A Case for Poirot

Being a big fan of Poirot, it was pleasing to read that Mr. David Suchet had been awarded CBE. Mr. SUchet's Poirot is quite a contrast to the more humorous portrayal by Mr. Ustinov.

WHen I first came to the U.S. in 1983, Eurythmics with Annie Lennox had released their melodious song, 'Sweet dreams are made of these.' Ms. Lennox, who received the OBE award, is a great humanitarian, in addition to being a talented singer and songwriter. An excellent cast of artists and humanitarians.

New Year honours: Actors take centre stage as Cowell and Forsyth miss out | UK news | The Guardian: "Despite the best efforts of the tabloid press, there were no knighthoods for either Bruce Forsyth or Simon Cowell, but veteran actors Sheila Hancock and David Suchet were both awarded CBEs, as was the composer and broadcaster Howard Goodall. Representatives of the arts and media make up 7% of the honours list.

Harriet Walter, best known as a classical actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company – most recently as Cleopatra opposite Patrick Stewart's Antony and as Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart in the West End and on Broadway – is made a dame, 11 years after becoming a CBE. Reacting to her award, Walter said: "I have reservations about some parts of the honours system. I fear it's not very fair and I think there are lots of people not recognised who should be." But she added she was able to "square the circle" by acknowledging the award would allow her to speak up in defence of the theatre.

Few actors can have had a more varied career over more than 50 years than Hancock, ranging from The Winter's Tale and Titus Andronicus for the RSC to the musicals Sweeney Todd, Cabaret and Sister Act in the West End, as well as roles in Carry on Cleo and EastEnders. She also appeared as a panellist on Radio 4's Just a Minute. She was awarded an OBE in 1974 for her services to drama.

Suchet, too, is a veteran of the classical stage as well as numerous film and television parts. He is best known for playing Hercule Poirot for more than 20 years in 65 adaptations of the Agatha Christie-inspired thrillers, the last of which is to be broadcast next year.

Goodall's award comes for his work over five years to promote music education. The Bafta, Brit and Emmy award-winning composer has written classical music such as Eternal Light: a Requiem, as well as well-known television theme tunes including QI, The Vicar of Dibley and Blackadder.

Recipients of CBEs also include John Lloyd, the producer behind Blackadder, QI and Not the Nine O'Clock News, and Mark Damazer, the former controller of BBC Radio 4, who became head of St Peter's College, Oxford in October.

Among the OBEs are guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson, once of Fairport Convention but also a writer of lyrics for Robert Plant and Elvis Costello; veteran lyricist Herbert Kretzmer, whose career encompasses newspaper, television and theatre criticism, songs for That Was the Week That Was, and the lyrics for the long-running musical version of Les Misérables; and Manchester-born actor Burt Kwouk, the long-suffering manservant Cato in the Pink Panther movies, who is honoured for helping to pave the way for other actors from the Chinese community.

The former Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox receives an OBE, not for her musicianship, but for her services to Oxfam and Aids charities in Africa. She said: "As somewhat of a renegade, it either means I've done something terribly right – or they've done something terribly wrong.

"I'm getting my fake leopard pillbox hat dusted and ready. I was never much of one to win prizes … and certainly never placed too much value on their acquisition. Therefore, "I take this as more of an appreciation for the gentle turning of the years for someone who's enormously grateful for being able to breathe more or less freely in a totally insane world."

iPhone iFight

In-flight fight for stubborn iPhone-loving teen • The Register: "A teenager who refused to turn off his iPhone during the landing of a plane got a punch from a fellow passenger for his trouble.

Police in Boise, Idaho, the flight's desination, arrested the alleged assailant, 68-year-old Russell Miller."

Transparent Corruption

Transparency International - the global coalition against corruption: "Corruption has increased over the last three years, say six out of 10 people around the world. One in four people report paying bribes in the last year. These are the findings of the 2010 Global Corruption Barometer.

The 2010 Barometer captures the experiences and views of more than 91,500 people in 86 countries and territories, making it the only world-wide public opinion survey on corruption.

Views on corruption were most negative in Western Europe and North America, where 73 per cent and 67 per cent of people respectively thought corruption had increased over the last three years."

India ninth-most corrupt country: Survey - The Economic Times: "About 54% Indians paid a bribe in the past year, according to a global survey by Transparency International (TI), which pegs the extent of corruption in India at levels comparable with Cambodia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Senegal, Uganda and Liberia.

TI’s Global Corruption Barometer survey, released on global anti-corruption day, measures public perception on corruption across the world. One metric asks respondents if they had paid a bribe during the past 12 months to providers of any one of the nine services such as education, judiciary, medical services, police, registry and permit services, utilities, tax revenue and customs.

By this metric, India is the ninth most corrupt country in the world, in a ranking of 86 countries, with 54% of people reporting having paid a bribe. War-torn Iraq (56%) and Afghanistan (61%) suffer worse levels than India, as do nations such as Liberia (89%), Uganda (86%), Nigeria (63%), Sierra Leone (71%), Senegal (56%) and Cambodia (84%)."

Growing Pains...Growth Abroad, Pain Locally

Three interesting news stories paint an informative picture of the world.

A few decades of easily achieved 'middle class life' in the U.S. has not prepared people for the tough competition of today.

Many U.S. companies are hiring ... overseas - Business - U.S. business - msnbc.com: "With the future looking brighter overseas, companies are building there, too. Caterpillar, maker of the signature yellow bulldozers and tractors, has invested in three new plants in China in just the last two months to design and manufacture equipment. The decision is based on demand: Asia-Pacific sales soared 38 percent in the first nine months of the year, compared with 16 percent in the U.S. Caterpillar stock is up 65 percent this year.
'There is a shift in economic power that's going on and will continue. China just became the world's second-largest economy,' says David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, who notes that half of the revenue for companies in the S&P 500 in the last couple of years has come from outside the U.S.

Take the example of DuPont, which wowed the world in 1938 with nylon stockings. Known as one of the most innovative American companies of the 20th century, DuPont now sells less than a third of its products in the U.S. In the first nine months of this year, sales to the Asia-Pacific region grew 50 percent, triple the U.S. rate. Its stock is up 47 percent this year.

DuPont's work force reflects the shift in its growth: In a presentation on emerging markets, the company said its number of employees in the U.S. shrank by 9 percent between January 2005 and October 2009. In the same period, its work force grew 54 percent in the Asia-Pacific countries.

"We are a global player out to succeed in any geography where we participate in," says Thomas M. Connelly, chief innovation officer at DuPont. "We want our resources close to where our customers are, to tailor products to their needs."

While most of DuPont's research labs are still stateside, Connelly says he's impressed with the company's overseas talent. The company opened a large research facility in Hyderabad, India, in 2008.

Rising middle class
A key factor behind this runaway international growth is the rise of the middle class in these emerging countries. By 2015, for the first time, the number of consumers in Asia's middle class will equal those in Europe and North America combined.

"All of the growth over the next 10 years is happening in Asia," says Homi Kharas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and formerly the World Bank's chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific.

Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent often points out that a billion consumers will enter the middle class during the coming decade, mostly in Africa, China and India. He is aggressively targeting those markets. Of Coke's 93,000 global employees, less than 13 percent were in the U.S. in 2009, down from 19 percent five years ago.

The company would not say how many new U.S. hires it has made in 2010. But its latest new investments are overseas, including $240 million for three bottling plants in Inner Mongolia as part of a three-year, $2 billion investment in China. The three plants will create 2,000 new jobs in the area. In September, Coca-Cola pledged $1 billion to the Philippines over five years...."

U.S. Consumer Confidence Deteriorated in December - NYTimes.com: "The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes slipped to 52.5 in December from an upwardly revised 54.3 in November.

The median of forecasts from analysts polled by Reuters was for a reading of 56.

Consumers’ labor market assessment worsened. The “jobs hard to get” index rose to 46.8 percent in December from 46.3 percent last month, while the “jobs plentiful” index dropped to 3.9 percent from 4.3 percent.

“U.S. consumers are still worried about high unemployment, housing market stagnation and the generally meager growth they’ve seen so far,” said Kathy Lien, director forcurrency research at GFT in New York.

A separate report on Tuesday showed the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas declined 1 percent in October from September on a seasonally adjusted basis."

The Data and the Reality - NYTimes.com:

The Data and the Reality

By BOB HERBERT

I keep hearing from the data zealots that holiday sales were impressive and the outlook for the economy in 2011 is not bad.

Maybe they’ve stumbled onto something in their windowless rooms. Maybe the economy really is gathering steam. But in the rough and tumble of the real world, where families have to feed themselves and pay their bills, there are an awful lot of Americans being left behind.

A continuing national survey of workers who lost their jobs during the Great Recession, conducted by two professors at Rutgers University, offers anything but a rosy view of the economic prospects for ordinary Americans. It paints, instead, a portrait filled with gloom.

More than 15 million Americans are officially classified as jobless. The professors, at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, have been following their representative sample of workers since the summer of 2009. The report on their latest survey, just out this month, is titled: “The Shattered American Dream: Unemployed Workers Lose Ground, Hope, and Faith in Their Futures.”

Over the 15 months that the surveys have been conducted, just one-quarter of the workers have found full-time jobs, nearly all of them for less pay and with fewer or no benefits. “For those who remain unemployed,” the report says, “the cupboard has long been bare.”

These were not the folks being coldly and precisely monitored, classified and quantified as they made their way to the malls to kick-start the economy. These were among the many millions of Americans who spent the holidays hurting.

As the report states: “The recession has been a cataclysm that will have an enduring effect. It is hard to overstate the dire shape of the unemployed.”

Nearly two-thirds of the unemployed workers who were surveyed have been out of work for a year or more. More than a third have been jobless for two years. With their savings exhausted, many have borrowed money from relatives or friends, sold possessions to make ends meet and decided against medical examinations or treatments they previously would have considered essential.

Older workers who are jobless are caught in a particularly precarious state of affairs. As the report put it:

“We are witnessing the birth of a new class — the involuntarily retired. Many of those over age 50 believe they will not work again at a full-time ‘real’ job commensurate with their education and training. More than one-quarter say they expect to retire earlier than they want, which has long-term consequences for themselves and society. Many will file for Social Security as soon as they are eligible, despite the fact that they would receive greater benefits if they were able to delay retiring for a few years.”

There is a fundamental disconnect between economic indicators pointing in a positive direction and the experience of millions of American families fighting desperately to fend off destitution. Some three out of every four Americans have been personally touched by the recession — either they’ve lost a job or a relative or close friend has. And the outlook, despite the spin being put on the latest data, is not promising.

No one is forecasting a substantial reduction in unemployment rates next year. And, as Motoko Rich reported in The Times this month, temporary workers accounted for 80 percent of the 50,000 jobs added by private sector employers in November.

Carl Van Horn, the director of the Heldrich Center and one of the two professors (the other is Cliff Zukin) conducting the survey, said he was struck by how pessimistic some of the respondents have become — not just about their own situation but about the nation’s future. The survey found that workers in general are increasingly accepting the notion that the effects of the recession will be permanent, that they are the result of fundamental changes in the national economy.

“They’re losing the idea that if you are determined and work hard, you can get ahead,” said Dr. Van Horn. “They’re losing that sense of optimism. They don’t think that they or their children are going to fare particularly well.”

The fact that so many Americans are out of work, or working at jobs that don’t pay well, undermines the prospects for a robust recovery. Jobless people don’t buy a lot of flat-screen TVs. What we’re really seeing is an erosion of standards of living for an enormous portion of the population, including a substantial segment of the once solid middle class.

Not only is this not being addressed, but the self-serving, rightward lurch in Washington is all but guaranteed to make matters worse for working people. The zealots reading the economic tea leaves see brighter days ahead. They can afford to be sanguine. They’re working.

The Legacy of Lula

Brazil has record employment - Yahoo! Finance: "ew government statistics say Brazil has record employment levels -- and even shortages of workers in some sectors.

Monday's report from the government's IBGE statistics bureau on Monday shows the lowest level of unemployment ever recorded, 5.7 percent. Employers in sectors ranging from construction to retail say they're not finding enough workers to meet needs.

Banking group Santander has delayed contracting 1,200 people in Brazil because of difficulty finding applicants. Bradesco bank raised the wages of managers to avoid poaching by competitors.

Labor unions say Brazil's heated economy has led to above-inflation wage increases in nearly all sectors."

No liberal sprinkling of liberal education

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Let a thousand heretics bloom: "Liberal education is a sustained and controlled matter, where practicality is directly related to searching analyses and the fecundity of thought processes. Sadly, the flag-bearers of a new India have no clue about such a pedigree of liberalism.

You can construct a cutting-edge archaeological demolition of the latest Ramjanmabhumi controversy in a radical leftist blog. You can be an acknowledged scholar in Renaissance Humanism and orate in the classroom on the complexities of non-articulated communication. But since Prudence is the new name of the game in racing to (re)build India Shining, you can wear at least two hats. You can, when the suavely smiling Human Resource Development Minister lays out his blueprint for New India — toward which you are lured by the possibility of a role in its fashioning — graciously convince yourself and others that maturity means taking cognisance of an age that “demands an image of its accelerated grimace.” And so you can pull caution and far-sight out of your front pocket, while you keep your conscience appeased by nursing your intellectual and political predilections in your hip one."

Shady Almighty A - The Grades of Wrath

What is the purpose of grades in academia?

Chapel Hill Campus Takes On Grade Inflation - NYTimes.com: "It could be a Zen koan: if everybody in the class gets an A, what does an A mean?

The answer: Not what it should, says Andrew Perrin, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “An A should mean outstanding work; it should not be the default grade,” Mr. Perrin said. “If everyone gets an A for adequate completion of tasks, it cripples our ability to recognize exemplary scholarship.”

As part of the university’s long effort to clarify what grades really mean, Mr. Perrin now leads a committee that is working with the registrar on plans to add extra information — probably median grades, and perhaps more — to transcripts. In addition, they expect to post further statistics providing context online and give instructors data on how their grading compares with their colleagues’.

