傻冒儿 Stupid Hat aka ShaMao'er

   Oh, that's right, its just a stage of development.  Everybody did it....

When people ask me what is the most profound thing I’ve taken away from my decades of work in news, I answer swiftly and with conviction: ‘The most critical thing, where news is concerned, is to uphold correct guidance of public opinion.’  Guangming editor

Offshoring ethics

In my  job I often face an ethical quandry.  It happened often when I was in China and is also happening here.   One of the services we perform is to assist client companies with outsourcing of various functions.  In many cases, this outsourcing takes the form of offshoring .  The question that bothers me is if it is ethical to assist companies in this type of endeavor? 

I have pretty much reconciled myself to the offshoring of manufacturing.  The business drivers are too strong to deny and the manufacturing labor force in the US seems able to migrate to employment in the services industries.   What I am grappling with more now is the offshoring of more educated positions.  Companies are beginning to offshore their back-office functions such as purchasing, accounting, supply chain, and even legal functions.  US tax return preparation is being done in China as well as US patent applications.  What is going to happen to these professionals who lose their jobs?  Is it possible that they can all survive by opening Yoga studios or massage therapy clinics?  I am not sure.  I don't have enough understanding of the fundamental economics that involved in a transformation of this magnitude.  But it does bother me on a pretty much daily basis.

Would appreciate any thoughts on the matter.

"The Road"

Wow, lots of posts today.

I just finished "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.  Read it in two, 1 1/2 hour plane trips.   It won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.  It is the first of his books that I have read.

The subject, post-apocalyptic America, is one that I find interesting.  However, the writing style, filled to the brim with similes and metaphors, is one that typically annoys me.  In this case, it annoyed me for about 4 or 5 pages before the story grabbed me.  If done right, by someone who can really write, these devices can really be effective.  The story itself is powerful and disturbing.  Very good book and recommended.

Great leap backward

Really excellent article on the environmental debacle that is China.   Highly recommended reading for everyone but especially for my Chinese readers (if any).  It is truth, and they had better get off their ass and do something about it.   

Western countries as well had better consider that drastic measures may be necessary to force change in China.  Truly, it can be almost be equated to chemical or biological warfare; albeit unintentional.  If the rest of the world is being attacked, and people are being injured or dying because of it, it is incumbent upon us to do something about it.  I will write my Congressmen to begin with, and be thinking of what else I can do.

Download the_great_leap_backward.doc 

I don't want to hear the usual apologists argument that the US and the rest of the West did the same thing when they were developing.  It is a bullshit argument for a few simple reasons:

1) They didn't know any better at the time, and had no real mitigation options in any case.  China knows what it is doing and mitigation options exist.

2) The cross-border effects are so much greater

3) The potential scale of the issue is so much greater

4) Global warming did not exist as a concept or concern in 1900

Indifference

The indifference of Americans to the rest of the world just never ceases to amaze me.  I think I may have written about this before, and don't want to go on and on again about such an obvious point.  But still, the scale of it staggers me.   

The fact that I have lived in China for almost the last 4 years tends to come up in many conversations with my new colleagues by way of introduction.  Now these are highly educated people who you might expect some level of curiosity out of.  Instead, so far by just about a perfect ratio, they take that information in, possibly ask how I liked it in an indifferent fashion, and then move on to the next topic.  They simply have no curiosity whatsoever in a country that it beginning to have such an calamitous influence on the world;or any other country for that matter including Iraq.  There does not seem to be any age influence at play here either, young and old they all act the same.  Although actually since I've been back the one person who has shown interest and asked some intelligent questions is the 84 year old father of my brother-in-law.

I just can't understand that.  All my life when I have met someone from anywhere else I have asked lots of questions; in some cases probably too many.  In my experience, this seems to be a largely American phenomenon.  People elsewhere seem to have far more awareness of and interest in the outside world.

I know there are many factors that play a role in this indifference including geography, economic dominance, military supremacy, generally comfortable life, etc.   It would be interesting (probably  only to me!) to know if this was a social characteristic common to dominant powers throughout history. 

