The Rainy Republic of Nevada

This is the second installment of my "Better Know a Chinese Province" series. Up next: Hubei Province. I'm going to call China's Hubei (湖北, meaning "North of the Lake") a smaller, rainy version of Nevada. The capital of Hubei, Wuhan, is famous for its hot summers, with temperatures averaging 99°F in July. The city is known as one of the "Three Furnaces of China." Las Vegas is hotter still, but in addition to the heat, Wuhan gets more rainfall than Boston. Ouch. I've lived in Las Vegas and in Boston, so I can appreciate how awful it would be to combine the worst aspects of their climates into one place. The Hubei-Nevada comparison is also good because The Three Gorges Dam is located in Hubei, and the Hoover Dam sits on the Arizona-Nevada border. If you don't troll Google News like I do, the Three Gorges Dam is the largest electricity generating plant of any kind in the world, producing 20 times more power than the Hoover Dam and far more power than the world's largest nuclear power plant (which is the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Power Plant in Japan).

The Jianghan Plain makes central and eastern Hubei very flat, but the rest of the province is mountainous like Nevada (Bonus: Hubei contains the Wudang Mountains, for which the Wu-Tang Clan is named). Hubei is sub-tropical and very lush. It grows a lot of cotton, rice, wheat, tea, and is known in China as the "Land of Fish and Rice" (鱼米之乡). There is mining activity southwest of Wuhan, which is appropriate given Nevada's history of silver mining. It also has some manufacturing, including automobiles, machinery, power generation equipment, and textiles. Hubei's economy isn't much larger than Nevada's (as measured by GDP) and with 60 million people versus Nevada's 2.6 million, that's pretty incredible. Hubei also has access to the Yangtze River, Asia's largest, which connects Wuhan to Chongqing, Nanjing, and Shanghai.

The Three Gorges Dam was largely completed in 2008. 1.24 million people have been displaced by the dam's construction and as the rising water levels cause landslides, more are likely to be forced out. I'm including the trailer for Up the Yangtze below, which I haven't seen yet, but want to. Nothing funny about this one:

While its actual origin in disputed, the first recorded outbreak of the Black Death, the 14th century bubonic plague that killed between 30% and 60% of all Europeans, occurred in Hubei in 1334. Coincidentally, about the same proportion of frat guys lose all of their money and get Chlamydia in Las Vegas.

Lastly, in 1912, Sun Yat-Sen proclaimed the creation of the Republic of China from Hubei province, ending 2,000 years of imperial rule in China. While Sun believed in democracy, his Kuomintang Party was quickly usurped by Yuan Shikai (who proclaimed himself emperor of China in 1915), and later by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (pictured here). Chiang would eventually get his ass kicked by Mao Zedong's Communists in the Chinese Civil War and be forced to retreat all the way to Taiwan. From here, he set up a rival government to Beijing, and China and Taiwan have technically been at war ever since.

China's Muslim Separatist Alaska

This is my first post in a 33 part series: Better Know a Chinese Province. Where possible, I'll try to compare China's provinces to their American counterparts. That way, we can all learn a little bit more about our future global overlord. First up: Xinjiang, China's Muslim Separatist Alaska. The word Xinjiang, 新疆, is Mandarin for 'new frontier' while Alaska's nickname is 'The last frontier.' Maybe Mars can be 'the frontier of the future.' Xinjiang has been part of China, but frequently independent throughout its modern history. It was the independent East Turkestan Republic from 1933 to 1934 and from 1944 to 1949 (its flag is pictured above, now illegal to fly in China). In 1949, the People's Liberation Army invaded/liberated Xinjiang and proclaimed it part of the People's Republic. The territory became an autonomous republic in 1955, 4 years before Alaska (flag pictured to the right) became a US state.

There are quite a few similarities between Alaska and Xinjiang. Both have enormous energy resources that their respective states want to exploit (China is planning an oil pipeline from western Xinjiang to Shanghai, 2,000 miles away. A bill signed by Sarah Palin in 2008 has cleared the way for a pipeline connecting Alaska's North Shore [which contains ANWR] to the lower 48 states. Newsweek called it the most significant thing she accomplished as governor). They are almost exactly the same size, but the population of Alaska is 690,000 while 21 million live in Xinjiang. Both have separatist movements, but the pacification of Alaska was aided by the natives' complete lack of resistance to European diseases. In the first two generations of Russian exploration, 80% of the native peoples had died. The Han Chinese have had to establish dominance in Xinjiang the old-fashioned way. I'll let the first 23 seconds of this clip from Braveheart explain. Just replace 'Scotland' with 'Xinjiang' and 'Scots' with 'Uyghurs:'

In 1949, the number of Han Chinese in Xinjiang was a mere 300,000. In 1956, Mao Zedong called on China's youth to "open up the west," or what I'll call 'Manifest Destiny with Chinese characteristics.' By 2000, the Han Chinese numbered 7.5 million and made up more than 40% of the population of Xinjiang. At this point, Xinjiang is solidly part of China and Gordon Chang is probably overstating the ability of ethnic violence to destabilize the state. According to the 2000 US Census, Alaska is almost 70% Caucasian, so I encourage China to keep plodding along and eventually the 169 who died in July of this year will be as distant a memory as when Alaska switched from the Julian calender to the Gregorian calender and got two Fridays in a row.

While many Americans know former governor Sarah Palin, few will recognize her Chinese counterpart, Regional Secretary Wang Lequan, 王乐泉, pictured to the right. Wang is the top government official in Xinjiang and has overseen economic development there since 1994. He's built roads and railways and has been developing oil and gas fields in the region. He's replaced the local language with Mandarin in primary schools, forbidden fasting and praying while on the job, and banned wearing scarves or beards in public. He's known as the 'stability secretary' and when the July riots in Urumqi weren't ended quickly, some publicly called for his resignation.

Wang has been a member of the Politburo since 2004. For those of you not down with politics in China, the Politburo is the 25 member body that rules China. Within the Politburo, there is a smaller Standing Committee of 9 people. Current President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are members of both. How these organizations work is something of a mystery, but outsiders carefully watch who makes it into or out of the Politburo to guess which direction China is moving in.

水菜 (Mizuna)

I hadn't heard of mizuna before receiving it this week in our farm share. If you're also unfamiliar with it, picture mild arugula. I used it as a salad green, but you can stir fry with it, add it to meat dishes, or pickle it. The produce guy at the Shaw's in Porter Square had never heard of it, so I don't know what it costs. It probably doesn't matter since the produce guy at a grocery store has never even heard of it. Too bad. It rocks.

Mizuna (or arugula) and roasted beets with ranch dressing. Recommended.

