December 2006

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: David Ramsey Map Collection (Saturday, 12/30/06)
A national poll some years ago found that 7 or 8 percent of American adults weren't able to locate the United States on a world map. No wonder there has been such widespread concern about Iraq: some Americans may think that it's located just outside New York City.

At any rate, until only quite recently, most of humanity knew very little about the Earth or where things on it are located. For instance, the European "discovery" of the Americas when it occurred probably depended on the widely circulated error. Columbus and the people who financed his explorations believed that Earth, while round, was much smaller than it really is. This is why Columbus thought he had arrived in Asia, rather than the Americas, a region that was totally unknown to Europeans of the time.

Similarly, Lewis and Clark were sent out by President Jefferson to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase, a vast portion of North America unknown by most Americans at a time when Ohio was regarded as the "far west." Lewis and Clark's maps ran out about where Mandan, North Dakota is located today. From there on, they really didn't have a clue as to what they would find as they continued west.

If you would like to see how Earth was perceived by previous members of the species, it isn't necessary to go back too many generations in order to find some very limited and inaccurate beliefs. The David Ramsey Map Collection is extensive, and certainly worth a look, even though it concentrates on maps of the Americas from the 18th and 19th centuries.

China's economy is expected to maintain its head of steam during the new year (Tuesday, 12/26/06)
China's economy has been the fastest-growing in the world for several years, and it doesn't appear that 2007 will be an exception. Also, Joe McDonald implies from Beijing that Chinese government authorities seem to realize that their country has a desperate need for a more highly-developed legal system. Don't expect a constitutional democracy anytime soon, but the Chinese parliament has moved to bring property and tax law into greater alignment with that in highly developed industrial countries.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: China Leadership Monitor (Sunday, 12/24/06)
Who's in charge in the world's most populous country with the world's fastest-growing economy? It's probably important for the rest of the world to know.

Despite the name of its ruling party, China certainly isn't a communist country anymore in any sense that would be recognized by Marx or Mao. The ideas of "equality" or cradle-to-grave security are becoming only a distant memory for the great masses of the Chinese people in the near-laissez-fair economy that has boosted China's international influence while greatly exacerbated its own have vs. have-not gap.

Nonetheless, China is still autocratic politically, to the extent that it's still under centralized political control; but, there is growing reason to believe that some regions are becoming more politically autonomous because of their enormous economic success. It's certainly not a democracy, and most of China's multitudes have never participated in an election. Whether greater economic freedom eventually will result in greater political freedom under a highly-developed legal system remains to be seen.

In the meantime, you can try to keep track of political and economic leadership developments in China by staying in touch with the Hoover Institution's China Leadership Monitor.

What to do after a ton of money has fallen on you (Saturday, 12/23/06)
Damon Darlin reports that experts advise cooling it for six months or so after coming into a lot of money, whether it be by inheritance, lottery winnings, or some other means.

Incidentally, people who have been dumb about money all their lives aren't likely suddenly to become smart about it simply by virtue of having a lot dumped on them. Suddenly going from wondering how to meet the car payment to having millions, say, can be disorienting. Big-time lottery winners should never need any more money, but some have managed to make themselves poor again, proving that it certainly is possible to do so.

Also, experts suggest that you sign your lottery tickets immediately after buying them, just in case. It shouldn't be necessary to put your signature on all of your possessions in order to claim ownership--your shoes are YOUR shoes, for example, even if you don't have your name on them. However, if you misplace a winning lottery ticket, you may have to go to court to prove that it is yours, and that won't necessarily be a sure thing.

Here's a New Year's resolution for you (Thursday, 12/21/06)
Americans long have had an international reputation as being among the world's big spenders and borrowers and worst savers. In fact, it appears that many people in the U. S. have been spending even more and saving even less, all the while going ever more deeply into debt. Eileen Alt Powell suggests that 2007 would be a good year to begin turning all that around.

Incidentally, why are so many Americans so acquisitive? Why do they WANT so much "stuff," even when they have to borrow the money to pay for it and even when it does little more than complicate their lives? Do some believe that they somehow add value to themselves by spending more?

Your CEO is HOW old? (Thursday, 12/21/06)
Marc Hogan writes in BusinessWeek about the 100 or so CEOs of publicly traded companies in the U. S. who are 40 or younger.

Incidentally, this isn't an altogether new thing. People in their 30s or even 20s have been performing brilliantly for a long time in a whole variety of fields, including business. For instance, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs started changing the world when still in their teens. If you think it's remarkable that both finally turned 50 last year, that also was the year in which Michael Dell, founder and CEO of the world's largest manufacturer of personal computers, finally turned 40. In fact, most of America's "founding fathers" were pretty young themselves when they embarked on their great democratic experiment during the 18th century.

