Grand old man of Travel

WSJ has a nice profile/interview of Paul Theroux on his new book.

Some nice gems in the interview.

Asked to reminisce about the old days:

"In Iran, in 1973, if you had blue jeans and a watch, people would
follow you down the street, saying 'Please, sir, sell me your watch,
sell me your jeans.' In Mashhad, I sold a pair of jeans for $15, quite
a lot of money, because they were real American blue jeans and everyone
wanted American blue jeans. It was cool. Hippies would go, and bring
three or four pairs and sell them in Iran, in Afghanistan."

Asked what's changed since:

"Some places haven't changed much -- Burma, for
instance. I still call it that . . . Burma. And the places that have
changed radically -- like India -- were hard to understand. It was
hard, hard, to understand where India's going. The people there are
lost in the change. Bangalore, for one, and a lot of other parts of
India can't keep pace with the change. They can't build roads fast
enough, airports fast enough . . . It's as though they're all having a
nervous breakdown

"But I love traveling in India," Mr. Theroux
continues, "because Indians are approachable. If I were traveling in
the U.S. and asked people some of the questions I ask in India, I'd get
a very dusty answer. People would say 'Who are you?' 'You work for the
government?' When you're in India, you can ask, 'Where do you live,
what do you do, how much do you earn, how many children do you have?'
It's the accessible poor. You can do that in Southeast Asia, too. But
in America you can't. Try asking those questions in Jackson,
Mississippi."

About Japan:

"Hmm . . . let me think," he responds, playing with his chin. "Japan
doesn't have suspicion of strangers. They just have an utter lack of
interest. They have a settled sense of themselves as an advanced
culture, a sense that other people aren't doing things right. They
think their food is best, their way of living is best. They lack space,
but in all other ways they feel they've got it figured out."

And then golden one - Singapore:

"Singapore," he says, stressing the "pore" and raising
visions of muggy, tropical discomfort. "Singapore is an example of a
place where people are self-conscious in the presence of foreigners,
because they feel that you're going to criticize them for having
accommodated themselves to their government and this way of living.

"It's like a gated community. You go in definitely
feeling (a) that you don't belong there, (b) that they're not
particularly interested in your staying there, and (c) that they're
very, very defensive. They feel they have to explain why they've
settled for Singapore. And do you know, the sex trade there is booming,
but their boast is, 'These aren't Singapore girls . . . they're
Burmese, they're Vietnamese, they're Filipina . . . but not us!'"

Whither Pakistan?

Lots of changes happening in Pakistan - new President (today); recent Prime Minister and the country continues to go downhill. The Americans have always supported Pakistan as an ally - but of course this was convinient to the Pakistanis. The American money kept flowing and the Pakistanis kept doing what they do best - feeding the Taliban monster.

An article in the NY Times questions Pakistan's loyalty. The Americans seem to have just woken up. But seriously, the direction is taking is really a ticking time bomb with real bad implications for India.

For once, Pakistan needs to get over it's obesession with India and create an identity for itself that different from being "not-India". Grow up guys, there is a whole world out there and lots of problems to solve in both our countries. So let's not waste people by blowing them up.

Does Osama bin Laden Still Matter

Time magazine asks this question in a recent issue...well I don't think so - I don't think he ever mattered. He was nothing more than a small time smuggler (of opium etc) who had some wealth that he was willing to spend on causes he thought would make him the next Imam of Islam. He has visions of grandeur - nothing else. He got lucky once (9/11) and was never been able to repeat anything like that ever. I don't think he will ever, either.

His vision of pan-Arabia Islam with him as the Caliph did not materialize. The Muslim world did not stand up together when America invaded Iraq - quite simply most of Muslim world are engaged in their own battle - to stay in power...

The Geo-politics of $130 oil

Stratfor which always has brilliant analysis of politics, geo-politics and history has a post on the geo-politics of $130 oil:

The big losers are countries that not only have to import oil but
also are heavily industrialized relative to their economy. Countries in
which service makes up a larger sector than manufacturing obviously use
less oil for critical economic functions than do countries that are
heavily manufacturing-oriented. Certainly, consumers in countries such
as the United States are hurt by rising prices. And these countries’
economies might slow. But higher oil prices simply do not have the same
impact that they do on countries that both are primarily
manufacturing-oriented and have a consumer base driving cars.

