Blowin' In The Wind

Murdoch for Obama!

Come November, will it be McCain vs Obama? It may be a foolish question to ask a week before Super Tuesday. But I have been reading about Obama's late surge in Florida and just saw the New York Post's endorsement of the Illinois senator. The Post is owned by Murdoch, who is not known for giving editors a free hand, so it could not have come out for Obama if he had said, No.

And Murdoch can spot a winner. He supported Margaret Thatcher and, after her fall, Tony Blair -- two of the most successful British politicians ever. He knows his public. The Iraq war was popular in America in the early days when Fox television with its enthusiastic coverage of the war left CNN in the dust.

Obama, of course, opposed the war from the start. Now, nevertheless, he is backed by the Post, which agrees with him that nothing could be worse than another Clinton presidency. The Republicans feel the same way, as do the liberals and the independents, which makes one wonder if Obama is closer to the Republicans than to the Democrats for Clinton.

He should not be vexed by such speculation since he keeps saying he wants to unite the nation and the Clintons are divisive figures.

He said:

Democrats will win in November and build a majority in Congress not by nominating a candidate who will unite the other party against us, but by choosing one who can unite this country around a movement for change.

The Post made the same point:

Obama represents a fresh start.

His opponent, and her husband, stand for déjà vu all over again... - a return to the opportunistic, scandal-scarred, morally muddled years of the almost infinitely self-indulgent Clinton co-presidency.

Does America really want to go through all that once again?

It sounded so similar to what Obama said:

I know it is tempting - after another presidency by a man named George Bush - to simply turn back the clock, and to build a bridge back to the 20th century.

But he cautioned voters not to buy the argument that Clinton's experience is what the country needs, reported AP.  He said:

It is about the past versus the future. And when I am the nominee, the Republicans won't be able to make this election about the past.

So the Clintons are deadwood and he is the hope for the future. But was the past so bad? When the Clintons were in the White House, America was

• The sole, undisputed superpower
• The world's most powerful economy and richest market which other countries depended on for their own prosperity. Remember how China lobbied for most favoured nation status? Now recession threatens America, but it may not affect other countries seriously, say economists

But Obama doesn't want to return to the past. Why is he so ashamed of it?

Technorati Tags: obama,murdoch,new york post

Praise for John Edwards

I am sorry to hear John Edwards (Time photo) is bowing out of the race. I am an old Bill Clinton fan despite all his flaws and I admire Hillary Clinton for the strength and resilience she has shown. But one has to admire Edwards as well for the issues he has highlighted.

Tellingly, he is expected to explain his decision during a speech on poverty. A mill worker's son who earned millions as a lawyer, he has his heart in the right place. Associated Press recalls:

Edwards burst out of the starting gate with a flurry of progressive policy ideas -- he was the first to offer a plan for universal health care, the first to call on Congress to pull funding for the war, and he led the charge that lobbyists have too much power in Washington and need to be reined in.

The ideas were all bold and new for Edwards personally as well, making him a different candidate than the moderate Southerner who ran in 2004 while still in his first Senate term. But the themes were eventually adopted by other Democratic presidential candidates -- and even a Republican, Mitt Romney, echoed the call for an end to special interest politics in Washington.

Now that Edwards has dropped out, will he be the running mate to whoever wins the race?

Obama has been embraced by liberals like Senator Kennedy. He also appeals to the independents and is not hated by the Republicans.

But why is Hillary hated by the Republicans? Because she is against everything they stand for? Is that why she is more popular among older people, women and lower-income workers?

The Democrats now have a choice between a Democrat hated by the Republicans and a Democrat not violently disliked by the Republicans.

And the choice is...?

Technorati Tags: john edwards,obama,clinton

Suharto and IMF: It's different now

Former Indonesian president Suharto (photo Washington Post) died two days ago, less than a month after Citgroup was bailed out by the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and other sovereign wealth funds. It's a reflection of how the world has changed.

Recall the 1997 Asian economic crisis when the Thai baht collapsed dragging down other Asian currencies, including the Indonesian rupiah. Suharto needed aid from the International Monetary Fund and other donors who forced him to cut public services and subsidies. That heightened public discontent over government corruption and political repression and Suharto was forced to step down in May 1998.

Now the IMF no longer wields that kind of power. It has money problems of its own, noted The Economist:

By 2010 it projects a budget shortfall of about $370 million a year.

Andrew Crockett, former head of the Bank of International Settlements,(said):  “The fund does well when the world economy does badly” ... Since it charged its borrowers more than it paid its creditors...

But the fund's interest earnings are drying up as it struggles to find new takers for its money. Instead of relying on the fund, emerging economies are insuring themselves by amassing reserves of their own. Some, such as Brazil, Argentina and Indonesia, have paid off their IMF loans early, at a cost, to rid themselves of its “stench”, as some people put it. Now, a loan to Ankara accounts for two-thirds of its credit outstanding: the IMF is, in effect, the Turkish Monetary Fund.

Businesses today can get as much money from sovereign wealth funds as the IMF gave to countries in distress. In August 1997, the IMF came up with a $23 billion rescue package for Indonesia. GIC alone has injected $16 billion in Citigroup and UBS recently.

