably needs to borrow about $2 trillion.

LA is BLUE

DODGER BLUE, that is. What a hot start for the heroes of Chavez Ravine!

The Dodgers have been in business since 1890, and they have never won their first 10 home games - until now.

Capitalizing on Crisis

is what the Obama Administration is about, according to the Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. I heard his quote on BBC Radio today:

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. You want to use it to get things done that you normally would not be able to do."

What that means for us is that the "Economic Stimulus" package is not particularly aimed at stimulating the economy, but is a cover for expanding government to include everything on the Democratic Party Wishlist.

The "Era of Big Government" never really went away. George Bush expanded government more like a liberal than a conservative, but his moves now look like baby steps in light of the staggering new expansion that is taking place.

Mentors Prompt Insight & Action

...through asking questions, not simply giving advice.

Last week I taught a Mentoring Seminar and had two senior mentors share with the class their secrets of mentoring. Both of them said much the same thing that Seth Godin shares in his blog:

You're nuts if you believe me

I'm the first person to admit that compared to you, I have no idea what I'm talking about. You're there, doing what you do, and doing it with skill.

Let me be really clear: My job is not to tell you what to do. I don't know what to do. You do.

Not just me, of course. Everybody with a blog or a book or an interest in your success. Don't do what they say. Listen to their questions instead.

My job is provoke you into asking hard questions. Ask those questions to your boss and your co-workers and yourself. It's easy to show that self-aware decisions and thoughtful strategies outperform blind stumbling.

I don't have a lot of patience for this list of seven rules or that manual of how it's supposed to be or the step-by-step road map you can purchase today only. I think you'll do a lot better if you get optimistic about the future and cynical about pat answers at the same time instead.

Fire the Know-It-Alls

They hinder the organization by undermining decisions. Follow Seth Godin's advice:

He's the first one to point out a minor technical glitch and the last guy to want to get on board with a new program. He hazes first-timers and avoids the people who are actually productive. Or he's the one who can take any metaphor and make it literal, instantly, poking holes in it as he goes.

And of course, he's the one everyone has to tiptoe around, because they know his technical status can sink their initiative.

I think you should fire this person immediately. Okay, maybe give him exactly one warning.

You'll find someone else who really knows this stuff. No doubt about it. And firing one intransigent bully is a lot less painful than shutting down an entire division next year because he paralyzed your decision-making.

Deep technical competency is overrated compared with the ability to make excellent decisions and to create a culture where forward motion is valued and personal initiative is rewarded.

Strangers in the City

In a finding that seems counter-intuitive, a recent urban study has found that people interact less when they live in more densely populated areas. Huh?

This may seem to go against common sense, yet most of us see it in action every day. There is very little interaction in a crowd. In fact, the very magnitude of human beings around us teaches us to keep to ourselves and not interact, for our own emotional protection as well as physical protection.

I love the buzz of the city, but I think that cities create impersonal environments, and all us city-dwellers have to work harder at finding community than do those who live in suburban settings.

The paper’s maintained hypothesis, that social interaction is stronger in denser areas, arose from the conjecture that high densities facilitate interaction by putting people in close proximity. The results, however, show the opposite effect, and a key question is why.

Looking for Yes

I love this observation by Seth Godin on the difference between looking for no and looking for yes.

It really seems like a spiritual question for me. At the core, isn't God's approach to life "Yes"?

Of course there are boundaries and consequences, but God is in the business of turning things around, redeeming the world, and making things possible! He is not the God of "All things are impossible."

In fact, the Bible even calls Jesus "God’s ultimate 'Yes'" in 2 Co 1:19. He was constantly in conflict with those whose basic approach to life was "No!"

So if you are a follower of Jesus, ask God to help you find the yes in your life and in your interactions with people. Let's look for yes instead of settling for no.

If you're out to provide a service, or organized to deliver a product, then look for a yes. At every interaction.

A Lot of Money

Can anybody get their brains around the kind of numbers in President Obama's budget?

an astonishing $1.75 trillion federal deficit that would be nearly four times the highest in history. [and about 12% of GDP, highest since 1945]

the plan would close the deficit to a a more reasonable — but still eye-popping — $533 billion after five years. That would still be higher than last year's record $455 billion deficit. [3/4 of the reduction will come from reduced spending in Afghanistan and Iraq]

And the national debt would more than double by the end of the upcoming decade, raising worries that so much federal borrowing could drive up interest rates and erode the value of the dollar.

Also, to narrow the budget gap, Obama relies on rosier predictions of economic growth — including a 3.2 percent boost in the economy next year — than most private sector economists foresee.

Large Swings in a Small Economy

Singapore's economy is subject to much more volatility than a big economy like the US, where 1% change is huge...

2007 +7.8%
2008 +1.1%
2009 -4.8% (projected)

official data showed the economy grew 1.1 per cent for the whole of last year, significantly lower than the 7.8 per cent recorded in 2007.

OCBC Bank, for one, now believes the Singapore economy will contract 4.8 per cent this year, instead of its previous prediction of a 2.8 per cent decline.

Which Diet to Choose?

The low-calorie one you can stick with...

Two decades after the debate began on which diet is best for weight loss, a conclusion is starting to come into focus. And the winner is . . . not low-carb, not low-fat, not high protein but . . . any diet.

That is, any diet that is low in calories and saturated fats and high in whole grains, fruits and vegetables -- and that an individual can stick with for a lifetime -- is a reasonable choice for people who need to lose weight. That's the conclusion of a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, representing the longest, largest and most rigorous test of several popular diet strategies.