East Asia has been most affected by the combination of sustained
high oil prices and disruptions in the food supply. Japan, which
imports all of its oil and remains heavily industrialized (along with
South Korea), is obviously affected. But the most immediately affected
is China, where shortages of diesel fuel have been reported. China’s
miracle — rapid industrialization — has now met its Achilles’ heel:
high energy prices.

Now the we know who the losers are, it's time to see the winners - and unsurprisingly the answer is the countries of the Arabian Peninsla and Russia helping the rise of Russia.

The Chinese dilemma is present throughout Asia. But just as Asia is the
big loser because of long-term high oil prices coupled with food
disruptions, Russia is the big winner. Russia is an exporter of natural
gas and oil. It also could be a massive exporter of grains if prices
were attractive enough and if it had the infrastructure (crop failures
in Russia are a thing of the past). Russia has been very careful, under
Vladimir Putin, not to assume that energy prices will remain high and
has taken advantage of high prices to accumulate substantial foreign
currency reserves. That puts them in a doubly-strong position.
Economically, they are becoming major players in global acquisitions.
Politically, countries that have become dependent on Russian energy
exports — and this includes a good part of Europe — are vulnerable,
precisely because the Russians are in a surplus-cash position. They
could tweak energy availability, hurting the Europeans badly, if they
chose. They will not need to. The Europeans, aware of what could
happen, will tread lightly in order to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

Bush Presidency

This cartoon says it all (from the June 12th issue of The Economist):

The Value of social networks

Demographics and the future

Demographics play an important role in determining the future of nations and their evolution. Europe has seen a declining birth rate and it's certain that at least in our life time we will see the decline of Europe and the emergence of Asia along with America as a dominant political and economic force. Given the surging oil prices and the projection of them touching $200 by year end of course brings in one more group as a force - the Middle East.

India's demographics is "heavy" around the centre - meaning that most of her people are young, China's demographic is heavy around the top - a sign of aging population and that's one of the reason experts maintain that India will probably overtake China politically and economically.

But the demographics of the Middle East have been largely ignored. There is an older article (which is now a centre of a free speech argument) which puts a point across quite well that we have a lot to fear from this group.

Monkey Brain?

All the papers have been reporting on a paper published in Nature on how researches have inserted sensors into the head of a monkey who was able to control a robotic arm to feed itself using it's brain waves. Remarkable!!

Such systems, Dr. Kalaska wrote, “would allow patients with severe
motor deficits to interact and communicate with the world not only by
the moment-to-moment control of the motion of robotic devices, but also
in a more natural and intuitive manner that reflects their overall
goals, needs and preferences.”

Perhaps this could be used for this person - very tragic.

Malthus - a false prophet?

A lot has been written about how wrong Malthus was with his theory and how all is well with the population v/s food balance in the world. The recent increase in food prices has helped re-ignite that debate and the Economist calls Malthus a "false prophet". I have a few disagreements:

1. Malthus first set out his ideas in 1798!!! Given the time, I think his study was probably way ahead of his time.
2. In 1803, Malthus published a second edition of his essay and softened the tone by introducing the concept of a "preventive check" - saying the problem could be averted if the birth/death rates changed voluntary. Again, way ahead of his time!
   
3. This was pre-industrialization and pre-green revolution so when these happened people came to the conclusion that Malthus was wrong.
4. However, the statistics today show more than ever that Malthus was right about the "preventive check". World population growth has reduced to an annual rate of 1.2% - probably the slowest ever.

This leads me to believe that maybe Malthus had it wrong in the 1798 essay but probably got it right in the 1803. Without a preventive check we will have a problem and that should be a warning to everyone. Increased productivity of food through better use to technology can only go so far.

Moral Duty to intervene?

Given the disaster in Burma and that Government's indifference to the pain of the people - the question to be asked is: should other nations have the right to intervene in a clear humanitarian crisis where the local government is indifferent? My view is yes - Burma should have been invaded and the regime changed a long time ago - much before Iraq or Afghanistan or the nations in South America.

An article in the Economist questions the legality of a unilateral intervention by the UN in Burma

Responsibility to protect is not yet dead, but it is fragile.
Supporters point to the power-sharing deal that stopped Kenya's civil
war in February as the concept's first success. The fact that the UN, in principle, retains the right to impose its will by force may have made it easier for the world body to broker a settlement.

Perhaps. But the idea will need some clearer successes than that if
it is going to survive. And Myanmar, apparently, is not going to be one
of them.