Fun with a Bible

I think it was in Running with Scissors that the characters ask God everyday questions, open the Bible to a random passage, and interpret the passage for their response. I thought it was brilliant. And it looked like fun. When D and I were in Oregon two months ago, I found a Bible in the house we were renting, so I dusted it off and used it for that purpose. This morning I thought I'd do the same thing to figure out what I should do today. The results:

What should I do today?

Sirach 31, 14: "Better a poor man strong and robust, than a rich man with a wasted frame."

What should I eat for breakfast?

Psalm 24, 1: "The earth is the Lord's and all it holds, the world and those who live there."

Should I go shopping downtown or take a walk to the library?

Luke 21, The Coming of the Son of Man: "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves."

Thus spake the Lord. I'm going to use our Elliptical Trainer and do some push-ups, I can eat anything (or anyone) for breakfast as long as I say Grace, and I'll keep my eyes peeled for a sign about the library thing. Last night I threw another sock away because it was full of holes. Maybe that was my sign.

CNBC Sucks at Geography

I caught CNBC's special The New Age of Wal-Mart on Saturday. I think I hate Wal-Mart, but I don't see why a town should resist getting one if it used to have an Ames or a K-Mart.

What most annoyed me is that CNBC's graphics department doesn't know shit about geography. During the show, CNBC showed the following map of Japan when it talked about Wal-Mart's global presence. Maybe it's esoteric, but does anyone else notice something wrong with this map?


The northern most island that's colored yellow isn't Japan. That's Russia.

CNBC: let's clean it up. I'm available as a consultant.

Taxes

I'm trying to figure out my effective tax rate and I'm stuck. On my pay stubs, I can see deductions for Social Security, Federal Taxes, State Taxes, and Medicare. I've been adding all of those together to figure out how much I'm paying to the government, but I shouldn't really include Social Security, right? I mean, if I'm going to eventually get that money back, then it's not a tax exactly, right? Is my actual tax rate Federal Income + State Income + Medicare?

Disqus Addition

The comments on this blog are now powered by Disqus. I discovered this tool about 10 minutes ago on my friend Kevin's site. In addition to letting you post comments, it's an aggregator. If you create a profile on Disqus, you can keep track of all posts you've left on various websites. You can see when people respond to things you've posted and track what your friends have been saying all over the web.

I think it's an improvement. It's also very easy to use. Post a comment and let me know what you think.

Farm Share 13

We got tomatillos again this week in our farm share. D has already made a salad dressing and enchiladas with them, so I think we're out of ideas. We'll troll allrecipes.com and come up with something, but I'm done with these things. Actually, I'm not even sure what they taste like. I've only had them in meals D has prepared. Does anyone else think they look pumpkins for leprechauns?

We received a ton of stuff this week. My arm was tired after carrying it all home. Full disclosure: I don't work out anymore and have weak little girl arms.

Pears -- 1 lb., 1.95 oz.
Baby Bok Choy -- 15.75 oz.
Collard Green -- 12.25 oz.
Arugula -- 9.85 oz.
Carrots -- 1 lb., 8.45 oz.
Green Cabbage -- 2 lbs., 14.05 oz.
Delicata Squash -- 11.65 oz.
Tomatoes -- 1 lb., 2.55 oz.
Onions -- 1 lb., 4.45 oz.
Tomatillos -- 7.2 oz.
Potatoes -- 1 lb., 14.95 oz.

The pears came from Bashista Orchard in Southampton, MA, but everything else came from farms in Whatley, MA. As it gets later in the season, we should see more coming from Florida and the Carolinas. D and I are considering renewing our farm share through the winter. It'll be $700 for the same deal we get now, 10 pounds a week for 6 months. That's $200 more than we paid for our June-November share, but if more is being shipped up the East Coast, then it makes sense. If we abandoned our farm, we would need to buy WAY more produce at the grocery store.

Tonight D is at her Portuguese class, so I'll fry up the bok choy and make some rice. We don't have any meat thawed out, so I hope we have gyoza left. I think even if we paid $200 more for a season, it would be cheaper than shopping at Costco and the grocery store. At least, for what we're consuming. I doubt tater tots are more expensive than arugula and Japanese eggplant.

He Even High Fived Me!

This is the online chat I had with a Bank of America rep:

Adrian: Hello! Thank you for being a valued Bank of America customer! My name is Adrian. How may I assist you with your personal checking and savings accounts today?
You: ahoy
You: i have a quick question
Adrian: Hello! How are you doing today?
You: i'm fantastic,
You: and i'll tell you why
Adrian: Sure! Please go ahead. I will try my best to help you out.
You: the stock market, for the second day in a row, is tanking
You: and i need to fund my fidelity brokerage account STAT
You: so, i just initiated a transfer of funds
You: through my brokerage account
You: from my checking account here at B of A
You: I just want to make sure the transfer won't be rejected on your end
You: como vai?
You: are you soaking up what I'm spilling?
Adrian: I will surely be glad to inquire the transfer for you.
Adrian: May I have your full name please?
You: XXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXX
Adrian: Thank you, XXXXXXXX.
Adrian: May I please have the last four digits of the account number in question?
You: XXXX
Adrian: Thank you, XXXXXXXX.
Adrian: Please allow me a moment while I check the details on your account.
You: Take-a you-a time
Adrian: Thank you for waiting. I'll be with you in just a moment.
You: ok
Adrian: XXXXXXXX, I see the available balance of the account ending in -XXXX is $XX,XXX.XX.
You: right-o
You: the question was,
You: is bank of america going to reject a transfer
You: initiated at Fidelity
You: I assume you guys will see one half of a wire from Fidelity
You: requesting XXXX.XX bucks from my account
You: will you connect points A and B
You: or will you reject it
You: because it's an outside request for funds
Adrian: Please be informed, that you can only transfer funds to Investment account if the account is present under the same Online ID .
You: ?
You: what does that mean?
You: like, my government name?
You: not, say, my rapping name
You: no, i think both accounts
You: are under the same name
You: or are you talking about some other ID?
Adrian: I see both the accounts are not under same Online ID.
You: what is the online ID?
You: my account number?
You: my sign-in name?
You: my actual name?
Adrian: Exactly!!!
Adrian: Online ID is your sign in name.
You: but wait,
You: you mean a wire is going to come over to you
You: saying
You: spongeruiner101 requests funds?
You: and you'll look at that and say
You: oh, we only have a mrcoffee99 (or whatever)
You: that doesn't sound right...
Adrian: Did you initiated a wire transfer?
You: yeah
You: from Fidelity
Adrian: Did you initiated a wire transfer?
Adrian: Okay!!
Adrian: In that case, there wont be any issue to transfer funds.
You: wait
You: how are we not on the same page?
You: you lost me
You: in the maze of this conversation
You: is the wire going to go through, or not?
You: and if it's not,
You: could you please let it?
You: wave it on through
You: green light it
You: that sort of thing
Adrian: Please be rest assured that wire transfer is surely going through.
You: oh, hooray!
You: (holds up hand for high five)
You: high five me!
Adrian: High Five!!!
You: yeah!
Adrian: Is there anything else I may assist you with?
You: i don't think so
You: you have been the most polite and helpful robot I have ever met
You: i await your eventual conquest of the world
You: and look forward to it
Adrian: I am not a robot.
Last text message received
Adrian: am not a robot