In light of another highly regarded study published last year that reached a similar conclusion, medical experts are embracing the back-to-basics idea that the simple act of cutting calories is most important when it comes to losing weight. The conclusions could finally end the often-contentious debate over the comparative effectiveness of diets that are predominantly low in fat, high in protein, low in carbohydrates or marked by other specific configurations of nutrients.

"This study is saying it doesn't make any difference what diet you choose. Calories have always been the bottom line,"

Magic Water

This story sounds too good to be true. But I think we will see more and more of these kind of inventions displacing traditional chemicals and probably all kinds of products that we now manufacture. The age of molecular engineering is dawning...

It's a kitchen degreaser. It's a window cleaner. It kills athlete's foot. Oh, and you can drink it.

Sounds like the old "Saturday Night Live" gag for Shimmer, the faux floor polish plugged by Gilda Radner. But the elixir is real. It has been approved by U.S. regulators. And it's starting to replace the toxic chemicals Americans use at home and on the job.

The stuff is a simple mixture of table salt and tap water whose ions have been scrambled with an electric current. Researchers have dubbed it electrolyzed water -- hardly as catchy as Mr. Clean. But at the Sheraton Delfina in Santa Monica, some hotel workers are calling it el liquido milagroso -- the miracle liquid.

That's as good a name as any for a substance that scientists say is powerful enough to kill anthrax spores without harming people or the environment.

Classic critique

Here is a hilarious article by the LA Times sarcastic sports columnist TJ Simers. Poking fun at himself through evaluating the Times' coverage of the Academy Awards show.

I don't get it. Why do writers always have to be so negative? Why are they so intent on just tearing things down?

Has Mary McNamara ever worn a top hat, sang and danced in front of millions? Who made her an expert on such things?

Here's Hugh giving it his all, while we have another Times columnist, Patrick Goldstein -- and catch the smirk on this guy's mug in the paper -- beginning his know-it-all column this way: "I guess reinventing the Oscars is harder than it looks."

What kind of cheap shot is that? Let's see him do better.

A slow-growth recession

This is the kind of statement that makes normal people scratch their heads and figure nobody can understand an economist:

In 2008, the economy grew 1.3 percent despite being in recession the full year, according to government data.

I have a degree in economics, and I don't understand what they mean. Didn't a recession used to be defined by contraction instead of expansion?

On the other hand, they expect things to get better pretty soon, which is a lot different than the previous doom and gloom scenarios I have read:

The central bank said it saw the economy recovering in 2010 better than previously expected, at growth between 2.5 percent and 3.3 percent, up from a 2.3-3.2 percent forecast in October.

Growth in 2011 would accelerate to between 3.8 percent and 5.0 percent, significantly higher than 2.8-3.6 percent increase seen in the last forecast.

What the world needs now...

Seth Godin says that people are looking for authenticity. He defines it as doing what you say you will do, not in terms of "being yourself."

I think of that as integrity. But I still think he is absolutely right.

In the end, what you act like is who you really are. All our actions add up to our identity.

You could spend your time wondering if what you say you are is really you. Or you could just act like that all the time. That's good enough, thanks. Save the angst for later.

How Do You Spell Bi-Partisanship?

Apparently, the Obama Administration has not found out yet. Up until now, their efforts seem targeted at getting Republicans to vote for Democratic plans.

Will that failure to woo Republicans to their side lead them to start compromising with the opposition, so that agendas are pushed that satisfy the interest of both parties? Or will they give up and say that they tried being bi-partisan, but the Republicans were not interested?

Not one Republican voted for Mr. Obama’s plan in the House and just three voted for it in the Senate as it headed to final passage on Friday night. The party-line schism, coupled with the withdrawal on Thursday of a Republican senator, Judd Gregg, as a nominee to Mr. Obama’s cabinet, made clear the futility so far of the president’s effort to move Washington toward post-partisanship.

Their unrequited overtures to Republicans over the past several weeks taught Mr. Obama and his aides some hard lessons.

Unfortunately, the reality is...

that as valuable as the symbolism of an economic stimulus package is, someday it will have to be paid for. And we might not actually get much for the money that is spent.

This from a couple of the world's leading economists:

Our own view is that the short-term stimulus from the legislation before Congress will be smaller per dollar spent than is expected by many others because the package tries to combine short-term stimulus with long-term benefits to the economy. Unfortunately, short-term and long-term gains are in considerable conflict with each other. Moreover, it is very hard to spend wisely large sums in short periods of time. Nor can one ever forget that spending is not free, and ultimately it has to be financed by higher taxes.

Signing Day

I am a UCLA Bruins football junkie. Though I live in Singapore, I avidly follow my beloved Bruins (both football and basketball) on internet sites.

This past Wednesday was one of the biggest days of the year for college football fans - National Letter of Intent signing day. My team had their best recruiting results of the past ten years, and I am happy, along with the whole Bruin Nation, who feel we are headed back to where we belong as one the the top programs in the country. Just as Ben Howland has turned around the basketball program to bring in elite talent and challenge for the national championship every year, we feel that Rick Neuheisel will have the football team among the top tier of programs in another year or two.

This article on ESPN gives a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in the coaches' office on signing day.

Before the defensive end makes his announcement Neuheisel will have another UCLA recruit on the phone, congratulating him for faxing in his paperwork to the Bruins' office: "Way to go, 'A-bomb'! Can't wait to get you here. You and I are gonna have some fun!"

The day is off to a good start. Upstairs the Bruins' fax machine is humming. But the real dicey stuff doesn't begin for another 90 minutes or so, when the first of their announcements is scheduled.

