Timesizing® Associates

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Good News, June 16-30, 2000
[Commentary] ©2000 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA (617) 623-8080

6/30/2000 glimmers of hope -

1. [1 UNtakeover]
   Enesco [Group] calls off its purchase of Precious Moments, Dow Jones via NYT, C3.
   ...[but] did not say why.... [The Illinois-based seller of] gifts, collectibles and home decor products..\..had agreed in April to acquire \the\ collectible doll and gift company...for $125m in cash plus other considerations worth up to 40% of the cash price....
   [Let's see, 125+(40% of 125)= $175m.]

2. Senate passes bill opening books of tax-exempt political groups, by Schmitt (& Broder), NYT, front page.
   WASHINGTON...- The Senate approved a bipartisan bill [yester]day that requires a growing number of secretive tax-exempt gropus that raise and spend money on political activities to reveal their donors and expenditures. Pres. Clinton said he would sign the measure into law, the first important change in the nation's campaign finance law in nearly a quarter-century. Only six Senate Republicans voted against the measure, which the House endorsed on Wed., 385 to 39.... Supporters hailed today's outcome as a major victory over Senate and House Republican leaders who had tried to block the measure....
   [When did the Grand Old Party, the party of intelligence and far-sightedness, start getting seriously stupid and short-sighted? Was it when Teddy Roosevelt over-estimated his pal Taft and decided not to run again in 1908? Was it when the saintly quaker, Herbert Hoover, failed to extend the same consideration to the Bonus Army in 1932 as he'd extended to the starving in Europe during the Great War? Or was it as recent as the 1980 GOP convention when party leaders couldn't resist "getting in bed" with the religious right - against the pleas of many intelligent Republicans who were very uneasy about unseparating Church and State? Email us your answer at timesizing@aol.com and we'll add it here.]

3. IMF is expected to ease demands on debtor nations, by Joseph Kahn, NYYT, C2.
   WASHINGTON...- The International Monetary Fund, which has ordered developing nations to enact wrenching "reforms" [our quotes - ed.] as the price for emergency aid in recent years, is likely to curtail the demands it makes of clients who borrow money in the future, a senior fund official said [yester]day....
   [Yeah, like raise interest rates - which clobbers economic dynamism. The IMF is going to be essentially cosmetic until it latches onto Timesizing - and that could take decades with the time blindness that prevails in mainstream economic theory today (specifically, worktime blindness) - not to mention the blindness to areas of market failure.]

1. Prescription benefit in Medicare wins narrow backing in House, by Robert Pear, NYT, front page.
   ...offering prescription drug benefits to 39 million people on Medicare....

2. [Supreme] Court rules that governments can't outlaw type of abortion..., by Linda Greenhouse, NYT, front page.
   ...[because] "simply irrational" to find a fundamental difference in one procedure over another \and must allow\ an exception for the health of the pregnant woman.... The second decision upheld restrictions on demonstrations outside abortion clinics....

3. Cuban boy flies home with his father..., by Gonzalez & Alvarez, NYT, front page.
   ...left behind seven months of contention, conflict and court battles [and glaring media - ed.]....

1. [1 UPsizing - unspecified new jobs]
   Calpine Corp., NYT, C4.
   ...San Jose, Calif., an independent power company, said it planned to build, own and operate a $350m natural gas-powered co-generation energy center at the chemical facility of BP Amoco PLC in Decatur, Ala.

2. [The victories of France's lowest-in-the-world 35-hour workweek roll on -]
   French consumer spending jumps, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   [The French complain a lot, but in the wake of their higher job growth (see 5/19/00), lower unemployment (see 6/01/00) and higher productivity (see 4/22/00), the heightened job security felt by the French people has now boosted consumer confidence -]
   French consumer spending on goods ranging from cars to clothing rose at the fastest pace in 10 months in May, bolstering expectations that growth in the euro zone's second-largest economy will accelerate this year. Spending on manufactured goods rose 2.6% from April, double analysts' expectations, after falling in the previous two months [natural adjustment time after the Feb. 15 national workweek cut from 39 to 35 hours a week], the government said. In another sign of buoyant consumer spending, the government reported an annual[ized] 6% increase in the construction of new homes for the three months ended in May.
   [Masochistic American media cannot mention the French workweek, of course. Workweek manipulation is a totally taboo subject for backward English-speaking media, following blindered anglophone economists - "the less said, the better." Sicko anglos want only to talk about workforce manipulation - "Have you kicked an employee today?" Better the hell of America's longest workweeks in the developed world than admit that Europe's looong vacations and France's short workweek yield more rest and creativity, more family time and family values, and working smart, not hard. Europe laughs while violent self-abusive Americans spend all-nighters at work sucking their cellphones to boost their sagging and unsalvageable self-importance. Is this really the nation that passed a 30-hour workweek bill through its national Senate on April 6, 1933??? "How are the mighty fallen...."]