“It’s going to be modest and nowhere near enough to correct the problems,” Mr. Perrin said. “But it’s our judgment that it’s the best we can do now.”

With college grades creeping ever higher, a few universities have taken direct action against grade inflation. Most notably, Princeton adopted guidelines in 2004 providing that no more than 35 percent of undergraduate grades should be A’s, a policy that remains controversial on campus.

Others have taken a less direct approach, leaving instructors free to award whatever grades they like but expanding their transcripts to include information giving graduate schools and employers a fuller picture of what the grades mean.

Dartmouth transcripts include median grades, along with the number of courses in which the student exceeded, equaled or came in lower than those medians. Columbia transcripts show the percentage of students in the course who earned an A.

At Reed College, transcripts are accompanied by an explanatory card. Last year’s graduating class had an average G.P.A. of 3.20, it says, and only 10 percent of the class graduated with a G.P.A. of 3.67 or higher.

“We also tell them that in 26 years, only 10 students have graduated with a perfect 4.0 average — and three of them were transfers who didn’t get all those grades at Reed,” said Nora McLaughlin, the registrar at Reed. “We wanted to put the grades at Reed in context to be sure that graduate schools, particularly professional schools where G.P.A. is very much an important factor, understand how capable our students are.”..."

Eat Less, Mostly Plants....either the Pollan way or the Health Insurance Way

Get ready for health care costs to go up in 2010 - chicagotribune.com: "According to a recent survey by Towers Watson, a human resources consulting firm, annual health-care costs are expected to rise 8.2 percent next year.

The cost of health care has risen at a steady clip during the past decade, and workers are now footing a larger portion of the bill.

For a family policy in 2000, the average worker paid a quarter of the annual premium (employers covered the remaining cost), according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit that studies health care issues.

Today, the average employee's share has climbed to 29 percent."

A gem from a graduate studen

Received this email from an MBA student recently.

"I just saw the posting on blackboard and was suppressed to see my final grade so low. I had thought that I had done a much better job than that. Is there any way you could send the test back to me, or I could pick it up at you office. "

ChIndia - growth in the negative direction

Congestion and Pollution - the killers in China and India.

BBC News - New cars in Beijing cut by two-thirds to battle traffic: "New rules have taken effect in China that restrict car purchases in an effort to combat serious traffic problems in the capital, Beijing.

City authorities will allow only 240,000 vehicles to be registered for 2011 - one-third of this year's total.

Car buyers have been swamping dealers in anticipation of the new rules, which will still leave about five million cars on the road in the capital.

Traffic and air pollution in Beijing is among the worst in the world."

White Christmas, de Gaulle style

One foot of snow would cause some delays at O'Hare, but the airport would still function. Canceling flights for lack of de-icing fluid adds a new dimension to the human-nature balance.

Paris airport terminal evacuated due to snow on roof | World news | guardian.co.uk: "Passengers at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris were evacuated from one of its terminals today amid fears for their safety because of an accumulation of snow on the roof.

Bernard Cathelain, the deputy director of the Paris airport authority ADP, said the terminal was still operating but passengers had been asked to move.

Le Monde reported that about 60cm of snow had built up on the roof of the terminal and about 2,000 people had been evacuated. Firefighters have been sent in to clear the snow.

The problem added to the woes at Charles de Gaulle, where freezing conditions and a strike at the main French factory producing de-icing fluid forced the cancellation of half – about 400 – of the flights scheduled for this morning. A supply of de-icing fluid (glycol) has been flown in from the USbut many passengers already face missing Christmas dinner, which is traditionally served tonight in France."

How to pay for 9/11 victims- impose new taxes on imports

While the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy have been extended for a few more years, the "sacrifice" has been demanded of foreign suppliers in order to pay for 9/11 victims. In an anti-capitalist turn of events, the Congress wants to impose taxes on imports from a few countries to pay for domestic policies, while preaching free trade policies.

Infosys, TCS, Wipro to pay for 9/11 attack victims - The Economic Times: "The US Congress and the Senate on Wednesday passed a legislation that seeks to make the Indian firms such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro pay for the victims of September 11 terror attacks. India has protested the bill, calling it a 'retrograde step' in Indo-US trade relations.

The legislation, to be effective from July next year, will raise a $4.2 billion to help the victims of September 11 terrorist attacks by levying a new 2% excise tax on goods and services purchased from foreign suppliers based in countries such as India and China."

Shoving GM Seeds far and wide

WikiLeaks Cables Reveal U.S. Sought to Retaliate Against Europe over Monsanto GM Crops: "JUAN GONZALEZ: U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal the Bush administration drew up ways to retaliate against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds. In 2007, then-US ambassador to France Craig Stapleton was concerned about France’s decision to ban cultivation of genetically modified corn produced by biotech giant Monsanto. He also warned that a new French environmental review standard could spread anti-biotech policy across Europe.

In the leaked cable, Stapleton writes, quote, 'Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the [European] Commission...Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voice.'"

Holo-predictions

IBM predicts holographic calls, breathing batteries | Crave - CNET: "Big Blue's list of tech predictions for the next five years includes kinetically powered laptops and computers that predict traffic jams in real time, Bloomberg reports.
Batteries of 2015 could last 10 times longer than those of today, and could be based on 'energy-dense metals that only need to interact with the air to recharge,' it said.
Homes of the near future, meanwhile, could be warmed by heat produced by data centers. The report did not go into detail about the predictions.
IBM polls its 3,000 researchers at sites like the Almaden Research Center for hot new ideas in the offing. Previous innovation predictions have included statements such as, 'In the next five years, you will be able to surf the Internet, hands-free, by using your voice.'
Well, that was two years ago and I'm still typing and clicking. Four years ago, IBM predicted that cell phones will be reading our minds by 2012; I can't even get a decent photo out of mine."

Dinner Table in 2020

Five students recently took our Seminar on Food and read the book "In Defense of Food." They wrote short interesting essays - pieces that provide interesting insights into how they view their future.

Dinner Table in 2020

***The future is bleak…Don’t be misled by the colors***

In the past, food was colorful – greens and reds and oranges and blues and browns. Today, food is even more colorful, artificial coloring brightening up the natural colors, making food today seem strange and alien to the people of yesterday. Too much food is artificial, and natural food has fallen out of style. Moving in the direction of the future, it is entirely likely that food as we know it will cease to exist.

From being a rich and involved social activity, to becoming a solitary endeavor for sustenance, food and eating have steadily become less important to culture as a whole. Instead of enjoying feasts of a variety of food with all sorts of different tastes and textures, the table laid out in all its splendor, surrounded by friends and loved ones, people will have kitchens stocked with box after box of packaged bars that they can grab and eat on the move. It is a very plain and lonely outlook for the future of food, but one the world is headed towards. No longer will there be prep time or clean up time for meals, no long conversations in the dining room with the pleasure of both food and company, no delight in discovering new and different foods.

