Thursday, September 27, 2001
Look, Ma, we still have the Statue of Liberty
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
"Unity Square," 9/20/01. Under a leaden September sky, on the ninth day of New York’s recovery, I revisited our Union Square Park, which had become the memorial for the nearly six thousand New Yorkers lost in the WTC tragedy. Rain was threatening, and I wanted to record some of the sentiments my fellow citizens had expressed about the slaughter of the innocents. The hundreds of yards of mementos in Union Square Park had shrunk somewhat, and there were people who, to my horror, were taking them down. My concern turned to relief when it was explained that volunteers were taking them to a Parks Department truck, to be saved for a future museum, and I pitched in.
The memorial candles in some twenty groupings throughout the park that had burned all night had lost some of their brightness in the morning light, but the sentiments expressed were strong, projecting gratitude and confidence The hundred small flags were standing up well, and people on their way to work were dropping off fresh bunches of flowers and lighting new candles, disregarding the threat of the impending rain.
The memorials, posted by the thousands of New Yorkers and visitors who created this never-to-be-forgotten event, ranged from elaborate six-foot elevations on which people taped or wrote messages, to notebook pages taped to the fencing wires. Kids from grade school classes in New Rochelle, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had created beautiful boards of drawings poems and sayings..Kiwis from New Zealand had two boards of letters, praising the inhabitants of this island. Heart-wrenching were the Xeroxed "Have you seen.." posters with pictures of the missing, loved ones at weddings, on the beach, relaxing with family or hugging children. Death would be too mild a punishment for the monsters who conceived this tragedy, a nearby poster proclaimed. My sentiments, exactly.
Support our troops...United we stand...Solidarity...never forget our fallen heroes...NYFD, we love you...We miss you. Those were the main sentiments, interspersed with expressions of strength and expectations of victory. Where is God in the midst of tragedy, a question asked ever so often, was answered by lines from the Bible, the Bahaai Book of Prayers and quotes from Mahatma Gandhi (...goodness and truth will prevail...), Kahlil Gibran, and, inadequately but beautifully, Lynyrd Skynyrd (...If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me?...). . Many printed signs dealt with prejudice - Safety begins at home, protect your Arab-Muslim neighbors - although there were very few direct accusations against terrorists that specified ethnic or religious bias. Osama bin Laden was identified in Dead or Alive and Wanted posters. Most curious was a small e-mail letter offering to get rid of bin Laden without body-bags or bombs, simply by having people concentrate, at 6 and 11PM EST, on the picture of the terrorist, imagining him consumed by flames. It would be death by ESP, a potent force, if sufficient numbers participate, the letter proclaimed.
Reluctantly following the call to duty, I abandoned the park and went to work, my second day. The IRT train would not stop at Wall Street, and the day before I had gone past that station, to peaceful Whitehall Street. Today I wanted to see the dirt and the smoke firsthand, and exited early, at Fulton Street. The station choked one with the overwhelming acrid odor we had felt at home only occasionally, when the wind from the disaster area turned from northeasterly, torturing the downtown and Brooklyn, to southerly, blowing uptown. Coming out of the underground, I was directly in sight of what had been the No 1 WTC, jagged edges pointing skyward, above the broken windows of the Borders bookstore. The view on CNN had not prepared me for the shock and horror of the actual thing. Fortunately I could not stop. Police along the sidewalk urged passerby to hurry, there was no gawking, and tourists with cameras held them high, shooting on the fly, above the heads of people and tops of parked rescue cars, not a common sight on Broadway. I was directly walking the length of the Red Line, looking into the Ground Zero.
The next stop was at No1 Liberty Street, where the windows of Brooks Brothers were grimy but the building, although often bruited to be on the verge of collapse, seemed to be standing firm. Here the fingers of a jagged multi-story wall of No2 WTC stuck into the sky, like a giant toy. When I came back after hours, with a borrowed camera, it looked almost pretty, more like a honeycomb, with the sunlight from the West illuminating the edges of the empty windows. The fires underneath had risen again, towards nightfall, and the area looked like a gigantic boiling cauldron. A friendly policeman explained that the efforts to remove the debris exposed some smoldering fires and brought them to life. During the day I had seen giant flatbed trucks taking giant twisted girders up Water Street, on their roundabout way to be smelted back into useful forms. It is a mightmare to contemplate what harm four idealogues with box cutters who are willing to die can do to the entire world.
Moving on at a fast pace, I saw buildings splattered by the gray mud that covered everything, gray store windows with defiant sentiments scratched through the dirt, porters trying to wash off the gunk-covered sidewalks. A grizzled veteran in what had once been a WWII army uniform was slowly pushing along a small upright cart of souvenirs and loudly berating the demons responsible for the carnage. "God don’t do s---t like that," he repeated over and over. Exactly my sentiments.
Slaughters committed in the name of faith are blasphemies, whether committed by the Crusaders (President Bush has got to watch out for this offensive word, he already inadvertently blurted it out once, and the BBC made a big thing of it), Hussein and his whirling dervishes, or auto-da-fe administered by a Catholic order. Today, when religious tolerance is prevalent, radical reactionaries should be truly anachronisms, yet they prevail in Ireland, Algeria, Egypt, the Philippines, and especially in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and of course Afghanistan, countries where sectarian terrorists operate. Our adversaries would like to taint us with an anti-Moslem crusader image, a method to set all of the world’s 1.1 billion touchy Islam adherents against us. One would hope that more of the American Muslims would speak out loudly, condemning the terrorist fanatics in public. A question raised on the Internet to this effect elicited answers that indicate the American adherents of Mohammed might be intimidated by their warlike brethren. Can this be, even in this, the land of freedom and justice, where Howard Stern can hold forth with impunity.
It took the giant bull in front of the Bowling Green Post Office to snap me out of the maudlin mood, this time. In front, its giant horns were elongated with American flags, while the right rear haunch bore a poster from the Post Office - Wanted, one of top ten criminals - with bin Laden’s mug shot right on it. That was sort of appropriate. As to the heading for this article, it was overheard in a discussion group, recited by the proud Mom of a six-year old. Out of the mouths of babies....
.
"Unity Square," 9/20/01. Under a leaden September sky, on the ninth day of New York’s recovery, I revisited our Union Square Park, which had become the memorial for the nearly six thousand New Yorkers lost in the WTC tragedy. Rain was threatening, and I wanted to record some of the sentiments my fellow citizens had expressed about the slaughter of the innocents. The hundreds of yards of mementos in Union Square Park had shrunk somewhat, and there were people who, to my horror, were taking them down. My concern turned to relief when it was explained that volunteers were taking them to a Parks Department truck, to be saved for a future museum, and I pitched in.
The memorial candles in some twenty groupings throughout the park that had burned all night had lost some of their brightness in the morning light, but the sentiments expressed were strong, projecting gratitude and confidence The hundred small flags were standing up well, and people on their way to work were dropping off fresh bunches of flowers and lighting new candles, disregarding the threat of the impending rain.
The memorials, posted by the thousands of New Yorkers and visitors who created this never-to-be-forgotten event, ranged from elaborate six-foot elevations on which people taped or wrote messages, to notebook pages taped to the fencing wires. Kids from grade school classes in New Rochelle, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had created beautiful boards of drawings poems and sayings..Kiwis from New Zealand had two boards of letters, praising the inhabitants of this island. Heart-wrenching were the Xeroxed "Have you seen.." posters with pictures of the missing, loved ones at weddings, on the beach, relaxing with family or hugging children. Death would be too mild a punishment for the monsters who conceived this tragedy, a nearby poster proclaimed. My sentiments, exactly.
Support our troops...United we stand...Solidarity...never forget our fallen heroes...NYFD, we love you...We miss you. Those were the main sentiments, interspersed with expressions of strength and expectations of victory. Where is God in the midst of tragedy, a question asked ever so often, was answered by lines from the Bible, the Bahaai Book of Prayers and quotes from Mahatma Gandhi (...goodness and truth will prevail...), Kahlil Gibran, and, inadequately but beautifully, Lynyrd Skynyrd (...If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me?...). . Many printed signs dealt with prejudice - Safety begins at home, protect your Arab-Muslim neighbors - although there were very few direct accusations against terrorists that specified ethnic or religious bias. Osama bin Laden was identified in Dead or Alive and Wanted posters. Most curious was a small e-mail letter offering to get rid of bin Laden without body-bags or bombs, simply by having people concentrate, at 6 and 11PM EST, on the picture of the terrorist, imagining him consumed by flames. It would be death by ESP, a potent force, if sufficient numbers participate, the letter proclaimed.
Reluctantly following the call to duty, I abandoned the park and went to work, my second day. The IRT train would not stop at Wall Street, and the day before I had gone past that station, to peaceful Whitehall Street. Today I wanted to see the dirt and the smoke firsthand, and exited early, at Fulton Street. The station choked one with the overwhelming acrid odor we had felt at home only occasionally, when the wind from the disaster area turned from northeasterly, torturing the downtown and Brooklyn, to southerly, blowing uptown. Coming out of the underground, I was directly in sight of what had been the No 1 WTC, jagged edges pointing skyward, above the broken windows of the Borders bookstore. The view on CNN had not prepared me for the shock and horror of the actual thing. Fortunately I could not stop. Police along the sidewalk urged passerby to hurry, there was no gawking, and tourists with cameras held them high, shooting on the fly, above the heads of people and tops of parked rescue cars, not a common sight on Broadway. I was directly walking the length of the Red Line, looking into the Ground Zero.
The next stop was at No1 Liberty Street, where the windows of Brooks Brothers were grimy but the building, although often bruited to be on the verge of collapse, seemed to be standing firm. Here the fingers of a jagged multi-story wall of No2 WTC stuck into the sky, like a giant toy. When I came back after hours, with a borrowed camera, it looked almost pretty, more like a honeycomb, with the sunlight from the West illuminating the edges of the empty windows. The fires underneath had risen again, towards nightfall, and the area looked like a gigantic boiling cauldron. A friendly policeman explained that the efforts to remove the debris exposed some smoldering fires and brought them to life. During the day I had seen giant flatbed trucks taking giant twisted girders up Water Street, on their roundabout way to be smelted back into useful forms. It is a mightmare to contemplate what harm four idealogues with box cutters who are willing to die can do to the entire world.
Moving on at a fast pace, I saw buildings splattered by the gray mud that covered everything, gray store windows with defiant sentiments scratched through the dirt, porters trying to wash off the gunk-covered sidewalks. A grizzled veteran in what had once been a WWII army uniform was slowly pushing along a small upright cart of souvenirs and loudly berating the demons responsible for the carnage. "God don’t do s---t like that," he repeated over and over. Exactly my sentiments.