The funds are now in a position to influence the market much like the IMF did in the past. And that has become a matter of concern because, unlike the IMF, most of the funds are not obliged to disclose their activities. GIC, which manages Singapore's foreign reserves, is a private company, It is now thinking of reporting its activities but "probably it won't be every year", GIC deputy chairman Tony Tan told The Straits Times.

He explained GIC had the money to invest in Citigroup and UBS because it decided to convert some of its equity holdings into cash in the third quarter of 2007:

"we were very worried about the outlook for the economies and the markets", he said.

GIC was well ahead of the curve. The market was booming at the time. The Singapore economy grew 9 percent in the third quarter before slowing down to 6 percent in the last quarter, according to the Singapore government website, Enterprise One.

Technorati Tags: suharto,imf,sovereign wealth funds

Obama, Kennedy and Klein

Caroline Kennedy, writing in the New York Times today, says she supports Senator Barack Obama because he is like her father, John Kennedy. There are three differences, though. Kennedy was a war hero -- and the only current contender who shares that distinction is Senator John McCain. Obama, on the other hand, can take more credit for his political success. Kennedy owed a good deal to his father, who had the money and influence to build up a political machine, and he spent eight years in the Senate before his election as president. Obama had to build his own base. And he has been so popular he is running for president as a first-term senator.

I remember the 2004 elections when he was shown on television with his family acknowledging the cheers of his supporters after winning his seat in the Senate. I have seldom seen such a joyous scene surrounding a politician. It was clear then here was a future potential president.

In October 2006 Time ran a cover story on him, saying: "Why Barack Obama could be the next president". Joe Klein wrote the story during Obama's book tour promoting The Audacity Of Hope. "The question of when Obama--who has not yet served two years in the U.S. Senate--will run for President is omnipresent," he wrote. And when he asked that question, Obama said "carefully" (according to Klein),""When the (midterm) election is over and my book tour is done, I will think about how I can be most useful to the country and how I can reconcile that with being a good dad and a good husband." And then Obama added: "I haven't completely decided or unravelled that puzzle yet." Note the mixture of honesty and reference to others. He wanted to be "most useful to the country", "a good dad and a good husband" first.

Klein's story is worth reading. He wrote:

India: A partial story

Temptations Of The West by Pankaj Mishra

A young man at an Indian university library chanced upon a book that changed his whole life. He wanted to read everything by the author and all the things he had written about. He ended up in America, writing for the New Yorker, New York Times and the New York Review of Books.

The young man was Pankaj Mishra (photo from Columbia website about him), and the writer who changed his life, Edmund Wilson. Mishra describes what a deep impression Wilson made on him in Temptations Of The West -- it's the best part of the book -- but not how he ended up in America. Instead, he describes the India he left behind and his subsequent trips to the subcontinent as a magazine writer.

He writes about the plight of Kashmiris, discrimination against Muslims, the spread of Hindu nationalism. His sympathetic accounts of the Kashmiris and the Muslims were appreciated by Pakistani diplomats in India, who gave him a visa to Pakistan, and led Indian intelligence officials to question his parents, he says.

Now, even the Indian government admits there has been discrimination against Muslims. Delhi last year urged the various state governments to recruit more Muslims as teachers, police officers, health and social workers.

And there's no denying the plight of Kashmir. Even the India media has written about voting irregularities and police and military excesses, though it has no love for the terrorist insurgents about whom Mishra has little to say. He writes at length instead about how innocent Kashmiris have been framed, tortured and killed as terrorists.

This is a courageous book.

But Mishra's account of Hindu nationalism is greatly exaggerated. India is not dominated by the Hindu nationalists. They have no influence at all in my hometown, Calcutta (Kolkata), and my home state, West Bengal, where the communists are in power. The fight between Hindu upper castes and lower castes described by Mishra  is virtually unknown in West Bengal. We have intercaste marriages. There are other Indian states where the Hindu nationalists have never come to power. Even in the states where they are strong, they have to compete with other parties and are regularly voted in and out.

But Mishra does not write about West Bengal or other states outside the so-called "cow belt" where the Hindu nationalists are a political force. He focuses on the "cow belt", where he grew up, and Kashmir, which he visited as a writer and reporter. He is a good writer, but this is a lopsided book.

Technorati Tags: pankaj mishra

Republic Day

My son was watching the cricket match between India and Australia on his computer  when I called him at his college in America at noon today (here in Singapore; it was close to midnight for him). Then, about an hour ago, I spoke to my wife in Calcutta (Kolkata). She said she had to go to her college for the flag hoisting ceremony.

India is celebrating Republic Day today. For the first time, they could not hold the ceremony outdoors but had to hoist the flag in the college auditorium because of heavy rain, she said.

How awful, I thought, having to go in the rain for a college function when you could be watching the cricket match on television instead. I am likely to feel more patriotic watching India play than singing the national anthem at a flag hoisting ceremony.

I remember a long time ago the national anthem used to be played at the end of film shows in Calcutta and we had to stand and wait till the end of the song before leaving the auditorium. I just found out that the official version of the Indian national anthem is only 52 seconds long, but it used to seem much longer then.

We never had to sing the national anthem in school, so on the few occasions I did have to sing it, I would stumble over the words and try to lip synch my way out. The flowery language made the words difficult to remember.