Natural color and community are what characterized the food of the past. Processed food has overtaken the food industry in recent decades and it is likely to keep heading in that direction. Ten years from now, that trend is only going to continue. While perhaps we cannot stop the loss of natural food variety, we can still fight the loss of culture in reference to food. I can make no promises on what kind of food I will be eating in ten years, but I will still be making the effort to never dine alone, to always spend quality time with the people I love over meals that we will hopefully still find enjoyable in the future.

***But there are other possibilities***

In ten years I can’t imagine that kitchens will be that much different than what they are today. Of course there will be changes like there are every decade but in terms of life changing improvements I don’t think we’ll see too much change. I anticipate that there will be two extremes in the food industry. There will be the all organic, local farms, grassroots movement with food. But there will also be a growth in the production of industrialized food. This will be the preserved, chemical and nutrient enhanced food that is promoted as better and healthier but in reality is not. People will have to make individual choices as to whether they want real food or industrialized food in their kitchens.

As for me, I have no idea what I’ll be doing in ten years but I would hope that I will be making use of the knowledge I gained from Eater’s Manifesto. There was a lot from this book that resonated with me. I will remember the importance of keeping things simple. Why eat a packaged food item with dozens of ingredients and added nutrients when those same nutrients plus even more is available in a simple fruit or vegetable. In many ways the book seemed way too simple and logical to be true. In today’s culture, I am used to reading nutrition labels with ingredients that I cannot pronounce, and attempting to follow all of these “healthy” dietary guidelines that change from week to week. In 10 years I will make sure that my kitchen is a reflection of what food has been for the generations that came before me and what food is to people all over the world. Food should not be a reflection of the food industry’s great ideas to make money but rather it should be nourishment for our bodies that we need but also that we can enjoy.

***It will come down to choice***

After sitting through an orchestra concert this afternoon, realizing my newfound love of the cello, I opened my mind to the possibility of taking a year after college to catch up on some of the aspects of life that I have been wanting to address, but couldn’t find the time. And as I know this will be pricey, one of these goals is to begin cooking my own meals.

This simple change with the allowance of spare time would effectively increase the healthiness of my diet, according to Michael Pollan. In accordance with my plan I would spend more time shopping farmers’ markets and local businesses. It is incredible how the allowance of more time opens up these possibilities that would lead to a healthier lifestyle.

Similarly, as a vegetarian I already have an interest in nutrition, as I must make up the proteins that I would normally receive from meats. Taking a year to myself I would spend a lot of time reading the books I am forced to put to the side making way for an endless amount of textbooks. Several of these, such as Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer will increase my awareness of nutrition.

In the distant future I see myself in Academia, as a college professor of art. It is probably unrealistic to think I will have more time to spend cooking meals in such a position, as I will most likely need a second source of income. On the other hand, if I am lucky enough to have a family I intend to make my children’s lives as creative as I can, including decorations on all of their favorite meals. I would also hope to give them the best nutrition I can supply them, and I think it would be more of a priority to consider the factors toward better health offered by Pollan when people other than myself are affected.

Already I have begun to make minor changes in my food health. Aside from making sure I have a daily supply of protein, I have attempted to cook more meals and buy organic foods whenever possible, especially if the skin is thin and easily penetrated by pesticides. In the coming summers I will make a bigger effort to support local foods, and I will know to take scientific findings in the area of nutritionism with a grain of salt.

***Encouragement and examples help***

I fear I am fast becoming one of those young adults who likes the idea of a great kitchen but does not have the motivation to make use of it. I think there are two ways the path I am currently on, cooking and kitchen-wise, could go in the next ten years: (1) my desire to be a family person will take over and I will live on a small sustainable farm like the one on which I grew up, cooking mostly with food from my own production and supplementing with other locally grown food and staples from a local co-op, or (2) I will get caught up in school for the rest of my life and eat American-Chinese take-out alone with my books every night[1]. I am not sure which option I would prefer, actually, though I lean more toward the former, as it is a more holistic lifestyle- embracing the spiritual, political, and physical aspects of life.

My brother lives a very holistic food life with his two small children, encouraging me that this is possible. I imagine my kitchen will be much like his- refrigerator more full than the cupboards, more fresh food than non-perishable staples. Eating as a family has always been a value when I am with family or close friends, I hope to continue this tradition, taking 45 minutes to eat and be together each day. I heard a piece on National Public Radio the other day, an interview with Maya Angelou[2] about a new cookbook she recently had published, “Good Food, All Day Long”, in which Ms Angelou told the following story:

“I had a young woman who came to work for me a few weeks ago, and we had sandwiches. So she had sandwich, and I had one. And I sat at the kitchen table, and she stood at the counter. So I said oh, no. Please come and sit down.

She said: No, Ma'am. I feel most comfortable standing here. And I realized in that second that we have raised a generation of young people who have eaten their main meals at counters. Not to sit down at the table is to lose something that is essential to community, essential to family.”

I think this story may be the final inspiration I need to be intentional about creating a kitchen, 10 years from now, that is filled with good food, community, and home, rather than American-Chinese food on the run.

***Vision 2020***

2020: In this utopian future, I’m working for a small publisher in Bloomington, Indiana. I have a small, old house on the edge of downtown and a large, wiry-haired grey dog.

Southern Indiana boasts an impressive amount of seasonal farmer’s markets, so during the warm seasons I’d shop local at least on the weekends. Pollan points out that if you shop in-season, you have to explore with recipes and foods you may have not considered trying before—it’ll be fun to try new combinations and dishes.

Another thing from the book that I found very interesting was the idea of a “flexitarian” diet, where meat is consumed less than once a day. In fact, this philosophy spawned my newest experiment, a completely meat-free December. But in 2020, I hope to be only eating meat two or three times a week—this seems overall best for the environment and for myself.

Of course, having a job means I won’t have all the time I’d like to cook. However, I can try to cook things in bulk and store leftovers in the freezer for the next few weeks. I can also try to make conscious choices with packaged goods or take-out. Of course, I will still have to take breaks for my processed weaknesses. I can recognize that Taco Bell might be a terrible life choice, but I will never be able to end my love affair.

Overall, I hope my kitchen has a lot of fresh produce and weird spices to experiment with. I hope there are lots of dog-eared cookbooks on the shelves. I hope I make time to actually have fun with cooking, and to actually sit down and enjoy meals. I hope that some of the lessons I’ve learned from reading this book will translate easily to my future life, and contribute to a healthy, happy lifelong relationship to food.

---

[1] Note, said take-out will likely not actually be American-Chinese, as most of this is made with fish oil, a product I choose not to consume, I just use this example for literary effect.

[2] If you have not heard this, I highly recommend it: http://www.npr.org/2010/12/16/132080094/maya-angelous-cooking-advice-ignore-the-rules. One of my favorite poets, I am equally thrilled with Angelou’s philosophy of food- eat and be happy, treats are okay.

Im-Mobile

Alabama Town’s Failed Pension Is Warning to Cities and States - NYTimes.com: "This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.

Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full.