Slaughters committed in the name of faith are blasphemies, whether committed by the Crusaders (President Bush has got to watch out for this offensive word, he already inadvertently blurted it out once, and the BBC made a big thing of it), Hussein and his whirling dervishes, or auto-da-fe administered by a Catholic order. Today, when religious tolerance is prevalent, radical reactionaries should be truly anachronisms, yet they prevail in Ireland, Algeria, Egypt, the Philippines, and especially in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and of course Afghanistan, countries where sectarian terrorists operate. Our adversaries would like to taint us with an anti-Moslem crusader image, a method to set all of the world’s 1.1 billion touchy Islam adherents against us. One would hope that more of the American Muslims would speak out loudly, condemning the terrorist fanatics in public. A question raised on the Internet to this effect elicited answers that indicate the American adherents of Mohammed might be intimidated by their warlike brethren. Can this be, even in this, the land of freedom and justice, where Howard Stern can hold forth with impunity.
It took the giant bull in front of the Bowling Green Post Office to snap me out of the maudlin mood, this time. In front, its giant horns were elongated with American flags, while the right rear haunch bore a poster from the Post Office - Wanted, one of top ten criminals - with bin Laden’s mug shot right on it. That was sort of appropriate. As to the heading for this article, it was overheard in a discussion group, recited by the proud Mom of a six-year old. Out of the mouths of babies....
.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, a mountainous country of harsh people, has humiliated its would-be conquerors Britons and Russians more than once. Its cities are easily occupied, but the occupiers are locked in an perish, without an exit strategy. In snowy January 1842 Afghan soldiers slaughtered a contingent of 4,500 British and Indian troops and 12,000 civilians retreating from Kabul to friendly Jalalabad near the present Pakistan border, with one man left to tell the tale.That was the end of the First Afghan War, which started in 1839 with the British trying to protect Emir Dost Mohammad from Iranian and Russian cinquest. But the Emir also wanted to recover former Afghan territory in Peshavar, but that was a no-go, the Brits deposed Dost and installed a quisling, but had to restore him, before their demeaning retreat.
In 1879 Dost’s successors’ dallying with the Russians provoked another British invasion, resulting in the occupiers being massacred in Kabul, and a war, involving suicide warriors, ghazis. The occupation failed; the only salvation for the invaders was to install a popularly accepted Emir, Dost’s grandson Abdur Rahman, and withdraw. His pro-British. son Habibollah Khan was assassinated by nationalists in 1919 and grandson Amanollah Khan secured autonomy from the Empire. The country remained friendly with the USSR through changes into secular dictatorships in 1973. Attempts to establish a friendship with the US led to the Soviet invasion and murder of the last Marxist dictator Hafizullah Amin in 1979. Babrak Karmel accepted the USSR ocupancy, but partisans, trained with US help, continued attacking Soviet army (it lost 15,000 men) until a UN-backed peace led to the withdrawal of the Red Army in 1988 and declaration of a neutral state. The victorious guerillas had been trained in Pakistani military camps, financed by the CIA and the rich Saudi engineer and mullah Osama bin Ladin, The latter, a prophet in a reactonary branch of Muslim faith that accepts murder and suicide in the interests of preservation of the Islamic faith and Muslim church state, declared a fatva ("judgment," commonly accepted as a holy war) against the Americans as desecrators of Mecca, and became the enemy of the Gulf states that accepted and gave bases to the US forces in the gulf war, as well as of the secular Libyans and Syrians (the latter had actually killed off their reactionary Islamists). Some of these alliances have changed.
But the various religious, secular and national factions of guerillas refused to accept the "puppet" Najbullah regime and continued advancing to the leadership in Kabul, fighting each other. Najbullah resigned in 1992, and Burhanuddin Rabbani became President. Two million Afghans had been killed in the fighting, and six million had fled to Pakistan and Iran, both sometime enemy countries. Fearing Iranian and now Russia’s influence, Pakistan had empowered the Pushtans allied in the Taliban led by the Mullah Muhammad Oman to overthrow Rabbani, and they succeeded
These are homogeneous people, Of the 22 million inhabitants, the Parthans, basic supporters of the Taliban are 38% , Tajiks, Uzbeks and nomadic Turkmens of the North form another % Shiite Iranians are about 1 million. Texas-size Afghanistan has border disputes with the slightly larger Pakistan, because Afghan-populated North-West Province (Peshawar) was voted into Afghanistan during the partition of British India in 1947 by by giving the inhabitants only two choices, to be in India or Pakistan. When Pakisrtan’s eastern part became independent Bangladesh in 1972, there were calls for an independent Pushtunistan.
History’s crossroads, Afghanistan was conquered by Darius the Great of Persia 2,500 years ago, then by Alexander the Great ("Bactria"), and a Buddhist empire. Muslim Arabs came starting 1300 years ago., then Genghis Khan (1220) and Tamerlane 150 years later. His descendant Babur (1483-1530) out of Kabul established the mighty Moghul Empire and ruled the Indian subcontinent The rulers of Kabul changed frequently, until the off-and-on Dost Muhammad dynasty lasted until a republic was proclaimed in 1973. Last king, Mohammad Daud Khan, lives in NYC
Romance about Afghanistan and the ferocious Pushtos or Parthans or xx abounds. Khyber Pass, a 28-mile long narrow road with 34 tunnels and 92 bridges connecting Peshawar and Kabul has been the eeentranceway for the various conquerors entering India fron the North. It has been fateful for the British conquerors. Rudyard Kipling in 1899 wrote:
In 1879 Dost’s successors’ dallying with the Russians provoked another British invasion, resulting in the occupiers being massacred in Kabul, and a war, involving suicide warriors, ghazis. The occupation failed; the only salvation for the invaders was to install a popularly accepted Emir, Dost’s grandson Abdur Rahman, and withdraw. His pro-British. son Habibollah Khan was assassinated by nationalists in 1919 and grandson Amanollah Khan secured autonomy from the Empire. The country remained friendly with the USSR through changes into secular dictatorships in 1973. Attempts to establish a friendship with the US led to the Soviet invasion and murder of the last Marxist dictator Hafizullah Amin in 1979. Babrak Karmel accepted the USSR ocupancy, but partisans, trained with US help, continued attacking Soviet army (it lost 15,000 men) until a UN-backed peace led to the withdrawal of the Red Army in 1988 and declaration of a neutral state. The victorious guerillas had been trained in Pakistani military camps, financed by the CIA and the rich Saudi engineer and mullah Osama bin Ladin, The latter, a prophet in a reactonary branch of Muslim faith that accepts murder and suicide in the interests of preservation of the Islamic faith and Muslim church state, declared a fatva ("judgment," commonly accepted as a holy war) against the Americans as desecrators of Mecca, and became the enemy of the Gulf states that accepted and gave bases to the US forces in the gulf war, as well as of the secular Libyans and Syrians (the latter had actually killed off their reactionary Islamists). Some of these alliances have changed.
But the various religious, secular and national factions of guerillas refused to accept the "puppet" Najbullah regime and continued advancing to the leadership in Kabul, fighting each other. Najbullah resigned in 1992, and Burhanuddin Rabbani became President. Two million Afghans had been killed in the fighting, and six million had fled to Pakistan and Iran, both sometime enemy countries. Fearing Iranian and now Russia’s influence, Pakistan had empowered the Pushtans allied in the Taliban led by the Mullah Muhammad Oman to overthrow Rabbani, and they succeeded
These are homogeneous people, Of the 22 million inhabitants, the Parthans, basic supporters of the Taliban are 38% , Tajiks, Uzbeks and nomadic Turkmens of the North form another % Shiite Iranians are about 1 million. Texas-size Afghanistan has border disputes with the slightly larger Pakistan, because Afghan-populated North-West Province (Peshawar) was voted into Afghanistan during the partition of British India in 1947 by by giving the inhabitants only two choices, to be in India or Pakistan. When Pakisrtan’s eastern part became independent Bangladesh in 1972, there were calls for an independent Pushtunistan.
History’s crossroads, Afghanistan was conquered by Darius the Great of Persia 2,500 years ago, then by Alexander the Great ("Bactria"), and a Buddhist empire. Muslim Arabs came starting 1300 years ago., then Genghis Khan (1220) and Tamerlane 150 years later. His descendant Babur (1483-1530) out of Kabul established the mighty Moghul Empire and ruled the Indian subcontinent The rulers of Kabul changed frequently, until the off-and-on Dost Muhammad dynasty lasted until a republic was proclaimed in 1973. Last king, Mohammad Daud Khan, lives in NYC
Romance about Afghanistan and the ferocious Pushtos or Parthans or xx abounds. Khyber Pass, a 28-mile long narrow road with 34 tunnels and 92 bridges connecting Peshawar and Kabul has been the eeentranceway for the various conquerors entering India fron the North. It has been fateful for the British conquerors. Rudyard Kipling in 1899 wrote:
9/11/2001-Proposed actions for survival
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Lest we forget - lessons and proposed actions for survival
The entire Western world is under a deadly threat, and the world must realize it and act in concert. With the era of globalization the potential of a world war had disappeared, and we relaxed..The industrial countries had become totally interdependent for cooperation and communications, and any disruptions became unthinkable. The potential of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, led to the 1973 agreement between the powers. The collapse of USSR further decreased the dangers. In small countries, constant border wars and internecine contests for resources (diamonds, oil, metals) became a reality, without threatening world peace, and the threat of terrorists operating in many countries was accepted as a minor annoyance. It was therefore a shock to all countries, when on September 11 a bold and imaginative coup against the symbols of US dominance, turning around the weapons of the US to destroy its own strength, revealed the existence of a shadow power, a virtual government with distributed armies in 40-odd countries. The potential threat of continued attacks became apparent.. Morbid people feeling threatened in their religion-dominated cultures had found a secret salvation in an ideological purpose, that of stopping the US and its allies from a perceived domination of their countries through a perceived imposition of perceived corrupt Western cultures, a concept not unlike and more potent than that of Hitler’s. They developed clandestine agents and elite troops, educated soldiers dedicated to sacrificing their lives in the attack, dedicated to a continued destruction in the West, until US and its collaborators give in and withdraw from Israel and the Mideast (read the bin Laden fatva of 2/23/1998, it is spelled out)..The war will continue, and these jujitsu attacks, utilizing the West’s resources to destroy itself , in the future might involve kamikazes blowing up atomic energy plants and creating Chernobyls; poisoning the drinking waters with plutonium residue stolen from atomic energy plants, sarin attacks, like those on Japan’s subway riders, and biological weapons stolen from Western research facilities by terrorists posing as students. The mind reels. How does the West protect itself?