The irony is I am a Bengali and the Indian national anthem is written in Bengali -- and not in Hindi, the official language. But it is written in a chaste, Sanskritised Bengali we don't use in everyday language.

It was written by Rabindranath Tagore, whose poems are perhaps more consistently beautiful than those of any poet in the English language. Wordsworth can be boring, but not Tagore. He is the master of euphony. His prose has the grace of Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater and George Santayana while his poetry has to be read aloud to be fully enjoyed like the poems of Dylan Thomas. Unlike Dylan Thomas, however, he can be easily understood -- if one knows the words he uses. His Bengali runs the gamut from the simple to the baroque.

Unlike most Bengalis, I am not fond of Rabindra sangeet, the music of Tagore. Give me rock 'n' roll and the blues any day. And Jana Gana Mana, written in 1911, has that Victorian pomp and grandeur which can be uplifting but also windy.

Why can't we have something more contemporary, I asked myself -- and then I listened to Jana Gana Mana, both the official version, and this video. And I was strangely moved.

(Republic Day marks the adoption of India's republican constitution in 1950 -- three years after independence from Britain. -- BBC. So this video must have been recorded in 2000.)

Hillary for the Times!

Hurrah! The New York Times has come out in support of Hillary Clinton and John McCain! They certainly have the strength and resilience to provide the kind of leadership America needs today.

I admire Barack Obama and John Edwards as well. And I am sorry to see Dennis Kucinich bow out. The Democrats this year have a wealth of choices. Clinton, Obama and Edwards would all make great candidates. But I can see the logic of the New York Times' choice: a vote for experience.

The Republicans also can't be written off if they nominate an independent-thinking proven war hero like John McCain. 

More than national reconciliation what America needs today is a leader with the courage to help the economy by government intervention if necessary. A leader in the mould of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was never a consensus candidate, but he more than any other leader made America great.

America today faces huge problems. The war on terror is only a sideshow to a greater struggle to protect American jobs, American people, American institutions -- and indeed the world as we have known it -- from emerging forces which no matter how benign -- and that's open to question -- could change the world irrevocably.

Of course, America has unleashed terrible destruction too, in Vietnam, in Iraq.

But America also stands for democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of choice, indeed the American Dream. Look at Bill Clinton,Edwards,Obama. They all rose from modest backgrounds unlike so many other leaders around the world. See how Obama's supporters include blacks and whites alike.Think of the American culture of giving -- to their favourite causes, their alma maters, the scholarships and charities they have endowed. The world's greatest donors, richest colleges are American. America is a great country. Or it would not have drawn immigrants from around the world. Immigrants who have assimilated and are proud to call themselves Americans.

That is why America is worth saving from the problems besieging it. Hillary Clinton is a Democrat prepared to use government intervention if necessary to help the economy and the middle class. She said as much before she had her tiff with Obama at their latest debate. Edwards' populism leaves no doubt about where he stands with the people. Obama, of course, is loved by the people. They would all make great presidents. Any two of them could make up a dream ticket. On the Republican side, of course, McCain has been a heroic figure for a long time. One remembers the excitement he caused on his first Straight Talk Express campaign.

   

What a US recession means for Singapore

The Economist as usual has figures to show how Singapore could be hit by a US recession. It says:

Some Asian economies are more vulnerable than others: Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia have exports to America equivalent to 20 percent  or more of their GDPs, compared with only 8 percent in China and 2 percent in India. There are already some ominous signs. Singapore’s exports to America are down by 11 percent over the past year, while Malaysia’s fell by 16 percent. Exports to other emerging economies and to the European Union surged, so total exports still grew by 6 percent in both economies. But that was much slower than at the start of the year, and the worry now is that demand from Europe has started to flag.

But it says there is

"reason to be optimistic that domestic demand (consumer spending and investment) is likely to remain strong and governments have more flexibility... Take Malaysia: exports to America plunged, yet its GDP growth quickened from 5.7 percent at the end of 2006 to 6.7 percent in the third quarter of last year."

Singapore has a tradition of spending on infrastructure to help the economy through hard times. But consumer spending will have to go up, too, to offset any drop in exports. Spending more will not be easy for everyone. A Reuters story last November noted:

Two years of blistering economic growth and a government policy of attracting wealthy expatriates have created a new class of super-rich, while a string of price increases for everything from bread to bus fares have made life harder for the poor...

The proportion of Singapore residents earning less than S$1,000 ($690) a month rose to 18 percent last year, from 16 percent in 2002, central bank data released late last month show.

At the same time, the proportion of those earning S$8,000 and above rose from 4.7 percent to 6 percent in the same period...

Despite sporting a first-world GDP per capita of $29,000 -- second only to Japan in Asia -- Singapore has an income inequality profile more in line with third-world countries.

Singapore's Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, has worsened from 42.5 in 1998 to 47.2 in 2006, and is now in league with the Philippines (46.1) and Guatemala (48.3), and worse than China (44.7), data from Singapore's Household Survey and the World Bank show.

Other wealthy Asian nations such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan have more European-style Ginis of 24.9, 31.6 and 32.6.