Inside a DOS attack

Over the memorial day weekend in the US - Revision3's website was shut down by a DOS attack which shutdown their website, RSS feeds, and corporate email. They decided to investigate what/who caused the attack - their investigation reads like a mystery thriller. What's really disturbing is that how the originator (MediaDefender) system decided to innundate a system with "pings" when Revision3 removed some back-door entries into the system. The question really is that while IP rights are important and should be enforced, how do you justify taking down a legit business thru a DOS attack because they removed certain back-doors (which were probably illegal in the first place) from their system?

First, they willingly admitted to abusing Revision3’s network, over a
period of months, by injecting a broad array of torrents into our
tracking server. They were able to do this because we configured the
server to track hashes only – to improve performance and stability.
That, in turn, opened up a back door which allowed their networking
experts to exploit its capabilities for their own personal profit.

Second, and here’s where the chain of events come into focus, although
not the motive. We’d noticed some unauthorized use of our tracking
server, and took steps to de-authorize torrents pointing to
non-Revision3 files. That, as it turns out, was exactly the wrong thing
to do. MediaDefender’s servers, at that point, initiated a flood of SYN
packets attempting to reconnect to the files stored on our server. And
that torrential cascade of “Hi”s brought down our network.

Grodsky admits that his computers sent those SYN packets to Revision3,
but claims that their servers were each only trying to contact us every
three hours. Our own logs show upwards of 8,000 packets a second.

Unbalanced success

It is really unfortunate that we have been able to translate the success that corporate India ha enjoyed recently down to the poor. I am not sure what is the point of this success if 80% of the people don't benefit. How many of us have turned our face away when we have seen beggars on streets, sometimes saying that they were part of a "gang" who make a lot of money.

Amelia Gentleman writing in the IHT, talks about one such have and have-not story somewhere near her home in Delhi. Very touching but I guess most of us Indians prefer to look the other way then actually help. Specifically, we'd rather feed stray dogs than human beings:

There is a kind woman who parks her car near my gate once a day to distribute parcels of rice, neatly wrapped in newspaper, to the wild and possibly rabid dogs who roam the quiet street in this rich part of central Delhi. She caresses them and addresses them by name. One mangy yellow, malevolent animal she calls Bruno.

It is an act of generosity that I still find confusing. Around the corner, sitting by the traffic lights, is a family of four, which receives no rice parcels. The mother, Sayari, is bony thin, and the children's matted hair has a dull orange tint, a sign of the malnutrition affecting nearly half of all under-fives in India.

Globalization Part 2

Globalization was supposed to bring down national borders - the world would be flat. Everyone celebrated the fact that government had taken a back seat to markets. The markets had won. Now it seems, nationalism is on the rise given the effects of globalization

The rising influence of governments can be seen in massive state-funded investment pools, many backed by countries that were reeling financially a decade ago. Sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East are now propping up wobbly financial institutions in the U.S. and Europe, and may hunt next for real-estate bargains. The growth of state power may also serve to make dealing with global climate change -- the most borderless of all issues -- even more difficult.

Globalization?

While everyone has been talking about the good effects of globalization on the world economy, here is an article that comes at it from a different angle - the environmental cost of globalization needs to measured (the article specifically tackles the subject of food travelling all over the world). The cost to the environment of trucking wine from California to NY or shipping Kiwis from italy to NZ and the rest of the world need to be factored in - perhaps to the cost of the food.

Under longstanding trade agreements, fuel for international freight
carried by sea and air is not taxed. Now, many economists,
environmental advocates and politicians say it is time to make shippers
and shoppers pay for the pollution, through taxes or other measures.

The Ugly side of the media

The NYT has an article chronicling the rise and fall of a educator who dreamed of starting a school teaching Arabic to Americans. The media went after her - calling her a "9/11 denier" etc etc resulting finally in her resignation. Very sorry picture - the media's role is to report but to twist comments out of context?.......

The singularity

Wired's April issue has got a piece on Ray Kurzweil and his "singularity" mission. I think this is far-fetched - I don't think we will get pass this singularity (death) in the next 15-20 years - especially that machines will evolve to be conscious in the immediate future.

Kurzweil does not believe in half measures. He takes 180 to 210 vitamin
and mineral supplements a day, so many that he doesn't have time to
organize them all himself. So he's hired a pill wrangler, who takes
them out of their bottles and sorts them into daily doses, which he
carries everywhere in plastic bags. Kurzweil also spends one day a week
at a medical clinic, receiving intravenous longevity treatments. The
reason for his focus on optimal health should be obvious: If the
singularity is going to render humans immortal by the middle of this
century, it would be a shame to die in the interim. To perish of a
heart attack just before the singularity occurred would not only be sad
for all the ordinary reasons, it would also be tragically bad luck,
like being the last soldier shot down on the Western Front moments
before the armistice was proclaimed.