Jedediah Smith National Park

D and I left Boston a day later than we had planned. We bought our tickets through Orbitz and apparently Orbitz doesn't let you know when your flight gets canceled. Fun fact. We got a ride to the airport from our friend Lou, lugged our junk up to United's self check-in kiosks, and only then did we find out we'd be staying in Boston another night. Because our plane had mechanical problems, they put us up at the Harborside Hyatt. We didn't want to call Lou and have her come back to the airport to get us, so we decided to stay in the hotel and not go home. We got $15 meal vouchers (and could only order off of the Hyatt's bar menu) and were booked on a flight leaving at 8am the next day. We arrived in Medford, OR 13 hours later than we thought we would, and Daniela's mom picked us up at the airport. We hung around Ashland until Tuesday and then drove south to Jedediah Smith National Park with Daniela's parents, aunt, two brothers, brother's girlfriend, and brother's wife.

The redwoods were awesome. There were nine of us, so we had to rent two campsites. We set up our tents next to each other however, and never used our second site.

Our campsite was sandwiched between the Smith River and the highway. A walking bridge up the river from where we were allowed us to cross over to the Stout grove and Hiouchi trail. The redwoods grow among other trees but they always dominate. The tallest trees grow over 100 meters, but I don't know how tall the trees were that we saw. The park service keeps the identities of the tallest trees a secret so that tourists leave them alone. To put the redwoods in perspective, the tallest building in New England is the John Hancock Tower in Boston, which is 241 meters tall. That's twice the tallest living redwood.

Daniela and I saw a banana slug on the first day. Thankfully, we didn't run into any black bears. On the trail, I kept looking for weapons to use in the event of a bear attack. Like I'm going to kill a bear or stop it from eating my face with a stick or a rock. If you ever see a full black bear with a scratch on its face, know that I was prepared and sort of put up a fight.

Alhamdulillah (Praise to G-d) that I get along so well with Daniela's family. The highlight of the trip was cooking around the fire and talking to everyone. I think I've mentioned it before, but Daniela's brothers are hilarious.

We only stayed overnight and drove up the Oregon coast on Wednesday. We've been in Yachats since then, but we're heading back to Ashland today. I'll update again.

Farm Share number... 8?

I picked up our farm share at Kickass Cupcakes on the 26th. We got three Japanese eggplants, an heirloom tomato, and two cipollini onions for the first time. Cipollini onions are small in size, but they have a great oniony flavor. Japanese eggplants are now the only eggplants that I'll eat. I've had eggplant in a few dishes, but it's not fit for human consumption unless it's passed through a blender. Grilled or baked the consistency is just disgusting. Japanese eggplants are completely different. D tried a bite of one raw and said it reminded her of a flavorless apple. We grilled them with our green pepper, cipollini onions, and zucchini on Thursday. Luke and Anne brought BBC and steaks, so while the veggies from our farm share are good, we got the way better deal. Steaks > Vegetables. Always.

The rest of the stuff we've received quite a few times now. We got arugula, kale, cilantro, garlic (which looked a little nasty this time), 3 peaches, cucumber, zucchini, and beets. The picture to the right is a close-up shot of the kale. The greens that we get are always fresh and look good too. In Greenfield, I was used to seeing slightly nasty produce at Greenfield Farmer's Market. I thought that when you bought organic, etc; it just had to look like that. Nope. Our stuff always looks good. Not as perfect as the stuff you buy at the grocery store, but when you get used to seeing farm share produce, the stuff at the grocery store looks plastic. Not appetizing, just plastic.

Our farm share sources some of its produce. The peaches, for example, come from a farm in Georgia, and not western Massachusetts. It would be ideal if they didn't have to be trucked 2,000 miles, but they're fresh and taste good. Actually, the peaches that we got this week reminded me of the mangoes in India. When you buy a mango at a supermarket, the consistency is likely to be closer to an apple than a peach, right? The meat of the mango won't be stringy and mushy. At least, in my experience, that's how the mangoes are. The mangoes in India (where they're so good that I would murder a cat to have one right now) are more like peaches. Either way, the peaches were great.

We've told our neighbor upstairs to pick up our farm share next week while we're in Oregon. FYI: D and I are taking a plane to Oregon today. I'll update after we land and do something worth posting about.

Anti-Choice and Pro-Life

My aunt and uncle came down to Boston yesterday and we caught A Comedy of Errors on the Common. All three of us were bored by the performance, but we powered through it and never complained. Over-acting and bawdy low-brow humor were served to all. They even worked in a 'turn your head and cough joke.' Delightful. But it was free and none of us had seen the play before.

The highlight of the night was the conversation. I think this is true of my family generally, but the vapid "how's your job?" and "what have you been up to?" questions quickly turn into political debates. I love it. I'd much prefer to talk about health care and China than my job. There's a reason I'm paid to be there, you know? I think people who love to talk about work are suffering from a mild case of Stockholm syndrome. Anyway, before we had even left the house we were arguing about abortion, and my aunt used the term "anti-choice" to describe people who usually call themselves "pro-life." Pro-life is a term, like anti-abortion, that implies those of us who think a woman (and a man) should choose for herself are anti-life or pro-abortion, which is silly, because who is actually either of those things? I think a woman has the right to choose, but I'm not pro-abortion. I don't steal out into the night and try to convince pregnant woman to have abortions. That's stupid, and pro-lifers can't think that's true.

But I think labeling someone "anti-choice" is the same thing. People who think it's unacceptable to have an abortion aren't anti-choice. I mean, come on, they're not fascists. So all the terms that we currently use to label each other are unacceptable. Plus, aren't all of those labels just a form of name-calling? Can't we all do better than that?

Here's my name-calling free argument in support of a woman's right to have an abortion. Life isn't as sacred as everyone thinks. Yes, I like being alive, but we kill a lot of things every day, including human beings, for a multitude of reasons. We put our pets down, we bomb foreign cities, we put criminals to death, we kill people when we drink and drive, and we kill others when we don't do enough to help them. So why are fetuses so special? Let's call it like it is: human life is cheap. And the jury is out on whether a fetus is even human life. If it's human life at conception then I don't see why sperm isn't considered life. Sure, sperm can't become life on its own, but it's impossible without it. We should start arresting people for masturbating.