Some answers involve imposing a quasi-military rule, and suppression of many aspects of our civil rights. While several of the above will be needed, such as universal identity cards and massive utilization of data bases to recognize known terrorists and profile unknown ones, changes in technology and management thinking will enable us to resist attacks without giving up the Bill of Rights, absolute cornerstone of American democracy. The lessons learned in the destruction of the WTC and in the shutting off of Downtown Manhattan for an entire week should help in saving both lives and livelihoods from the attacks of desperadoes in the future. It is not only the al-Quaeda that should scare us, we have many other international and national threats to worry about - the militias, the nationalists (remember Croats blowing up commercial airplanes half a century ago?) and the anarchists who attack world trade.. Let’s consider some concrete ways in which we can reform ourselves and help protect the world:
Better energy sources. Thus, to stop the continued threat of use of commercial airplanes as bombs, we need to substitute non-burning fuel, particularly hydrogen fuel. The crashed American Airlines and United Airlines planes would have killed people on contact without burning and collapsing the entire buildings (recent tall buildings are mostly constructed to withstand the impact of collision). Hydrogen fuel is in use, although it is expensive to produce in fossil-oil-using energy plants (and fossil oil may run out in less than 40 years!), but there are other means, hydro-power, sunlight energy and wind. Think of converting into solid hydrogen fuel the unstable and wasted weather-dependent sun and wind energy, and the electricity produced at night that cannot be canned (fuel cells are expensive and limited). Rethinking energy sources, in view of the threats will give the world fresh means of continuing its existence.
Distribution of assets throughout the country. Corporations that place their entire essential command structures in a central facility can be wiped out, as it may be happening to Cantor Fitzgerald. Decentralization of computer facilities and command/administrative functions throughout the country is essential, it relieves the ecologically unsound overcrowding and excessive costs of city living.. The communication means are in place and the offices and plants gives dying communities a new lease on life. During the current crisis, distribution of facilities made for relatively seamless transfer of functions from the threatened to the safe area. Data files rather then paper file can be kept anywhere, and can be transferred in minutes, no trucks are needed.
Telecommuting. Corporations with decentralized functions and key employees equipped with computer terminals at home (including e-mail) were able to continue activities during the shutoff.
Local command authority and initiative. Think of the Cantor-Fitzgerald managers, who in the absence of the CEO told the employees to keep trading. Conversely, think of the middle managers who took the risk of blame for lost profits and told their employees to get out. Think of the supervisors who organized employee departures in groups, with leaders responsible for holding the group together until Canal Street, making the healthy responsible for the unfirm, and calling members at home later to make sure everyone is safe. Think of the leaders who took the infirm to local garages and stood in the exits to make departees take some people with them to safety.
Disaster plans. Some organizations that had Y2K plans - employee lists with all land and mobile phone numbers, home e-mail and skills - let them get stale after the danger had passed.. Executives did not keep copies in their backpacks or shoulder bags (who has briefcases?), others kept them up to date. In reality, even the stale lists helped. Business continuation plans, with specifics for transfer of functions to alternate locations are important, even sketchy plans. Our Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, was the exemplary leader in a situation of horrors not only because of personal characteristics but also because he had insisted on disaster plans dealing with several scenarios. A touch of paranoia helps, we may all need some. He had the warning of the 1993 attack fresh on his mind. Okay, the fortified command center on the 23rd Floor in WTC Building 7 was a mistake, but the plans were portable, to the temporary command centers in the Police Academy and Pier 94
The government must make for disaster relief without dissipating the country’s resources in law suits, and provide insurance for airlines, so as not to disrupt vital services.
We at T&V offer our condolences to our neighbors at Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village, Church of Epiphany, St. George’s Calvary Church, Brotherhood Synagogue, 13th Precinct, Police Academy, the Fire Department stations and particularly the rescue squads that were wiped out. We pray for you and we cry for you, because your loss is ours, the nation’s and the world’s.
Lest we forget is a line from Rudyard Kipling’s Recessional, a poem composed on Queen Victoria’s 60th Jubilee, in 1897, not as a celebration but as a reminder to be humble and mindful of others.
Lest we forget - lessons and proposed actions for survival
The entire Western world is under a deadly threat, and the world must realize it and act in concert. With the era of globalization the potential of a world war had disappeared, and we relaxed..The industrial countries had become totally interdependent for cooperation and communications, and any disruptions became unthinkable. The potential of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, led to the 1973 agreement between the powers. The collapse of USSR further decreased the dangers. In small countries, constant border wars and internecine contests for resources (diamonds, oil, metals) became a reality, without threatening world peace, and the threat of terrorists operating in many countries was accepted as a minor annoyance. It was therefore a shock to all countries, when on September 11 a bold and imaginative coup against the symbols of US dominance, turning around the weapons of the US to destroy its own strength, revealed the existence of a shadow power, a virtual government with distributed armies in 40-odd countries. The potential threat of continued attacks became apparent.. Morbid people feeling threatened in their religion-dominated cultures had found a secret salvation in an ideological purpose, that of stopping the US and its allies from a perceived domination of their countries through a perceived imposition of perceived corrupt Western cultures, a concept not unlike and more potent than that of Hitler’s. They developed clandestine agents and elite troops, educated soldiers dedicated to sacrificing their lives in the attack, dedicated to a continued destruction in the West, until US and its collaborators give in and withdraw from Israel and the Mideast (read the bin Laden fatva of 2/23/1998, it is spelled out)..The war will continue, and these jujitsu attacks, utilizing the West’s resources to destroy itself , in the future might involve kamikazes blowing up atomic energy plants and creating Chernobyls; poisoning the drinking waters with plutonium residue stolen from atomic energy plants, sarin attacks, like those on Japan’s subway riders, and biological weapons stolen from Western research facilities by terrorists posing as students. The mind reels. How does the West protect itself?
Some answers involve imposing a quasi-military rule, and suppression of many aspects of our civil rights. While several of the above will be needed, such as universal identity cards and massive utilization of data bases to recognize known terrorists and profile unknown ones, changes in technology and management thinking will enable us to resist attacks without giving up the Bill of Rights, absolute cornerstone of American democracy. The lessons learned in the destruction of the WTC and in the shutting off of Downtown Manhattan for an entire week should help in saving both lives and livelihoods from the attacks of desperadoes in the future. It is not only the al-Quaeda that should scare us, we have many other international and national threats to worry about - the militias, the nationalists (remember Croats blowing up commercial airplanes half a century ago?) and the anarchists who attack world trade.. Let’s consider some concrete ways in which we can reform ourselves and help protect the world:
Better energy sources. Thus, to stop the continued threat of use of commercial airplanes as bombs, we need to substitute non-burning fuel, particularly hydrogen fuel. The crashed American Airlines and United Airlines planes would have killed people on contact without burning and collapsing the entire buildings (recent tall buildings are mostly constructed to withstand the impact of collision). Hydrogen fuel is in use, although it is expensive to produce in fossil-oil-using energy plants (and fossil oil may run out in less than 40 years!), but there are other means, hydro-power, sunlight energy and wind. Think of converting into solid hydrogen fuel the unstable and wasted weather-dependent sun and wind energy, and the electricity produced at night that cannot be canned (fuel cells are expensive and limited). Rethinking energy sources, in view of the threats will give the world fresh means of continuing its existence.
Distribution of assets throughout the country. Corporations that place their entire essential command structures in a central facility can be wiped out, as it may be happening to Cantor Fitzgerald. Decentralization of computer facilities and command/administrative functions throughout the country is essential, it relieves the ecologically unsound overcrowding and excessive costs of city living.. The communication means are in place and the offices and plants gives dying communities a new lease on life. During the current crisis, distribution of facilities made for relatively seamless transfer of functions from the threatened to the safe area. Data files rather then paper file can be kept anywhere, and can be transferred in minutes, no trucks are needed.
Telecommuting. Corporations with decentralized functions and key employees equipped with computer terminals at home (including e-mail) were able to continue activities during the shutoff.
Local command authority and initiative. Think of the Cantor-Fitzgerald managers, who in the absence of the CEO told the employees to keep trading. Conversely, think of the middle managers who took the risk of blame for lost profits and told their employees to get out. Think of the supervisors who organized employee departures in groups, with leaders responsible for holding the group together until Canal Street, making the healthy responsible for the unfirm, and calling members at home later to make sure everyone is safe. Think of the leaders who took the infirm to local garages and stood in the exits to make departees take some people with them to safety.
Disaster plans. Some organizations that had Y2K plans - employee lists with all land and mobile phone numbers, home e-mail and skills - let them get stale after the danger had passed.. Executives did not keep copies in their backpacks or shoulder bags (who has briefcases?), others kept them up to date. In reality, even the stale lists helped. Business continuation plans, with specifics for transfer of functions to alternate locations are important, even sketchy plans. Our Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, was the exemplary leader in a situation of horrors not only because of personal characteristics but also because he had insisted on disaster plans dealing with several scenarios. A touch of paranoia helps, we may all need some. He had the warning of the 1993 attack fresh on his mind. Okay, the fortified command center on the 23rd Floor in WTC Building 7 was a mistake, but the plans were portable, to the temporary command centers in the Police Academy and Pier 94
The government must make for disaster relief without dissipating the country’s resources in law suits, and provide insurance for airlines, so as not to disrupt vital services.
We at T&V offer our condolences to our neighbors at Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village, Church of Epiphany, St. George’s Calvary Church, Brotherhood Synagogue, 13th Precinct, Police Academy, the Fire Department stations and particularly the rescue squads that were wiped out. We pray for you and we cry for you, because your loss is ours, the nation’s and the world’s.
Lest we forget is a line from Rudyard Kipling’s Recessional, a poem composed on Queen Victoria’s 60th Jubilee, in 1897, not as a celebration but as a reminder to be humble and mindful of others.
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
A never-before-published, personal remembrance story of fabulous J.Lo
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Everyone has to leave the Bronx sooner or later, whether it is the Bronx of my youth or that of Jenny Lopez, fifty years later. That is the price of progress. But there are certain small-town values that the Bronx leaves with you, those being practical, of taking care of your parents, of marrying instead of playing the field, of staying with your own and not getting stuck up. When I read or hear of people dissing Jennifer Lopez for multiple marriages, for getting too bigtime for her britches, I feel that I have to speak up. That is not the woman that I knew, however peripherally, as a young child, that is not the solid Puerto-Rican family that I heard about from her father over the years, as she developed as a dancer, then actress, then singer. What we see and hear in the media is a movie persona, created by press flacks for appeal to the youthful. Now that her lover and husband-to-be, Ben Affleck, has left her at the altar, there's badmouthing going on, and jealous snickering, and one has to speak up.
