Bonsai

This is my little jade plant bonsai that Beth gave me for Valentines day, in lieu of flowers. I used to have a little jade plant before, but it died on the long car ride from Seattle to the East Cost 2 summers ago. So now I have a real live one, and it's much bigger than the one I had before - they grow very slowly. This one also has little mosses on the top of its dirt, which is quite cool - sort of like a green carpet (which you can sort of make out in the picture).

Google logo today

The google logo today is quite fascinating, as it celebrates one of my favorite artists: Joan Miro.
For the curious: learn more about Google's holiday logos or find out more about Miro. My favorite painting by him, which I used to have hanging in my bedroom in college, is Blue II.

Uncle Aaron

I am now officially an uncle! My wife's oldest brother just had a baby girl yesterday! And to honor me, they gave her the middle name of Erin. Ok, ok, so his wife's middle name is Erin too... But unfortunately because of finals we probably won't get up there until the middle of May to see the little baby. Still, it is quite exciting for all involved - there have been baby preparations and excitement going on for months here. My wife even sewed a big wall hanging for the baby, and finished it yesterday, appropriately enough. It features Noah's ark (appropriate for a pastor's baby, yes?), with pairs of elephants, giraffes, penguins, ducks, and monkeys holding fish in the water. It's quite nonsensical, really, but very cute! That is what it looks like, at right.

The Ultimate Present

I found the ultimate present for any science or math nerd: a giant poster of Pi. It lists the first million digits of Pi! My Pi t-shirt only lists 4493. I love being a physics major. Of course, not only does it cost a ton but you'd have to find a big enough wall to put it on. Better to be safe and just stick with science t-shirts.

3.141592653....

Interesting News

Now for some interesting news and/or sites, after the depressing ones from yesterday:

• A photo essay on American children growing up all too fast in Hollywood by Lauren Greenfield. She's published the entire collection in book form entitled Fast Forward. And while it's specifically about Hollywood, I think it's obvious that the rest of the country is not far behind. Recommended.
• A rather bizarre but interesting anecdote on the economics of driving a taxi, as told by a Chinese taxi driver.
• And since economics run the world, a review of Thomas Friedman's bestseller The World is Flat by Edward Leamer. While I haven't read the entire review yet, and I haven't read any of Friedman's book, here's an interesting snippet from the review:

“Is a computer more like a forklift or more like a microphone?” It doesn’t matter much who drives the forklift, but it matters a lot who sings into the microphone. Think about the forklift first. You might be a lot stronger than I, but with a little bit of training, I can operate a forklift and lift just as much as you or any other forklift operator. Thus the forklift is a force for income equality, eliminating your strength advantage over me. That is decidedly not the case for a microphone. We cannot all operate a microphone with anywhere near the same level of proficiency. Indeed, I venture the guess that I would have to pay you to listen to me sing, not the other way round. And I seriously doubt that a lifetime of training would allow me to compete with Springsteen, or Pavarotti.

The effect of the microphone and mass media have been to allow a single talented entertainer to serve a huge customer base and accordingly to command enormous earnings. This creates an earnings distribution with a few extremely highly paid talented and trained individuals and with the vast group of slightly less talented working in LA restaurants, hoping someday to hit it big. Thus, opposite to the forklift, the microphone creates a powerful force for inequality. Think Silicon Valley, with ext raordinary riches accruing to some, but with the manual service workers living in their cars.

I'm really starting to think I should study more economics, since it does seem to run the world. And statistics too. Plus, I like numbers. But for now I must return to my paper writing...

News

Unsurprising news:

• Bush lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction, this time about Iraq's "mobile labs".
• When big pharmaceutical companies pay for their own research for clinical trials, their own drugs ending up looking better than when independent companies do research.

Sorry for not writing more. I'm in the thick of writing papers right now.

First up is my US foreign policy paper on Clinton's decision to delink China's MFN status from its human rights record in 1994. I've learned a lot from the paper, especially that the US had less leverage over China than many assumed. I think that trend will only continue, as China tries to ensure that it will be able to go about its business with as few encumbrances from the US as possible.

After that, I have another week to write my paper on democracy in China, specifically on whether Western style liberal, individual freedoms will contribute to the growth of democracy in China, or that China will have to find its own method for ensuring human rights and liberties by tying them into its Confucian culture.

Internship!

I got an internship for the summer! It will be at the Center for International Policy in their Asia department. The funniest part is that I get to help the director type out his email - since he doesn't use computers, he types them out on a typewriter, and then I'll retype them into the computer! Sounds like I'll get to be directly involved in his communications, in other words. They will also give me time to conduct an independent research project, and let me go to any relevant lecutures or conferences that are going on in city.

Tibetan Plateau

While putting together the PowerPoint slides for my presentation yesterday on Sino-India relations, I ran across this wonderful NASA photo of the Tibetan Plateau. The plateau is in the middle, the sandy desert looking area to the north is the Xinjiang minority region of China, and to the lower left in the green is India, with Pakistan and Afghanistan being on the far left. The Himalayas are the white diaganol line down the entire photo, with Mt Everest somewhere in the lower right hand side (but before the big white hump).

From Wikipedia, click for bigger view.

Also sighted among the cherry blossoms...

Curiously enough, at the Cherry blossom festival we also ran into a garden of tulips - over 60 varieties were there, I think. The tulip garden is run by the National Park Service, I believe. 

More Cherry Blossoms

I like them!

Cherry Blossoms

We joined most of the city yesterday as we went downtown and saw the cherry blossoms in bloom. They were gorgeous. More photos on the way...