If abortions are made illegal, then someone needs to come up with a penalty for mothers who have them. You can't only punish a doctor who is willing to perform them. Should we treat mothers like first-degree murderers? Should we charge them with manslaughter? Or should there just be a fine? And I hope everyone is prepared to have more women dying in back-alley abortion clinics, because making abortions illegal isn't going to stop them. It's illegal to shoot a guy in the face, but I'm under the impression that still happens a lot.

I should delete this post and just write a funny one about actually being pro-abortion. It's not like I'm giving you any new information here.

CSA 1 Month Anniversary

Correction to last week's farm share: we didn't receive kale. I thought these big leafy greens were kale. They were not. They were actually dandelion greens. The idea of going back to Greenfield, picking wild dandelions, and making a salad out of them appealed to me. I have these weird fantasies of living off the land and eating things that most people don't realize are edible. Long story short: dandelion greens are awful. They are easily the most bitter vegetable I've ever eaten. They left such an awful taste in my mouth that I ate all of the beets I roasted just to get rid of it. I chased them with beets, drowned them in salad dressing, fried some in olive oil, but nothing made them palatable. In the trash they went. Not recommended.

The beets were pretty good though. This was my first attempt at cooking them. I boiled the beets for 15 minutes or so (greens and all) which made them soft enough to scrape the skins off with a butter knife. Then I sliced them in half and roasted them at 350 degrees with some salt, pepper, and olive oil. The added bonus to eating beets is that it looks like you took a softball to the kidney when you go to the bathroom afterward.

This week we got 4 ears of corn, 3.55 oz. of basil, 7.60 oz. of some variety of lettuce, 13 oz. of zucchini, a pint of raspberries, a pint of blueberries, 9.65 oz. of cherry tomatoes, 1 lb, 6.6 oz. of cucumber, 1 lb., 5.65 oz. of carrots, 10.4 oz. of kale, and 13.35 oz. of chard.

And today at work, I actually Wikipedia'd "securities clearing" to figure out what it is that I do at work. Still not clear. That's sort of a joke.

Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani

Nandan Nilekani, one of the co-founders of India's IT giant Infosys, recently published his first book, Imagining India: The Idea of a Nation Renewed. He has a unique perspective as one of India's captains of industry, but the book isn't about Infosys. It's about India.

I became aware of this book after I saw Mr. Nilekani's presentation at TED back in February (included below). I think his talk from California is a good substitute for the book. He even organized his speech around the same four areas: "ideas that have arrived," "ideas in progress," "ideas in battle," and "ideas to anticipate." Mr. Nilekani is now working for the Indian government to put standardized ID cards in the hands of every Indian by 2012. He addresses the importance of this project in his book, but I'll come back to that.

Now, I've been to India. Any book that is optimistic about India's future and it's progress has to reconcile that with what I saw there. India is wonderful. I would go back anytime, but India is also mired in poverty, its infrastructure is horrible, and as recently as 2002 there was an outbreak of the plague. However, India is not a backward nation. It was a backward nation. When India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947, its leaders looked to the Soviet Union as their model, not the colonizing West. As a result, India was hostile to technology for many years; its leadership thought machines would take jobs away from people. English wasn't taught in school because it was the language of colonialism and oppression. The entrepreneur was seen as a villian in society, like Russia's kulaks or China's wealthy peasants (I think owning just a few acres qualified you as a wealthy peasant in Mao's China). Globalization was seen as neo-colonialism, and India's huge population was seen as a problem to be solved, not an asset. The proof that India was hostile to its large population was Indira Gandhi's policy of forced vasectomies during The Emergency (1975-1977). The Emergency was the backdrop for the climax of Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, which I would recommend reading.

But, as Mr. Nilekani points out, that is the old India. The India of his "ideas that have arrived" has moved past these backward policies. India is no longer hostile to its people, entrepreneurs, English, globalization, or democracy. And when I write that India has moved past these ideas, it shouldn't be understood that with a change in leadership these ideas could quickly come back. Mr. Nilekani makes it perfectly clear that these ideas are dead. No serious candidate for a position in India's leadership would run on a campaign of resisting technology or punishing entrepreneurs anymore. But beyond "ideas that have arrived" there are "ideas in progress." These are some of India's greatest hurdles for its economic growth. Among the issues at hand are India's schools, cities, roads, and single market. I think these are the things that people have in mind when they dismiss India's prospects and its progress. I mean, even America hasn't solved its public school problems. What chance does India have with a fifth of the GDP and four times the population (and a much younger population at that)?

Nilekani's "ideas in battle" are the things that India is currently arguing about, like the state of its universities or labor reforms. The "ideas to anticipate" are modern problems that India hasn't had to face yet. For example, now we understand that burning fossil fuels destroys the environment. If India invests in clean energy now, it can avoid 200 years of pumping carbon into the atmosphere and costly changes later. However, I'm not too optimistic about India's ability to do this. Even India's Environment Minister recently told Hillary Clinton that India won't accept any limits on its carbon emissions. Shouldn't at least that guy pretend to care?

So what do I think? I think India has gotten a bit ahead of itself. Yes, there are reasons to be optimistic and excited. But how many more low hanging fruits are there? Teaching English in the schools, allowing for grass roots initiatives, and being accepting of technology are just changes in attitudes. How about trash collection and indoor plumbing? Is India anywhere closer to tackling those problems for its cities and villages? American attitudes need updating as well, but I think the US is in a better position to maintain a global lead than India is in to threaten it. If the question is "will India be a much better place in 50 years?" I think the answer is "yes." If the question is "will India be able to threaten America's global leadership in 50 years?" I think the answer is "unlikely." I realize this book isn't about India's ability to threaten the United States, but as an American that's what I'm interested in.

So what is Nandan Nilekani working on now? ID cards. Doesn't that seem like a guy making sure the front door is locked on a burning house? Well, not really. It's a very basic step, but until India can create a standardized identification system for its people, solutions to many other problems are harder. For example, land ownership. There are many people in India's slums that own phony titles to the land they live on. Or consider how many of India's poorest people sell their ration cards, and then an unscrupulous few profit from it. If India had national ID cards, social programs could be made much more efficient and non-transferable. However, I still question if this should be a priority for someone as capable as Nandan Nilekani. Isn't any solution that requires ID cards a top-down one? Isn't the way forward for India bottom-up? Indians have been getting small business loans for a long time without these cards. Shouldn't improvements in infrastructure be a higher priority?

Technorati tags: Nandan, Nilekani, India, Book Review, Imagining India

Tamon Mitsuishi is a Fascist

Tamon Mitsuishi, from an interview with Thomas Friedman in The World is Flat:

"[DoCoMo] believes that the mobile phone will become the essential controller of a person's life," added Mitsuishi, oblivious of the double meaning of the English word "control." "For example, in the medical field it will be your authentication system and you can examine your medical records, and to make payments you will have to hold a mobile phone. You will not be able to lead a life without a mobile phone, and it will control things at home too. We believe that we need to expand the range of machines that can be controlled by mobile phone."