As a young child, once a year Jenny would come to the offices where her father and I worked, arriving every Christmas holiday season, along with many other of our youngsters, to visit Daddy's or Mommy's workplace. They would be treated with candies which we kept in our desks for the occasion, play computer games which the Data Processing people (her father, David, was one of them) put on the mainframe just for the day, and have lunch with ice cream in the company cafeteria. Jenny was a cheerful child, with lots of body language. She was the oldest of three talented daughters (Leslie, a housewife, sings opera, and Lynda is a radio DJ and TV correspondent), an outstanding athlete in Catholic school. Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story was an early inspiration for her acting and singing, and Mama Lupe recognized her talent and took her to music and dancing lessons after school , from age 5 on, and, subsequently, to mass auditions for various shows. The effort was painful and demeaning, and Jennifer at 18 was getting discouraged, started attending Baruch College and accepted an office job, but her mom persisted.
Finally, a new TV series, In Living Color, a comedy series (with Keenan Wayans and James Carrey) needed dancers, and Jenny won her first job, in 1990. It lasted two years. She was outstanding and memorable, agents and other job offers followed and she moved to California. I was kept abreast of her successes by David, a sometime lunch companion. She danced in Janet Jackson's entourage and had startup roles in movies.
The movie Selena (1997), of the life of a young tejano singer slain by her chief groupie, gained her world-wide recognition. I remember that during a sales convention which brought representatives from all parts of the country to New York, several Texans and other Southwesterners came looking for David, shake him by the hand, praise his daughter and take home his autograph for their children. As for Jennifer, she bought a Cadillac for her father, which he declared as being too much car for the family, and took them to Texas for the filming.
The subsequent movie, Out of Sight (1998), came with an apology to the family about "having had to show too much skin," I was told. There had also been an investment in a restaurant, Madre's in Pasadena, and she married her Cuban chef, Ojani Noa, in 1997. Dad, walking her down the isle, looked not too pleased. Subsequently there were four more movies, three successful music CDs (the first a six-time platinum seller), a divorce, and a two-year episode with singer -musician- designer/entrepreneur Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, ending when the couple became involved in a nightclub shooting incident. She was married to dancer-choreographer Cris Judd briefly, in 2001-2.
The romance with actor-writer Ben Affleck of Good Will Hunting (1997) fame, her junior by two years, brought on much gossip. Jennifer, now known as J.Lo, who does not drink alcohol and plans everything, was bruited to be controlling and known to attempt managing Affleck's spending habits. Having lost touch with David, who retired and moved to California (there was also a reputed marital separation), I have no recent information, but would suspect a clash of two natures, the cautious, solidity-seeking, and the profligate. The abysmal failure of their "together" movie, Gigli, with a role which the practical Jennifer should never have accepted, would surely bring on recriminations. Be that as it may, there is some doubt that the split is permanent. What David says about this, I don't know, but I can guess.
Wally Dobelis claims to feel equally strongly about the press over-abusing Martha Stewart, no matter what her faults
Everyone has to leave the Bronx sooner or later, whether it is the Bronx of my youth or that of Jenny Lopez, fifty years later. That is the price of progress. But there are certain small-town values that the Bronx leaves with you, those being practical, of taking care of your parents, of marrying instead of playing the field, of staying with your own and not getting stuck up. When I read or hear of people dissing Jennifer Lopez for multiple marriages, for getting too bigtime for her britches, I feel that I have to speak up. That is not the woman that I knew, however peripherally, as a young child, that is not the solid Puerto-Rican family that I heard about from her father over the years, as she developed as a dancer, then actress, then singer. What we see and hear in the media is a movie persona, created by press flacks for appeal to the youthful. Now that her lover and husband-to-be, Ben Affleck, has left her at the altar, there's badmouthing going on, and jealous snickering, and one has to speak up.
As a young child, once a year Jenny would come to the offices where her father and I worked, arriving every Christmas holiday season, along with many other of our youngsters, to visit Daddy's or Mommy's workplace. They would be treated with candies which we kept in our desks for the occasion, play computer games which the Data Processing people (her father, David, was one of them) put on the mainframe just for the day, and have lunch with ice cream in the company cafeteria. Jenny was a cheerful child, with lots of body language. She was the oldest of three talented daughters (Leslie, a housewife, sings opera, and Lynda is a radio DJ and TV correspondent), an outstanding athlete in Catholic school. Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story was an early inspiration for her acting and singing, and Mama Lupe recognized her talent and took her to music and dancing lessons after school , from age 5 on, and, subsequently, to mass auditions for various shows. The effort was painful and demeaning, and Jennifer at 18 was getting discouraged, started attending Baruch College and accepted an office job, but her mom persisted.
Finally, a new TV series, In Living Color, a comedy series (with Keenan Wayans and James Carrey) needed dancers, and Jenny won her first job, in 1990. It lasted two years. She was outstanding and memorable, agents and other job offers followed and she moved to California. I was kept abreast of her successes by David, a sometime lunch companion. She danced in Janet Jackson's entourage and had startup roles in movies.
The movie Selena (1997), of the life of a young tejano singer slain by her chief groupie, gained her world-wide recognition. I remember that during a sales convention which brought representatives from all parts of the country to New York, several Texans and other Southwesterners came looking for David, shake him by the hand, praise his daughter and take home his autograph for their children. As for Jennifer, she bought a Cadillac for her father, which he declared as being too much car for the family, and took them to Texas for the filming.
The subsequent movie, Out of Sight (1998), came with an apology to the family about "having had to show too much skin," I was told. There had also been an investment in a restaurant, Madre's in Pasadena, and she married her Cuban chef, Ojani Noa, in 1997. Dad, walking her down the isle, looked not too pleased. Subsequently there were four more movies, three successful music CDs (the first a six-time platinum seller), a divorce, and a two-year episode with singer -musician- designer/entrepreneur Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, ending when the couple became involved in a nightclub shooting incident. She was married to dancer-choreographer Cris Judd briefly, in 2001-2.
The romance with actor-writer Ben Affleck of Good Will Hunting (1997) fame, her junior by two years, brought on much gossip. Jennifer, now known as J.Lo, who does not drink alcohol and plans everything, was bruited to be controlling and known to attempt managing Affleck's spending habits. Having lost touch with David, who retired and moved to California (there was also a reputed marital separation), I have no recent information, but would suspect a clash of two natures, the cautious, solidity-seeking, and the profligate. The abysmal failure of their "together" movie, Gigli, with a role which the practical Jennifer should never have accepted, would surely bring on recriminations. Be that as it may, there is some doubt that the split is permanent. What David says about this, I don't know, but I can guess.
Wally Dobelis claims to feel equally strongly about the press over-abusing Martha Stewart, no matter what her faults
Dr. Paranoia sees a bright future ahead of us
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
For the neghbors wo are ditressed by the continuing escalation of Palestinian terrorist suicide attacks and Israel's ever harsher responses, by the Gramercy Park revelations and our President's policies, Dr. Paranoia brings new hopes. The President and Senatoer Katre Bailey Hutchinson of Texas both insist that the Palestinian terrorism must stop. Senator Mitchell and Secretary Powell are pesonally going to see to it. Parenthetically, the Arabs should realize that now they have gone too far with the the bombing of the pizza parlor in Tel Aviv , bringing a new player into the war - the Mafia.
Further good news in Macedonia - the major Albanian party has agreed to disarm its fighters, if this is done under the supervision of the United Nations. All that remains is a detail,- convincing the minor Albanian parties, the Kosovar interlopers, the US and the NATO to provide adequate military forces for the disarmament.
In North Ireland, something positive. A general of the IRA has declared his willingness to disarm the militants. But the pesky Protestants are distrustful, and will not accept the peace until some real arms have been surrendered. There's always a spoiler. Of course, Ireland has its own problems. The one million Irish voters have rejected the Eureopean Union treaty that will add 500 million members to EU, in 12 nations, helping to build brotherhood and peace and avoid wars. The Irish voters don't want poor nations in, such as might need help, forgetting that Erin for years survived with the help of the 14 other member nations.That's good thinkin', supposin' we be needin' assistance again?
And the Indians and Pakistanis have spoken to each other, for the first time. The Pakistani leader is hopeful, but the Indian leader, speaking on India's Independence Day behind a bullet-proof shield, claims that it is hopeless to have meetings. All that the man from Islamabad wants to talk about is Kashmir, Kashmir, Kashmir...
Locally, good news, gasoline is down to $1.39 a gallon. And we were worrying about an energy crisis. Silly us. Of course OPEC is cutting down on productionby 4 percent, a million barrels a day, to bring the numbers back to a high profit level, but there are plenty of smugglers. Iraq will keep the oil gushing, and save the day.
A victory for the environmentalists, Secretary Christine Todd Whitman has determined that the Hudson must be dredged , above Albany, to get rid of 200,000 lbs of PCBs in the silt. No word of where the contaminated silt will be deposited, so as not to poison the arable land, agriculture products. But they have not heard the last from GE - the upstate locals are protesting about the stirred up river bed . Guess which corporation helps them with a bit of PR and ad money. Governor George Pataki is happy, his pressure persuaded Washington to act. Don't expect him to push around the recalcitrant upstaters as well.
And the NYS budget has been passed, relatively early. But do not expect anyone to be happy about it, supplementary budgets will be needed, and no one can plan with such a moving target. But. a first, nevertheless.
The Supreme Court of the US has another problem. First, they decided who would be the President of the US in 2001, an action that seems unconstitutional, but since they are the ultimate authorities on the Constitution.... Now, a tied vote has caused a man to be executed, for a crime he committed while still a juvenile. Tied, in my book, means go back and reexamine, re-judge However, since they write the book.
Good news. Chandra Condit is off the front pages. Michael Blumber is nearly off the front pages. And there are job openings 3x of the 55 New York City council jobs are open due to term limits. I's a good income, $90k a year, tens of thousands of dollars to apportion to causes of your choice, no experience required, basic English an advantage. In eight years you can build up connections that will assure you of an excellent post-councilmanic career. A hint - if you are an emigree living in an emigree district, go for it, the landsmen are sure to turn out in a lethargic election.. Thanks, Leonard Lauder, for your gift of term limits to NYC.
Meanwhile, do not go out in the midday sun, watch out for mosquitoes and West Nile fever, stay away from bushes, high grass and Lyme disease ticks. Watch out for sharks in the ocean and drink plenty of water, but do not swallow the stuff if you are swimming in a algae-infested lake.
Dr. Paranoia suggests that any racial, ethnic and religious minorities claining unequal representation in insults and cudos write to the Editor of this newspaper, or any other newspaper (poof of general literacy is good for the US). However, this column needs correspondence, for job security. Sometimes it is very lonely here, while everyone is out there, busy bashing Met Life.
