China Morality & Economy
In the October 3 Chicago Tribune I read two interesting articles on China.

1. One addressed repercussions of the One-child Policy: Through the services of the so called family planning (euphemism for population control), many Chinese women are forced sterilized & their pregnancies forced aborted by local authorities. These officals are pressured to meet a population quota for their region of governance. There are incidents of couples who have their only child die and because of forced sterilization they could never have a child again. This is the story of millions of lives taken and ruined by this system. Yet it's seen as a necessary and good thing because of the challenges in suppling food, water, clothing, shelter, electricity to a nation of 1.3 billion people. When such women evade authorities, their families are imprisoned and the family businesses shut down to coerce the women to turn themselves in.

Add to this the gender imbalance of men far outnumbering women because of the voluntarily aborted female fetuses after gender idenfication on ultrasound. This speaks of a culture that still values women less than men.

As parents outnumber children 2:1, the generation imbalance become more pronounced. Each member of the future generation has an increasing large elder population to support.

Then there is the Little Emperor/Little Empress phenomenon of only-children spoiled by the parents and grandparents in a period of economic boom as reported by Fortune magazine. They develop a sense of entitlement because they have yet to taste hardship. Entitlement may only be balanced by the family's expectation/pressure to succeed.

2. The other article addressed China's businesses reaching the world: If you didn't already know, Chinese corporations are taking steps to take on the world. They hope to join the ranks of Toyota, Sony, GE, GM, Yahoo in terms of reach and brand reputation. The prime example is the company Lenovo (part of the company Legend Holdings) which purchase IBM's PC division to make it the largest PC seller in China and the third largest PC maker in the world. It has become a marketing member for the 2006 Winter Olympics to get its name out. Lenovo has established a research center in North Carolina's Research Triangle to access new innovations. This reflects the type of rapid expansions occurring with corporate China.

Whereas China loves to tout its economy, it trys to suppress people from reporting human rights violations. Neither do it's own people nor does the world knows the extend of the people's grievances. This new found prosperity has welcomed rapid comercialization and a glut of materialism -- China has already become the 3rd largest car market in the world and is predicted to overcome Japan as 2nd (U.S. is 1st).

Let's go White Sox

Photo by Shaun Best/Reuters
Tonight I watched the Chicago White Sox sweep the Astros to a World Series Championship in a 1-0 game. You may already know it's been a long time coming (88 yrs. since 1917). Woohoo! It's pretty incredible, the Sox somehow pulled it off each game. Not somehow, but by the 25 players who hustle, players playing for the team, level heads, awesome pitchers, clutch hitters, solid fielding, timely coaching. Honestly, I've not been a Sox fan but the humility and work ethic is refreshing. Good for Chitown.

You can hear the fans whooping and cheering in the streets, inciting cars and even semi's to respond with honks; and honks inciting cheers down the streets.

(Now the Cubs need to win next. Come on it's been since 1908!)

Quad Power
The past two years have shown a decent amount of press about AMD & Intel moving to dual-core processors and 64-bit processing for the PC. (Intel's Pentium D has two Pentium 4 CPU's on one chip). Now mind you, IBM has been churning out 64-bit processing chips at least since it started producing G5's for Apple computers and Apple has been making dual processors computers since the G4 chips.

But now Apple kicks it up a notch by creating the Power Mac G5 Quad ($3300) which features two independent dual-core G5's (i.e four processing cores). This is probably the ultimate personal computer out there right now. Couple that with the 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display ($2500) and you have a beauty of a monster that would set you back $5800 and the power to handle files of all those high-end software that Apple makes (Logic, Soundtrack, Motion, Final Cut, Shake, DVD Studio, Aperture), let alone Adobe's Photoshop CS2, Alias's Maya, Propellerhead's Reason, and etc.

Peanuh Bahtah - Not Your 'Silly Rabbit'
I got into a debate about whether peanut butter was a kids-only food. My supervisor thinks it's only for kids (especially when he purposely pronounces it "peanuh bahtah"), but the age bias may be how it is for him or how it is in Japan. Actually it sounds as though he dissuades consumption out of fear of becoming allergic to peanuts. In the U.S., peanut butter is part of growing up for many Americans and, apart from allergies, it is well liked across all ages. Earliest records of the creamed form of peanuts is in Africa or China so it's not an isolated phenomenon.
Apart from bread spread, it is used in ice cream, pies, cakes, cookies, muffins, fudge, candy bars, condiments (celery, crackers); and cultural dishes such as various Thai dishes (like satay), Chinese cold noodle dishes, dim sum, Indian Penang sauce.

Three Fascinating Movies
Rabbit Proof Fence, Whale Rider, The Suitor are three beautiful movies. They are PG/PG-13 movies with strong women dealing with their sense of identity and how it reflects on the identities of their family and culture.

Rabbit Proof Fence is a must watch film for its important history and true story of three aboriginal girls separated from their families. It illustrates the story of the abuse of aboriginals in Australia during the 1930's. I didn't know what to expect from a moved named Rabbit Proof Fence but I was moved.

Whale Rider centers around Paikea, a Maori girl, and the dissolutioned Whangara people of New Zealand. The roles were well casted with Keisha Castle Hughes as Paikea and Rawiri Paratene as Koro (Paikea's grandfather).

The Suitor is about Yolanda Garcia and her return to her childhood home in the Dominican Republic. Accompanying her is Dexter, her Caucasian boyfriend from New York. The focus is not so much on moving a plot as showing the fascinating culture and people of Yolanda's life in Santo Domingo. In that light, I felt the movie ended prematurely.

Ugly t2B
The Scion gone bad. It's even stumpier than the xB. Why the narrow windows? To reduce visibility? To hide the people inside?

Aha! Evidence for my suspicion about Google. Google Morphs Into Multifaceted Juggernaut. Though I don't have anything against Google, it looks like the company wants a hand in all the world's information.. and knowledge is power.

The Internet: U.S.-Owned Global Resource?
Article: European Union wants a share in controlling the Internet. Here's a summary:

Currently the United States governs and controls the Internet's master directories which serve to direct browser & e-mail traffic. The Internet—created by the Pentagon—is run by a private organization in the U.S. via actions veto-able by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Countries late to partake of the Internet now voice their frustration and fear in United Nations talks, frustration that they missed out on their "fair share" of Internet addresses and fear that those in control could abuse their traffic-controlling powers, particulary in acts of political policy-making.

My questions are: Does the U.S. regulate online traffic well? Is the U.S. trustworthy to not abuse such powers? (What constitutes abuse?) Is the Internet an 'international resource' to be shared fairly? Is the best share of the Internet already taken?

In my opinion, the United States has done well as cyberspace police with a moral sense of fair play and nary a sign of abuse. Although, some U.S. citizens fear privacy infringement via the Patriot Act (right?). Though many sites have become proprietary, the Internet is an international resource which has yet to run dry in addresses. This may require creative naming, the likes of which allowed Yahoo, Google, Blogger, Xanga, Wikipedia, among others. Necessity is the mother of invention.