You won't be able to lead a life without a mobile phone? That sounds awesome, said no one.

Friedman admits that there are dangers with this proposal, from kids being victimized by sexual predators to employees spending too much time playing mindless phone games. But those are logistical problems. You could easily control how a child accesses the internet from a cellphone, and you could block certain applications at work. No problem. The real problem is that this is going to suck.

I don't own a cell phone now. I don't want to own a cell phone ever. I hate talking on the phone, phones feel clunky and awkward in my pocket, owning a phone is a great way to lose $200 on the T, and I don't want to be that accessible anyway. What about choice? In the future, will the penalties for living your life how you want be prohibitively costly? Here's an innocuous sounding example from The World is Flat that D and I noticed too: Southwest Airlines gives passengers boarding passes in three groups, A, B, and C. Southwest doesn't reserve seats, so it's a first come, first serve basis. If you check in early, you have a good shot at getting in the A boarding group, and a better selection of seats and overhead storage. So, that's fine, I have no problem with that. But since Southwest started doing self check-in, you have the ability to print your boarding passes at home and grab a spot in the A group days before anyone else. However, if you don't have a computer at home, or if you aren't down with the latest fad, you don't have a chance. You will likely have to sit apart from whoever you're traveling with, and in a middle seat. Your flight will suck, and if your seat-mates are anything like me, they'll probably be blasting you with farts the whole time. Enjoy that.

So, now expand that to everything! If you don't have your cell phone/ID when you go to the doctor's office, you'll be charged a $10 paperwork fee. Your phone will be scanned and charged for tons of things, and you won't even know it's happening. Oh, didn't you see the sign that the bathroom costs $1.50? We charge everyone's phone when they walk through the doorway. I bet it will be impossible to fight the charges too. I was told by Verizon that they wouldn't be charging me a $200 cancellation fee when I left for Japan, and after 4 or 5 angry phone calls, they have yet to return my money. I hope they bought a trampoline with my money and were later mangled by it.

I opt out. I want to see America maintain it's technological and economic lead, but not if it means I have to get a cell phone. It's much harder to get them out once you let them in.

Our 3rd CSA Share!

The fresh cilantro and basil we received this week smell amazing. They both came in plastic bags, so I sat in the kitchen and huffed them on Wednesday. Too bad there's no such thing as a basil buzz.


The variety of items was larger this week. We got four ears of corn, 113 g. of basil, 227 g. of arugula, 590 g. of beets, another pint of blueberries, 100 g. of garlic, 322 g. of zucchini, 566 g. of cucumbers, a head of lettuce, 178 g. of cilantro, and 214 g. of kale. D made up a meal list for the week, which I okayed with a grumble. Incidentally, I'm halfway through The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman.

Question: is fresh garlic supposed to be purple on the inside? Are there multiple varieties of garlic, or does garlic just lose its purple color as it sits around, drying out? This is rhetorical since I could just Google an answer.

I was able to fry the baby bok choy from last week just in time for yesterday's new share. I threw out the rest of the arugula from week one, the black bean & corn dip that D made, and I'm about to toss the the last of the cole slaw. I think we're doing a pretty good job of eating what we get, but every week something gets pitched. Sorry, Earth.

Wednesdays are the Best

Wednesdays are quickly becoming my favorite day of the week. Farmshare day! I spend the couple of days before looking at the newsletter that Enterprise Farms sends out, wondering which of the items listed will be in our box that week. Today, I was hoping for garlic, cucumber, corn, and basil. Three out of four ain’t bad! We received:

Blueberries (1 pint)
Sweet Corn (4 stalks)
Baby Bok Choy (2 bunches, 17 oz)
Snap Peas (8.30 oz)
Romaine Lettuce (1 Head, 1 lb., 11.85 oz)
Garlic (1 Bulb, 2.65 oz)
Scallions (1 Bunch, 4.30 oz)
Zucchini (1, 9.7 oz)
Cucumbers (2, 1 lb., 1.55 oz)


Benn has become a master blancher, and before we had even put away our veggies, we were standing in the kitchen eating fresh, vibrantly green snap peas and homemade hummus (thank you, new food processor) that we made over the weekend. Delicious.


The blueberries and snap peas seem to disappear on their own, and on the menu for this week:

• Stir-Fry

• Cucumber, Tomato, Basil, and Feta Salad, served with Romaine

• Pasta with Garlic, Onion, and Zucchini

• Alyssa’s Corn, Black Bean, and Feta Dip, served over Romaine (or just eaten by the handful, as it's that delicious)

When Benn and I first received our share last week, we were both a little surprised at how small the box was. For some reason, we were expecting 10 lbs. of produce to look like a lot more. I don’t think we expected how difficult it would be, and how much of an effort we would need to put in, to eat everything we were given. At the end of the week, after making Zucchini Bread, Red Cabbage Coleslaw, a Roasted Potato and Scallion Frittata, Collard, Snap Peas with Hummus, and eating blueberries with our breakfast, we were left at the end of the week with a head of lettuce and some scallions that we had to get rid of. We don’t like wasting food, and despite having a meal plan, we’ve realized that we need to be even more specific than just listing “salad” next to Thursday night dinner. I’m giving us a pass for our first week, and now that we know what we’re in for, I fully expect that we will eat everything, each week (or share, if we need to!)

One element of the share that we weighed heavily was cost. Our share is $19.23 a week, which adds about $77 to our grocery bill every month. That doesn’t include other ingredients that we need to buy for recipes that we’d like to make (or the food processor that we bought last week, which has already turned out to be a great purchase). We figured that by participating in the farmshare we’d be paying a premium for vegetables, since we’re supporting a smaller, local business, and an organic one at that. Still, being the savvy consumers that we are, we wanted to know the value of our share, if we were to buy the same items at our local grocery store. Last week, we met at the market after work with a list of our items, and walked around writing down per pound prices. We even tracked down a store employee to get the price of blueberries, since they were out. But it was worth it! Our results below list the price per pound at the market, the weight we received, and what that weight would have cost:


Are you as surprised as we were?! Our share last week was worth $30.46 at the grocery store, and that’s with organic pricing for two items only (collard and arugula mix). If we wanted to buy all organic, it would have been even more! Granted, we wouldn’t have bought cabbage or collard if we were at the store choosing our own vegetables, but that’s an important part of this process for us – eating new varieties of vegetables, and learning what kale looks like and how we can cook it. So far, it’s way more fun than I thought it would be – we feel great about what we’re eating, we’re spending more quality time together, and we’re learning, which is always a good thing. I already can’t wait until next Wednesday.