For the neghbors wo are ditressed by the continuing escalation of Palestinian terrorist suicide attacks and Israel's ever harsher responses, by the Gramercy Park revelations and our President's policies, Dr. Paranoia brings new hopes. The President and Senatoer Katre Bailey Hutchinson of Texas both insist that the Palestinian terrorism must stop. Senator Mitchell and Secretary Powell are pesonally going to see to it. Parenthetically, the Arabs should realize that now they have gone too far with the the bombing of the pizza parlor in Tel Aviv , bringing a new player into the war - the Mafia.
Further good news in Macedonia - the major Albanian party has agreed to disarm its fighters, if this is done under the supervision of the United Nations. All that remains is a detail,- convincing the minor Albanian parties, the Kosovar interlopers, the US and the NATO to provide adequate military forces for the disarmament.
In North Ireland, something positive. A general of the IRA has declared his willingness to disarm the militants. But the pesky Protestants are distrustful, and will not accept the peace until some real arms have been surrendered. There's always a spoiler. Of course, Ireland has its own problems. The one million Irish voters have rejected the Eureopean Union treaty that will add 500 million members to EU, in 12 nations, helping to build brotherhood and peace and avoid wars. The Irish voters don't want poor nations in, such as might need help, forgetting that Erin for years survived with the help of the 14 other member nations.That's good thinkin', supposin' we be needin' assistance again?
And the Indians and Pakistanis have spoken to each other, for the first time. The Pakistani leader is hopeful, but the Indian leader, speaking on India's Independence Day behind a bullet-proof shield, claims that it is hopeless to have meetings. All that the man from Islamabad wants to talk about is Kashmir, Kashmir, Kashmir...
Locally, good news, gasoline is down to $1.39 a gallon. And we were worrying about an energy crisis. Silly us. Of course OPEC is cutting down on productionby 4 percent, a million barrels a day, to bring the numbers back to a high profit level, but there are plenty of smugglers. Iraq will keep the oil gushing, and save the day.
A victory for the environmentalists, Secretary Christine Todd Whitman has determined that the Hudson must be dredged , above Albany, to get rid of 200,000 lbs of PCBs in the silt. No word of where the contaminated silt will be deposited, so as not to poison the arable land, agriculture products. But they have not heard the last from GE - the upstate locals are protesting about the stirred up river bed . Guess which corporation helps them with a bit of PR and ad money. Governor George Pataki is happy, his pressure persuaded Washington to act. Don't expect him to push around the recalcitrant upstaters as well.
And the NYS budget has been passed, relatively early. But do not expect anyone to be happy about it, supplementary budgets will be needed, and no one can plan with such a moving target. But. a first, nevertheless.
The Supreme Court of the US has another problem. First, they decided who would be the President of the US in 2001, an action that seems unconstitutional, but since they are the ultimate authorities on the Constitution.... Now, a tied vote has caused a man to be executed, for a crime he committed while still a juvenile. Tied, in my book, means go back and reexamine, re-judge However, since they write the book.
Good news. Chandra Condit is off the front pages. Michael Blumber is nearly off the front pages. And there are job openings 3x of the 55 New York City council jobs are open due to term limits. I's a good income, $90k a year, tens of thousands of dollars to apportion to causes of your choice, no experience required, basic English an advantage. In eight years you can build up connections that will assure you of an excellent post-councilmanic career. A hint - if you are an emigree living in an emigree district, go for it, the landsmen are sure to turn out in a lethargic election.. Thanks, Leonard Lauder, for your gift of term limits to NYC.
Meanwhile, do not go out in the midday sun, watch out for mosquitoes and West Nile fever, stay away from bushes, high grass and Lyme disease ticks. Watch out for sharks in the ocean and drink plenty of water, but do not swallow the stuff if you are swimming in a algae-infested lake.
Dr. Paranoia suggests that any racial, ethnic and religious minorities claining unequal representation in insults and cudos write to the Editor of this newspaper, or any other newspaper (poof of general literacy is good for the US). However, this column needs correspondence, for job security. Sometimes it is very lonely here, while everyone is out there, busy bashing Met Life.
US and allies in armed pursuit of world peace
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The few days since that fateful date, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, have redefined the lives of Americans for years to come. In short order, we have gone through the emotions of shock, fear, outrage, anger and sorrow, we have found that we are a community and a nation united in more ways than we ever expected to be, and we have been forced into a profound self-examination of our basic principles, our freedoms and our way of life. We have discovered new heroes, new friends and may have converted some old enemies.
We have also realized that we all have to support our President, George W. Bush, who has the most profoundly difficult decisions to make and actions to take that will define our lives. It is scaresome, watching him declaring war and promising retribution for the cowardly attack on America without any of us knowing the "return address." We cannot just bomb a few thousand Afghans to death - that will brand us as butchers and create more anger toward us in the Muslim world, a result that the clever assassin Osama bin Laden wants to achieve.
It is therefore most reassuring to watch the State Department in action, carefully obtaining agreements from Afghanistan's Western and Eastern neighbors Pakistan and Iran to close the Taliban country's borders, inhibiting bin Laden's people's escape. It is obvious that they are heeding the Presidents warning that countries harboring the terrorists will be treated as terrorist. Other borders are a lesser problem - the Uzbek, Tajik and Turkmen republics in the North, members of the CIS, support the opposition Northern Alliance, as do Iran, India, and also China, although the latter signed a "mutual cooperation pact" with the Taliban on the fatal day, September 11..All NATO and EU countries, Russia, China, Iran and Palestinian Authority have condemned the bombings and will cooperate in exchanging intelligence on terrorist activities .
With such agreements and real intelligence on hand the US can request other countries to extradite terrorists associated with Al-Quaeda, bin Laden's word-wide organization. If countries found to harbor terrorists are under the theat of US attack, there is some potential of extradition without bloodletting, or internal prosecution. Candidates for special attention are Yemen (bin Laden family's original home land; he has considered it as his next residence), Libya, Sudan (his former residence, home of his training camps) and particularly Iraq (paymaster for kamikaze terrorist families; Saddam Hussein has threatened the Arab states not to collaborate with the US).
US must have the cooperation of intelligence organizations of many governments, since the bin Laden organizations at last report extend over some 34 countries, ranging from overt training camps to secret underground groups, and that includes the USA. His confederates can be checked in the reputable Federation of American Scientists' list of 370 national liberation and terrorist organizations worldwide.. How did the bin Laden organization grow?
Osama bin Laden is a prophetic religious leader (he accurately forecast Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait), and an opponent of the dictatorial royal rulers in the Arab peninsula. Angered by the presence of American troops on sacred Saudi Arabia (Mecca) soil during the 1990-91 gulf war, he formed Al-Quaeda, an organization dedicated to expulsion of the Americans from Muslim countries. Deported from his native Saudi Arabia in 1991 (with citizenship revoked in 1994), he settled in Sudan, was expelled in 1996 under US pressure, and moved to Afghanistan, ruled by the Pakistan-backed Taliban sect. Parenthetically, Pakistanis sponsored the 1996 takeover of Afghanistan by their Sunni coreligionists, fanatic extremists though they are (women cannot attend schools or work and cannot get professional medical care since male MDs may not touch them; the population is prohibited TV, films and all secular music; Hindi must wear identity tags on their clothing) because the legitimate Burhanuddin Rabbani government cooperated with India, recent enemy Russia and the Shiite Iran. Rabbani, the recognized head of Afghan state since the Russian withdrawal in 1992, still continues an exile government, as leader of the UN legation in New York.
In February 1998 Osama bin Laden, in conjunction with four Islamic extremist religious leaders from Egypt, Pakistan and Bangla Desh, formed an International Islamic Front and issued the well-known fatwa that proclaimed a Jihad, or Holy War, against Americans. It stated that the individual duty of every Muslim is to liberate Al Aqsa Mosque(in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (Mecca), by killing all Americans and their allies, in any country wherever possible, in order to force them to move out of all Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslims. This was a follow-up of his earlier 1996 fatwa, which may have initiated the planting of "sleeper" agents in the US and other Western countries. The Front has state-like confederation aspects, since over a period of time the Al-Quaeda, rich with bin Laden and conscripted Gulf oil sheik millions, connected with old and built new terrorist organizations. Al-Quaeda's organizations and its "sleeper" agents planted in the US and other countries were responsible for the bomb attack on the WTC in 1995, blowing up of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 and the destroyer Cole in Yemen in October 2000, and the threats to US embassies in Uruguay, Paraguay and Ecuador, and particularly in New Delhi in June 2001.
If the US were to enter a war without the proper intelligence to substantiate claim of the subject countries' providing a sanctuary for the bombers, it would expose us to claims of butchery. The war would have to be justified, and most importantly, have an objective. Blowing up a chemicals factory, as in Clinton's 1998 war with Sudan, had no closure; neither did the gulf war, nor the Vietnam War. The Somalia peace force withdrawal in March 1994 left us with a reputation of cowardice, exploited by bin Laden. US has enough power to dictate the course of the war with any minor nation. In the world of asymmetrical warfare, the world's unanimous shocked response to the WTC raid has stripped the powerless of their right of disproportionate response to oppression. Note that the American militia extremists have not felt ready to emulate Timothy McWeigh, a terrorist overwhelmed by the enormity of his 1995 crime to the extent that he chose to die. Possibly even the PR-minded masters of Hamas and Hezbollah (who proclaim their activities to be local only) may cool down, in view of the outraged reaction of the world. ..
US has a diplomatic world peace strategy to pursue which has winning written all over it, if we are smart. We must minimize our righteous anger and not match corpses. Let the American martyrs serve the purpose of world's peace.
The few days since that fateful date, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, have redefined the lives of Americans for years to come. In short order, we have gone through the emotions of shock, fear, outrage, anger and sorrow, we have found that we are a community and a nation united in more ways than we ever expected to be, and we have been forced into a profound self-examination of our basic principles, our freedoms and our way of life. We have discovered new heroes, new friends and may have converted some old enemies.
We have also realized that we all have to support our President, George W. Bush, who has the most profoundly difficult decisions to make and actions to take that will define our lives. It is scaresome, watching him declaring war and promising retribution for the cowardly attack on America without any of us knowing the "return address." We cannot just bomb a few thousand Afghans to death - that will brand us as butchers and create more anger toward us in the Muslim world, a result that the clever assassin Osama bin Laden wants to achieve.
It is therefore most reassuring to watch the State Department in action, carefully obtaining agreements from Afghanistan's Western and Eastern neighbors Pakistan and Iran to close the Taliban country's borders, inhibiting bin Laden's people's escape. It is obvious that they are heeding the Presidents warning that countries harboring the terrorists will be treated as terrorist. Other borders are a lesser problem - the Uzbek, Tajik and Turkmen republics in the North, members of the CIS, support the opposition Northern Alliance, as do Iran, India, and also China, although the latter signed a "mutual cooperation pact" with the Taliban on the fatal day, September 11..All NATO and EU countries, Russia, China, Iran and Palestinian Authority have condemned the bombings and will cooperate in exchanging intelligence on terrorist activities .