Since then, Nettie Banks, 68, a retired Prichard police and fire dispatcher, has filed for bankruptcy. Alfred Arnold, a 66-year-old retired fire captain, has gone back to work as a shopping mall security guard to try to keep his house. Eddie Ragland, 59, a retired police captain, accepted help from colleagues, bake sales and collection jars after he was shot by a robber, leaving him badly wounded and unable to get to his new job as a police officer at the regional airport.

Far worse was the retired fire marshal who died in June. Like many of the others, he was too young to collect Social Security. “When they found him, he had no electricity and no running water in his house,” said David Anders, 58, a retired district fire chief. “He was a proud enough man that he wouldn’t accept help.”"

100 Best Films: ANthony Quinn

100 Best Films: 20-1 - Features, Films - The Independent: "Fed up with formulaic 'blockbusters' and overhyped cinematic turkeys? Anthony Quinn selects 100 timeless movie classics that never disappoint. And, to help you enjoy them, the series culminates with the offer of a month’s free DVD hire for every reader (see below)."

Food and Safety - Sandwiched in a Bill

Jimmy John’s pulls sprouts after salmonella probe | Chicago Breaking Business: "Jimmy John’s has asked its franchises to pull alfalfa sprouts believed to be tied to outbreaks of salmonella in Illinois and Wisconsin.

The sandwich chain says it is pulling them as a “good faith and good will gesture.”

Illinois health officials have confirmed that 43 Illinois residents and one Wisconsin resident have salmonella.

All residents said they ate alfalfa sprouts at Jimmy John’s restaurants in Adams, Champaign, Cook, DuPage, Kankakee, Macon, McHenry, McLean, Peoria and Will counties, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

IDPH officials said alfalfa sprout producers and suppliers are being investigated, and produce testing is ongoing. Three other reported cases are still under investigation.

Symptoms of illness caused by salmonella include diarrhea, vomiting, fever and stomach cramps. Illness usually develops within six to 72 hours after being exposed to salmonella bacteria."

Congress poised to pass ambitious food-safety bill - chicagotribune.com: "In a world where we get garlic from China, shellfish from Thailand and sugar cane from Mexico, Congress is poised to approve an ambitious food safety bill that would strengthen the nation's top regulator and impose new rules on domestic production and trading partners.

The legislation is aimed at preventing tainted food from entering the supply chain, sickening Americans and forcing massive recalls. It would give the Food and Drug Administration sweeping new powers to demand recalls and require importers to certify the safety of what they're bringing into this country.

By allowing regulators, for instance, to react more quickly to reports of illness, the legislation could limit or prevent recalls like those of spinach and peanuts in recent years, supporters said."

When 'Default" option is Not the Default Option

Quite a few writers, including this blogger, predicted few years ago that local governments would face serious debt crises. That prediction appears to be coming true...

$2tn debt crisis threatens to bring down 100 US cities | Business | The Guardian: "More than 100 American cities could go bust next year as the debt crisis that has taken down banks and countries threatens next to spark a municipal meltdown, a leading analyst has warned.

Meredith Whitney, the US research analyst who correctly predicted the global credit crunch, described local and state debt as the biggest problem facing the US economy, and one that could derail its recovery.

'Next to housing this is the single most important issue in the US and certainly the biggest threat to the US economy,' Whitney told the CBS 60 Minutes programme on Sunday night....

American cities and states have debts in total of as much as $2tn. In Europe, local and regional government borrowing is expected to reach a historical peak of nearly €1.3tn (£1.1tn) this year.

Cities from Detroit to Madrid are struggling to pay creditors, including providers of basic services such as street cleaning. Last week, Moody's ratings agency warned about a possible downgrade for the cities of Florence and Barcelona and cut the rating of the Basque country in northern Spain. Lisbon was downgraded by rival agency Standard & Poor's earlier this year, while the borrowings of Naples and Budapest are on the brink of junk status. Istanbul's debt has already been downgraded to junk.,,:

Healthy Peanuts

Zimbabwe’s Poor Barter Goods for Health Care - NYTimes.com: "People lined up on the veranda of the American mission hospital here from miles around to barter for doctor visits and medicines, clutching scrawny chickens, squirming goats and buckets of maize. But mostly, they arrived with sacks of peanuts on their heads.

The hospital’s cavernous chapel is now filled with what looks like a giant sand dune of unshelled nuts. The hospital makes them into peanut butter that is mixed into patients’ breakfast porridge, spread on teatime snacks and melted into vegetables at dinnertime.

“We literally are providing medical services for peanuts!” exclaimed Kathy McCarty, a nurse from California who has run this rural hospital, 35 miles from the nearest tarred road, since 1981."

Testy Trials - of the Clinical Type

Outsourcing of clinical trials is not new- the ethics of it still merit serious discussion. The drugs that are developed using patients in China and in India are often not affordable to the masses in those countries. From one viewpoint, this can be seen as exploitation of the poor.

Deadly Medicine: FDA Fails to Regulate Rapidly Growing Industry of Overseas Drug Testing: "I think what surprised us the most about this whole story is that—there have always been some foreign clinical trials. That, on its face, is not new. What astonished us was the speed with which this has happened. The statistics that Juan quoted there at the beginning come from an inspector general’s report just released this last year. But the speed of this has actually accelerated very much in the last five to 10 years. It’s not just western Europe; it’s parts of the former Soviet Republic, it’s places in Africa, developing nations in Asia. But the two countries that are going to be at the heart of this more and more in the future are going to be China and India, which have both made this a priority. The Indians have revamped their laws to encourage the development of the clinical trial industry over there. China has made such a priority on teaching English that they’re going to be a big factor in this. You now have more people speaking English in China than in India, which I think was one of the things that surprised us about this whole story."

City Lights Up, So does Pollution...

City Lights Spike Air Pollution : Discovery News: "The glow of city lights obliterates light-sensitive molecules that scrub the atmosphere by night, adding to the problem of air pollution, a new study shows.

Artificial lighting over the Los Angeles area is 10,000 times dimmer than sunlight, but it still cuts night-time atmospheric cleansing by up to 7 percent, say researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which flew aircraft over the region four times this summer to measure city light intensity.

The lights prevent production of a particular type of nitrogen-oxide molecule known as a nitrate radical, which forms from reactions of nitrogen dioxide with ozone. It bonds well with pollutants in the atmosphere, but breaks down quickly in the presence of light.

'It doesn't exist during the day,' said Stark. 'At night, it shows up. It reacts with pollutants and cleans them up.'"

No Happiness for ex-Sanofi

Drugmaker Lays Off 1,700 Via Conference Call Ahead Of Holidays: "A.R., a Sanofi-Aventis sales representative in California who wished to remain anonymous, as her contract forbids publicly disparaging the company, said she and her coworkers each received one of the two mass emails the company sent out that Tuesday morning. Both emails contained a code, an 800-number and a call time, either 8:00 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. The employees who were instructed to call in at the earlier time were told they could keep their jobs, but the 1,700 employees who called in at 8:30 a.m. weren't so lucky: They were laid off by a voice on the other line that told them to stop working immediately, and had no opportunity for question or comment.

Unfortunately, A.R. found herself in the second group."