Technorati Tags: gini coefficient,income

Americans losing faith in Citi, Merrill

Americans are losing faith in Citigroup and Merrill Lynch following their deals with sovereign wealth funds, reports Financial Times.

Over half of the 1,000 people polled by the market research group Strategy One said they "trusted Citigroup less" after its recent decision to tap Middle Eastern and Asian sovereign funds to ease its financial constraints.

After initially welcoming the capital infusions, politicians such as Senator Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, the influential New York senator, have begun voicing concerns over the role and transparency of foreign state-controlled entities.

Mrs Clinton, a Democratic presidential frontrunner, told a debate in Nevada last week: "I am very concerned about this.

"We've got to know more about them, they've got to be more transparent.''

The news is actually two days' old: the Financial Times report is datelined March 22. But I am reading it for the first time in Singapore. The story concerns both the Singapore government-linked funds: Temasek Holdings bought a 9.9 percent stake in Merrill Lynch for $4.4 billion while the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation took a 4 percent stake in Citigroup for $6.9 billion.

The Wall Street Journal says the funds are buying damaged goods. It says:

Singapore looks to India and China

Singapore will have to depend on India and China if the US is hit by a recession, says Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. But that's a fact downplayed by Singapore's main newspaper, The Straits Times. Why? Usually it highlights anything he says. But this time it has been very selective.

Here is what Lee Kuan Yew said, according to Channel News Asia:

"I do not believe the Chinese economy is immune to a US slowdown, nor is the Indian economy. But I believe they are now much less... influenced by US recession because they’ve got enough going in their own internal economy. They can increase investments in infrastructure; they can increase consumption; they can increase all their projects and keep the economy buoyant," he said.

Wrapping up his five-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Mr Lee said if China can maintain economic growth at around eight to nine per cent a year, then it could weather the economic storm well.

How well Singapore does, he said, will depend on how other economies fare, though he feels Singapore should be able to ride on the healthy performance of China and India.

Now look at what The Straits Times reported: 

He said while the Chinese and Indian economies were not immune to a US slowdown, he believed they were much less influenced by a US recession because they have got enough going in their internal economies.
"They can increase investments in infrastructure, they can increase consumption, they can increase all their projects and keep the economy buoyant. And,if they can keep their economy up, say,instead of making 11, 12 percent, they make 8,9 percent, then we will not go down so much. But that may take one, two years before we see the results."

That was all it said: If the Chinese and Indian economies remain strong, "then we will not go down so much".

Channel NewsAsia was far more explicit. It underlined how much depends on China and India. This is how it started the story:

Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said he is not certain what impact a possible US recession will have on Singapore.

Although it is not clear whether financial markets will take up to two years to recover from the ordeal, Mr Lee said he feels that China and India may provide some cushion for the slowdown in the US.

And then it added: "he feels Singapore should be able to ride on the healthy performance of China and India".

The Straits Times instead led with his son, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's optimistic assessment that Singapore should be able to weather the storm. That's fine.

But it should not have downplayed what Lee Kuan Yew said. It glossed over Singapore's relationship with not only India and China but with the global economy as a whole.

Lee Kuan Yew said:

"Our total trade is 300 per cent of our GDP (gross domestic product). So when the external trade goes down, you tell me how we buffer ourselves. But the external trade may not go down so dramatically because of India and China." (Channel NewsAsia)

That's not mentioned in The Straits Times.

If you read The Straits Times, check other newspapers and websites as well to get the full story.

"Not factually accurate"

I missed the Democrats' debate yesterday, but it looks like Obama was guilty of a pleonasm. He said:

"There was a set of assertions made by Senator Clinton as well as her husband that are not factually accurate."

Pray, sir, is there any other kind of "accurate"?

Or does my question reveal my own ignorance? We have read and heard about something called the "higher truth". So is it possible that Obama was disputing only the factual accuracy of the Clintons' comments and not denying they might be accurate on some other level? After all, he is a lawyer and lawyers choose their words carefully.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I looked up Wikipedia -- and, by Jove, Oscar Wilde was right, truth is anything but simple. Truth can be subjective, relative, objective, absolute. That begs the question, if there are so many notions of truth, is it possible at all to tell a lie? Not that I am going to lose any sleep over that question. As a Hindu, I am only too familiar with the idea that the world is an illusion -- maya -- but I am not ready to kick the bucket; let me live my lie.

Remember the words of Shakespeare:

... We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

I was reminded of my college days when we had to tackle Plato and Aristotle and the theory of mimesis.

According to Plato, apparently this computer I am writing on is the computer manufacturer's idea of a computer, and therefore only an imitation of the real thing, which exists only in nature, and that is God's idea of a computer. And when I try to describe my computer, I am presenting only an imitation of an imitation.

Truth is the concern of philosophers only, according to Plato, and not of poets, actors or orators.

Maybe that's why Obama complained only of "factual" inaccuracy. He doesn't expect the Clintons to be philosophers.