With such agreements and real intelligence on hand the US can request other countries to extradite terrorists associated with Al-Quaeda, bin Laden's word-wide organization. If countries found to harbor terrorists are under the theat of US attack, there is some potential of extradition without bloodletting, or internal prosecution. Candidates for special attention are Yemen (bin Laden family's original home land; he has considered it as his next residence), Libya, Sudan (his former residence, home of his training camps) and particularly Iraq (paymaster for kamikaze terrorist families; Saddam Hussein has threatened the Arab states not to collaborate with the US).
US must have the cooperation of intelligence organizations of many governments, since the bin Laden organizations at last report extend over some 34 countries, ranging from overt training camps to secret underground groups, and that includes the USA. His confederates can be checked in the reputable Federation of American Scientists' list of 370 national liberation and terrorist organizations worldwide.. How did the bin Laden organization grow?
Osama bin Laden is a prophetic religious leader (he accurately forecast Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait), and an opponent of the dictatorial royal rulers in the Arab peninsula. Angered by the presence of American troops on sacred Saudi Arabia (Mecca) soil during the 1990-91 gulf war, he formed Al-Quaeda, an organization dedicated to expulsion of the Americans from Muslim countries. Deported from his native Saudi Arabia in 1991 (with citizenship revoked in 1994), he settled in Sudan, was expelled in 1996 under US pressure, and moved to Afghanistan, ruled by the Pakistan-backed Taliban sect. Parenthetically, Pakistanis sponsored the 1996 takeover of Afghanistan by their Sunni coreligionists, fanatic extremists though they are (women cannot attend schools or work and cannot get professional medical care since male MDs may not touch them; the population is prohibited TV, films and all secular music; Hindi must wear identity tags on their clothing) because the legitimate Burhanuddin Rabbani government cooperated with India, recent enemy Russia and the Shiite Iran. Rabbani, the recognized head of Afghan state since the Russian withdrawal in 1992, still continues an exile government, as leader of the UN legation in New York.
In February 1998 Osama bin Laden, in conjunction with four Islamic extremist religious leaders from Egypt, Pakistan and Bangla Desh, formed an International Islamic Front and issued the well-known fatwa that proclaimed a Jihad, or Holy War, against Americans. It stated that the individual duty of every Muslim is to liberate Al Aqsa Mosque(in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (Mecca), by killing all Americans and their allies, in any country wherever possible, in order to force them to move out of all Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslims. This was a follow-up of his earlier 1996 fatwa, which may have initiated the planting of "sleeper" agents in the US and other Western countries. The Front has state-like confederation aspects, since over a period of time the Al-Quaeda, rich with bin Laden and conscripted Gulf oil sheik millions, connected with old and built new terrorist organizations. Al-Quaeda's organizations and its "sleeper" agents planted in the US and other countries were responsible for the bomb attack on the WTC in 1995, blowing up of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 and the destroyer Cole in Yemen in October 2000, and the threats to US embassies in Uruguay, Paraguay and Ecuador, and particularly in New Delhi in June 2001.
If the US were to enter a war without the proper intelligence to substantiate claim of the subject countries' providing a sanctuary for the bombers, it would expose us to claims of butchery. The war would have to be justified, and most importantly, have an objective. Blowing up a chemicals factory, as in Clinton's 1998 war with Sudan, had no closure; neither did the gulf war, nor the Vietnam War. The Somalia peace force withdrawal in March 1994 left us with a reputation of cowardice, exploited by bin Laden. US has enough power to dictate the course of the war with any minor nation. In the world of asymmetrical warfare, the world's unanimous shocked response to the WTC raid has stripped the powerless of their right of disproportionate response to oppression. Note that the American militia extremists have not felt ready to emulate Timothy McWeigh, a terrorist overwhelmed by the enormity of his 1995 crime to the extent that he chose to die. Possibly even the PR-minded masters of Hamas and Hezbollah (who proclaim their activities to be local only) may cool down, in view of the outraged reaction of the world. ..
US has a diplomatic world peace strategy to pursue which has winning written all over it, if we are smart. We must minimize our righteous anger and not match corpses. Let the American martyrs serve the purpose of world's peace.
Thursday, September 06, 2001
Monster tractor pull and other Labor Day pleasures
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Visiting the Columbia County Fair on Labor Day is a means of reaffirming that all is still well with the basics of the world. It gives you a sense of security to see the black-and white Holsteins, veritable milk machines, peacefully chewing the cud in their fairgrounds stalls, next to the tan sweet-faced Jerseys and Swiss Browns, the white-and-tan Guernseys and the mean-looking black Angus’s bullocks. Freckle-faced kids still bring their prize rabbits, chickens, lambs and goats to the competition, and earnestly explain the advantages of their breed to the passerby. There’s pie and cookies to be had at the local AME, stand and calzone and pepper sausages at the wheeled traveling kitchens that crisscross the Eastern Seaboard during the summer, on their routes from fair to fair, much like the caribou migrating in the Alaskan tundra in search of pasture. And the Midway, with the majestic Ferris wheel and its lesser-profiled companions, lights blazing in the darkening sky, over the sea of booths with carnies offering the visitors opportunities to win outsize stuffed animals in games of skill and chance.
The weighted-down push-penny cases have stacks of quarters precariously hanging over the edges of their ledges, looking like the addition of your 25 c piece will surely tip the balance and reward you with a cascade of silver. Experts have sad tales to tell of how many dozens of coins it takes to defy gravity and get a reward. I’m more likely to invest $2 in a sure draw from the Ducky Pond, where the picker gets a small, medium or large white teddy bear from China. Everybody wins. Another easy one is the basketball toss in the stand populated by green balloon aliens with big eyes and many arms and legs. You see kiddies toting them around the fairgrounds, tossing them up and letting them descend to Earth. .
We came to the Fair after dark to see the new attraction, the Monster Tractor Pull, having missed the usual Demolition Derby with its noise, smoke and fire, held on the harness racing track earlier in the week. The grandstand was filled an hour before, with a lot of big guys, some with earrings and ponytails, their cut-down sweatshirts bulging with muscles, and their ladies sporting tattoos, a few home-made. Among the teenage boys, the style appears to be to shave the sides, with an inch or less of hair on top; among girls modesty prevailed, only a few cared to wear the low-rise jeans seen in the city..
We reached the standee area at the finish line just as a huge plume of black smoke shot in to the air and an unholy piercing engine scream rent the air. Like an atomic explosion, the first contest was on. The scream intensified and we now saw an ordinary Ford farm tractor with huge rear wheels racing toward us on the straightaway, dragging a yellow cab with rails in front, like a heavily front-hung factory fork-lift. The latter was the "sled " A big block of metal was sliding forward on the sled, like the balance on a scale, towards the tractor, gradually weighing down the engine, which gave out in seconds, with a final shriek and a belch of smoke .It had sprinted 240 feet. The helmeted driver took a bow from his steel-barred cab (cables are known to have snapped and whipped around), and drove off. The sled, rented in Minnesota, drew back to be readied for the next contestant, an International tractor using smokeless alcohol instead of dirty Diesel oil. A sweeper and a steam-roller repaired the track, while the spectators sipped their beers and exchanged stories. Tractors named "Drive like you stole it," "20 mules," "Better than sex" ( the grandstand announcer reported that the owner was single and had explained that tractor maintenance cost more than that of a girlfriend, and required 40 hours of preparatory work for 30 seconds of excitement)..The event was won by a French farmer from the Canadian border, whose new tractor bucked high in the air, just like a steer, as it dragged the sled some 270 feet.
The event was run by the NYTPA (tractor pullers association), and participants are classified as two-and four-wheel drive engines (haven’t seen any of the latter), modified and super-stock (smoker and alcohol type) and by weight. There are multi-engine and up to three super-charger types, with all kinds of limitations. You might enjoy the events next summer, the nearest are in Chatham (Columbia Co.), Schagticoke (Rensselaer Co.), or Walton (Delavare Co.).There are 15 events, attracting 60,000 attendees.
Cannot leave Labor Day without talking about the progress in another essential ingredient - the charcoal grill. We have been afficionados for decades, starting in the 1960s with the humble little Hibachi that held a few chops and burgers, easy to light and store, and moving on to an all-American Weber tub, fat as a porker, that held half a bag of briquettes and would burn forever, With two of these on hand, a backyard party of 40 could be supplied with smoke-burned hamburgers, franks and toasted rolls for a whole day, morning till night, provided the ice in the cooler held out.
Some 15 years ago we migrated to the gas and lava rocks variety, for ease of lighting and control. We are on our 2nd propane tank, the first having been declared legally expired by the Hillsdale Agway refill station people, but the Sunbeam still runs despite the demise of the click lighter (I’m back to the "light a match and stand back from the whoosh" technique), although we ourselves have progressed to cooking over aluminum foil, mostly chicken and tender salmon, to avoid the eating of burned stuff.
It was therefore a surprise to find that at Home Depot and Sears the charcoal burner is all but extinct, as is the lava rock intermediary, replaced by a direct flame gas variety, mostly with two cooking surfaces, plus a little gas ring, standing alone to the side. That’s to boil lobster and such while cooking your meat on the main stove, as explained by a K-Mart salesman. The Sunbeam and Coleman varieties are up to $300-400 in price, while a mighty Weber, a control board with two handles built out on the right, where one would place the glass dish with the marinade before slapping the meat onto the surface, is over $600. That’s because it uses less gas, we’re told. It probably has tight plumbing, just as in the kitchen, unlike most gas grills with their loose leaking gas sockets and the gas flow controlled only at the tank level. The humble charcoal range seems to have progressed way beyond the necessary, but that is the process of human development We must try to survive the modern process. Some common sense and sanity still prevails.
Visiting the Columbia County Fair on Labor Day is a means of reaffirming that all is still well with the basics of the world. It gives you a sense of security to see the black-and white Holsteins, veritable milk machines, peacefully chewing the cud in their fairgrounds stalls, next to the tan sweet-faced Jerseys and Swiss Browns, the white-and-tan Guernseys and the mean-looking black Angus’s bullocks. Freckle-faced kids still bring their prize rabbits, chickens, lambs and goats to the competition, and earnestly explain the advantages of their breed to the passerby. There’s pie and cookies to be had at the local AME, stand and calzone and pepper sausages at the wheeled traveling kitchens that crisscross the Eastern Seaboard during the summer, on their routes from fair to fair, much like the caribou migrating in the Alaskan tundra in search of pasture. And the Midway, with the majestic Ferris wheel and its lesser-profiled companions, lights blazing in the darkening sky, over the sea of booths with carnies offering the visitors opportunities to win outsize stuffed animals in games of skill and chance.