American Idol auditions

We love watching the American Idol auditions in my family! GREAT entertainment! After the auditions, I frankly lose interest. I love the human interest stories, the emotion, the delusion, the quirkiness, the emergence of talent. It is fascinating!

Here is an early handicap from the LA Times on who is likely to make the final 12. Sorry, you have to go to the article in order for the links to work.

So the auditions are behind us. We haven't seen everyone yet, but we've seen a lot of them. And on the basis of that half-information, we are prepared to make some predictions.

Tens of thousands were summoned by the "Idol" trumpets. We predict that when the dust settles and the curtain rises over the Idoldome in five weeks, it will be these 12 warriors of song onstage prepared to seize the mantle of history. (Actually we couldn't narrow it down to 12, so we threw in one extra.)

In no particular order. Listed by name, (audition city), age, hometown. Audition song. Interesting fact. Link to check them out (while they last).

1. Lil Rounds: (Kansas City) 23, Memphis TN. Sang "All I Do." Family made homeless by a tornado. Audition video here.

2. Adam Lambert (San Francisco) 26, Hollywood, CA. Sang “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Was in the cast of "Wicked"; looks like Ewan McGregor. Remnants of MySpace page here. Audition video here.

3. Rose Flack (Salt Lake City) 17, Rathdrum, ID. Sang Carole King's “I Feel the Earth Move." Recently orphaned, barefoot hippie girl. MySpace page here. Audition video here.

4. Jackie Tohn (New York) 27, Silver Lake, CA. Sang Jason Mraz's "I’m Yours." Rocker since childhood. Audition video here. Personal site here.

5. Scott MacIntyre: (Phoenix) 22, Scottsdale, AZ. Sang Billy Joel's "And So It Goes." Legally blind. Audition video here. Personal site here.

6. Joanna Pacitti. (Louisville) 23, Philadelphia, PA. Sang Pat Benatar's "We Belong." Had earlier recording career on A&M Records. Audition video here. MySpace page here.

7. Jorge Nunez. (San Juan) 20, Carolina, Puerto Rico. Sang "My Way” and "What a Wonderful World." Charmed the judges when he sang in Spanish. Audition video here.

8. Meghan Corkrey. (Salt Lake) 23, Sandy, UT. Sang “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.” Heavily tattooed single mother. Audition video here.

9. Kai Kalama: (San Francisco) 26, San Clemente, CA. Sang "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." Cares for ailing mother. Audition video here. MySpace page for former band here.

10. Leneshe Young: (Louisville) 18, Cincinnati, OH. Sang original song. Raised in homeless shelters. Audition video here.

11. Von Smith: (Kansas City) 22, Greenwood, MO. Sang "Over the Rainbow." Wore goofy hat; "attempts things most guys don't attempt to sing." Audition video here. MySpace page here.

12. Danny Gokey (Kansas City) 28. Milwaukee, WI. Sang "Heard It Through the Grapevine." Grieving recently deceased wife. Audition video here. MySpace page here.

13. Michael Castro (Kansas City) 20. Rockwall, TX. Sang "In Love With a Girl." Brother of Season 7 giant Jason Castro. Audition video here.

Redefining Middle Class

Haha! In our euphemistic and self-esteem dominated world, we don't want to hurt people's feelings by leaving them out of the middle class if they want to be in the middle class. So middle class is really an idea and a perception more than an objective category or description based on any set of facts.

Labor union members will also be thrilled to hear that though their numbers shrink year after year and they become increasingly irrelevant, going from 20% of workers in 1983 to 12% of workers in 2008, we now know from the president that the key to a strong middle class is strong labor unions!

Quoted in the LA Times on 30 January 9:17am PST "Obama launches task force on middle class:"

"When I talk about the middle class, I am talking about folks who are currently in the middle class, but also folks who are aspiring to be in the middle class," the president said. "You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor union."

Maybe he feels the labor unions are so important because he is a government worker, where a whopping 42% of employees are unionized, versus the private sector where only 7% belong to unions.

Beyond Campaign Rhetoric

Democrats who are now responsible for the safety of the US (and much of the world!) are finding new virtue in the Bush administration doctrines they have villified.

Charles Krauthammer takes a longer term, strategic perspective at the Iraq War and Bush presidency and finds that the incoming administration has greatly benefitted from its predecessor and is showing respect in practice, even if that respect was lacking in debate.

paraphrased by Obama as "we shouldn't be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric" -- is a startlingly early sign of a newly respectful consideration of the Bush-Cheney legacy.

Not from any change of heart. But from simple reality. The beauty of democratic rotations of power is that when the opposition takes office, cheap criticism and calumny will no longer do. The Democrats now own Iraq. They own the war on al-Qaeda. And they own the panoply of anti-terror measures with which the Bush administration kept us safe these past seven years.

Which is why Obama is consciously creating a gulf between what he now dismissively calls "campaign rhetoric" and the policy choices he must make as president. Accordingly, Newsweek -- Obama acolyte and scourge of everything Bush/Cheney -- has on the eve of the Democratic restoration miraculously discovered the arguments for warrantless wiretaps, enhanced interrogation and detention without trial. Indeed, Newsweek's neck-snapping cover declares, "Why Obama May Soon Find Virtue in Cheney's Vision of Power."

Obama will be loath to throw away the tools that have kept the homeland safe. Just as he will be loath to jeopardize the remarkable turnaround in American fortunes in Iraq.

