Between Yoga and Running

I need to get my sorry rear-end off of this computer and onto the treadmill. I had a good yoga class with Ms. Vickie and I have grading to do; however when I am not under the gun I tend to put things off. Oh yes, I have a math paper to referee as well.

(as usual, click to see a larger version)

The streets are cleared off enough for me to run outside, but I want the “saftey” of a treadmill (in that I can quit on the spot if my knee or hip flares up).

I will post a few not-so-serious and not-so-time consuming items at the moment.

First, concerning this idiotic “War on Christmas” that the some on the loony right wing is trying to sell, I offer this article by E. J. Eskow which is on the Smirking Chimp:

Question: What’s motivating these guys who go around claiming there’s a “War On Christmas,” besides self-promotion and political cynicism? Answer: Whiny 60’s-style self-pity, and the notion that their feelings matter.

Word to these self-described Christians: Jesus didn’t talk about your feelings. He talked about your deeds. History is filled with the example of Christians who sacrificed for their beliefs by suffering poverty, imprisonment, even torture and death. (See Tom Fox for a recent example.)

Here’s your idea of martyrdom: Some business people asked their staff to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” You heard about it. And that made you feel bad.

As trials and tribulations go, it beats getting stoned to death like St. Stephen. These businesses are only trying to be considerate toward the feelings of others, but the airwaves are ringing with your howls of anguish.

The truth is you cynical hacks (yeah, you, O’Reilly and Gibson) are exploiting faith, getting political and financial mileage out of a faith you claim to follow. Yet I must admit you guys look genuinely aggrieved – even as your checks keep clearing the bank. [...]
Tell me: How is this”Happy Holidays” business making you suffer, exactly? Do you depend on the greeters at Wal-Mart for your theological guidance? Does the absence of the Savior’s name in the Sears catalog leave you spiritually adrift in a hostile cosmos?

Nah. You’re just falling back on the worst kind of Me-Generation, touchy-feely, self-pitying behavior. You’re complaining because it makes you uncomfortable. It’s Christian Dominionism for the “feel good” crowd.

Whatever happened to good old-fashioned stoicism?

And let’s see – what else has got you o’riled? What’s the latest tragedy? Did some Town Council in Connecticut take the Nativity scene out of that folksy little gazebo in the plaza?

Let’s all sing together: “Feelings/nothing more than feelings …”

St. Peter was crucified upside down, and Polycarp was stabbed to death. You didn’t hear them complaining. But you guys live in wealth and privilege under the most powerful nation in history, and yet with all your political influence you can’t stop mewling like kittens.

I spent time in Poland, where forty years ago Christians had to hide in basements to pray. I visited Albania shortly after it opened to the West. Two months before I got there, a spoken prayer (or a sentence in conversational English) could mean a stiff jail sentence. [...]

Have you guys ever read the “St. Francis Prayer”? Scholars now say it wasn’t composed by St. Francis, but I still think it’s one of the most beautiful prayers ever written. You ought to take a look at it sometime.

In the meantime, I’ve rewritten it just for you. Granted, it’s not as good as the original, which others can read here. But it speaks in a language you’ll understand a lot better.

The Fox News Anti-Prayer

Mr. Ailes, make me an instrument of thy political agenda;
where there is hatred, let me sow ratings;
where there is innocence, let me place blame;

where there is difference of belief, let me instill fear;
where there is despair, let me seek opportunity;
where there is unity, division;
where there is state, let there be church – my church;
where there is darkness, let the glow of television shine.

O Republican Paymasters,
grant that I may control, but not be controlled;

that I may be understood, but not understand;
that I may be heard, but shout so that I need not hear;
that I may be loved, without loving those who are different.
For it is in taking that we become wealthy,
it is by blaming that we avoid blame,
and it is by whining that we annul the Bill of Rights.

I guess these guys think griping is a form of religious celebration. As for the rest of us — I would imagine that the Christian Peacekeepers are too gentle and loving to appreciate my tone in this piece, but please consider giving them a holiday contribution here anyway. And there’s always God’s Love We Deliver.

Oh – and Happy Holidays.

Next, I am sad to say the Peter Boyle died. He is probably best known for his character on Everybody Loves Raymond (which I have never watched); my favorite memory of him is his playing the Frankenstien Monster in “Young Frankenstien”. Enjoy!

Huge hat tip to the Dependable Renegade; I visit that site daily to get my dose of snark.

Next, I’ll put a link to an interview about the Chinese banking system that was aired on NPR. The issue is that China is letting western banks in, but on a very limited basis. They don’t want these banks competeing with the Chinese state banks for the average customer at this time. Some think that this is a bad idea; others feel it is correct for China to proceed slowly.

The reason I am putting on this link is because a good friend is quoted in it.