3. American Express reshuffles its businesses, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...in advance of Kenneth Chenault's taking over as chief executive early next year.... Mr. Chenault, already one of...Wall Street's highest ranking black executives, will replace the chief executive, Harvey Golub....
   [And for what it's worth, "Chenault" is a French name.]

4. The uninsured and the surplus, editorial, Boston Globe, A14.
   ...Clinton, ...Gore and...W. Bush are busy hatching plans to spend a projected surplus, which may not exist in 10 years, on long-term programs that [might] generate short-term political gain. In this time of "prosperity" [our quotes - ed.], they ought to focus instead on solutions to a limited number of major problems and make sure there is money to pay for them.
   One ought to be the long-festering problem of providing health insurance for all Americans.
   [France is No. 1 is world health care - America is No. 47. PATHETIC!]
   More than 44 million (16.3% of the [U.S.] population) are uninsured, according to 1998 Census Bureau figures, the latest available. Massachusetts has a 10.3% rate, but, unlike many other states, it makes a special effort to place the uninsured into government health programs.... Bush's home state, Texas, has the highest percentage of the uninsured, 24.5%.... Gore's home state, Tennessee, has a 13% rate....

5. ["Good, but..."]
   House GOP is set to allow the sale of food to Cuba - Potent political move - But economic result may be limited with no provision for purchasing funds, by Lizette Alvarez, NYT, front page.
   House Republican leaders agreed today to end four decades of sanctions on sales of food to Cuba....
   But...Cuban-American lawmakers managed to place severe restrictions in the bill.... The federal government and American banks would be barred from providing any financing for Cuba, making it difficult for Cuba, with little cash, to buy goods. In addition, trade would be one-way: Cuba would not be permitted to export to the United States....
   [So while we shaft ourselves with permanentized Free Trade with giant communist China, we quake in fear before tiny communist Cuba and slap on the protectionist regulations. Brilliant! Cuban Americans have demonstrated once again how unbalanced they are. Thank God Elian is finally home in Cuba, off the front pages, and out of the political scrimmage line of Miami's live-twisting hate-Castro campaign. Where were they when we needed some distance from communist China to defeat the inflexible "free" trade bill?]

1. 2 UPsizings - totaling 6,700 new jobs
   1. Booming Stream International to add up to 12 call centers worldwide, by Ross Kerber, Boston Globe, E3.
      ...Closely held [Canton, Mass.-based provider of] technical support for customers of companies including Microsoft Corp. and Excite@Home..\..will build up to a dozen new call centers worldwide as part of a $60m expansion it plans to announce today.... An expansion over the next year will add another 6,000 employees, including about 255 in Canton [Mass.].... New sites will include buildings in Montana, New Mexico, Canada, and northern Spain.... Stream also said it will hire 600 workers in Bombay, to provide support via e-mail. In Canton [Mass.] Stream plans to upgrade its infrastructure and add about 55 corporate staff employees, 100 software support workers, and 100 employees for hardware support.

   2. Pfizer opens Conn. drug lab, AP via Boston Globe, E2.
      Pfizer Inc. opened a $220m laboratory - the largest lab in the world dedicated to developing new drugs.... About 700 scientists will work in the Groton, Conn. lab to develop medicines for people and animals - including efforts to develop new drugs from the scientific mapping of the human genome....

2. Society worth shielding, letter to editor by William Guy of Pittsburgh, NYT, A30.
   You report that proponents insist that "if the U.S. has the money and technology to develop a missile defense, it should do so" (front page, June 23). But do we really have the money? This is the question that never gets honestly answered.
   Yes, we will manage to foot the bill in billions of dollars for "Star Wars," but will we then be better off as a society than we would have been if we had provided insurance for the millions of our citizens who now have to face health care bills on their own, or if we had invested those billions in our education system?
   Missile defense becomes [meaningless] unless we have a just society to defend.

• 6/26/00 Nader, nominated by the Greens, attacks politics as usual, by Michael Janofsky, NYT, A14.
  DENVER...- With a blistering attack against Republicans, Democrats, Congress, corporate America and the commission that sets the rules for presidential debates, Ralph Nader today accepted the presidential nomination of the Green Party, a growing political force that could weaken the prospects of VP Al Gore [and Gov. Geo. W. Bush - ed.]....
  [Note that there is a vibrant Republican environmental group called Republicans for Environmental Protection run by Martha Marks in the Midwest, alias the "Green Elephants." Many of them are going to vote for Nader.]
  "Polls show that the American people want the debates opened to my candidacy and that of Pat Buchanan," Mr. Nader said....
  [Apart from Phil Hyde's smaller Senate campaign in Mass., Nader's presidential campaign is absolutely the only thing on the American political horizon at the dawn of the Third Millennium that is remotely worthy of the 21st century, let alone the Third Millennium.]