Drug Industry on a High

Study: Pharmaceutical Drug Companies Top Military Industry in Defrauding U.S. Gov't: "A new study by the watchdog group Public Citizen has found that the drug industry has become the biggest defrauder of the federal government, surpassing the defense industry. Public Citizen found that the drug industry paid out nearly $20 billion in penalties over the past two decades for violations of the False Claims Act. More than half of the industry’s fines were paid by just four companies: GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Schering-Plough."

10 great Internet radio stations

10 great Internet radio stations: "10 great Internet radio stations
Kishore Bhargava / New Delhi December 18, 2010, 0:09 IST
Internet radio has not become popular in India, though elsewhere the Web has revolutionised the reach and range of a once local medium. Kishore Bhargava lists some online stations that are worth listening to

As an avid radio listener, I was overwhelmed when I first discovered Internet Radio."

Goo-Culture

Google creates a tool to probe 'genome' of English words for cultural trends | Science | The Guardian: "How many words in the English language never make it into dictionaries? How has the nature of fame changed in the past 200 years? How do scientists and actors compare in their impact on popular culture?

These are just some of the questions that researchers and members of the public can now answer using a new online tool developed by Google with the help of scientists at Harvard University. The massive searchable database is being hailed as the key to a new era of research in the humanities, linguistics and social sciences that has been dubbed 'culturomics'.

The database comprises more than 5m books – both fiction and non-fiction – published between 1800 and 2000, representing around 4% of all the books ever printed."

Selling Schools to Corporations...Why not privatize the schools?

L.A. Schools Decide to Seek Corporate Sponsors - NYTimes.com: "Facing another potential round of huge budget cuts, the Los Angeles school board unanimously approved a plan on Tuesday night to allow the district to seek corporate sponsorships as a way to get money to the schools.

The district is not the first to look for private dollars as a way to close public budget gaps — districts in Sheboygan, Wis., and Midland, Tex., for example, have offered up naming rights for their stadiums for years. But the Los Angeles school district is by far the largest to do so, and officials say the plan could generate as much as $18 million for the schools."

Power of BP

WikiLeaks cables: Azerbaijan complains of BP clout in country | World news | The Guardian: "In the 21st-century equivalent of the 'Great Game', it seems that some Azeri ministers knew that there is likely to be only one winner in pipeline politics – BP.

Azerbaijan will become even more important in the future in supplying Europe with energy as new pipelines are planned to transport the vast oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea region westwards. But the US diplomatic cables show that in reality, despite threats and bluster from the government, it is BP who holds the key to how, when and where Azerbaijan's reserves are developed.

n a cable written in April 2007, the country's energy and industry minister, Natiq Aliyev, complains that "for much, if not most, of the GOAJ's [government of Azerbaijan] gas production, 'we depend on BP.'"

Discussing the progress of future pipeline plans, he stresses "that the GOAJ is ready and willing to co-ordinate and co-operate with European customers, but the GOAJ has no ability to fulfill (sic) BP's obligations. We can't answer Europe (re availability of gas) without BP".'"

Corporate Child Care

Companies extend maternity benefits, make it easy for young mothers - The Economic Times: "MUMBAI: India’s 1961 Maternity Benefits Act says that any woman employee in a company is entitled to 12 weeks of fully paid leave. But as HR head of the law firm Economic Laws Practice Priya Sawant points out, “On the 85th day, we can’t expect the kid to suddenly realise that now his mother’s gone!”

Many Indian companies are starting to increase the maternity benefits extended to their employees, whether in the form of more their maternity leave or other benefits like flexi-hours or day-care centres.

In April 2009, Standard Chartered offered its women employees a total of six months’ fully-paid maternity leave. At least 135 women have taken leave since then. Over a year-and-a-half ago, Deutsche Bank increased its maternity leave from three to four months. Godrej made the shift two years ago."

Toxic Tax Cuts

"The Worse Off You Are, Your Taxes Increase": Journalist David Cay Johnston Slams Obama-GOP Tax Deal: "DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, you certainly cannot accuse the Republicans of leaving any money on the table. They got an extraordinarily good deal, that raises, I think, basic questions about the negotiating skills of the President. The bottom roughly 45 million families in America or households in America—and there are a little over 100 million households—they’re going to actually see their taxes go up. And that’s because President Obama’s Making Work Pay credit—$400 per person, $200 for a couple, and you got it even if you were retired or disabled—is going to go away. And it’s going to be replaced by this temporary two percent reduction in the payroll tax, the Social Security tax. Well, for about 45 million households who make less than $20,000 a year, this is a tax increase of $150 to $200 each. So, it certainly seems to me it’s reasonable going forward, given how the Republicans have emphasized they will never raise taxes on anyone and they are the party of tax cuts, that the Republicans have now become the party of tax increases on the poor.

At the top end, if you’re a two-income couple and you make a little over $100,000 each, so you pay the most Social Security tax, you didn’t get Obama’s Making Work Pay credit. You were regarded as too well off. But that Social Security payroll tax decrease is going to mean about a $4,200 tax cut for you. So, clearly, we could see the scheme of this is: the better off you are, the more help you get from the government; the worse off you are, your taxes go up."

2010: probably the hottest year ever recorded | Environment | Guardian Weekly

2010: probably the hottest year ever recorded | Environment | Guardian Weekly: "2010 was the year of the heatwave, with record temperatures set in 17 countries. Two leading groups of scientists say it was the warmest since records began in 1850; another suggests it was the second-warmest.

But the year that saw an unprecedented month-long heatwave in Russia will be followed by cooler global temperatures in 2011, say climate scientists monitoring sea temperatures in the Pacific that are thought to determine temperatures around the world.

The final ranking of 2010 will not become clear until November and December data are available in early 2011, but November global temperatures are similar to those observed in November 2005, suggesting 2010 is on track for near-record levels."

Money in Luggage

International fees help add $900M to airline revenue | Chicago Breaking Business: "The sky appears to be the limit when it comes to the money airlines make by charging passengers to check luggage.

The 20 largest U.S. carriers collected $906.4 million in baggage-related revenue in the third quarter, a 23 percent jump from 2009 results, according to data released Monday by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

New international fees adopted this year, a rebound in air travel and growing passenger frustration over limited overhead space in airplane cabins all contributed to the skyrocketing fee income, observers said.

Some passengers are tiring of the hassle of dragging bags on planes, while carriers are forcing travelers to check jumbo-size bags before they leave airport lobbies, noted Tom Parsons, founder and CEO of BestFares.com

“It could be that more people elected not to fight for overhead space, too,” Parsons said.

Adopted by every U.S. carrier except Southwest Airlines, the controversial charges for checked luggage continue to be lucrative for U.S. airlines, which are on pace to report an annual profit this year for the first time since 2007."

Writing...at one's own peril

Writers 'at greater risk of depression', survey finds | Books | guardian.co.uk: "Writing is one of the top 10 professions in which people are most likely to suffer from depression, with men particularly at risk from the illness, according to US website health.com.

The site puts artists and writers among the most vulnerable of professionals, alongside other 'at risk' jobs including care workers, teachers, social workers, maintenance staff and salespeople.