Obama opposed the war. But the war is all but over. What remains is an Iraq turned from aggressive, hostile power in the heart of the Middle East to an emerging democracy openly allied with the United States. No president would want to be responsible for undoing that success.

In Iraq, Bush rightly took criticism for all that went wrong -- the WMD fiasco, Abu Ghraib, the descent into bloody chaos in 2005-06. Then Bush goes to Baghdad to ratify the ultimate post-surge success of that troubled campaign -- the signing of a strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq -- and ends up dodging two size 10 shoes for his pains.

Absorbing that insult was Bush's final service on Iraq. Whatever venom the war generated is concentrated on Bush himself. By having personalized the responsibility for the awfulness of the war, Bush has done his successor a favor. Obama enters office with a strategic success on his hands -- while Bush leaves the scene taking a shoe for his country.

Catholic theology on justification changing

Charles Colson says in Christianity Today, that the Pope has signaled he believes in justification by faith, as Martin Luther advocated in launching the Reformation. In coming years, this should lead to teaching the doctrine throughout the Roman Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict on November 19 in what was otherwise a routine audience in St. Peter's square, gave a homily on justification and fully embraced the position that Evangelicals and Catholics Together had taken [in the 1997 document, "Gift of Salvation"]. He didn't identify it as such, but that's what he did.
Eleven years after that document was written, the Pope, the head of the church, concluded his homily by saying Luther was right, so long as you don't exclude charity, that is love, and the works that flow from love. Which of course none of us does.

Praise the Lord for this impact of the group "Evangelicals and Catholics Together." It was out of their dialogue that the teaching began spreading among Catholic leaders, including being adopted and passed on by the Pope, who was then an Augustinian Cardinal. Good things often happen when we join others in partnership.

1 billion and counting...

Internet users worldwide have crossed the 1 billion mark, with more in Asia than anywhere else. China has the largest number of users, and elsewhere I read they have the largest number of bloggers!

While the numbers are staggering, it is still a reminder to media-savvy urban dwellers like me and the three other internet users in my household, who take the web for granted and use it for most of our news and increasingly for shopping and entertainment, that 4 out of 5 people in the world still do their communicating the old-fashioned way, like face to face.

Global Internet usage reached over 1 billion unique visitors in the month of December, with 41.3 percent coming from the Asia-Pacific region, according to a report released Friday by comScore.
The study looked at Internet users over the age of 15, who accessed the net from their home or work computers in the month of December.
Europe grabbed the next largest slice, with 28 percent of the global Internet audience, followed by the U.S. with an 18.4 percent slice.
But Latin America, while holding a much smaller piece of 7.4 percent of the global Internet audience, is the one to watch, noted Jamie Gavin, a comScore senior analyst.

Health Care Reform

I am all for making the health care system more efficient. However, there is so much spin in the discussion that it is hard to understand what is being discussed. Now that makes me nervous. Using euphemisms usually means trying to make something unpleasant sound pleasant.

This, for instance, in USA Today, reporting on President Obama making health care reform one of his first early priorities:

"However, the survey also revealed wide divisions in public opinion, with roughly half (49 percent) saying they are not willing to pay more to expand access to health insurance and 47% saying they are."

What does "expand access to health insurance" mean? It sounds like a good idea. Shouldn't people without access to health insurance have access to it?

What I suspect that means is subsidizing health insurance, so that people with money pay for health insurance for people without money. Now that may be a good idea, but why can't we discuss providing health insurance for poor people, or something like that?

My guess is that more people would be in favor of "expanding access" than for paying for health insurance for others, and that the media want to promote the policy, so they come up with more appealing ways to describe it...

Gay Hyperbole

When you equate a vote against legalizing homosexual marrige with the Holocaust, you demonstrate moral blindness.

To use such hyperbole is morally evil, because it reduces real evil in the world (like the brutal extermination of millions of people) to the status of a political position.

What is with these people? And who listens to them?

I see hatred and bigotry demonstrated here, but it is by gay activists toward those who disagree with them. This report in the Orange County Register covers protesters at Rick Warren's church.

Another man was irate at some of the messages on the protesters' signs – specifically a sign held by Mona Gable of Mission Viejo that read "Purpose Driven Bigots" and carried a swastika on the reverse. Paul Huckabone of Mission Viejo was shaking with anger as wary Orange County Sheriff's deputies watched.
"I voted 'no' on Prop 8, but the fact that you all are out here with a swastika – that guy (Warren) has gone to Africa and cured so many people, and you're comparing him to Adolf Hitler," Huckabone shouted.
Gable and her wife, Linda Kish, continued to voice their own outrage, however.
"People outside Orange County don't realize how hateful some members of this church are," Gable said.

Travel Lust

There's hardly anything I love as much as traveling, but I will probably not see any new destinations in 2009.

If I did have the money and time, here are some of the spots I might like to visit...

LA Times Top 29 Destinations for 2009

Apple's Product Cycle

Apple is famously secretive about the development of new products. At this week's Macworld Expo, their Vice President commented on their cycle:

He noted that Apple marches to certain annual product cycles: the holiday season (Novemberish), the educational buying season (late summer), the iPod product cycle (October), the iLife development cycle (usually March), the iPhone cycle (June).

He said that January's Macworld doesn't fit any of their product cycles, so they will be dropping out of the event...

The less religious a person is...

...the more he looks for a political savior.

I certainly have hopes for governments and leaders, but they are mixed with scepticism.

I put my secure hope in God and his kingdom, and his power to transform peoples' lives. And in his promise of a future perfect kingdom, in heaven!