1. [1 UPsizing - 200 new jobs]
   Putnam plans Vermont jobs, by Kathryn Tong, Boston Globe, C1.
   Putnam Investments announced it will bring about 200 jobs to Vermont - without adding any office space....
   [Ohoh. Is this gonna be like "how many jocks can we stuff in a phonebooth"? Not if they use the "electronic cottage" -]
   Employees will work at home in "virtual offices," interacting with managers and coworkers throughout the workday.
   [But will the workday ever end?]
   ..\..The Boston-based investment management firm is recruiting Vermonters for financial services positions and will hold training sessions this summer....
   [Gee, an American company actually doing some training!]
   Putnam will provide employees with computers and high-speed Internet connections. Salaries will range from $22,000 to $70,000 annually.
   [Betcha there's more 22s than 70s.]
   The company recently announced a similar work-at-home program in Maine and has one in Massachusetts that employs 330 people, along with uip to 90 students a semester at Dean College in Franklin [Mass.].

2. EPA plan to stem flow of smog to East Coast is upheld by court, by David Stout, NYT, A6.
   WASHINGTON...- A federal appeals court has upheld a new air-pollution program meant to drastically reduce smog that flows from the Middle West to the East.... Coal-burning plants are the target of the regulatory action because the smog-causing chemical the EPA is going after, nitrogen oxide, is a byproduct of burning fossil fuels..\.. Although still subject to further appeals, the ruling on Thursday [6/22/00] by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit would affect 19 states.... The 19 states have 128 days from the appeals court ruling, or roughly to the end of October, to tell the EPA how they expect to comply. Assuming the new rules go into effect, states that fall short could face sanctions, including the loss of highway construction money..\.. Federal officials say 100m people live in regions where the air would be improved, especially in summer....

1. [1 UPsizing - 250 new Euro jobs]
   Lucent Technologies, , NYT, C4.
   ...Murray Hill, NJ, the maker of phone equipment, said it would invest $110m and add 250 workers to increase production at its optical fiber plant in Brondby, Denmark.

2. [1 UNtakeover]
   Kroger drops plans to buy 74 stores from Winn-Dixie, Dow Jones via NYT, C4.
   ...The nation's largest supermarket chain said yesterday that it had ended plans to buy 74 Winn-Dixie Stores supermarkets in Texas and Oklahoma for $350m after the FTC refused to approve the deal.... Earlier this month, the FTC said Kroger would have to sell at least 41 of the 74 stores because the deal would give Kroger one-third of the retail grocery market in the Fort Worth area.
   [At last, part of our government's anti-monopoly function operates properly and efficiently to block a step toward the Dämmerung of our economy being engineered by our spoiled and bored "management" class.]

3. [Nader makes the front page again -]
   Once seen as the odd man out, Nader is rocking the Gore boat - 'The Bush people, I'm sure, are thrilled about Nader,' a Gore aide says, by Richard Berke, NYT, front page.
   [Don't believe it. There are just as many Republicans ready to vote for real quality as there were Democrats who voted for McCain - and there were PLENTY of those in Massachusetts. After all, McCain himself has enough integrity to participate in the following 'alternative to two parties.']

4. An alternative to two parties, by Leslie Wayne, NYT, A19.
   A bipartisan coalition of advocacy groups and celebrities is planning...alternative[s] to the Republican and Democratic national conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles this summer. The coalition said its "shadow conventions" would highlight three issues:
   1. the gap between rich and poor
      [Timesizing.com proposes narrowing the gap by centrifuging income and wealth in the same effective way that war does it - without the destruction. War withdraws labor hours from the job market and engages market forces to flexibly raise wages and benefits. Timesizing.com withdraws labor hours by (A) reinvesting overtime profits and earnings in training and hiring and (B) reducing the workweek so we reach the reinvestment threshold earlier and draw more of our under-employed into better-paid, shorter-hour jobs. "What about productivity?" Our answer, "What about 'working smart, not hard'?!" "What about inflation?" Our answer, "What about drawing a line on inflationary monetary incentive at the threshold between straight time and overtime, and either converting it into deflationary entrepreneurial reinvestment incentive, or into 'lighten up & get a life' leisure?!"]
   2. campaign finance reform...
      [Timesizing.com agrees but also proposes pushing issue-oriented referendums - to do an 'end run' around the whole corrupt logjam in Congress.]
   3. the "failed" war on drugs
      [Timesizing.com proposes decriminalizing drugs and taxing them for their costs. Some states are finding ways to do this already - see the following story on New York. We should have learned from the failure of Prohibition that the criminalization of drugs is a society&economy-distorting mistake - check out our world-topping record 2m prison population - and we should be learning from the gradual success of the campaign against non-criminalized nicotene that taking the costs of drug use home to the drugs' producers on a civil, not criminal, basis does work and is effective.]
   Among those sponsoring the shadow conventions are Common Cause, Public Campaign and the syndicated columnist Arianna Huffignton. Those participating will include Sen. John McCain..., actors Warren Beatty and Ron Silver, the comedian Al Franken, and the writer Lewis Lapham.
   The group said its [conventions], to be broadcast on its website, www.shadowconventions.com, would be an alternative to the 2 parties' conventions, which were..."scripted, crafted and controlled forums that relegate issue debate into obscurity." The shadow conventions will last for three days and will feature speeches and information booths, as well as a hospitality suite intended to mock those of lobbyists.
   [Here's hoping they can get Bill Bradley to participate too - and Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, Harry Browne and any other presidential candidate who so desires. If the major parties can only go through the motions of democracy while predeciding a plutocratic agenda, the rest of us can marginalize them with functional democracy on the issues.]