Irregular pay and isolation contribute to the propensity for writers to succumb to depression, says the site, with nearly 7% of male artists and writers likely to suffer a major episode of the illness.

Novelist Simon Brett, who has acknowledged his own struggles with depression, agreed with the tenor of the findings, citing writer suicides including Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Anne Sexton and Arthur Koestler."

Hard Trade Skills Not Needed to make cars...

GM Offering Buyouts to Several Thousand Skilled Workers : NPR: "General Motors Co. is offering buyouts to several thousand skilled trades workers at 14 plants around the U.S.

The automaker will pay eligible workers $60,000 to retire with full benefits. Younger workers will have the option to take the $60,000 in exchange for giving up retiree health care and other benefits.

GM spokesman Chris Lee didn't know how many workers will get the offers. The company estimates it has 2,000 more skilled trades workers than it needs right now. Skilled trades workers do jobs that need special training, like electrical work and welding.

Eligible workers will be notified by Dec. 23 and will have to leave the company by March 1."

Nano Power

World's smallest battery: Real-time observation of nanowire anode to help improve lithium batteries: "A benchtop version of the world's smallest battery -- its anode a single nanowire one seven-thousandth the thickness of a human hair -- has been created by a team led by Sandia National Laboratories researcher Jianyu Huang.

To better study the anode's characteristics, the tiny rechargeable, lithium-based battery was formed inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM) at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT), a Department of Energy research facility jointly operated by Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories.

Says Huang of the work, reported in the Dec. 10 issue of the journalScience, "This experiment enables us to study the charging and discharging of a battery in real time and at atomic scale resolution, thus enlarging our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms by which batteries work."

Because nanowire-based materials in lithium ion batteries offer the potential for significant improvements in power and energy density over bulk electrodes, more stringent investigations of their operating properties should improve new generations of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, laptops and cell phones..."

Definition of Exorbitant...

Govt tells airlines to put up all-inclusive fares - The Economic Times: "he government on Thursday issued a three-point directive to airlines, which had a day earlier put their route-wise fare ranges in an extremely confusing manner. The fare charts made public can be deciphered only by travel industry honchos and not the common traveller. Airlines have now been asked to issue all-inclusive and reasonable fares in a consumer-friendly manner, something that only Air India (domestic) has done.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has also found that fares on certain sectors of some airlines are higher beyond reasonable limit when compared to the prices offered by other carriers on those routes. The other yardstick being used to decide reasonableness will be the fares prevalent same period last year. "A 10-35% hike is understandable due to increased demand but fares can't double or triple in a year. We do not desire to interfere in setting fares but we can't allow exploiting of passengers through exorbitant fares," said an official.

Also, the government wants the plethora of information on fare range charts to be limited to only things useful for passengers. This could mean removing distance between origin and destination while indicating if a particular flight involves change of aircraft through a transit point. "

What's a fair share?

Life Inc. - Some millionaires say, 'Tax me, please!': "A new group called Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength has released a list of hundreds of high earners who say they want to see tax cuts for the wealthy expire as scheduled Dec. 31.
'My view is that in hard times it is important for Americans to come together and unite over the idea that medical care ought to be a basic right of citizenship,' said Eric Schoenberg, identified as a 'private investor' who also teaches at Columbia Business School. 'It’s only fair for those of us who have benefited the most from this system to contribute the most.”
Of course it is not completely unheard-of for certain progressively minded millionaires to favor higher taxes. Bill Gates Sr., the father of the Microsoft Corp. founder and chairman, long has championed higher estate taxes. This year he also backed a failed effort to impose a state income tax on high earners in Washington State."

Finns are SHanghai'd in Education

Finland has been the model for education, but it appears that the Chinese might be giving the Finns an Education.

In PISA Test, Top Scores From Shanghai Stun Experts - NYTimes.com: "PISA scores are on a scale, with 500 as the average. Two-thirds of students in participating countries score between 400 and 600. On the math test last year, students in Shanghai scored 600, in Singapore 562, in Germany 513, and in the United States 487.

In reading, Shanghai students scored 556, ahead of second-place Korea with 539. The United States scored 500 and came in 17th, putting it on par with students in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and several other countries.

In science, Shanghai students scored 575. In second place was Finland, where the average score was 554. The United States scored 502 — in 23rd place — with a performance indistinguishable from Poland, Ireland, Norway, France and several other countries."

When a Carbon Emissions Cut is not really a Cut

The Hindu : Sci-Tech / Energy & Environment : U.S.’s response to climate change disappointing: Jairam Ramesh: "Maintaining that the U.S.’s response to climate change is “disappointing”, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday appealed America to better its emission reduce commitment before it was too late for the global community.

Mr. Ramesh expressed deep concern about the U.S. offer to reduce carbon emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020, which he said worked out to a 4 per cent reduction on 1990 reference level used by Kyoto Protocol parties.

He further said that due to absence of domestic legislation, executive action could only achieve 14 per cent reduction by 2020 on 2005 level, which translates to zero per cent reduction of carbon emissions on 1990 levels.

“By any standard the U.S. offer on emission reduction for 2020 is deeply disappointing,” he said. “It’s one thing being ambitious for 2050 when all of us will be dead but the real issue is... are you going to be held accountable for 2020 mid term targets are very essential.”"

Two Sides of Bail-Out Ben

Ben Bernanke: Income Inequality Is 'Creating Two Societies': "Pelley: The gap between rich and poor in this country has never been greater. In fact we have the biggest income disparity gap of any industrialized country in the world. And I wonder where you think that's taking America.

Bernanke: It's a very bad development. It's creating two societies. And it's based very much, I think, on educational differences. The unemployment rate we've been talking about. If you're a college graduate, unemployment is 5 percent. If you're a high school graduate, it's 10 percent or more. It's a very big difference. It leads to an unequal society, and a society which doesn't have the cohesion that we'd like to see.'"

Bernanke Defends Bond Plan; Urges More Stimulus : NPR: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sought Friday to defuse criticism of the Fed's $600 billion bond-purchase plan by arguing that it's needed to boost the economy and reduce unemployment. But he warned that the Fed's program can't succeed on its own."

Airline fares flying into Government headwind

The Hindu : News : Airlines cut fares by 25 per cent: "With pressure mounting on them, domestic airlines have lowered the overall fares on several sectors though they are yet to return to the average levels during the same period last year. The overall airfares have come down by about 20-25 per cent in the past week, official sources said, adding that the “pressure” mounted by the Civil Aviation Ministry and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) against exorbitant airfares had been a success, officials told PTI here.

The fare range on Delhi-Mumbai sector was Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000 on economy class ticket, while that on Delhi-Chennai and Delhi-Kolkata stood between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000, the officials said.

Two weeks ago, the lowest last-minute Delhi-Mumbai fare was about Rs 17,000, even though holiday travel season had not begun.

The lowest available fares at the same time last year was about Rs 3,000 for Delhi-Mumbai and Rs 4,000 for the Delhi-Chennai and Delhi-Kolkata sectors, they said."