 

Technorati Tags: obama,clinton,truth

Sex and children: Two poems

One of these is a famous poem by one of the finest 20th century English poets, the other written by a contemporary American poet. Here are the opening lines from both poems. Guess which one is English, which one American. One is witty, the other... well, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

 

We try to be discreet standing in the dark
hallway by the front door. He gets his hands
up inside the front of my shirt and I put mine
down inside the back of his jeans. We are crazy
for skin, each other's skin, warm silky skin.
Our tongues are in each other's mouths,
where they belong, home at last. At first

Hillary, Obama and Mac

Hillary (AP photo) wins again! This time in Nevada! But Obama gets one more delegate than Hillary. Whoever wins the nomination will be a great candidate, but I know where my heart lies. Read Maya Angelou's poem on Hillary in the Observer:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Maya Angelou has adapted her poem, Still I Rise, to praise Hillary. The poet can be seen reading the original poem on YouTube.

If Bill Clinton was the Comeback Kid, Hillary is his elegant phoenix. I admire Obama.  He will be an even more historic candidate -- and president if he wins the election. He  has brought excitement to the race, trying to unite Americans and promising change. But I am an old Bill Clinton fan. So I could understand when Maya Angelou said:

"I made up my mind 15 years ago that if she ever ran for office I'd be on her wagon. My only difficulty with Senator Obama is that I believe in going out with who I went in with."

She has a special association with the Clintons. As the Observer said:

The 79-year-old poet was the centrepiece of Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993 when she read her poem On the Pulse of Morning, playing on the idea of a new political dawn.

I wish the Democrats didn't have to choose between Hillary and Obama. But it was inevitable. Hillary will be 61 this October. And Obama, who will be 47 in August -- one year older than Bill Clinton and four years older than John Kennedy when they entered office -- wants to run while he is fresh and not shopsoiled by too many years in the Senate. He knows his relative youth and freshness are part of his attraction.

The irony is that for all the talk about Hillary's "well-oiled machine", it is she who appeals more to women and lower-income workers -- the core Democratic supporters.

The media, in love with Obama, says he appeals more to the young and the independents and it is the independent vote that will decide the election.

But what if the Republicans nominate Senator John McCain? He has just won in South Carolina and appeals to the independents too. It will be quite a matchup if he faces off against Obama: the old proven war hero against the untried, youthful charismatic leader calling for change and national reconciliation. 

Technorati Tags: hillary clinton,obama,john mccain

Ministers worth more than search engines

I am glad to see Singapore still prizes human intelligence more than artificial intelligence. Singapore's Agency for Science,Technology and Research (A*STAR) is offering $100,000 to the winner of a contest to build the next-generation search engine. That's a fraction of the annual salary of Singapore ministers whose pay will range from nearly two million to more than three million Singapore dollars this year. (Two million Singapore dollars is about $1.39 million.)

I see nothing wrong with that. We can all create our own little search engines for free using Google Custom Search. But there is only one Lee Kuan Yew.

Still, for building the next-generation search engine, the prize money is inadequate, says search expert John Battelle. "Sorry, Singapore, that's not enough scratch... that's not gonna get it done," he comments on his blog. 

A*STAR says it wants developers to create:

a rich media search engine that will be smart enough to identify text, audio and video containing any word, even if that word, or search term, has not yet been tagged in the internet material.  Millions of search engine users around the world stand to gain from such technologies that will help them navigate the rich material that is now on the Internet with the current Web 2.0 phenomenon and the proliferation of user-generated new media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Flickr.

Quite a mouthful, eh?

Contestants have to register by February 29 and the top five teams will be flown to Singapore for the finals in October.The winner will be decided by an international advisory panel which includes professors from Berkeley, Columbia, University of Washington and the National University of Singapore.

The contestants will have the satisfaction of competing with Google. A*Star's quest is similar to Google's own "vision for universal search", said Google, which revealed plans to create such a search engine in May last year, reported ZDNet.

Technorati Tags: search engine,singapore,A*STAR

The future of English

Gordon Brown hopes there will be more people speaking English in China than in America, Britain, Australia and New Zealand by 2025. I wonder what that will do to the language.

Language evolves with culture and society and the English-speaking countries are radically different from China.

Fundamental to the English-speaking countries is democracy and human rights, freedom of expression and individualism. EM Forster said he would betray his country rather than his friends. Noam Chomsky can freely criticise US policies. It's very different in China where society matters more than the individual. 

It is possible, of course, for a country where English is the common language to practise a limited form of censorship for the sake of racial harmony and political sensitivity: look at Singapore. But it is the exception to the rule. And it is too small to have any major influence on the English language. Not so China. That schoolchildren in China will now have to learn English from the age of six will affect popular culture, the publishing industry and the teaching of English as a foreign language for starters. The vast Chinese population is bound to make a difference.

India

It is true there are other large, populous countries where English is widely used such as India, which have had only a peripheral influence on the English language. But one reason why India has not contributed more to the English language than a smattering of words and phrases and several gifted writers is that the Indians tried to emulate the English -- and later the Americans -- and shared the same values, cherishing freedom and democracy.

And though English is widely used in India, by no means is it the common language, which it will be in China if every Chinese has to learn the language from the age of six. That is bound to have a profound influence on the language.

Gordon Brown has ambitious plans to teach English to the Chinese using the internet and all the latest doodads. He believes English language teaching will become one of Britain's biggest exports, earning 50 billion pounds a year by 2010, and bringing countries closer together.

Separated by a common language

I am not sure about the latter, though. From America to India,freedom struggles against British rule were led by people who knew English. And there is no denying the aphorism about America and Britain being "separated by a common language".