5. [New York state is decriminalizing drugs unilaterally -]
   New York to offer addicts treatment instead of prison - [photo caption:] Chief Judge Judith S.. Kaye, who ordered New York's courts yesterday to emphasize drug treatment over prison for many nonviolent offenders, by Katherine Finkelstein, NYT, front page + A23.
   [As usual in America today, it is the courts that are leading the way in progress and not our logjammed, money-drowned, legislative "representatives." And in this particular case, it is a woman. Contrast Dave Barry's definition of the U.S. Senate, "White male millionaires working for you."]

1. 3 UPsizings, unspecified new jobs -
   1. Intrawest Corp., NYT, C4.
      ...Vancouver, BC, which develops and operates resorts across North America, said it planned to develop a $500m luxury village and hotel at Lake Las Vegas Resort.
      [More jobs but...Las Vegas has no natural lake - it's in the middle of a desert, and that means we in the Northeast are subsidizing this humungous waste of water and money for this artificial lake for private gambling millionaires.]

   2. General Mills [based in Minneapolis] forms a joint venture with MarketTools [based in Sausalito], Reuters via NYT, C4.
      ...The new joint venture company will be known as InsightTool..\..which would allow General Mills to conduct more consumer research over the Internet....

   3. A new mosque for Athens, Reuters via NYT, A11.
      ATHENS...- The Greek Parliament has approved the building of the first mosque in Athens since the early 19th century, when Greece was ruled by the Ottoman Turks. [It] is intended to serve the needs of Muslims living in the capital as well as Muslim athletes coming for the 2004 Olympics.... The Greek population is 97% Christian Orthodox, with small Muslim, Jewish and non-Orthodox Christian minorities.

2. [1 UNtakeover]
   Ernst & Young spinning off Internet security practice, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The world's 3rd-largest accounting and consulting firm said yesterday that it would spin off part of its Internet security practice into a separate company [named] ESecurityOnline.com, [which] allows customers to assess their risk for current Internet security breaches and notifies them of new ones electronically....

3. The Green Party - Teamsters, wooed by Gore, will get together today with another suitor, Nader - A reminder to Gore that much of labor is unhappy with him [over his support for the China trade deal], by Steven Greenhouse, NYT, A18.
   The labor movement's rocky relationship with the Gore campaign takes a new turn today when James P. Hoffa, the Teamster's president, appears alongside Ralph Nader at a news conference.... Mr. Hoffa...would urge that any presidential debates include...Mr. Nader, who seeks the Green Party's nomination, and Mr. [Pat] Buchanan, who wants to be the Reform nominee..\..rather than being limited to VP Al Gore and Gov. Geo. W. Bush, the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees.... [Nader and Buchanan] were likely to raise the issues the Teamsters most care about: trade, globalization and their effect on the American worker....
   [Not to mention their effect on the American consumer base and American domestic markets.]

1. 2 UPsizings, totaling 340 + unspecified new jobs -
   1. Tellabs plans center, by Peter Howe, Boston Globe, C10.
      Illinois-based Tellabs Inc. said it would build an optical networking technology center in Chelmsford [Mass.] that will increase its employment in Massachusetts from 260 currently to nearly 600 within five years....
      [Let's see, 600-260= 340 new jobs across five years.]

   2. WorldCom Inc., NYT, C4.
      ...Clinton, Miss., the 2nd-largest long-distance phone company in the U.S., said it planned to invest $140m over the next 12 months to build 13 new data centers in Europe, to help support the Web site operating and Internet access services it would offer to European companies.