The weighted-down push-penny cases have stacks of quarters precariously hanging over the edges of their ledges, looking like the addition of your 25 c piece will surely tip the balance and reward you with a cascade of silver. Experts have sad tales to tell of how many dozens of coins it takes to defy gravity and get a reward. I’m more likely to invest $2 in a sure draw from the Ducky Pond, where the picker gets a small, medium or large white teddy bear from China. Everybody wins. Another easy one is the basketball toss in the stand populated by green balloon aliens with big eyes and many arms and legs. You see kiddies toting them around the fairgrounds, tossing them up and letting them descend to Earth. .
We came to the Fair after dark to see the new attraction, the Monster Tractor Pull, having missed the usual Demolition Derby with its noise, smoke and fire, held on the harness racing track earlier in the week. The grandstand was filled an hour before, with a lot of big guys, some with earrings and ponytails, their cut-down sweatshirts bulging with muscles, and their ladies sporting tattoos, a few home-made. Among the teenage boys, the style appears to be to shave the sides, with an inch or less of hair on top; among girls modesty prevailed, only a few cared to wear the low-rise jeans seen in the city..
We reached the standee area at the finish line just as a huge plume of black smoke shot in to the air and an unholy piercing engine scream rent the air. Like an atomic explosion, the first contest was on. The scream intensified and we now saw an ordinary Ford farm tractor with huge rear wheels racing toward us on the straightaway, dragging a yellow cab with rails in front, like a heavily front-hung factory fork-lift. The latter was the "sled " A big block of metal was sliding forward on the sled, like the balance on a scale, towards the tractor, gradually weighing down the engine, which gave out in seconds, with a final shriek and a belch of smoke .It had sprinted 240 feet. The helmeted driver took a bow from his steel-barred cab (cables are known to have snapped and whipped around), and drove off. The sled, rented in Minnesota, drew back to be readied for the next contestant, an International tractor using smokeless alcohol instead of dirty Diesel oil. A sweeper and a steam-roller repaired the track, while the spectators sipped their beers and exchanged stories. Tractors named "Drive like you stole it," "20 mules," "Better than sex" ( the grandstand announcer reported that the owner was single and had explained that tractor maintenance cost more than that of a girlfriend, and required 40 hours of preparatory work for 30 seconds of excitement)..The event was won by a French farmer from the Canadian border, whose new tractor bucked high in the air, just like a steer, as it dragged the sled some 270 feet.
The event was run by the NYTPA (tractor pullers association), and participants are classified as two-and four-wheel drive engines (haven’t seen any of the latter), modified and super-stock (smoker and alcohol type) and by weight. There are multi-engine and up to three super-charger types, with all kinds of limitations. You might enjoy the events next summer, the nearest are in Chatham (Columbia Co.), Schagticoke (Rensselaer Co.), or Walton (Delavare Co.).There are 15 events, attracting 60,000 attendees.
Cannot leave Labor Day without talking about the progress in another essential ingredient - the charcoal grill. We have been afficionados for decades, starting in the 1960s with the humble little Hibachi that held a few chops and burgers, easy to light and store, and moving on to an all-American Weber tub, fat as a porker, that held half a bag of briquettes and would burn forever, With two of these on hand, a backyard party of 40 could be supplied with smoke-burned hamburgers, franks and toasted rolls for a whole day, morning till night, provided the ice in the cooler held out.
Some 15 years ago we migrated to the gas and lava rocks variety, for ease of lighting and control. We are on our 2nd propane tank, the first having been declared legally expired by the Hillsdale Agway refill station people, but the Sunbeam still runs despite the demise of the click lighter (I’m back to the "light a match and stand back from the whoosh" technique), although we ourselves have progressed to cooking over aluminum foil, mostly chicken and tender salmon, to avoid the eating of burned stuff.
It was therefore a surprise to find that at Home Depot and Sears the charcoal burner is all but extinct, as is the lava rock intermediary, replaced by a direct flame gas variety, mostly with two cooking surfaces, plus a little gas ring, standing alone to the side. That’s to boil lobster and such while cooking your meat on the main stove, as explained by a K-Mart salesman. The Sunbeam and Coleman varieties are up to $300-400 in price, while a mighty Weber, a control board with two handles built out on the right, where one would place the glass dish with the marinade before slapping the meat onto the surface, is over $600. That’s because it uses less gas, we’re told. It probably has tight plumbing, just as in the kitchen, unlike most gas grills with their loose leaking gas sockets and the gas flow controlled only at the tank level. The humble charcoal range seems to have progressed way beyond the necessary, but that is the process of human development We must try to survive the modern process. Some common sense and sanity still prevails.
Monday, September 03, 2001
ORIGINS OF THE DOT-COM BUBBLE
Having revisited The Producers, a movie by that mad genius Mel Brooks, now a major Broadway musical, I have deciphered the rationale of the dot com period of the recent US and the world’s ecionomic spurt. It was scripted from the aforementioned motion picture.In the movie, producer x and accountant have decided to sell to gullible old ladies fraudulent 50 percent shares in a Broadway show that is bound to fail. Therefore, their fraud will not be detected. Conversely, a success will expose their crime. Of course, "Springtime for Hitler" turns out to be an insane success, and the smart guys are jail-bound.
Relate this to the tech and budding commercial Internet era of the 1997-March 2000 period. Let me step through the process. Based on the success of a few trailbreaker companies, all of a sudden, hundreds of enterpreneurs determine that selling goods and services through Internet, like mail-order, bypasses the conventional costs of of office rent and store rent, and expensive warehouses near the stores, and sales clerks, brokerage clerks and warehouse people in cities earning city salaries. Big warehouses in low-cost labor areas and FedEx is all that’s needed for distribution, a minimal amount. Reducing commissions will attract stock traders, insurance buyers and parts buyers. But how to lure customers away from storesand other existing venues? Easy, offer the clients a share in the savings through humongous discounts, and sell as much as 50 percent below cost to attract initial purchases.
With that kind of prospects the enterpreneurs could sell stock in their non-functioning companies, and the cooperation of the hallowed names in inves tment banking, Morgan, Goldman Sacks, Salomon Brothers, Merrill Lynch and the like. Huge stock issues could be placed, at prices well below projected value (present value of all future earnings) producing rapid stock price increases above opening numbers, and luring millions of profit seekers into the post-IPO market. The IPOs, of course went to favored customers.
So here we had the prospective mass distributors of groceries, toys, cars, furniture and such, forecasting earnings beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. All they need is customers. Enter marketing specialists with a secret, that is called establishing a brand name. Name recognition and a good reputation - obtained by low prices, good fulfillment - are needed, and advertising, advertising, advertising will do the job. Where to advertise? The Superbowl, of course! And in some similar high priced sports events, tennis and the Series.
Does it matter that 40 unknown dot.coms wit stockholders’ money to burn will show their wares on Superbown, diluting the impact? Who can remember the names, no matter how insane or otherwise memorable the splash on the screen? Would any experienced marketing people, ad agencies and TV companies advise the clients of the foolishness of packing so many names in one event? Of course, not! Turn down money? Come on, the thing to do is to encourage them to waste the stockholders’ funds!
As the prospect of a business succeass waned, the chances of making money out of failure and the wanton greed of the ad agencies and media people became apparent to the young promoters, who sold off scads of their shares, soon as the mandatory 6 months hold period passed, meanwhile throwing away the stockholders’ money on more ads, to keep the prices of stocks high during the selloff.. There was no way that Priceline.com and Amazon.com could stay up in stratospheric numbers, and wise market heavies, Ronald Perlman and such, made piles of money short-selling Toys.com and the like.
For those of us who want to place the blame on the burst of the Technology and Internet marketing bubble and the creation of the famed "irrational expectations," the culprits are staring at us. The initiators, young promoters eager to be millionaires, wwho produced business plans that could never be met, with fuzzy math. The lying marketers, who helped them squander stockholder money, collecting 15 percent ad commissions, and the media space sellers.
And us, the greedy get rich soon speculators, Mr. and Mrs. America, who bought the promoters’ spins, looking for an easy retirement. Some of us mortgaged homes to pull out funds for speculation, hoping that the prices would go up, forevet Some of knew it would not last but counted on the "greater fool" effect, hanging in to the end - March 2000 - for the last penny of rising prices.
Another culprit was the steady growth of new money in the stock market, as more people put more of their pension monies into 401k mutual funds. The current decline is also partially due to the monie withdrawn from stock funds. A few trillion of withdrawals from the stock market will do the prices in, no matter how good the earnings.
With all this experience of the past year and a half staring at us, Why spould President Bush maintain that investing a percentage of Social Security funds in the stock market will improve the returns? The answer is twofold - one, stock market investments are historically the best, in the long run (presumably he wants to do a steady dollar-cost averaging program, into index funds,such as the S&P500, so as not to favor specific companies). And two, the unspoken one, that a steady flow of money into stock market will support a long term rise. Sounds good
With this background of experience, we have begun to revert back to the value theory. We are beginning to remember that increases of stock prices are justified by increases in earnings, and real forecasts. With this in mind, and understanding that recessions will occur when consumer confidence fails, when industry overproduces and creates excessive inventories, when capital expenditures NP?
.
Relate this to the tech and budding commercial Internet era of the 1997-March 2000 period. Let me step through the process. Based on the success of a few trailbreaker companies, all of a sudden, hundreds of enterpreneurs determine that selling goods and services through Internet, like mail-order, bypasses the conventional costs of of office rent and store rent, and expensive warehouses near the stores, and sales clerks, brokerage clerks and warehouse people in cities earning city salaries. Big warehouses in low-cost labor areas and FedEx is all that’s needed for distribution, a minimal amount. Reducing commissions will attract stock traders, insurance buyers and parts buyers. But how to lure customers away from storesand other existing venues? Easy, offer the clients a share in the savings through humongous discounts, and sell as much as 50 percent below cost to attract initial purchases.
With that kind of prospects the enterpreneurs could sell stock in their non-functioning companies, and the cooperation of the hallowed names in inves tment banking, Morgan, Goldman Sacks, Salomon Brothers, Merrill Lynch and the like. Huge stock issues could be placed, at prices well below projected value (present value of all future earnings) producing rapid stock price increases above opening numbers, and luring millions of profit seekers into the post-IPO market. The IPOs, of course went to favored customers.