ShaMao turns 1000

ShaMao now reached the 1000 hits point.  Only took 8 months or so.  Not too bad.   Thanks to everyone for reading.   And thanks to the Chairman for linking me. 

Smoky junk

My stuff arrived from China yesterday.  25 boxes full of stuff, of which about 15 belong to me.

My first observation as I opened the box was that as soon as the tape seal is broken, you can smell Beijing.  Funny, the smell (kind of smoky but mixed in with something else) was so familiar.  When you live there you don't consciously smell it, but I think subconsciously it is always there.  I think if you blindfolded anyone who has lived extensively in Beijing, took them out of Beijing for a few weeks, and then had them smell that smell they would know immediately what it is.

My second observation was on how useless all the crap we buy really is.  My overwhelming feeling as I unpacked all these boxes was not one of joy or rediscovery or something.  No, instead I just kept thinking to myself "what am I going to do with this shit?".   I guess come winter I will be happy to have my winter clothes, but so much of the stuff was just random things.  If these things had all fallen off the vessel into the ocean I seriously doubt I would have ever noticed their loss.

God, the Alien

Ok, back to my second favorite topic; Religion.

I was just washing my dishes and happened to start thinking about what would happen if I died and happened to meet God.  I was thinking if there really was some sort of trial and I was presented with all the evidence of my disbelief if I would recant or not and beg forgiveness.   I would have to say no.  If God created us with the ability to reason and come to logical conclusion whereby He cannot exist, then we cannot be held accountable for our use of that reason.  I do often think of an old friend who is a real intellectual and also an ardent Roman Catholic.  He once said that he is perfectly capable of logical analysis and thus conclusion that there is no God, but that that is the whole point.  God would reward those who have faith despite the preponderance of evidence of His nonexistence.  That bothered me at the time, and still bothers me to this day despite the fact that it is a lot of horse shit.    What would be the point of a God that acts like that?

Anyway, as I'm washing the dishes and thinking these things(of course the thinking itself took probably 10 seconds, while writing it down has taken a few minutes...),  I thought well if I meet God after I die than that would mean that God is real.  If God is real in a corporeal sense, not a figment of mankind's imagination, then It has to be made of something.  It would also have had to come from somewhere, a beginning.  In this case, God is nothing but an alien.  What do you call a sentient entity that is not a human and not from Earth?  You call it an alien.    None of this has anything to do with the various theories of aliens visiting earth and starting religions.  It was more the basic revelation that came to me as I washed the forks that if God exists, It is an alien.  I thought that was kind of cool. 

State of potential annoyance

This will be my first post in a few weeks.   Why haven't I been posting much?  This is not what I had intended.  I had intended to post on a near daily basis as I had done while in China.  Sure, part of it is that I am kind of busy, I have traveled to Chicago, New York and Kansas City all in the past couple weeks and will be back to Chicago this week.  But honestly I could find the time if I were so inclined.

I have been thinking about it and concluded that it is more of a lack of stimulus.  While I was in China it was very easy to think of topics because I lived in a state of either annoyance or potential annoyance.  There was annoying stimulae everywhere that served as good fodder for my entries. 

America is just too damn comfortable.  I can't think of anything, environment-wise, that I have found annoying since I've been back.  Strangers are amazingly, even uncomfortably sometimes, friendly and courteous. My internet is lightning fast.   I have a wide selection of tasty beer to drink.  Things are generally clean and orderly... there just isn't too much to get annoyed about on a day to day level.  I don't even read nearly as much of the news I have meticulously added to my Google homepage (though I do spend alot of time listening to NPR).  Somehow reading about the important issues going on in America seemed more pressing when I was in China than it is now that I'm home.  Again the comfort thing I think.  And of course reading about China is far less interesting than it was.  I still read the macro articles but more micro articles on China Digital Times that I used to delight in about this corruption or that environmental disaster just don't hold interest now. 

Hopefully I can rouse myself from this damn complacency and get my mind active again.  Comfort has not only made Americans bodies lazy and obese, it can easily do the same to our minds.