2. Europeans perform highest in ranking of world health, by Philip Hilts, NYT, A12.
   The World Health Organization [WHO] issued figures yesterday that rank health care systems around the world for the first time. They indicate that European health systems are generally performing best and...the United States is lagging behind...at number 37 in the rankings..\..largely because of unequal distribution of health care services.... The United States outspends the world and ranks near the top in average health measures, but fails to deliver good health care to a large proportion of its population and distributes the cost relatively unfairly, according to the report's measures..\..
   According to the report, the five top nations for health care [are]
   1. France
   2. Italy
   3. San Marino
   4. Andorra and
   5. Malta..\..
   [Phil has met maybe five French people out on the campaign trail, and four of them badmouth their country, but let's take a look at this - France now leads the world in
   • best health care (cited in the present article)
   • lowest national workweek (35 hours since Feb. 15, 2000 - down from 39 since 1982) - their worksharing shorter workweek has already brought their unemployment down below double-digit (see 6/01/00), produced record job growth (see 5/19/00) and unexpectedly high productivity (see 4/22/00)
   • availability of contraception to highschool students (see 2/25/00)
   • availability of a halfway marriage that's as easy to get out of as it is to get into and applies to gays as well as straights (see 4/18/00)
   So, while the English-speaking world pounds its chest about competitiveness, works megahours on a 40-hour salary and shaky stock options, neglects family, and works hard, not smart, yells "more more more," it's actually getting better better better "frog-side" in the French-speaking homeland. Hopefully it will rub off on our Quebecois brethren to the north and they'll help us smarten up and put some balance back in our lives.]
   The new rating system [takes] into account the financial resources [each country] has available \and\ bases national scores on five measures...
   1. overall level of health or life expectancy
   2. health fairness or life expectancy as measured across various populations within a country
   3. responsiveness or how well people rated performance of their health care system
   4. fairness in responsiveness among different groups in the same country and
   5. fairness in financing among different groups, which looked at what proportion of income was devoted to health care
   Using the measure "health life expectancy" - that is, life expectancy minus years of sickness and disability, there are counties in the U.S. where Native American children at birth can look forward to only about 50 years of health life on average, while some Asian minorities in suburban New York can expect more than 90 years of healthy life, \said\ Dr. Christopher J. L. Murray, an international health economist from the Harvard School of Public Health, who is one of the two leaders of the project..\..
   The rankings... of the 191 nations that are members of the WHO..\..are contained in the World Health Report 2000.... Until now, argument over how well health systems and policies are working has been based on anecdotes and fractional bits of data.... The report [is] the first attempt to put the arguments on a factual footing....

3. India to eliminate pollutant, by P.J. Anthony, NYT, C4.
   India will phase out production of ozone-depleting substances like chlorofluorocarbons over 10 years with the help of an $82m grant administered through the World Bank.... India is the 2nd-largest producer of [chlorofluorocarbons], after China.

4. [Brazil goes for it - compare cellphones and predatory lending...]
   Brazil bans gun sales after public outcry over crime wave, by Larry Rohter, NYT, A12.
   [Compare another item today - ]
   Business travel - Moves to restrict cell phones reflect a growing reaction against a vocal minority of users, by Joe Sharkey, NYT, C10.
   [And another - ]
   U.S. seeks curbs on 'predatory' lending, AP via NYT, C10.

5. [Good if true (still anecdotal evidence for opposite in Boston area) -]
   Out to pasture, greener pasture - Older workers are thriving in tight job market, by Geoffrey Brewer, NYT, C1.
   [Has the 17% unemployment rate among over-50-yearolds in high tech gone down? Are companies really risking paying pensions, or finding ways to hire older people without that risk? Or is this article merely window dressing....]

1. 4 UPsizings, totaling 5300 new jobs in US & Europe -
   1. McKesson [HBOC] starts an Internet medical service, Bloomberg via NYT, C11.
      ...The largest U.S. drug wholesaler has formed a...unit that will sell software and services aimed at helping doctors use the Web to manage their offices. The iMcKesson health care unit will have about 2,000 employees....
   2. Nortel-Hewlett venture, Bloomberg via NYT, C11.
      The Nortel Networks Corp. and the Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to create devices and services jointly for wireless-Internet access.... Nortel, a telephone equipment maker, also said it would add 2,000 high-technology jobs in Europe as it built new wireless centers in Spain and Germany and Internet laboratories in Norway and Sweden....
   3. Intel investment in Ireland, by Brian Lavery, NYT, C4.
      Ini the largest single foreign investment in Ireland, the Intel Corp. said it would spend $2B on its Irish manufacturing plant over the next 4 years. Based south of Dublin in County Kildare, the plant...currently produces Pentium III and Celeron computer processors.... The company would have to "import talent" to fill the anticipated 1,000 new jobs.
      [CEOs today will do anything to avoid training.]
   4. Corning Inc., NYT, C4.
      ...Corning, NY, which makes optical fiber, cable and other products for the telecomms industry, said its unit, Corning Cable Systems, planned to build a plant in Hickory, NC, to produce flame retardant optical fiber cable, which would add about 300 jobs.