Our First Farm Share!

On Wednesday (07.08.2009) we picked up our first farm share at Kickass Cupcakes in Somerville. I'm not sure what sort of deal Kickass Cupcakes and Enterprise Farm have worked out, but it's very convenient to pick up our produce there. It only puts us 5 minutes out of the way on our walk home.

So, we signed up for a half-share, which is 10 lbs. of produce a week. This week we received:

Blueberries (1 pint)
Arugula Salad Mix (14.45 oz.)
Scallions (6 oz.)
Lettuce (13 oz.)
Snap Peas (8.45 oz.)
Collard (15.30 oz.)
Cabbage (3 lbs., 10.75 oz.)
Zucchini (1 lb., 2.75 oz.)
Potatoes (12.75 oz.)

I assume that it all adds up to 10 lbs. We were able to unpack our box and weigh everything with our food scale. Immediately after which we made a list of what we would cook in the next 7 days. We're both convinced that if we don't make meal lists as soon as we get our share, we'll wind up throwing most of it away at the end of the week. Neither of us had ever cooked collards, so we knew we had to learn a few things too.

The following night our friend Luke stopped by for dinner and we were able to cook up the collard. Now, we had no idea what we were doing, but it still came out pretty well. We washed and chopped up the greens, fried some olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper, and cooked it together for less than 10 minutes. They were pretty al dente, but tasty. I cooked the rest of it yesterday after watching this video on YouTube. I learned a few things right off the bat. First: we never removed the stems. Those were definitely the crunchiest part of the meal. It turns out you're not supposed to eat them. That makes sense. Second: we didn't cook them nearly long enough. I corrected both of these problems yesterday and was much happier with the result. I stopped short of the hour and a half the guy on YouTube was recommending, but long enough to get a much different result.

It's going to take a little while to learn how to cook with new ingredients, but I think we're both very happy with the farm share so far. Oh yeah, and we haven't found any bugs on our food or anything like that. We were prepared for it, since this is all organic, but it wasn't a problem. And everything has been delicious so far. Today I'm going to make pulled chicken and D is going to tackle cole slaw with our giant head of cabbage. She made zucchini bread yesterday and it was awesome.

CSA Update

D and I are going to pick up our first farm share tomorrow! We decided to just sign up and skip the trial run. It's going to cost us $404 to finish out the season. We pick up our share at a bakery about 10 minutes away. They stay open until 7pm so we can grab the shares after work on Wednesdays with no problem.

We're going to take our camera along tomorrow, so expect an update.

Independence Day, 2009

I'm taking Independence Day seriously this year. I thought about what the holiday means, and I think I've found a way to celebrate it more in my life. I'm not about to declare myself a sovereign state (maybe July 4th, 2010?), but I'm finally going to change my consuming habits in order to make a statement. Daniela and I talked about it this morning, and after a trial run, we're going to buy shares in a CSA (Community-Supported Agricultural) farm.

After a few articles online, films, books, and NPR interviews, I'm convinced that food in America is a serious problem. We eat (I'm included in this) foods that lack almost any nutritional value. Like a recent Daily Show interviewee (Robert Kenner) said, 1/3 of Americans born after the year 2000 will have adult-onset diabetes. It's all thanks to the food we eat. It's not just convenient foods either, even tomatoes from the supermarket lack nutritional value (and taste). Everything has been genetically modified to look pretty, keep longer, and be cheaper. So, enter the CSA idea.

Farms that sell CSA shares are usually small and local (the one that D and I are looking at is certified organic and based in Whatley, MA). You pay anywhere between $325 and $800 a season for a portion of what the farm produces. If we were already members, last week we would have received some combination of the following: Lettuce, Napa Cabbage, Kale, Garlic Scapes, Parsley, Salad Turnips, Radishes, Zucchini, Squash, Green Beans, French Fillet Beans, Peppers, Purple Top Turnips, Beets, Sweet Potatoes, Blueberries, Strawberries, and Melon. We're only looking at a half share (10 lbs. a week) which will run us less than $500 (we won't have to pay for the weeks we've missed so far this year) for fresh produce through November. My problem isn't so much the fertilizers or the pesticides (although I am concerned about them) it's about the varieties grown and their nutritional content. The diabetes comment that Robert Kenner made scared the crap out of me (especially if one of us is more susceptible to diabetes), and when is there a better time to stand up and say "I'm not eating this shit anymore" than Independence Day? The organic farm that we're interested in has a stand in Davis Square on Wednesdays, so I'm going to buy 10 lbs. of whatever they happen to have, and see if D and I can eat it before it goes bad. This will require us to find some new recipes and change our eating habits a bit (what exactly is Kale?), but I think it's going to be hella worth it.

Happy Independence Day!

Bing Sucks

I have a problem with Bing. Here's Google's search results for "bennegan"


And how does Bing do?


I'm number 2 (and 3) on Google and Microsoft has never heard of me. Bullocks.

Why GM Matters by William J. Holstein

My friends Conor and Kara recently bought a new car. They told me about it at Daniela's birthday BBQ (the pictures are up on Flickr and I posted about it here). A year ago, before I opened a TD Ameritrade brokerage account, it wouldn't have mattered to me which car they bought. A car was a car and I didn't plan on buying one any time soon. But as an investor, now I'm very interested in how the American car companies are doing. Should I buy some shares of Ford or GM (after it emerges from bankruptcy) and hold them for the long run? Beyond my investments, should I care if GM makes it or not? Wouldn't we be better off if Toyota made all of our cars and they got 38 miles per gallon, like Tom Friedman wants? To make a long introduction short: Conor and Kara bought a Honda. But as everyone knows, that's GM's damn fault.

Published earlier this year, Bill Holstein's book about GM and the auto industry is timely. It was finished around the time that the CEOs of the Big Three went to Washington on private planes to ask for a bailout. I was hoping for a book that was 50% GM biography and 50% argument for a domestic auto industry. The book he wrote is 95% biography and 5% argument for an American industry. He didn't put a lot of thought into the argument part of the book either. Why should we keep GM around? Because the auto companies have done a lot of great things for our country (see the Ford and Alfred P. Sloan Foundations), GM's factories helped us win World War II, there are a ton of jobs at stake, and we as a nation benefit from the skills we develop in running an auto industry. That's all Bill Holstein mentioned, to be the best of my memory. SO weak.