Gordon Brown is offering English language teaching as Britain's "new gift to the world", ignoring the fact that it's not new, nor his to give, says the Financial Times. It is British English, of course, he wants to promote, "not Hollywood's and certainly not the bastard version used wherever non-native English speakers gather to do deals," it adds.

Well, I wish we Indians were taught American, not British, English. Hollywood and American popular culture have contributed more to the spread of the English language than anything else. Even British English has been leavened by American words and expressions. So why not learn the English of the day?

Technorati Tags: english,chinese,indian

Download FeedDemon

The best desktop reader for PCs, FeedDemon, is now available for free. Go, try it out if you haven't already downloaded it since its developer, NewsGator, started giving it away for free more than a week ago. It's the desktop version of Google Reader and has been around much longer but used to cost about $30. You will realise why it's a premium product once you start using it. I guess it's now being given away for free to make it competitive with Google Reader.

If you are using Google Reader, you may wonder if you really need FeedDemon. But Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration and Nick Bradbury, who created it, explain why FeedDemon is better than a web reader like Google Reader.

Personally,I like Google Reader. It's fast, intuitive, great at discovering new feeds. In fact, Google Reader is possibly better at discovering new feeds than FeedDemon. NewsGator Online, the website which synchronises with the desktop FeedDemon, is not a great feed directory. Bloglines is better and so is Google.

But FeedDemon offers you the choice of discovering feeds through several search engines. And once you have subscribed to the feeds, you will really enjoy reading them on FeedDemon. It checks continuously for new content, so it updates fast. Pages download smoothly and easily. It also makes recommendations based on your reading habits like Bloglines and Google Reader.

In fact, FeedDemon has more features than Google Reader. So it takes getting used to, but you will soon come to appreciate it. I like its interface, which is cleaner than Google Reader's.

Technorati Tags: feeddemon,news aggregator,newsgator,google reader

Finest Bob Dylan

After posting Auden's beautiful love poem yesterday, I could find no words to describe how much it moved me. Anything I wrote would have broken the spell of his poem. It reminded me of the songs I love by the Sixties singer-songwriters, particularly Dylan. Bob Dylan is not just a singer but a poet. Some of his songs are the finest poetry I have heard. My favourite is his simple love song, If Not For You. That's how I feel about my wife whom I met at the university. I posted If Not For You on this blog on Valentine's Day last year.

But there are other great songs like I Want You. It's more arcane than the poems of Auden and John Fuller I posted here, but burning with passion and romance and all the feelings I hope I will never lose. These are the feelings that make us human. And Dylan turns them into pure poetry.

I Want You By Bob Dylan

The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonesome organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it’s not that way,
I wasn’t born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

John Fuller's Valentine

 

I posted Auden's beautiful love poem last night from a selection of his verse edited by the poet, John Fuller. The name sounded familiar. I wondered if he was related to the poet, Roy Fuller, whom I read long ago in the '70s. Checking on the net, I found, yes, John Fuller is Roy Fuller's son. It's remarkable both father and son became poets. I couldn't find any of Roy Fuller's poems online except at a website which one has to pay to access. So here's just a love poem by John Fuller. It's a little naughty but fun:

Valentine

By John Fuller
     

The things about you I appreciate may seem indelicate:
I’d like to find you in the shower
And chase the soap for half an hour.
I’d like to have you in my power and see you eyes dilate.
I’d like to have your back to scour
And other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
To chase you screaming up a tower or make you cower
By asking you to differentiate Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I’d like to successfully guess your weight and win you at a fete.
I’d like to offer you a flower.

Romantic Auden

 

 

Nothing touches the heart more than a beautiful love poem. And here is WH Auden at his finest. He wrote it in 1940 when he was 32 or 33 years old. The poet John Fuller in his selection of Auden's poems gives no further information, no annotations. But it is so simple, so beautiful, no explanations are needed.

If I Could Tell You

By WH Auden

Time will say nothing; but I told you so
Time only knows the price we have to pay
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Technorati Tags: auden

Singapore, Abu Dhabi: Money in the media

Singapore Press Holdings yesterday reported 112 million Singapore dollars ($78.4 million) in first quarter profits. "Newspaper, magazine business... drive growth," crowed The Straits Times. It and other SPH publications must be doing something right to continue minting money. How have they managed to keep circulation and advertising growing when more than 66 percent of the population has internet access?

American newspaper executives, who have been downsizing because readers and advertisers have been migrating online, will no doubt be puzzled. Well, there is the reporting style. My eyes glazed over as I read the first quarter report. It was clearly meant for initiates. And that, of course, is the key to success in the newspaper business: building a loyal readership.

Reading the Straits Times report, I was reminded of another major newspaper venture.

Abu Dhabi is hiring journalists from the Daily Telegraph, New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to start a quality newspaper due to be launched in March. The Times reported:

Martin Newland, former editor of The Daily Telegraph, is trying to do what nobody in the Middle East has done before: launch a quality, pan-Arab, English language newspaper, creating the print equivalent of the Al Jazeera television news channel.

“We want to be the first Middle East-based newspaper on a par with The New York Times and The Washington Post,” he said.