2. [1 UNtakeover]
   Sara Lee plans Coach spinoff, Bloomberg via NYT, C11.
   ...The largest U.S. maker of frozen baked goods filed to spin off the leather manufacturer Coach Inc...which makes handbags, gloves, outerwear and scarves..\..in a stock sale worth $140m...to focus on brands that are market leaders and can be sold globally....

3. The Dutch seek to legalize long-tolerated euthanasia, by Suzanne Daley, NYT, front page.
   [Americans have long cramped their lives by their general inability to say goodbye. The Dutch are leading the world on this. But freedom is always at least 2-way - if you aren't free for a comfortable and dignified death, you aren't free for a comfortable and dignified life.]
   ...In the last two decades, mercy killings and assisted suicide of terminally ill patients have been widely tolerated here, with prosecution for such acts becoming less and less likely. But soon the Netherlands is expected to take a further step with a new bill that would decriminalize such acts if certain criteria are met, giving this country the least restrictive laws on mercy killing and assisted suicide in the world....
   [One of the most extremely absurd and strained legacies of the long era of too few human beings globally - an era now ending - is the criminalization of suicide. Up until now humans have been subsidizing quantity of human life regardless of quality. As the ecological era of overpopulation sets in, that will all change. There are so many subsidies on plain human quantity still today, they are difficult to list, let alone realize in the first place. They range from sex-role differentiation and the pervasive subsidies on heterosexuality, to the warm fuzziness most of us still feel about Children and The Family. They permeate our tax laws, and they underlie the strident privacy-invasion of the "pro life" movement. Once humans grow up a bit and accept their own temporariness, and the primacy of quality of life, we'll see dramatic advances in life expectancy. When you can't accept your own end, you take yourself far too seriously to be flexible, tolerant or forgiving enough for this world.]

4. ["The gift o' God, the gift tay gae us, tay see ayrsels as ithers see us..."]
   A warning from Putin and Schroeder - A clumsy U.S. Goliath invites an alliance of Davids, op ed by Josef Joffe, NYT, A31.
   For the last remaining superpower [USA], it is time to ask the...question, "How am I doing?" The answer is, "OK, but not great." Ten years after victory in the cold war, the U.S. is still No. 1 by any conceivable measure. But the lesser actors - Russia, Europe, China - are beginning to make true what history and political theory have predicted all along: Great power will generate "ganging up." Nos. 2, 3 and 4 will seek to balance against Mr. Big.
   Just last week, Pres. Vladimir Putin of Russia swept into Berlin, where he deftly [forged] privileged relations with Germany, the traditional holder of the European balance.... Both Europe and Russia intensely dislike the American missile defense project, and for good reasons. If it works (which it won't for many years, if ever), the "Son of Star Wars" will further magnify American dominance by devaluing the nuclear arsenals of Russia, China and Europe....
   The more general thrust is...to contain and constrain what the lesser powers see as excessive clout on the part of No. 1 \and\ not to resume the old game of the 18th and 19th centuries, which was to harness alliances or even go to war to lay low the hegemonist du jour....
   In the past, the U.S. was rarely mentioned by name. Russians and Chinese kept inveighing against a "unipolar world" and a "single model of culture." The enemy was "hegemonism" and "repeated imposition" by you-know-who.
   [Canadians have been inveighing against this forever.]
   Now, as usual, it is the French who thunder where others grumble. Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine likes to call the U.S. a "hyperpower" given to "unilateralist temptation" because "there is no counterweight."
   ["Hyper" is right. The USA is in the process of reversing the intelligent goal it thought up for itself in the 1970s, "Work smart, not hard," and is now moving toward "24/7" on-call status on the assumption that if you're not busy every single nanosecond, you're not important - and family, community, civic responsibilities be damned. We're paying $25-30k/yr per pop to lock up 2m of our own citizens, many for victimless crimes of drug possession, because we're SOOO furiously righteous, and OUR WAY IS BEST, damn you. We're losing it. We're being swept by sado-masochism. We can no longer stop and enjoy a sunset. Anger is becoming our dominant emotion, and cruelty our dominant behavior. Just look at our movies. The movie "Scream" that came out in 1996 was almost a step-by-step instruction manual for Columbine in 1998. We desperately need to lighten up, calm down, and face our own temporariness and even, nothingness. We're worrying our allies -]
   Last week, the European Union's external affairs minister, Chris Patten, made it explicit: Europe had to grow into a serious counterpart" to the United States.... What is No. 1 to do?
   The most critical item is a change of consciousness. America is so far ahead of the crowd that it has forgotten to look back.
   [Change of consciousness, yes. So far ahead of the crowd, no, unless you're only counting technological certainty, self-importance, self-righteousness, self-preoccupation, and frenzied busyness. They're far ahead of us in technological doubt, humility, humor, interest in others, and the ability to separate work and play and leave work behind. Let's cut to Josef Joffe's "chase" -]
   Great powers remain great if they promote their own interests by serving those of others.
   [As someone said some 2000-odd years ago, "The greatest among you shall be the servant of all." Matt. 23:11, Mark 9:35, etc.]