Indian Summer...and an Unpleasant one

India faces major climate changes by 2030: Report - The Economic Times: "A new report says India could be 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 F) warmer than 1970s levels within 20 years - a change that would disrupt rain cycles and wreak havoc on the country's agriculture and freshwater supplies, experts said Wednesday.

More flooding, more drought and a spreading of malaria would occur, as the disease migrates northward into Kashmir and the Himalayas, according to the report by 220 Indian scientists and 120 research institutions.

The temperature rise, which could be even more extreme along the coasts, would cause drastic changes in India's rain cycles that threaten water supplies and agriculture - the key source of livelihood for most of India's 1.2 billion people."

High RO(D)I - Return on Divorce Investment

Human ingenuity- no shortage of it, but a serious deficiency exists in where it is applied...

Divorce Costs Financed by Firms - NYTimes.com: "With some in the financial world willing to bet on almost anything, it should be no surprise that a few would see the potential to profit from the often contentious and emotional process of ending a marriage.

So far, the number of companies investing in divorce is small — Balance Point is one of the few that do it exclusively. But other businesses are gearing up. A New York start-up, Churchill Divorce Finance, also is planning to enter the business. The company’s chief executive previously co-founded a publicly traded Australian company, ASK Funding, that has invested tens of millions in divorce cases there.

While this business is in its infancy, Balance Point is part of a bigger trend — the growing industry that invests in other people’s lawsuits, arming plaintiffs with money to help them win more money from defendants. Banks, hedge funds and boutique firms like Balance Point now have a total of $1 billion invested in lawsuits at any given time, industry participants estimate..."

From GE to GF (General Finance)

For G.E. and Jeffrey Immelt, a Return to Basics - NYTimes.com: "...Making progress, he adds, will require significantly improving the nation’s prowess as an exporter. G.E., by the way, happens to be America’s second-largest exporter, after Boeing. So Mr. Immelt’s views about what changes would benefit the economy would probably help G.E. as well.

“Many bought into the idea that America could go from a technology-based, export-oriented powerhouse to a services-led, consumption-based economy — and somehow still expect to prosper,” Mr. Immelt said in a typical speech last year before the Detroit Economic Club. “That idea was flat wrong.” He added: “Our economy tilted instead toward the quicker profits of financial services.”

Mr. Immelt is backing his words with actions — plans announced over the last 18 months include the creation of more than 4,000 jobs in manufacturing production and research in the United States. They include new factory jobs in Kentucky, Ohio, New York, Alabama and Mississippi, for making products including energy-thrifty washers and dryers, fluorescent light bulbs, sodium batteries, environmental coatings and jet engines. And the company is opening a research center in Michigan for advanced manufacturing technologies..."

Not quite Shocking...

College Students Admit To 'Shocking' Text Messaging Habits in Class - NYTimes.com: "According to the study, 91% admitted they have used their phones to text during class. Almost half said it's easy to get away with doing so without their instructor noticing. And 62% said that they feel they should be allowed to text in class as long they don't disturb others.

However, students did admit that cellphones could be 'disturbing.' About 25% said that texting causes a distraction to those nearby, and 75% said they've been disturbed by someone's phone ringing in class. And about a third of students said they thought that texting in class would be a distraction for the person sending the message, causing a loss of attention and poor grades.

About 10% of college students said they've sent or received texts during exams. And 3% said they have actually sent exam information during a test."

Can Picture this and Can Phone it in...

Yesterday, my International Marketing class discussed the fate of cameras in the era of smartphones (or Internet Enabled Devices). The general consensus was that camera sales would decline sharply. Today, a NYT article appears to confirm those deductions.

In Smartphone Era, Point-and-Shoots Stay Home - NYTimes.com: "...The point-and-shoot camera, which has been a part of American households since 1900, when George Eastman introduced the Kodak Brownie, is endangered. Like other single-use devices — the answering machine, the desktop calculator, the Rolodex — it is being shoved aside by a multipurpose device: the smartphone and its camera, which takes better snapshots with each new model.

Cameras, mostly point-and-shoots, are still found in 82 percent of American households, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. But for many consumers, the point-and-shoot they have now may be the last they ever own as they favor the camera in their smartphone. It’s close at hand whenever a photo opportunity arises, and can be used to instantly e-mail and share pictures. And it has an expanding menu of photo apps, well beyond the landscape and panoramic settings on a point-and-shoot, that can be used to easily manipulate the images.

Point-and-shoots do have certain advantages over smartphone cameras, including features like image stabilization and larger lenses and sensors. That does not matter to consumers like Emily Peterson, a 28-year-old graphic designer who lives in Brooklyn and who bought an iPhone 4 in July. “One day I just thought, ‘Wow, I never have my camera with me, when I used to carry it around all the time,’ ” she said. “It’s just one less thing for me to remember, one less thing to carry.”

Geoffe Haney, a 44-year-old collections manager at a museum in Bay City, Mich., who also owns an iPhone 4, said the device was “my camera first, my phone second.” He added, “I have 40 photo apps on my iPhone — it’s like having 40 different cameras with you all the time.”

The sales figures tell the story. While smartphone sales in the United States continue to skyrocket, unit sales of point-and-shoot cameras fell nearly 16 percent from 2008, according to the market research firm NPD Group. That corresponds to a decline of 24 percent in dollars, to $1.9 billion, from $2.4 billion.

Even when the recession eased over the last year, sales of point-and-shoots fell. At the same time, sales of more powerful cameras like S.L.R.’s, with advanced features like interchangeable lenses and manual settings, have increased, by nearly 29 percent in dollars since 2009, according to NPD..."

"Cap"ping off the Gemini

Capgemini has more staff in India than at HQ

BANGALORE: The employee strength of many global technology companies in India is the largest outside their home country. Capgemini, the French IT consulting, services and business process outsourcing major, however, has reversed the equation by hiring more employees in India than in its home country.

India became No. 1 for Capgemini in terms of the size of its workforce this year when it hired around 10,000 people to take its total employee strength in the country to 30,000. Till January this year, Capgemini had 20,000 employees in France , and that number remains almost unchanged today.

Capgemini has a little over 1,00,000 employees globally, which means that India constitutes almost a third of its total strength.

Na-Na Nano

The Fabled Nano...

How Tata Nano hit a big bump in India

MUMBAI: The Tata Nano was a small car that was expected to deliver big numbers — the new plant at Sanand in Gujarat was built to produce 2.5 lakh units a year, eventually ramping up to 5 lakh units. But 15 months after a high-profile launch, it has encountered trouble at every turn — three instances of the car going up in flames and a few cases of smoke emanating from it (the last was in September), confusion about its positioning, a rather unexpected bunch of affluent initial buyers, poor distribution reach, and financing bottlenecks. Nano’s sales have dipped from 9,000 units in July to 3,000 in October to just a little over 500 in November.

An ETreporter who visited Sanand on Tuesday met workers at the industrial zone who said production of the Nano has come to a near standstill; the number of workers there has decreased by 80% in the last month. The company declined to answer a specific emailed query on the firm stopping Nano production, even though it opened up to detailed interviews on all other aspects of the car.