The new, as yet unnamed, title is the first act in a £100 billion “coming out” party for Abu Dhabi, hosted by the ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

President blogs!

 

Here's a blog to keep you in stitches. David Mamet is blogging to promote his new play, November, which opens on Broadway on Thursday and it's absolutely hilarious.

Mamet is blogging as President Charles HP Smith. Running for re-election, he "must try to get a grip on such issues as lesbian marriages, Indian casinos, preposterous pardons and questionable campaign contributions without losing his grip on the Oval Office". That's according to the blog's sidebar which, under "5 Ways to support Smith", outlines the plot under the subhead, "Campaign".

On the blog, the president shares his thoughts, and he is clearly a nut. On his last posting, on January 10, he wrote:

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
WE might note that Illegal immigrants, are, as the term implies, first and foremost, immigrants, which is to say, that they forfeited any claim on our compassion even before they broke the law.

STEM CELL RESEARCH    
The best that this research could accomplish would be to prolong the lives of people who were going to die anyway. Is it worth the aggravation?

Stop chuckling. There's more.

Dorothy Parker's reasons to live

The 13th of the month is as good a day as any for an affirmation of life. Grin and bear it.

Résumé
Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Now read her New York Times obituary published in June 1967: Dorothy Parker, 73, Literary Wit, Dies. (She had a heart attack.) The obit's full of lovely gems such as this brilliant quote from her:

Wit has truth in it. Wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

It also quotes this brilliant putdown:

"Are you Dorothy Parker?" a woman at one party inquired. "Yes, do you mind?" the humorist retorted.

Bookmark the obit if you like -- and see what happens if you try to copy and paste.

Lee Kuan Yew: Today and The Straits Times

With news reported online, it's now possible to see how stories develop. And it can be interesting reading.

Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's (Time photo) advice to people to continue working past the retirement age if they wished to live longer was already on the Channel NewsAsia website and The Straits Times online when I checked last night.

"Retirement means death. If you ask me, for me, retirement would have meant death," Channel NewsAsia quoted him as saying. So, the Old Man isn't about to do a Gandhi, Nelson Mandela or George Washington and quit politics, I thought to myself, glad that the Father of Singapore, now approaching his 85th birthday, is as committed as ever to the affairs of the nation, which he has led to stunning economic success, and still takes an active role in the government headed by his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

I wanted to read more, which the Straits Times website said would appear in the morning newspaper.

And what a story it was! The blunt-spoken, no-nonsense Father of Singapore was touchingly revealing, sharing the most intimate details, including how long he might be expected to live.

But did The Straits Times do justice to the story? We will compare it with the freesheet Today's report. First The Straits Times:

Read Wall Street Journal for free

Three cheers for Rupert Murdoch! Now anyone can read the Wall Street Journal's editorial page online for free unlike, say, Singapore's very own Straits Times. The Journal announced the good news with a flourish yesterday:

Everyone knows that Joseph Schumpeter's "creative destruction" is roiling the newspaper world, and today we'd like to announce something on the creative side. We're rolling out a new destination for the Journal editorial page offering free access to all of our editorials and op-eds, video interviews and commentary. It's as close as we'll get to conceding there is such a thing as a free lunch.

Wow! It reads almost like the Economist!

Murdoch's Singapore problem

But Murdoch still has a Singapore problem, reminded the Asia Sentinel yesterday. When he bought Dow Jones, he inherited a libel suit brought against the Far Eastern Economic Review by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. The lawsuit followed an interview with Singapore opposition leader Chee Soon Juan which was published in the magazine before Murdoch bought Dow Jones. The matter is yet to be resolved.

Murdoch's publications have never been sued before in Singapore, where the Lees have never lost a case, said the Sentinel.

The Sentinel drew an interesting parallel between Murdoch and the Lees:

The Lees have been the dominant political family in Singapore since the 1950s, about the same time Murdoch has been in charge of News Corp. Both have helped build institutions of about the same size; News Corp's market worth approaches US$100 billion, Singapore's GDP is bigger. Both are expert at projecting power, and neither brook any challenge to their authority, although media critics accuse Murdoch of knuckling under to Chinese authorities, for instance dropping the British Broadcasting System from Star TV’s stable of cable news programs broadcast in China, in an effort to curry favour. In addition, Andrew Neil, the feisty one-time editor of Murdoch’s Sunday Times in London, lost his job after Malaysia’s then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed took issue with the paper in 1994, just after Murdoch bought Star TV.

Murdoch has also replaced many of the old Dow Jones management which backed the Far Eastern Economic Review in its battle against the Lees, said the Sentinel. But the case is still pending.

Technorati Tags: murdoch,wall street journal,far eastern economic review,singapore

Here's to Dixie

Barack Obama is expected to snatch the lead again from Hillary Clinton in the South Carolina primary on January 26. Whatever happened to the Old South? Has it moved closer to the Equator?

The question crossed my mind when three Singapore blogs popped up on my Google Reader's Top Recommendations list last night. One of them is a National Resource, according to the National Library Board which is archiving the best Singapore blogs. Naturally, I scrolled through it and came to a post about a Malay girl who came first in the local primary school leaving examination in 2005. An Indian took the top spot in 2006 and another Malay last year.