On earth I see myself more as an agent of his kingdom than as a subject of any human government, and that gives me confidence even when the world seems to be falling apart. I am part of changing the world for good, and it is not a political process, it is a character process.

I certainly hope President Obama and other world leaders can solve our problems and make the world a better place, but I am not counting on it nor am I dependent on it. This world is just a temporary residing place, and I am a foreigner here no matter what country I live in.

Charles Colson has some helpful reflections in this article to start off the New Year:

But if we look honestly at what started the credit crisis—moral failures and following false worldviews—we recognize that the solution demands more than any political savior can possibly deliver.

Macs still lead...

Though it is dwarfed by Microsoft in terms of market share, Mac is still way ahead in terms of friendliness, usability, coolness and fun!

I've used Macs since 1987, and they way surpass my experience on my Windows machines (yes, I also have them at home and office, ugh).

After nearly 25 years, the Macintosh and its offspring, such as the iPod and iPhone, are still leading in terms of setting the pace for innovation.

Start the year off right - with God

Want a happier, healthier life in 2009? Researchers say religious people enjoy those benefits and others, as stated in this NY Times article...

His professional interest arose from a desire to understand why religion evolved and why it seems to help so many people. Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.

These results have been ascribed to the rules imposed on believers and to the social support they receive from fellow worshipers, but these external factors didn’t account for all the benefits. In the new paper, the Miami psychologists surveyed the literature to test the proposition that religion gives people internal strength.

“We simply asked if there was good evidence that people who are more religious have more self-control,” Dr. McCullough. “For a long time it wasn’t cool for social scientists to study religion, but some researchers were quietly chugging along for decades. When you add it all up, it turns out there are remarkably consistent findings that religiosity correlates with higher self-control.”

Worst Customer Service Experiences of 2008

1. By a WIDE margin, our worst experience of 2008 was trying to use Singapore's vPost.

GHASTLY!
ATROCIOUS!
HORRENDOUS!

After $130 and about 15 emails and calls to Singapore Post, we finally received 2 of the 5 items we ordered, and never got the others which we had paid for online.

At every step of the way, Singapore Post was argumentative rather than helpful, defending their policies and not trying to help us get our items.

The worst shopping experience of our lifetimes (and we've done a lot of shopping!)


2. Air Asia baggage check

Budget carrier Air Asia has a low baggage and weight limit to go along with their low prices. But when you purchase tickets, they also sell additional baggage allowance.

When we bought family tickets to Thailand, I purchased an additional baggage check for each of us. When we showed up at the airport, the first words the attendant greeted us with were, "You're going to be overweight." Hello to you, too.

It turns out that the additional bags allow you to spread the 15kg among multiple bags, but do not entitle you to extra weight. Come again? Have you ever heard of a more deceptive sale?

When I got upset, the attendant told me that a lot of customers don't understand the policy. But he also said "please don't get upset at me, I'm just doing my job."

Well, not only is this a deceptive practice, but his job is to please the customers and be helpful, not defend his own feelings. He needs to get in a different line of work. And Air Asia needs to change the way they sale extra baggage allowance.


3. GV Cinemas Gift Certificates

I checked online to learn about purchasing gift certificates for GV Cinemas. They gave the information on the vouchers and directed people to purchase them at GV Box Offices.

I went to a box office near me, and was given a form to fill out and told it would take three business days to get my gift certificates.

What?! What kind of screening is necessary to buy a gift certificate? It's not like I am applying for a permit at "Speaker's Corner!" The GV personnel gave me the standard Singapore response, "Those are the rules." I first learned how this works at Delifrance in 2000, when I tried to pay to upgrade my set meal hot tea to an iced tea. I could not do it because, "Rules is rules."

Sheesh!

Real Hate Crimes

After California's Proposition 8 passed in November, an organization called "Californians Against Hate" has been publicly revealing financial contributors for and against the proposition.

The result has been vehement protests against some of the supporters of the proposition, as shown in this LA Times article, and quoted below. (I applaud the writer, an opponent of Prop 8, for denouncing the violence against Prop 8 supporters!)

While homosexual activists like to claim any position against promotion of a homosexual lifestyle is motivated by hate, their response demonstrates a real deep seated negative emotion against anyone who disagrees with them.

I have witnessed this many times in person, and can say that I have rarely seen emotions that rival the hatred of homosexuals towards those who claim their lifestyle is immoral. In fact, the other cases that rival their hatred were also by people promoting a practice that others considered immoral.

Margie Christoffersen didn't make it very far into our conversation before she cracked. Chest heaving, tears streaming, she reached for her husband Wayne's hand and then mine, squeezing as if she'd never let go.

"I've almost had a nervous breakdown. It's been the worst thing that's ever happened to me," she sobbed as curious patrons at a Farmers Market coffee shop looked on, wondering what calamity had visited this poor woman who's an honest 6 feet tall, with hair as blond as the sun.

Well, Christoffersen was a manager at El Coyote, the Beverly Boulevard landmark restaurant that's always had throngs of customers waiting to get inside. Many of them were gay, and Christoffersen, a devout Mormon, donated $100 in support of Proposition 8, the successful November ballot initiative that banned gay marriage.

She never advertised her politics or religion in the restaurant, but last month her donation showed up on lists of "for" and "against" donors. And El Coyote became a target.

A boycott was organized on the Internet, with activists trashing El Coyote on restaurant review sites. Then came throngs of protesters, some of them shouting "shame on you" at customers. The police arrived in riot gear one night to quell the angry mob.

The mob left, but so did the customers.