This book is an argument in favor of GM. So why would Mr. Holstein cite the Ford Foundation as a charitable organization? And if the only charitable organization coming out of GM in the past 100 years is the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, I'd say GM is doing the bare minimum to get by. Plus, it's the Sloan foundation, not the GM foundation. Alfred Sloan could have made his money elsewhere and still been as charitable as he was. Plus, it seems that Mr. Holstein is forgetting that we have more than one auto company. He made it sound like the failure of GM means the failure of our whole auto industry. Things would get pretty bad for the industry if GM failed, but in 50 years, who's to say Ford, Chrysler, Tesla Motors and a host of new auto companies wouldn't fill the void? Creative destruction. That concept is absent from this book. Lastly, how do we compare all of the benefits from running GM against the pollution generated by its inefficiency? Is the Alfred P. Sloan foundation and all the rest of it more valuable than an extra 10 miles per gallon on every car? When we have 500 million refugees in Asia in the next 50 years thanks to rising sea levels and a lack of potable water, are we going to be talking about how great the Sloan Foundation was, or how it was a shame we didn't pollute less in the past 200 years?

All of that aside, GM has been doing a great job catching up to its foreign competition, despite what you hear in the media. Toyota brought its first car, the "Toyopet," into the US in 1967 (pictured here). It was laughed right back to Japan. They tried again in 1969 and in just two years had dramatically improved upon their shortcomings. By the 1980s, Toyota had caught right up to Detroit in terms of quality. What spelled trouble for Detroit was what GM discovered when it created a co-venture with Toyota, called the NUMMI, in 1984. That was GM's first look at how Toyota produced its cars. It was also Toyota's first factory in the US. What GM discovered was that Toyota could make a comparable car to what GM was producing in half the time. Since that moment, GM, Ford, and Chrysler have been playing catch up.

GM has, as of the book's publication, cut its deficit to 5%. Now GM charges (I can't remember the exact figure) an extra $400 per car due to its inefficiencies vis-a-vis Toyota. That 5% figure however, is what you get by comparing GM's American factories to Toyota's American factories. Apparently, the factories that Toyota runs in Japan are far, far more efficient (thanks to all the robots?). But GM has some tricks up its sleeve. Most people who work at GM think they have a design edge. American cars, when designed right, are better than Toyota's. That comes from our automotive culture, among other things. The 2010 Camaro (pictured here) was described by its designer, Sang Yup Lee, as "a fist in the wind." I don't know about that, but it does look bad-ass. GM has 11 design centers in 8 countries (including Russelsheim, Germany; Warren, Michigan; Bupyung, South Korea; etc.,) and has them compete against each other to come up with the best models. GM considers this an advantage (Toyota, I just found out, does the same thing). GM considers its diversity (while still overwhelmingly 50-something white guys) an advantage. Toyota's upper-level executives are all Japanese. They had an American head up their US operations (he was even the first non-Japanese to sit on Toyota's board) but he left when he felt there was a glass ceiling for non-Japanese there. Lastly, GM has found strength in recent innovation. Everyone knows about the Volt (the first all-electric production car), but OnStar is just as important.

Ummmm... there was a lot in the book that I'm leaving out. I guess I'll wrap it up anyway. This is longer than I had envisioned. Hope it gets the traffic that my World War IV post still gets.

The Egan Fund

I just set up another blog. I'm going to dump my portfolio updates and posts about investing in there. I'll keep this blog for personal stuff and book reviews.

I added a link to the new blog in my sidebar. In the Friends (now "Friends & Other Projects") section.

Portfolio Update 06.19.2009

I took a hit along with the rest of the market this week. The Dow Jones fell 2.13% on Monday, 1.25% on Tuesday, 0.09% on Wednesday and 0.19% on Friday. It was up slightly on Thursday, but the week ended 260 points lower than it opened. That might not seem like a lot, but it is. I hemorrhaged money until Thursday. I rebounded a bit, even making money on Friday while the market was down.

I dramatically changed my portfolio on Wednesday. I think it was emotional buying (I lost $235.19, $45.32, and $217.92 in the first three days of the week), but I got rid of everything but my AgFeed and Bank of America. I was down quite a bit on my MGM Mirage, but everything else was either slightly higher or lower than when I bought it. I think I made money overall, but I consider it a wash (even after trading fees). AgFeed fell more than I ever imagined it could, so after freeing up $2400 in cash, I moved another $900 into AgFeed at the depressed price. My average cost is now $4.98 a share and it closed at $6.24 on Friday.

This bull market might be retreating, so I'm keeping $1,500 in cash right now. I'm going to wait and see what the market does.

[[[Holdings: 20 BAC; 315 FEED]]]

Portfolio Update 06.12.2009

The major American indeces were flat for the week (06.08-06.12) and so was I. The Dow Jones just turned positive for the year which the personalities on CNBC were excited about. Big deal. Mumbai and Shanghai are up more than 50% over the same period, and Hong Kong is up 31% since January 1st.

Over the same period that the Dow Jones managed to break even, I'm up 45.6%. Eat it.

[[[Holdings: 15 X; 25 BWP; 20 BAC; 35 MGM; 28 DPS; 400 EVC; 1150 LBIX; 165 FEED]]]

Portfolio Update 06.05.2009

I'm up almost 33% since October 1, 2008.


AgFeed was a great idea. I'm up 66% since I bought it on the 12th. Pork prices have bottomed in China, so even if these shares hit a rough patch, I think they have farther to go.

I'm going to sell my shares of Dr. Pepper when they approach $24. That was Goldman Sachs' price target when I bought them.

I told Daniela that I was going to move a bunch of money into Entravision (EVC) when we see Chrysler and GM ads on TV again. Advertising from auto companies makes up 20% of EVC's ad dollars. So when both of those firms begin spending on advertising again, I'm going to reshuffle my portfolio.

My First Week: A Play

--- Characters ---
Benn -- a new hire
Jane -- a senior employee who has the regrettable job of training the new guy


Scene I: A cubicle in Boston


Benn: "Hey, Jane, do you have a minute?"

Jane: "Sure, what's up?"

Benn: "Well, I have this activity in the B of A account that I don't understand"

Jane: "OK, well let's walk over to your desk and you can show me"


The dashing new hire leads Jane to his desk. He mistakes a co-worker's cubicle for his own, but eventually gets the right one.


Benn: "See this 1,500 bucks? I can't match this with anything"

Jane: "OK, what's the account number?"

Benn: "..."

Jane: "This first number is the account number"

Benn: "Oh, right, right, right, right. The account number is 001 002 003"

Jane: "OK, so let's look it up in FBSI"

Benn: "Ummm... I don't see anything on my desktop that says fibbsy"

Jane: "Log in to the mainframe"

Benn: "Oh yeah, I knew that. OK. I'm logged in.... now I push...."

Jane: "2 for FBSI. Do you see how it says FBSI right here?"

Benn: "Oh, right, right, right. Of course. FBSI. Right there. 2."

Jane: "..."

Benn: "..."

Jane: "..."

Benn: "...ummmm"

Jane: "OK, so type 'bhis' right here and the account number right here."