So here we had the prospective mass distributors of groceries, toys, cars, furniture and such, forecasting earnings beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. All they need is customers. Enter marketing specialists with a secret, that is called establishing a brand name. Name recognition and a good reputation - obtained by low prices, good fulfillment - are needed, and advertising, advertising, advertising will do the job. Where to advertise? The Superbowl, of course! And in some similar high priced sports events, tennis and the Series.
Does it matter that 40 unknown dot.coms wit stockholders’ money to burn will show their wares on Superbown, diluting the impact? Who can remember the names, no matter how insane or otherwise memorable the splash on the screen? Would any experienced marketing people, ad agencies and TV companies advise the clients of the foolishness of packing so many names in one event? Of course, not! Turn down money? Come on, the thing to do is to encourage them to waste the stockholders’ funds!
As the prospect of a business succeass waned, the chances of making money out of failure and the wanton greed of the ad agencies and media people became apparent to the young promoters, who sold off scads of their shares, soon as the mandatory 6 months hold period passed, meanwhile throwing away the stockholders’ money on more ads, to keep the prices of stocks high during the selloff.. There was no way that Priceline.com and Amazon.com could stay up in stratospheric numbers, and wise market heavies, Ronald Perlman and such, made piles of money short-selling Toys.com and the like.
For those of us who want to place the blame on the burst of the Technology and Internet marketing bubble and the creation of the famed "irrational expectations," the culprits are staring at us. The initiators, young promoters eager to be millionaires, wwho produced business plans that could never be met, with fuzzy math. The lying marketers, who helped them squander stockholder money, collecting 15 percent ad commissions, and the media space sellers.
And us, the greedy get rich soon speculators, Mr. and Mrs. America, who bought the promoters’ spins, looking for an easy retirement. Some of us mortgaged homes to pull out funds for speculation, hoping that the prices would go up, forevet Some of knew it would not last but counted on the "greater fool" effect, hanging in to the end - March 2000 - for the last penny of rising prices.
Another culprit was the steady growth of new money in the stock market, as more people put more of their pension monies into 401k mutual funds. The current decline is also partially due to the monie withdrawn from stock funds. A few trillion of withdrawals from the stock market will do the prices in, no matter how good the earnings.
With all this experience of the past year and a half staring at us, Why spould President Bush maintain that investing a percentage of Social Security funds in the stock market will improve the returns? The answer is twofold - one, stock market investments are historically the best, in the long run (presumably he wants to do a steady dollar-cost averaging program, into index funds,such as the S&P500, so as not to favor specific companies). And two, the unspoken one, that a steady flow of money into stock market will support a long term rise. Sounds good
With this background of experience, we have begun to revert back to the value theory. We are beginning to remember that increases of stock prices are justified by increases in earnings, and real forecasts. With this in mind, and understanding that recessions will occur when consumer confidence fails, when industry overproduces and creates excessive inventories, when capital expenditures NP?
.
How much is that doggie in the window - a question of ethics
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Speaking of bioethics. The discussion of the stem cells has progressed from the scientific into metaphysical, dealing with the definition of life. Does life begin at conception? I have a highly treasured friend and councillor, the Old Curmudgeon, who probably sees the Pope John Paul II as a left-winger, and maintains that no eggs that have been fertilized in vitro may be destroyed. That does away with the discard theory, there should be none. He sees the President as a political compromiser, not to be trusted, and Senator Trent Lott who thinks in vitro life begins only when the fertilized egg is attached to the mother’s womb as a trickster, not to be trusted either.
Given the above definitions of life, and the Vatican’s permission for couples to abstain from sex during the high fertility period (the "Vatican Lottery") , I have proposed that use of condoms is not much different, it does not destroy life. This runs into a much less pronounced objectios from the O. C., to the effect that use of un-natural means of inhibiting conception is not to be considered. But I’m working on the O. C., although, judging from past results, it is hopeless. Might be easier to talk to the Holy Father. Incidentally, the Vatican had announced, way back, that at some point in the overpopulation of the Earth, around time of 30 Billion souls, birht control may be permissible. That’s when people will have to sleep in shifts because there will not be enogh space for everybody flat down, as in Calcutta or the Chinatown illegat textile worker cribs.That’s also sort of like no longer arguing about the principle, only about the price, saying "ok, but not on my shift." The O.C. disputes my recollection, and, other than Paul Ehrlich or some similar prejudiced source, I have no one point of reference. Help from this erudite readership will be appreciated.
Now to dog bioethics. A lunch companion brought to the table a story of a wealthy dog lover couple, let’s call them the X family, one of whose animal companions had a kidney problem, requiring daily dialysis (this struck a deep cord, our last cat Missy lived for two years on our daily dialysis injections before succumbing). The dog’s vet recommended a $25,000 kidney transplant , to lengthen the beloved animal’s life. The couple went to an animal pond, to find a transplant candidate, offering guarantees that they would keep the donor dog and care for it as much as any other animal in their family. The pond refused, since the operation would be performed without the dog’s permission.
This gives a pause to reflect. Ponds usually keep neglected stray animals for 30 days before putting them away. Puppies and better animals bet more time to ingratiate themselves to potential owners (that is still the operative word, although there are laws that curb the owners’ rights). Would it not be better for the animal to stay alive, at the cost of a kidney, and be cared for and fed by a compassionate family? Well, the argument could not be shaken. A parallel was drawn to the human environment, where a bought kidney, from some poor person in Turkey or China who needed the @10,000 (at best, could have been as little as $1,000) to provide security for his family, is illegal to transplant. The suffering American must go to Mexico or Turkey or some such country, with a foreign doctor willing to break the American law, and get the transplant done, cash in advance, with no recourse in case of failure. Legal transplants, from willing accident victims, are not that easily obtained, and relatives willing to donate their kidneys do not come forth that frequently.
That’s the human situation. Going back to our poor doggie, the X family finally found a dog breeder who sold them an animal for transplant, to be a family pet after the operation. Why was ne willing/ A lunch companion, a sometime dog breeder, explained. "Backyard" dog breeders, after the picks of their litters have been sold, mostly turn the leftover puppies to a pet store, to be kept in the window until some child persuades a willing parent to acquire a companion. The high-class breeders, whose dogs fetch a high price, usually put away leftovers of the litter, the runts who do not find a buyer. The idea is to keep the breed not just pure, but also not devalued by runts and less desirable animals. Regular master race eugenics, reminding one of Hitler, who had the cripples done away with. Americans, thank be to the Lord, take care of their least, but it brings up a question of .
Sterilization. It is heard that children unable to support themselves are sterilized, at the request of their parents, or in their situations as wards of the state. Does that constitute permission?
Family X, with a donor doggie on hand, are still trying to legitimize their action, afraid of being slammed by the humane societies, despite the argument that the animal was doomed by its owner, and will have a new lease on life, after the transplant. Are we more careful of animal rights than of people’s rights? Feel free to comment.NP?
Speaking of bioethics. The discussion of the stem cells has progressed from the scientific into metaphysical, dealing with the definition of life. Does life begin at conception? I have a highly treasured friend and councillor, the Old Curmudgeon, who probably sees the Pope John Paul II as a left-winger, and maintains that no eggs that have been fertilized in vitro may be destroyed. That does away with the discard theory, there should be none. He sees the President as a political compromiser, not to be trusted, and Senator Trent Lott who thinks in vitro life begins only when the fertilized egg is attached to the mother’s womb as a trickster, not to be trusted either.
Given the above definitions of life, and the Vatican’s permission for couples to abstain from sex during the high fertility period (the "Vatican Lottery") , I have proposed that use of condoms is not much different, it does not destroy life. This runs into a much less pronounced objectios from the O. C., to the effect that use of un-natural means of inhibiting conception is not to be considered. But I’m working on the O. C., although, judging from past results, it is hopeless. Might be easier to talk to the Holy Father. Incidentally, the Vatican had announced, way back, that at some point in the overpopulation of the Earth, around time of 30 Billion souls, birht control may be permissible. That’s when people will have to sleep in shifts because there will not be enogh space for everybody flat down, as in Calcutta or the Chinatown illegat textile worker cribs.That’s also sort of like no longer arguing about the principle, only about the price, saying "ok, but not on my shift." The O.C. disputes my recollection, and, other than Paul Ehrlich or some similar prejudiced source, I have no one point of reference. Help from this erudite readership will be appreciated.
Now to dog bioethics. A lunch companion brought to the table a story of a wealthy dog lover couple, let’s call them the X family, one of whose animal companions had a kidney problem, requiring daily dialysis (this struck a deep cord, our last cat Missy lived for two years on our daily dialysis injections before succumbing). The dog’s vet recommended a $25,000 kidney transplant , to lengthen the beloved animal’s life. The couple went to an animal pond, to find a transplant candidate, offering guarantees that they would keep the donor dog and care for it as much as any other animal in their family. The pond refused, since the operation would be performed without the dog’s permission.
This gives a pause to reflect. Ponds usually keep neglected stray animals for 30 days before putting them away. Puppies and better animals bet more time to ingratiate themselves to potential owners (that is still the operative word, although there are laws that curb the owners’ rights). Would it not be better for the animal to stay alive, at the cost of a kidney, and be cared for and fed by a compassionate family? Well, the argument could not be shaken. A parallel was drawn to the human environment, where a bought kidney, from some poor person in Turkey or China who needed the @10,000 (at best, could have been as little as $1,000) to provide security for his family, is illegal to transplant. The suffering American must go to Mexico or Turkey or some such country, with a foreign doctor willing to break the American law, and get the transplant done, cash in advance, with no recourse in case of failure. Legal transplants, from willing accident victims, are not that easily obtained, and relatives willing to donate their kidneys do not come forth that frequently.
That’s the human situation. Going back to our poor doggie, the X family finally found a dog breeder who sold them an animal for transplant, to be a family pet after the operation. Why was ne willing/ A lunch companion, a sometime dog breeder, explained. "Backyard" dog breeders, after the picks of their litters have been sold, mostly turn the leftover puppies to a pet store, to be kept in the window until some child persuades a willing parent to acquire a companion. The high-class breeders, whose dogs fetch a high price, usually put away leftovers of the litter, the runts who do not find a buyer. The idea is to keep the breed not just pure, but also not devalued by runts and less desirable animals. Regular master race eugenics, reminding one of Hitler, who had the cripples done away with. Americans, thank be to the Lord, take care of their least, but it brings up a question of .
Sterilization. It is heard that children unable to support themselves are sterilized, at the request of their parents, or in their situations as wards of the state. Does that constitute permission?
Family X, with a donor doggie on hand, are still trying to legitimize their action, afraid of being slammed by the humane societies, despite the argument that the animal was doomed by its owner, and will have a new lease on life, after the transplant. Are we more careful of animal rights than of people’s rights? Feel free to comment.NP?