Sections of the restaurant have been closed, a manager told me Friday during a very quiet lunch hour. Some of the 89 employees, many of them gay, have had their hours cut, and layoffs are looming. And Christoffersen, who has taken a voluntary leave of absence, is wondering whether she'll ever again be able to work at the restaurant, which opened in 1931 (at 1st and La Brea) and is owned by her 92-year-old mother.

"It's been so hard," she said, breaking down again.

Memorable quotes are in the ear of the beholder

How did this guy get appointed as chooser of the year's most memorable quotes? I suspect it is because his taste closely reflects the taste of most journalists. The statements they enjoyed most were slip-ups by conservative politicians like John McCain and Sarah Palin. Similar statements by Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton were deemed unimportant.

When conservatives make dumb statements, liberal journalists believe they reveal something important about the politicians: that their suspicions about the politicians' true colors and character are correct - they really are foolish and evil - while dumb statements by liberal politicians are overlooked as being excusable because they do not reflect the politicians' true intelligence or intentions.

President-elect Barack Obama didn't make the list, not even for his much-criticized remark in which he said some small-town Americans "cling to guns or religion."

"To me it didn't seem like a very remarkable or very foolish quote," said Shapiro, who describes himself as a liberal Democrat.

Lame Air Asia baggage policy

I had a terrible customer service experience yesterday.

I flew Air Asia to Thailand. When I purchased the tickets online, I found that only one checkin bag of 15kg was allowed, but I could purchase additional baggage allowance. So I purchased a second checkin bag allowance.

When I showed up to check in, the first thing the staff greeted me with was, "You are going to be overweight." Hello, glad to see you, too.

I then explained I had purchased a second checkin bag, to which he explained to me that the weight allowance REMAINED THE SAME at 15 kg PER PERSON, that the additional baggage allowed me to SPREAD THE 15KG among multiple bags.

What?!! Have you heard of a more deceptive or stupid policy?

I haven't and I said so. Somewhat loudly. I asked to see the manager. He pointed me in a direction. Guess what, there was a line to see the manager. I went back to the checkin line, and the service person told me, "Please don't be angry with me, I am just doing my job." I apologized for being angry and told him I was not angry at him, I was angry at the policy and the way it was presented. He said "A lot of customers are surprised and angry about it."

Not only is it a bad policy that makes customers like me angry at Air Asia, but the staff who helped me is in the wrong line of work. His job is not to protect his feelings, his job is to serve the customer and make them happy. He should look for different work.

Some thoughts from Seth Godin on the lame excuse "I'm just doing my job..."

Post Election Tantrums

The minority is outraged that they lost the ballot battle on California's Proposition 8, and they want the majority to pay for it. Does this kind of behavior make anyone more sympathetic to their cause? I feel sorry for those being harassed and coerced.

More than a week after the passage of Proposition 8, activists opposed to the ban on gay marriage have shifted their protests to new arenas -- using boycotts to target businesses and individuals who contributed to the winning side.

Some gay rights activists also have gone onto the restaurant website yelp.com, giving bad reviews to eateries linked to the Yes on 8 movement.

"This one star is for their stance on Prop. 8," one poster wrote of El Coyote Mexican Cafe. "Enjoy it. . . . You deserve it."

Hundreds of protesters converged on El Coyote on Beverly Boulevard on Wednesday night, and the picketing got so heated that LAPD officers in riot gear had to be called.

All because Marjorie Christoffersen, a manager there and a daughter of El Coyote's owner, had contributed $100 to the Yes on 8 campaign.

Christoffersen, who is Mormon, met with protesters Wednesday and at one point broke down in tears, said Arnoldo Archila, another El Coyote manager. But the activists were not satisfied with her explanation and continued to post protests about her on the Web.

"She had a chance to make nice and blew it. I was almost feeling a tiny bit of sympathy for her. Not no more!!" wrote one blog poster, who also listed competing Mexican restaurants where diners should go instead of El Coyote.

Finding Talent

A great lesson for spiritual leaders from Tom Peters. Don't see proteges as threats that need to be controlled, see their success as the fruit of your mentoring. Work for it and celebrate it! We should all be talent scouts in one way or another.

In the last week or so, I came across an old Rolling Stone article (28 June 2007) about The Police—the '80s rock band that recently completed a $358-million reunion tour. In the article, drummer Stewart Copeland was singing the praises of Sting, the lead singer who originally broke up the group in 1984 (at the height of their glory) to begin his mega-successful solo career. But, instead of being resentful of the superstar status Sting had achieved on his own, Copeland actually took pride in it because—as he explained—he was the one who discovered Sting back in 1976. "Sting's my guy! I found him. I'm proud of him. When they shouted his name at shows, I was like, 'Yeah, that's my guy.'" Copeland, you see, identified himself as a talent scout, not just as a drummer or a band member. That way Sting's accomplishments became his accomplishments. This struck me as instructive to organizational leaders who, if they choose to, can take pride in their ability to identify—as well as develop and promote—talent.

Developing Customers Requires Understanding Them

This wisdom from Seth Godin:

Every business has customers. In order to grow, you either need to sell more to those customers or find new customers. When thinking about your business, I'd ask:

-How difficult is it to get permission to talk to our existing customers?
-How difficult is it to get them to introduce us to their friends, colleagues and competitors?
-What's the worldview of this audience? Do they trust us? Are they looking for new solutions?
-Will this audience go out of their way to avoid us? Will they try to rip us off as a matter of course?
-How price sensitive are they? Will that change if a truly remarkable or game-changing product or service appears?
-Is there a problem that they know they have? If not, then we have to not only sell the solution, we need to sell the problem too (Jeremy mentioned that to me today--problems are missing from so many new product launches).