5. The evils of America's two-party system, letter to editor by David Jaeger of Jamaica Plain MA, Boston Globe, A14.
   In the present election process, most American voters...believe their vote can only be effective when cast for one of the two dominant parties.... [But] by...allowing our votes to be held hostage by the Republican and Democratic parties, we \never get beyond\ voting for the "lesser of two evils" [and continuously losing ground - ed.]....
   As a result, we deprive ourselves of a true vote, and we give the Democrats and Republicans an immense advantage over third party candidates, who deserve a level playing field.
   Come election day, I refuse to let my vote be held hostage. I will not vote for Al Gore just to keep George Bush out of the White House. I am happier to vote for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader and live with a Pres. Bush.
   In the meantime, we must have campaign-finance reform [and more issue-oriented referendums - ed.] so that Americans might be given a true choice in presidential elections. Neither the Republican nor Democratic party truly represents the interests of working-class or poor people. The fact that fewer and fewer people bother to vote [only 49% in the presidential election of 1996, lowest turnout since 1924 - ed.] is a reflection of the refusal on the part of ordinary Americans to participate in nondemocratic "show elections" that serve little purpose other than legitimating the current, nonrepresentative two-party system.
   Our election process excludes all but the wealthiest opposition to the status quo (i.e., Ross Perot), while the American public pays the price. Government by the wealthy for the wealthy is not a democracy.

1. Turbine turnabout - Improved technology, lower costs spur move toward wind power , by Mac Daniel, Boston Globe, B1.
   ...After a public hearing last week, the Hull Municipal Light Co. stands ready to bring a state-of-the-art wind turbine to..\..the edge of a ballfield on a breezy peninsula called Windmill Point.... The Hull turbine is one of at least five small wind-powered projects under construction in [Massachusetts], part of a boomlet in alternative energy not seen in the area since Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof in the 1970s...(which Ronald Reagan had removed from the White House in 1981)..\..
   1. ...The owners of Thompson Island in Boston Harbor are considering wind power for Boston itself, as part of a state study of offshore winds [although inland Mass. has] a paucity of wind-whipped land...compared with the Great Plains states, known as "the Saudi Arabia of wind."
   2. ...[In Hancock, Mass.] developers are negotiating to place at least 10 turbines atop a mountain. It would be the state's first commercial wind-power plant.
   3. The [Mass.] Supreme Judicial Court recently gave wind power a boost by rejecting legal opposition to a state fund...the Renewable Energy Trust Fund..\..that will make Massachusetts the nation's second-leading source of funding for alternative energy projects.
   4. 200 companies and institutions have inquired about funding, including at least 2 wind-turbine companies that hope to build facilities in the state....
   5. ...Even though Massachusetts ranks just 25th among wind-producing states, it is one of the few states on the Eastern Seaboard with consistently high wind speeds off its coast Denmark and Germany are tapping offshore wind with amazing results....
   6. Currently...the only operating wind farm in Massachusetts is in Princeton. The Princeton Municipal Light Dept. put up 8 turbines in the '80s as an alternative to nuclear energy provided by the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. The turbines produce about 250,000 KWH of power annually, enough electricity for 28 homes.
   As European nations have invested heavily in improving wind technology in the last 20 years, the cost of wind power has plummeted by about 90%.... US Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has committed the country to getting 5% of the nation's electricity from wind power by 2020. Currently, about 0.1%...is provided by wind....

2. Nader tries to cut corporate finance [of exclusive] 2000 debates, by Jill Zuckman, Boston Globe, front page.
   ...Ralph Nader will file a complaint in Boston's US District Court today, charging that the Federal Election Commission [FEC] is violating the law.... Since 1907, federal law has prohibited corporations from contributing financially to candidates for Congress and president. Even so, the FEC issued...an exception for corporations to fund...the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonprofit corporation that has run the candidate forums the last 3 presidential elections \and this year\ Anheuser-Busch, AT&T, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, 3Com, and other businesses are helping to pay for the fall "debates" [our quotes - ed.], the first of which will be in Boston....
   [Hmm, maybe some boycotts are in order.]
   "They couldn't write that check for Bush...and...Gore directly, but they're allowed to write a check to a collaborative Bush-Gore effort to advance their own campaigns and to exclude competitors...," Nader said in an interview.... The first debate...is scheduled to take place Oct. 3 at the John F. Kennedy Library. Nader and other candidates for president, such as Patrick J. Buchanan of the Reform Party [and Harry Brown of the Libertarian Party] have been excluded.... The major party [only,] vice presidential candidates will square off at Centre College in Danville, Ky....
   [Boy, the self-proclaimed "nation of innovation" is sure scared of new ideas.]
   Attorneys for Nader...point out that when Ross Perot challenged the debates in 1996, the US Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington said the claim against the FEC regulations was not properly brought and a decision on the merits would have to be left for another day. The Nader legal team also hopes to bolster its case by pointing to a 1980 warning by the FEC to the League of Women Voters. Then, the FEC said the League could not use corporate donations to put on the presidential debates unless they included every candidate for president....
   [The League of Women Voters used to be quite a progressive force.]
   "We're kidding ourselves if we think industries that give all this money to support major party candidates don't have a disproportionate say in shaping the laws that affect us all," said..\..Gregory Luke, a lawyer for Nader and the Green Party at the National Voting Rights Institute in Cambridge....
   [Kind of makes you wonder if is this really the dawn of the Third Millennium or a rerun of the Dark Ages. America was once "the Cradle of Democracy." Truly, "the first shall become last." Matt.19:30, 20:16....]