Popular images of successful or influential people tend to be shaped by paintings or photographs that were produced when the famous were already famous. For instance, when you think of Albert Einstein, do you usually think of him as an old man with frizzy white hair? It's useful to remember that he did most of the work that made him famous when he was in his mid-20s.

Also, Einstein may have helped to create or reinforce popular stereotypes of scientists when he moved to the U.S. from Europe and deliberately acted like an eccentric little old "fuddy-duddy" in order to soften his public image. That really wasn't Einstein. For instance, many of his old colleagues and scholars have known for years that he was a womanizer, and new information suggests that he had as many as ten girl friends at one time. TV's David Letterman recently acted impressed on his program, saying, "My gosh--that would mean that he had ten telephone numbers and ten birthdays to keep straight. Why, he would have had to be a genius..."

Most workers don't shop online at work (Wednesday, 12/20/06)
A new survey conducted by the Robert Half organization finds that the majority of people questioned have indicated that they don't spend their employer's time and use their employer's Internet connection to shop online during the holiday period.

On the other hand, researchers in psychology long have understood that it's important to measure the effects of social desirability response set in surveys. That is, even most ax murders are likely to say that they're not ax murders if asked.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: International Council of African Museums (Wednesday, 12/20/06)
As the old saying goes, "the victors write the history." However, so do the colonialists. As a consequence, Westerners tend to have a very distorted view of African history and cultures, as Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and others have pointed out. The International Council of African Museums can help you get into better touch with African realities.

The jittery boomer can afford to chill, he says (Tuesday, 12/19/06)
"Jonathan Pond" sounds like something that retirees might go fishing in, but it's really the name of a well-known PBS financial adviser. He has a new book in which he advises boomers nervous about whether they will be able to finance their retirement years without living in a box under a bridge. You can read You Can Do It! The Boomer's Guide to a Great Retirement, or you can start by reading the USA Today article by Ron Schoolmeester.

Meanwhile, Stephen Barr discusses some of the data pulled together on federal employees and their retirement plans by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Center for Cultural Understanding and Change (Tuesday, 12/12/06)
It's easy for many people to understand how conformity processes, perceptual selectivity, etc., as described by research in social psychology, are responsible for OTHER people's attitudes, but it's difficult to recognize the role that these processes play in their own interpretations of self and the world. Similarly, many people see anthropology as being relevant to the understanding of exotic or "primitive" cultures, but not one's own. In actual fact, nothing could be more relevant to modern life, including life in rich industrial societies such as the United States, than the study of social psychology and cultural anthropology.

For instance, religion is at the center of much of the contemporary political life, not only in the Islamic world, but in the United States as well. However, "culture," not "religion," is the most fundamental concept. "Religion" is simply the word that many people use to refer to certain aspects of culture that happen to be of special interest for some reason.

Popular understanding of many of the world's most vigorous arguments, including conflicts and violence, can be better understood with the assistance of organizations such as The Center for Cultural Understanding and Change at the Field Museum in Chicago.

Will Mr. Paulson understand "Go to hell" when it's said in Mandarin? (Monday, 12/11/06)
Zhou Xin and Eadie Chen report that China's government has said that it will "respond positively" in talks with the American Treasury Secretary, although its currency's exchange rate is a matter of national sovereignty. Maybe they mean that they will treat Secretary Paulson to a Chinese banquet but not necessarily give him what he would most like to have. However, the American Secretary is not an unrealistic man. He says that no "quick results" should be expected from his trip to Beijing.

Incidentally, the Chinese government expects the country's economy to grow by about 10.5 percent this year. Recent growth rates suggest that China's economy has doubled in size in about the past decade, which helps explain the lessening reticence of China in world affairs.

China's aims may not be so modest after all (Saturday, 12/9/06)
Regular readers of NewWork News will know that we've been assuming for years that it's simply obvious that China intends to become the leading society on Earth before this century ends. We've based this assessment, not only on its recent behavior, but also on its very long history.

For instance, a thousand years ago, most Chinese believed that China was the entire world; they knew nothing, not only about the Americas, but also about Europe or most of the rest of Asia. Then, when it became undeniable that there were people in the world who were not Chinese, the Emperor ruled that maps should show China at their center. Moreover, for centuries, non-Chinese were referred to as "barbarians."

There is some basis for China's long-term "superiority complex." When most Europeans were still living in mud huts, China already had achieved a very high level of cultural, including technological development. Many Westerners still believe that 21st century Chinese are like the pitiable people to whom they were introduced in Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, or, at the very least, poor people in Mao suits riding bicycles.

It can be shocking to Westerners who visit places like Shanghai for the first time, not only to experience the ultramodern skyscrapers, but also its splendid museum, where they are introduced to unimaginably beautiful and well-crafted antiquities from so long ago. The experience can enable Westerners who know about as much about modern China today as the ancient Chinese knew about people in the West to examine both the leading edge of China's present as well as its stunning past within the same few square miles. Many contemporary Americans and Europeans are undergoing the sort of culture shock that Chinese of centuries past went through as they were discovering that, despite their inflated feelings about themselves, China still makes up only part of the world.