The biggest problem marketers make is misjudging their audience. The see the size of the market, but not its true nature: Their accessibility and eagerness. Their worldview and motivation. All too often, we say, "that's Sales' job." And it's true, a superstar salesperson might very well be able to sell to an audience that doesn't want to be sold to.

Marketers are guilty of hoping for too much from a typical salesforce. In my experience, 90% of the salespeople out there are below average (because performance is a curve, not a line). The superstars are hard to find, hard to keep and hard to count on scaling. So that means you must create a product that doesn't require a superstar to sell it. And the only way you're going to sell an ad to a [insert difficult marketplace here] is to create a product/service/story that sells itself.

Rules for excellence...

...by the author of "In Search of Excellence." (Scroll to the bottom to see his list.)

While everyone is trumpeting internationalization, almost all excellence is demonstrated locally!

Rules for Success...

...in a gloomy economic environment. Back to basics!

What makes a good marketer

Article by Seth Godin on what to look for in hiring a marketer. Relentlessly positive!

Videos of Set and Tom

Two of my favorite thinkers/writers, with clear, insightful, provocative perspectives...

Fear and Opposition

Insightful quote from Seth Godin:

It's easy to be against something

...that you're afraid of.

And it's easy to be afraid of something that you don't understand.

What will be solved?

The questions in the bailout discussion are simple, but when politicians are providing the answers...God help us.

Their best shot at success depends on keeping the debate tightly focused on the questions that matter most. There are really only two: What steps are most likely to solve the immediate crisis? And how can the long-term cost to taxpayers be minimized?

Everything else — reducing executive pay on Wall Street, changing the bankruptcy laws, somehow slowing the descent of home prices — is either a detail or a distraction.

Iraq War Restated

Here is a great summation from Thomas Friedman of the NYT of what was at stake in the Iraq war and where to go from here:

Many Americans and me are relieved by the way you, the Iraqi people and Army have pulled back from your own brink of self-destruction. I originally launched this war in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. I was wrong. But it quickly became apparent that Al Qaeda and its allies in Iraq were determined to make America fail in any attempt to build a decent Iraq and tilt the Middle East toward a more democratic track, no matter how many Iraqis had to be killed in the process. This was not the war we came for, but it was the one we found.

Al Qaeda understood that if it could defeat America in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, that it would resonate throughout the region and put Al Qaeda and its allies in the ascendant. Conversely, we understood that if we could defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, in collaboration with other Arabs and Muslims, that it would resonate throughout the region and pay dividends. Something very big was at stake here. We have gone a long way toward winning that war.

At the same time, I also came to realize that in helping Iraqis organize elections, we were facilitating the first ever attempt by the people of a modern Arab state to write their own social contract — rather than have one imposed on them by kings, dictators or colonial powers. If Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds can forge your own social contract, then some form of a consensual government is possible in the Arab world. If you can’t, it is kings and dictators forever — with all the pathologies that come with that. Something very big is at stake there, too.

It’s not the stakes that have changed. It is the fact that you are now going to have to step up and finish this job. You have presumed an endless American safety net to permit you to endlessly bargain and dicker over who gets what. I’ve been way, way too patient with you. That is over. We bought you time with the surge to reach a formal political settlement and you better use it fast, because it is a rapidly diminishing asset.

You Shiites have got to bring the Sunni tribes and Awakening groups, who fought the war against Al Qaeda of Iraq, into the government and Army. You Kurds have got to find a solution for Kirkuk and accept greater integration into the Iraqi state system, while maintaining your autonomy. You Sunnis in government have got to agree to elections so the newly emergent Sunni tribal and Awakening groups are able to run for office and become “institutionalized” into the Iraqi system.

So pass your election and oil laws, spend some of your oil profits to get Iraqi refugees resettled and institutionalize the recent security gains while you still have a substantial U.S. presence. Read my lips: It will not be there indefinitely — even if McCain wins.

Our ambassador, Ryan Crocker, has told me your problem: Iraqi Shiites are still afraid of the past, Iraqi Sunnis are still afraid of the future and Iraqi Kurds are still afraid of both.

New Evangelical Identity in the US

Interesting in-depth article in the NYT examining a generational shift in the American evangelical movement.

a younger generation of evangelical pastors — including the widely emulated preachers Rick Warren and Bill Hybels — are pushing the movement and its theology in new directions. There are many related ways to characterize the split: a push to better this world as well as save eternal souls; a focus on the spiritual growth that follows conversion rather than the yes-or-no moment of salvation; a renewed attention to Jesus’ teachings about social justice as well as about personal or sexual morality. However conceived, though, the result is a new interest in public policies that address problems of peace, health and poverty — problems, unlike abortion and same-sex marriage, where left and right compete to present the best answers.

Keys to a Life Well Lived

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan reflects on the heavy coverage of newsman Tim Russert's death, and tells it says something about values in America:

The beautiful thing about the coverage was that it offered extremely important information to those age 15 or 25 or 30 who may not have been told how to operate in the world beyond "Go succeed." I'm not sure we tell the young as much as we ought, as clearly as we ought, what it is the world admires, and what it is they want to emulate.

In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn't. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn't, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better. That's what it really admires. That's what we talk about in eulogies, because that's what's important. We don't say, "The thing about Joe was he was rich." We say, if we can, "The thing about Joe was he took care of people."

The young are told, "Be true to yourself." But so many of them have no idea, really, what that means. If they don't know who they are, what are they being true to? They're told, "The key is to hold firm to your ideals." But what if no one bothered, really, to teach them ideals?