Here is the text:

KAI RYSSDAL: Bankers are used to big numbers. But even for them $4 trillion is a lot of money. That’s about the size of the retail banking jackpot waiting in China. The world’s biggest financial services companies have spent billions of dollars to get just a toe-hold in it. Because when China joined the World Trade Organization five years ago today, Beijing agreed to open its banking industry to foreign competition. But Marketplace’s Scott Tong reports from Washington, they didn’t exactly open it wide.

SCOTT TONG: When China negotiated its way into the World Trade Organization, Charlene Barshefsky sat at the other end the table—as President Clinton’s trade representative.

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: China agreed that foreign financial institutions would be able to do business in China without restriction.

Without restriction. As in, bring in the western banks, and their ATMs and credit card teaser rates, right? Not any time soon. Officials in Beijing have issued new rules that only allow competition in a quote “orderly and partial” way. Barshefky thinks those rules may violate the WTO deal—they make it very pricey for foreign banks to play in China.

BARSHEFSKY: China will require that each branch that is set up be subject to a minimum requirement of 50 million dollars or 70 million dollars or a hundred million dollars per branch. This is a lot of money.

The foreign banks will also have to set minimum deposit levels so high that only the super-duper rich in China will qualify. So the masses will be left with the state-owned banks controlled by the party. Banks that, to some, still operate in the Jurassic age of financial services.

MINXIN PEI: Credit card services, consumer loans, Chinese banks do an awful job.

Minxin Pei is with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

PEI: They don’t know how to do risk management, they don’t know how to pick the best customers. So American banks will have enormous advantages over Chinese banks.

He thinks western banks will crush the local competition—if and when they actually get to compete. Today’s rules make that so difficult that Citibank and Bank of America et al settle for indirect entry—investing as minority partners in the state-owned banks.

When China’s critics look at all this, they offer up a not-so-flattering metaphor. They say China has taken the machinery of the free market, and thrown sand in the gears.

[sound of gears]

Wrenching, grinding, inefficient.

Not surprisingly, China’s defenders pick a more peaceful image:

[sound of a stream]

A stream.

Chinese leaders like to say that moving to a market economy is like crossing a river, one stone at a time. And that makes sense to Georgetown finance professor Jim Angel. He says China has had a tumultuous history of making economic changes too quickly.

JIM ANGEL: They started off the 20th century as a feudal economy, and very quickly tried to adopt to a market economy. And then the communists came in and attempted a Marxist economy. And the result was an economic disaster.

He says those lessons make Beijing particularly nervous about outside competition—particularly in banking. Here’s their horror scenario: Imagine foreign banks enter China and dominate. And then there’s a rerun of the 1997 Asian currency crisis. Investors panic, stick all their money in the foreign banks and pull everything out of the Chinese banks. That could ruin the Chinese banks—leave them with no cash left to lend.

ANGEL: If the banking system blows up, the entire economy blows up. We saw this happen in the United States in the 1930s, we saw it happen in Russia in the 1990s.

This week U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson flies to China, in part to pry open the door for western banks. Still, most observers expect a long, slow slog.

So is the red tape worth it? Some 70 international banks think so: They’ve already dipped their toes into the China market—waiting for the day when they can offer a billion customers everything from credit cards to car loans to mutual funds.

In Washington, I’m Scott Tong for Marketplace.

Finally, for some photos to remind me why this is all worthwhile; I’ve posted these earlier in my older blog. I know most of the people in these photos though there is one person I don’t know.

How significant are we all?

My Mom and my Daughter

My wife, daughter and two friends. And, of course, there are life’s pleasures, two of which I’ll list here in photos:

Ultras; some day I’ll be able to return to them (Leanhorse 2005)

I don’t know who she is; I just love this photo!

This is the race director of the McNaughton trail races; I might not be ready for them this year, but someday I will be, Providence willing. This photo was taken at the last stream crossing of the 10 mile loop; the course consists of either 5, 10 or 15 of these 10 mile loops. Date: 13-15 April, 2007, in Pekin, Illinois (near Peoria).

I want to get back out there soon!

This photo represents mathematics; my Ph. D. advisor is in front; this was a conference in honor of his 60′th birthday. Some of his students have solved some of the greatest all time problems; and some turned out like me.

From my math blog:

Cameron Gordon is one of knot theory’s top all time researchers. He is probably best known the Gordon-Lueke result (John Lueke was one of his top students and is the blonde guy behind me and to the left) which states that two knots are equivalent if and only if their complements are homeomorphic.

To the non-specialist: a knot will be considered as a smooth (smooth as meaning “differentiable”) closed loop in the three sphere (which we consider as the standard 3 space with “infinity” considered to be a point; to visualize this, go one dimension down. Look at the plane and imagine what would happen if “infinity” was declared to be a point. That point could be, say, the north pole). Because of the differentiability condition, one can think of a knot as something like a shoestring whose ends have been fused.

A knot complement is what is left when the shoestring is removed from three space. So the Gordon-Lueke result says that if two knot complements have a one to one continuous function between them that has a continuous inverse, then the knots themselves must have been the “same knot”.

Note: this result is well known to be FALSE for “links” (systems of more than one closed loop).