Joseph Kahn writes from Beijing about the weakening of China's false modesty. As the country grows richer and more powerful, there is less need for it to pretend that it is otherwise, and less need to remain modest about its ambitions.

China no longer is a communist country in ways that would have pleased Marx or Mao. Nonetheless, it is still autocratic, to the extent that power remains centralized in Beijing. Nonetheless, China's Communist Party has chosen not to change its name to something more descriptive that more accurately reflects current conditions in the country with the world's fastest-growing economy.

Is freedom indivisible? Will increased economic freedom lead to increased political freedom? Will China be able to hold together as a single society much longer? It is said that there were more than 80,000 social protests in China last year, something which the government-controlled news agency tends not to report. Maybe encouraging the discussion of its future as a world power can help focus the attention and tap the ambitions of 1.3 billion persons. Maybe it can help hold the country together for awhile. Maybe not. Stay tuned.

How the "other 2% lives" (Wednesday, 12/6/06)
Forget all that old stuff about "the other half," unless you're talking about the world's assets or the poorest 3.2 billion people in the world. According to a new survey, two percent of the world's people own more than half of the world's assets, while Earth's poorest half hold only one percent of the world's wealth. So far as nations are concerned, the United States has the most uneven distribution of wealth among advanced industrial countries.

If you think the world's have vs. have-not gap is narrowing, you'll have to think again. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the disparity is growing. Examining the same data, they note that one percent of Earth's inhabitants own 40 percent of its assets.

The idea that "the poor will always be with us" was popular during ancient times for some of the same reasons it's popular among many people today--people's attitudes and beliefs tend to support their own perceived self-interest. As a consequence, most privileged people feel that their privileges are justified. Ancient people had no idea that the blood circulates or what the heart is for either, incidentally.

On the other hand, the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, economist Muhammad Yunus, has indicated that he believes that poverty is NOT a natural condition. Instead, it is a condition imposed on people by their socioeconomic systems, he ways. Like such things as malaria or polio, there are things we can do about it. Recent generations, more than any others throughout human history, surely have good reason to believe that because something has never been done before, it does NOT mean that it cannot be done.

The great Mexican migration (Wednesday, 12/6/06)
Is Mexico moving to the United States? A new study from the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute says that 1 in 7 Mexican workers is now working in the U. S. If we can assume that the brighter, more competent, more energetic, greater risk-taking people are heavily represented in this migration, we have to expect that Mexico's ability to build its own economy will be weakened as a consequence.

Is your job "extreme?" That is, do you do anything other than work? (Tuesday, 12/5/06)
Marilyn Gardner tells about people for whom work has become a "lifestyle, not just a job. Of course, this isn't entirely new. For many years, there have been people outside corporate life who haven't felt it necessary to distinguish between their work and their recreation. Some people regard their work as a "calling," while others simply enjoy when they do and think "it's only work if you'd rather be doing something else," as the old thing goes. On the other hand, some people, it's there way of expressing their obsessive-compulsive disorder, and that's something altogether different.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Novel Ideas (Monday, 12/4/06)
So, you intend to make a living writing novels. Well, you have our profound sympathy. Most intended books don't get written, or, at least, finished, and most that are completed never get published. On the other hand, there are hundreds of thousands of new books of all types that are published each year, but most don't generate a profit for publishers or significant royalties for their authors. Most authors of published books expect that they will not be able to make a living from writing alone, and their expectations typically are fulfilled.

It's a tough business, but, like show business or commercial broadcasting's talent sector, a small percentage of the people in the field make a large percentage of the money. There are occasional "superstars," of course. J. K. Rawling made herself richer than Elizabeth II by writing her Harry Potter books, and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has sold more than 40 million copies, but they're nearly as exceptinal as Andre Segovia was among people who play the guitar.

So, go ahead and express yourself. Write your books, and, if you get "writer's block" now and then, don't worry too much about it. National Public Radio has asked several authors to share their own experiences with writer's block and the writing process in Novel Ideas.

One more thing: Until the big royalty money's in the bank, don't quit your day job.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students (Sunday, 12/3/06)
Who was it who said that writing is easy--just stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood appear on your forehead?

At any rate, deserved or not, people with high levels of technical aptitude and competency--including but not limited to physicians--have a reputation for having difficulty communicating clearly in print. During a period of history when technical work roles are so important and there remains so little public understanding even of what science IS, it's likely that high-quality communication is particularly important. It's also important for people in technical fields to be able to communicate well with each other. Here are Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students with contributors from the faculties of several leading universities.