After Tim's death, the entire television media for four days told you the keys to a life well lived, the things you actually need to live life well, and without which it won't be good. Among them: taking care of those you love and letting them know they're loved, which involves self-sacrifice; holding firm to God, to your religious faith, no matter how high you rise or low you fall. This involves guts, and self-discipline, and active attention to developing and refining a conscience to whose promptings you can respond. Honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work, which takes hard effort, and a willingness to master the ethics of your field. And enjoying life. This can be hard in America, where sometimes people are rather grim in their determination to get and to have. "Enjoy life, it's ungrateful not to," said Ronald Reagan.

Tim had these virtues. They were great to see. By defining them and celebrating them the past few days, the media encouraged them. This was a public service, and also what you might call Tim's parting gift.

Tom Peters on Excellence

Tom Peters has been one of my favorite authors for two decades. He burst into prominence among business writers with his book (co-authored by Robert Waterman) In Search of Excellence.

Here is his three minute encouragement to practice excellence:


Excellence Always from Tom Peters on Vimeo.

Remember When the Olympics Were About Sports?

This article will start getting you excited about the competition in Beijing in August, as the LA Times gives a primer on American contenders

On Persuasion

Do you want to change how people view the world? Do you have a message that would revolutionize peoples' lives?

Recognize that your message will be greeted differently based on people's personalities and viewpoints. It takes all kinds of approaches to persuade all kinds of people. Seth Godin gives a few examples:

Do I show you a powerpoint filled with bullets?
Or give you a spirited sales pitch while looking you in the eye...

Perhaps I should send a very attractive salesperson.

Do I amplify my word of mouth and be sure you hear about my idea from three people you trust?
Do I minimize fear or maximize gain?

Are you best persuaded in a group, surrounded by your boss or your employees or your family or people you trust? Will it matter if those around you give me a standing ovation?

Can I persuade you over time, drip, drip, drip, or do you respond better if you feel an avalanche is coming?

Will you change your mind if I'm funny? Or if I scare you to pieces?

Perhaps there's no way you'll be persuaded. Perhaps nothing I can say will make a difference. However, you've told yourself that before and been wrong...

Will you buy if you get a discount? What if the price is high and going up tomorrow?

Do you want to be the first person to embrace an idea (or the last)?

Here's the thing: unlike every other species, human beings make decisions differently from one another. And the thing that persuades you is unlikely to be the thing that persuades the next guy. Our personal outlook is a lousy indicator of what works for anyone else.

Remembering Larry Norman

Soon after I became a Christian in 1974, my high school classmate loaned me the album "Only Visiting This Planet." At first, I couldn't stand it. But the message and style grew on me. When we saw Larry Norman in concert later that year at a neighboring High School, I turned into a rabid fan because of his deadpan humor. He was a revolutionary.

Christian music legend Larry Norman died Sunday of heart failure, according to his brother Charles Norman. He was 60.
Norman, a blonde, long-haired rocker who is often called the father of Christian rock music, was a giant in the Christian music industry, said Chris Willman, senior music writer for Entertainment Weekly.
"His influence outweighed his sales so much that it's comical," Willman said. "He certainly had a heart for evangelism — almost to his detriment, I might say. He really could've been a star if he were singing about something other than Jesus."
Norman's 1972 Only Visiting This Planet album is regarded as one of the top contemporary Christian music albums of all time. His many hits were at the cutting edge, said Larry Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College.

American Map of Faith

Look at this article for more details about what Americans believe:

A new map of faith in the USA shows a nation constantly shifting amid religious choices, unaware or unconcerned with doctrinal distinctions. Unbelief is on the rise. And immigration is introducing new faces in the pews, new cultural concerns, new forces in the public square.

"It's not that religion won't matter in the future, but that it will matter in new and less predictable ways," says co-author John Green, a political scientist and Pew Forum senior fellow.

Living Like Jesus

Interesting to read this article in light of "Social Base Analysis." There are some Christians who think Jesus should be enough and all of life ought to be ministry, with little attention to our own needs. When they burn out, they feel their failure is because of spiritual immaturity. I was probably like this in college and earlier Christian ministry years. Yet the older I get, the more I recognize my own limitations. Some of those include my emotional, economic, strategic and physical needs. Once those have been met, and they don't need to be extravagantly met, then I have the resources to be able to reach out and help others. We all need to gauge our own needs and how well they are being met, and then also gauge our service for others.

Five friends came together to stretch their faith.

They left comfortable apartments for a communal home within walking distance of a prison, a pawnshop, a derelict trailer park. Exhaust from a sugar beet factory drifted down the streets.

Moving in last January, they pledged to spend one year together, learning to become true followers of Christ. They would give generously, love unconditionally. They would exchange their middle-class ways for humility and simplicity, forgoing Hardee's fries, new CDs, even the basic comfort of privacy.

"The focus has to be on God and the way of life he has set out for us, as opposed to the way we want to live, which is very selfish," Jeromy Emerling said.

A few months into the experiment, at a weekly house meeting, Jake Neufeld framed the vision this way: "Church is not something we attend. It's something we are."

But even lofty rhetoric could not lift the mood that sleety evening in early April. A quarter of their year together had passed, and the friends felt they had failed. They had not met a single neighbor. They had not given any aid. Everyday life seemed to suck up all their energy; it was draining just to figure out whose turn it was to mop the kitchen floor.

"We're trying to live so every dimension of our lives is different," Jeromy said. Then he admitted: "We don't know what that will look like."