Statistics

I hate my Statistics class. Mostly it's because teacher is a jerk. He's crass and i's obvious that he thinks he's smarter than anyone else in the room. Which is ok with me - profs are supposed to be smart, right? But what bothers me is that he feels like he obviously has such low self-esteem that the only way he can raise it is by proving that he's smarter than his students. Now that's pretty dumb.

The worst part is that he tries to sugar-coat it by being funny... He says: "Think of a histogram like a human pyramid - no, not the ones from Guantanamo Bay." Anyone see the stupidity here? Yes! It's Abu Gharib, not Guantanamo! Stupid!

I wouldn't care about such a slip of the tongue, except that he's so arrogant to begin to with. Just act like a normal human being!

Other than that, the class is late at night, 8:00 - 10:00pm, which further aggravates the feeling of "why am I here?"

Sorry to rant...

Here's something interesting: the normal equation!

http://www.cap.ca/wyp/media/theStarEquations/

Hospital

Beth's feeling better now. She had been in the ER a week ago on Sunday because she was very short of breath - it had been occuring for a couple days and got to the point where we wanted to make sure nothing was really wrong. The ER did X-rays, CT, blood tests, asthma checks, EKG - everything was ok and they thought it would heal up on its own, and it mostly has, with a little help from anti-inflamatory medicine.

So we're hoping this week will be easier than last week. Thanks to everyone for their concern.

Looking for a Job

Time to get serious: I'm looking for jobs for the summer. Well actually they are mostly interships, and unpaid internships at that. I think international affairs is a field that doesn't make a lot of money, so they only pay people they actually hire. But an internship will be fun. Here's the different think-tanks that I'll be applying, I think:

Brookings Institution, Henry L Stimson Center, Atlantic Council of the US, Mansfield Foundation, CSIS, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Congressional Research Service (CRS), Council on Foreign Relations, Center for International Policy

Mostly interns at these places help with research, general administration (read: copying), writing news briefs, maintaing websites, and occassionally getting to go to meetings. That woud be the really cool part - getting to meet people.

For the fall I really want to try to apply to the State Department and see if I can get an internship there. That would be really cool.

In the meantime, I'm doing my teaching and research assistantship, which I like a lot. I'm helping my prof to edit and send out an article to the Asian Perspective journal - some of my actual words are going to get published! Too bad I don't get any credit!

Photo: Rodin and The Gates of Hell

Wow, I just ran across this picture in my collection. It's from Auguste Rodin's La Porte de l'Enfer (The Gates of Hell) at the Rodin Museum in Paris. The work is based on Dante's Inferno. From this angle, it looks pretty hopeless, which is, I suppose, the point of hell.

Photo: DC Tree

I like this one. It works better in black and white than the original color.

You can also clearly see the change in color about a third of the way up the Washington Monument in the background.

Photo: Jefferson Looks at Washington Monument

 

Photo: Saint Sophia Cathedral

This is Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Massachusetts Ave NW, right where we live, with the Washington National Cathedrdal in the background on the right.

The name Saint Sophia, means "Holy Wisdom," Hagia Sophia. The parish of this church was founded in 1904, but the cornerstone for this building was laid in 1956, in the presence of President and Mrs. Eisenhower.

Information from Washington Itself, E J Applewhite, Madison Books, 1993.

Lecture: “Terrorism and Chinese National Security”

My notes from a lecture by Andrew Scobell, of the U.S. Army War College, given at American University on 24 January, 2006:

• The largest threat of terrorism to China is not from ethnic separatists but from alienated Han Chinese workers in cities and rural farmers
• While China has long ignored the threat of terrorism, and still considers itself to be a low risk as a foreign terror target, it has recently begun to use terrorism to advance its own national interests, especially since 9/11/01

1. Internal Security:
   *Short term threat: Social stability: Often portrayed by the government as arising primarily from ethnic separatists, but in reality alienated Han who are being left out of China’s rise represent more of the violence
   
   *Han terrorism strikes at the heart of Communist power, because Han cannot be excluded as ethnic minorities can
   
   *2008 Olympics: Keeping a good image is crucial
   
   *Long term threat: Capitalist democracy threatens Communists power
   
   
2. Asia Neighborhood:
   Central Asia: China tries to be on good terms with all its neighbors
   
   *China is worried about possible Uygur influence from Central Asia into Xinjiang
   
   *The Shanghai Cooperation Organization brings together China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
   
   *The PLA of China held their first ever international war games with Kyrgyzstan in joint anti-terrorism practice
   
   *China will provide US$150 million to Afghanistan in aid
   
   South Asia:
   *Pakistan: Relations have historically been good, and they are China’s strategic gateway into the Muslim world
   
   *India: Relations have been rocky but getting better, and good relations are needed to control the Tibet problem, since the Dalai Lama is in India
   
   *However, Tibet has been more peaceful than the Uygurs, so the primary focus for Beijing is in Xinjiang
   
   
3. Global Challenges:
   *China has helped in the war on terror, and Sino-US relations have benefited
   
   *Axis of Evil: After the Iraq invasion, China worried that the US would next invade North Korea
   
   *Since this was dangerous for China, Beijing became much more involved in the Six-Party diplomatic talks with Pyongyang
   
   *China remains very suspicious of US intentions in the world

Books: Kite Runner

Just finished the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Quite a good book, set in Afghanistan and then later in the U.S. Yes, I know, everyone's reading it, but I still liked it a lot. Very touching, and very illuminating.

I found the book on Barnes and Noble's Discover New Writers, an excellent source of good books. Also from that list I want to read next is Heaven Lake by John Dalton, about a Midwestern American who decides to become a missionary to Taiwan and gets into more than he imagined.

China: Chinese roads are worst in the world

Chinese roads kill 270 people every day, reports CNN, which means nearly 100,000 a year. To anyone who's been in China, this comes as no surprise. This compares with the U.S., which had approximately 42,000 deaths in 2003, according to DSA, Inc, although I'm assuming China still has less cars than the United States. The Economist puts the numbers even higher, saying:

"680 die and 45,000 are injured every day, according to the World Health
Organisation, compared with around 115 deaths a day in far more motorised
America"

The good news: China's numbers are slowly coming down, reduced by 8% from last year. Let's see what happens when the Olympics come in 2 years - it could look really bad for Beijing.