Benn: "How do I know the account number?"

Jane: "Because we just looked it up. Did you write it down?"

Benn: "No"

Jane: "OK, so let's go back to Recon and find the entry again."

Benn: "What's a recon?"

Portfolio Update 05.31.2009

I took a little spill along with the rest of the market on the 13th. I've since rebounded. I bought 165 shares of AgFeed on the 12th for about $4.50 a share. On the previous day, I bought 25 shares of Boardwalk Pipeline Partners and on the day before that, I sold all of my Freddie Mac holdings at a significant loss. I'm up 18.67% since October 1st.

AgFeed Industries, Inc.

My largest holding right now is of Agfeed Industries (NASDAQ: FEED). It's an American firm and the largest independent producer of hogs in China. I'm tempted to liquidate everything I hold and just load up on it. The last time I had this crazy urge, MGM Mirage was my target, and it was trading under $3 a share. It hit a peak of $13 a month and a half later. Needless to say, I never put all of my money in MGM. I probably won't put more money in Agfeed either. I don't have the stones for that much risk. But I acknowledge that if I ever want to get rich investing on my own, moves like this will be necessary.

So, Agfeed has two market segments. They produce premix feed for pigs (farmers combine premix and different sources of protein to feed their pigs with) and sell it in independently-owned chain stores (pictured below) and directly to larger commercial farmers. As of December 31, 2008 they had 1,000 chain stores (which sell to small, backyard operations) and 660 commercial farm customers.


The feed business has been good (prices are currently high), but they've recently expanded into hog farming. AgFeed wants to raise 2,000,000 pigs in 2010, and they are now the largest producer (with less than 0.3% market share!) in a country that consumes 600,000,000 pigs a year. So, the market in China is very, very fragmented. I think China is going to move toward larger, consolidated producers like those that exist in the West. One reason is that larger farms are more efficient and in order to feed a rising China, increasing output will be essential. Another reason is that with the passage of China's new Food Safety Law (it comes into effect June 1, 2009) unsafe backyard operations could be shut down (assuming Chinese authorities don't use the law to drive foreign firms like AgFeed out of business). China's recent food scares (melamine in baby formula, etc;) have caused consumers to trust backyard production less. Just like in the West now, Chinese consumers will need brand names they can trust. As AgFeed is already a large producer with brand names, it seems like they're poised to do quite well.

AgFeed's financial statements look good too, but don't take my word for it. Here is their 2008 annual report.

China will demand more meat as it becomes wealthier (pork makes up 65% of the meat consumed), so even in a market 6x larger than in the US, it can only go up from here. Hog prices have appeared to bottom recently, which is also great for AgFeed. Growth is what makes me want to get on board though. And the fact that AgFeed is trading at $6, from a high of $19, and its revenue growth is monstrous.

Innovation Nation by John Kao

Full disclosure: I didn't get past page 110. The second half of the book might be brilliant. Someone else can find out.

The book's full title says it all: Innovation Nation: How America is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back. If you already think America's best days are behind it and it's going to get eaten alive by Finland (#1 in global competitiveness according to the World Economic Forum in 2005), then you're going to love this book. If you read that expanded title and say, "OK, prove it to me" then you're going to hate this book. I'm in the latter camp.

What Thomas Friedman did for globalization, John Kao is trying to do for innovation. And I detect much of Mr. Friedman's writing in this book. Subheadings for the chapter "The New Geography of Innovation" include "Silicon Valley is now everywhere," "Talent is now everywhere," "Capital is now everywhere," and the verbose "Government investment in military and aerospace is now everywhere." Kao even calls the current period of innovation "Version 4.0" to distinguish it from earlier ones. And like all of Mr. Friedman's books, this one is heavy on anecdotes and statistics, but light on structure and predictive models (it also cherry picks history).

In addition to graduating from Harvard, teaching at MIT, and starting several companies, John Kao is "a leading expert on innovation" according to the book jacket. The leading expert on innovation defines his own specialization as "the ability of individuals, companies, and entire nations to continuously create their desired future." I guess having terminal cancer isn't very "innovative." He also says that innovation isn't all about science and technology. Grameen Bank, Southwest Airlines, American Apparel, the index fund, and W Hotels are all examples of innovation. Now, here's where I began to have a problem. Kao demands that we be exact when talking about innovation, because innovation is not a vague concept like love, but something that we can measure and actively promote. So, how then? How do we measure innovation? He dangles the idea of measuring innovation in front of the reader, offers some suggestions (the number of PhDs or patents), but then disappears into his next thought. He asks us to take innovation as seriously as accounting, but even a "leading expert" has no real idea of what that means.

So, if America is losing its innovative edge, who does Kao want to get gay with? Singa-bore, Finland, Denmark, Ireland, and a few other places. Why does he want to get gay with those countries? Because Singapore just built a giant mall and it successfully got the Culinary Institute of America to open a school there. The mall I'm referring to is One North. It's an international research and development center created by Singapore to mimic the successes of Silicon Valley. Many of the world's leading tech companies, venture capitalists, and universities are opening branches there to take part in this collaborative, scientific community. Kao says that many parts of the world are engaging in these efforts, and without similar initiatives here, we're going to fall behind the rest of the world in cultivating innovation (and with innovation, economic and scientific success).

I want to shout 'bullshit' from a mountaintop. Singapore is luring venture capitalists, biotech firms, and universities to the same location with the goal of creating Silicon Valley. Why does that sound so familiar... oh yeah, the Arabs just tried that. If I remember correctly, a certain city in the UAE was supposed to rival London and New York as a global financial hub. The Emiraties were awash in oil money and made such brilliant moves as building the world's tallest building in the middle of the desert. For anyone who missed it by the way, Dubai is dead. Don't expect it to bounce back when the world comes out of this recession. Add Dubai to the ranks of Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and anywhere else that blew all of its capital on poor investment decisions. A fool and his money, as they say. Singapore wants to lure all of the world's finest? If that's possible, I don't think its accomplished with a green campus and access to banks alone. The pharaohs built the pyramids, not the other way around.

Innovation is very important. I'm not saying that it isn't. I'm saying that this book is crap. Government support, a good school system, and all the rest of it are essential, but I think John Kao isn't thinking hard enough about this. As part of his argument, America became mighty by introducing the GI Bill after World War II, allowing a whole generation of Americans to go to college. OK. But we were able to defeat the Germans AND the Japanese without a GI Bill. America's innovation and success didn't begin when John Kao needs it to. It began way before then, when America wasn't doing many of the things that he claims are now essential. I think Mr. Kao needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new theory on innovation. But, if in 10 years the best universities are located in Singapore, Finland, and Denmark, I'll take it all back.

Technorati tags: John, Kao, Innovation, Nation, Singapore, Dubai