Technology Trends

April 2008 edition of Wired magazine lists the 9 trends affecting business going forward:

1: Open Source Tycoons

2: Social Networks Grow Up

3: Green on the Outside

4: Invisible Internet

5: Rise of the Instapreneur

6: Building a Better Banner

7: Invented in China

8: VCs Look for a New Life

9: The Human Touch

Mugabe

A good op-ed in the NY Times early on in April on Robert Mugabe - Heidi Holland tries to put a human face on Mugabe and tries in some way to explain (if it can be explained) how Mugabe feels victimized by the Western World:

So why talk about his heathen grandmother? I wanted to understand the Robert Mugabe who had been obscured amid the chaos and misrule. The one described by his classmates as shy, bookish, a loner deeply attached to his mother and resentful of his absent father. The one who was at first remarkably forgiving of white landowners when he came to power in 1980. (For instance, Mr. Mugabe allowed his predecessor, Ian Smith, who led the white minority government that ran Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known, to live on in Harare without harassment, even when Mr. Smith embarked on a campaign against him.)

But bitterness had clearly welled up within him. When I first met him at that dinner in 1975, he seemed to be a considerate man, asking after the health of my toddler son even as he fled into exile to a neighboring country shortly afterward. By the end of 2007, as we sat together again after 28 years of his rule, he exuded the air of a lost and angry man.

Why? Part of the answer came to me in our interview, as Mr. Mugabe expressed almost tearful regret at his inability to socialize with the queen of England. He feels that the West — and Britain in particular — has failed to recognize his “suffering and sacrifice.” As someone who by his own estimation is part British, this rejection has taken on the intensity of a family quarrel.

Much of the quarrel centers on the vexed issue of land redistribution. As part of the pact that created Zimbabwe’s independence, Britain promised financial aid to help the young country redistribute land from white farmers to blacks.

When this money was misused, the British government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher began to withhold it. Mrs. Thatcher’s successor, John Major, agreed to restore the money. But before he could do so, his successor, Tony Blair, reversed course, taking the aid off the table, where it remains today. It is this grievance against Britain for short-changing him on the land redistribution issue that Mr. Mugabe craves understanding

Burma and India and China

My view was that India failed to leverage it's influence in Burma - hence allowing China to cozy up to the generals and getting access to Burma's raw materials. India seemed to moving away from this position with the recent military and economic co-operation; but today I read this op-ed in the WSJ by Tarun Khanna - he has persuasively argued that India should use the softer approach viz. supporting the democracy movement and wait it out till the Junta falls. Tarun also advocates using Bollywood as a way to get into the hearts and minds of the Burmese:

India's true strength lies in projecting soft power. Unstinting support
of democracy, for example, is far likelier to work in the longer run as
the junta runs out of steam. India should not squander an opportunity
to lay useful groundwork in this regard. Even other tools of soft power
will likely work better. Bollywood, for example, has a large following
in Burma, and the over hundred thousand Burmese refugees in India will
likely embrace India over China. Trying to play China's game against
China is folly, not to mention unprincipled. It will no more work than
if China tries to project only soft power against India's tactics.

Joys of Parenthood

A new book talks about the joys of parenthood - and then relates that to happiness (specifically in the US) and then comes to the conclusion that conservatives are happier than liberals. The Economist has a nice article about this - the really amusing part is:

Happily for the reader, his book, “Gross National Happiness”, is not
a memoir. It is a subtle and engaging distillation of oceans of data.
When researchers ask parents what they enjoy, it turns out that they
prefer almost anything to looking after their children. Eating,
shopping, exercising, cooking, praying and watching television were all
rated more pleasurable than watching the brats, even if they don't
bite. As Mr Brooks puts it: “There are many things in a parent's life
that bring great joy. For example, spending time away from [one's]
children.”

Despite this, American parents are much more likely to be happy than
non-parents. This is for two reasons, argues Mr Brooks, an economist at
Syracuse University. Even if children are irksome now, they lend
meaning to life in the long term. And the kind of people who are happy
are also more likely to have children. Which leads on to Mr Brooks's
most controversial finding: in America, conservatives are happier than
liberals.