But they were exceptions to the rule that the Chinese were academically superior to the Malay and Indian ethnic minorities in Singapore, said the National Resource. This was corroborated by the Ministry of Education figures for the last 10 years, he said.

He then offered his own theory about how the ethnic minorities might have ended up taking the top spots. The Chinese, Malays and Indians, all have to study their mother tongues. What if the Malays and Indians were more leniently graded than the Chinese? The Chinese would lose out. Oh, yes.

I don't know if that's true or not but it's human nature to speculate -- and for bloggers to bloviate.

It reminded me of To Kill A Mockingbird and how far Americans have come since then that so many of them want Obama in the White House. But it didn't happen in a day.

I am drawing no parallels with Singapore, where the Chinese, Malays, Indians all rise on their own merit, but looking back on the transition that America went through from To Kill A Mockingbird to Obama, I must quote the celebrated black American poet, Langston Hughes:

Hillary faces harsh Times

So the New York Times has thrown its weight behind Obama. The partisanship was blatant when the Times online greeted Hillary Clinton's victory in New Hampshire by  publishing a bitchy Maureen Dowd column, "Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back To The White House?" Hillary won by being seen close to tears, she said.

Please, give the people more sense. Hillary won because she got more votes from women, older people, lower-paid workers and registered Democrats, as the New York Times itself reported. In other words, she was the choice of the party faithful and the underprivileged, the usual Democrat voters.

But the media will seek excuses for failing to predict the winner. Opinion polls showed Obama leading even after Hillary was seen close to tears. If that was when the majority decided to vote for her, why was it not reflected in the polls? The BBC was reporting Obama was expected to win even after the results started coming in.

It was not an unforgivable error given the closeness of the contest. Hillary won 39 per cent of the vote, Obama 36 percent.

But the New York Times' reaction was nothing short of churlish. Not content with publishing just the bitchy Maureen Dowd column, it breathed fire and smoke in an angry editorial. Hillary "came perilously close to injecting racism", it said.

Really? Hillary has been more negative than Obama, but "dangerously close to racism"? It seems candidates have to be extra careful in what they say about one another this time.

Poor Hillary got raked because she said Martin Luther King's "dream began to be realised when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964". She was stating facts. You can't bend facts to political correctness!

But the New York Times found it distasteful. "It was hard to escape the distasteful implication that a black man needed the help of a white man to effect change," it said. This is what gives political correctness a bad name. It's just another name for censorship.

I admire Obama. And that is why I think he deserves the same treatment as every other candidate in the election. He should be judged on his merit, not by the colour of his skin. That he has won so many hearts and minds shows racism is on the wane in America; by warning against racism, the New York Times is really harking back to the bad old days.

Technorati Tags: hillary clinton,obama,new york times

Hooray for Hillary!

Wow, Clinton's won in New Hampshire! Hooray for Hillary! The race is on again! This despite all the media gush about Obama and the negative press for Hillary.

I admire Obama and admire those who support him. It shows America at its finest, eager for new directions and free from racial prejudice.

But I am an ageing boomer myself and have always been a Bill Clinton fan. I have never been able to understand the animus against Hillary.

Democrats are spoilt for choice this time with a plethora of good candidates. And she is one of them. Will the media give all the candidates a fair coverage, report what each of them has to say? Election coverage should not read like a rock concert report.

I can understand the impulse to praise Obama. It makes one feel good. He has youth, intelligence, charisma, all the great qualities. But Hillary and Edwards and the other candidates are pretty impressive too. Give them a fair hearing.

Even Obama fans are entitled to enjoy the excitement of a close -- and not a one-horse -- race.

Hillary: Poetry and prose

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

That was Shelley. And it's certainly true of Hillary Clinton. Adversity has melted the ice queen. Newspapers headlined how she choked back tears when a woman asked her how she gets through her gruelling campaign. "It's not easy," she said. "And I couldn't do it if I didn't passionately believe..."

"At this point she stopped, too choked up to continue, as the audience applauded," reported NewsDay.

It was a revealing moment, of the passion, conviction and intensity that hide behind that cool exterior.

Oh, there's no question about her ambition, nor is there about Obama, Edwards and every man jack running for the White House. Devoted homeloving guys don't swap family time to press the flesh of voters and schmooze with pols. Yet Obama walks on water while Hillary gets the flak. Now trailing behind Obama in the opinion polls, defeat staring her again in the eye, this time in New Hampshire, she has finally spoken movingly. 

"You campaign in poetry," she said. "You govern in prose." 

Oh where was this Hillary, I wondered when I read the quote, moved by her eloquence. There speaks a woman who grew up to the music of the Sixties and danced to  Fleetwood Mac at her husband's inaugural. Those were the days!

She had been prosing away about universal health care and specific plans and programmes when the voters were in the mood for poetry about how one man could unite the nation, never mind how.

But she has never claimed the poetic gift. Those memorable words of hers were not hers really, as she took the trouble to point out. "A wonderful former governor of New York used to say 'You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose,' " she said, quoting Mario Cuomo. "We need a president who knows how to govern." She was claiming she would make a better president because she had more experience, but it was so beautifully put. Even if she was quoting someone else, one must appreciate she came up with such a gem.