• Taiwan: workweek cut, AP via NYT, A5.
  The Legislature passed a bill to cut weekly hours for blue-collar workers from 48 to 42, despite fierce opposition by owners of labor-intensive industries. The measure, to take effect in January, will add 7.5% to business costs in terms of overtime pay, officials said.
  [But how many more people will it employ? And how much bigger will that make domestic markets for Taiwanese companies? If we really want to forget "working smart, not hard," let's put some beef in the "24/7" of the "new" economy, no matter how it recalls Dickens' "dark mills" of the 1830s.]
  Blue-collar workers will be able to take a Saturday off every other week, a practice adopted two years ago by civil servants.

1. [UNtakeover #1]
   Orbiting the globe, News Corp. via NYT, C7.
   Here are the satellite television holdings and other media services News Corp. plans to spin off into a new company. Satellite TV services: Star (India, China, & 49 other Asian countries), Stream (Italy), BSkyB (Britain), Sky Brazil, Sky Mexico, Sky Multi-Country Partners (Columbia & Chile...), Sky PerfecTV (Japan), Premiere World (Germany). Other services: NDS Group (set-top box software, TV Guide (magazine & on-screen program guide...)

2. [UNtakeover #2]
   Parent of Janus Funds sets spinoff terms, Dow Jones via NYT, C20.
   Kansas City Southern Industries said [yester]day that its board approved dates and terms for the spinoff of its Janus Capital Corporation mutual funds unit and other financial operations into a publicly traded company, Stilwell Financial. ...It received approval on Wed. from the SEC to proceed with the long-planned spinoff....

3. Abortions aboard ship planned to skirt [privacy invasion], by Charles Trueheart, Washington Post via Boston Globe, A16.
   In imitation of pirate radio stations, offshore casinos, and itinerant preachers, a Dutch doctor is raising money to outfit a ship that would bring abortion services to international waters just outside countries where they are illegal.... Amsterdam physician Rebecca Gomperts...declined to [reveal] plans for the ship's first voyage. In addition to Malta, Ireland and Poland are two European countries where abortions are illegal, but Gomperts said the most need is in South America, Africa, and certain Asian countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia.
   "A hundred thousand women a year die of complications from abortions," she said in a telephone interview from Amsterdam. "The only way to help them is by offering legal and safe services." The ship would call on harbors, distribute information, and offer counseling and contraceptives to women, said Gomperts, who doubted she would need to advertise the abortion services. "It will be known immediately," she said.
   Gomperts, who was a doctor aboard one of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior ships, said the shipboard clinic also will offer workshops to lawyers, politicians, journalists, and women's activists, as well as training in family planning and post-abortion care.... The clinic could operate five days a week. Only first trimester abortions would be performed, and the services would be free to those who cannot afford them. "We want to empower women...," she said.
   [A true turn-of-the-21st-century heroine - in the tradition of her near-namesake, our own turn-of-the-20th-century hero, Samuel Gompers.]

4. ["Commit random acts of kindness."]
   A satisfied customer leaves the tip of a lifetime, by Brian McGrory, Boston Globe, front page.
   A guy walks into a bar. He orders a glass of wine, then starts chatting with the [vibrant] bartender. He orders lunch. Even though the kitchen is closed, [she] persuades the chef to rustle up a plate of lobster salad [for him]. Then [he] said, "You're really good. You should have your own restaurant".... [He] asked her to meet him that night for a drink on Newbury St.... His sincerity tugged at her so she went. They met for 15 minutes, and [he] was nothing but polite and businesslike.... A week later, he wired $50,000 into her bank account to hire lawyers.... More than three months later, he's wired more than $2 million into US accounts to get the venture off the ground..\..
   The customer's name is Erich Sager, a Swiss financier visiting Boston on business. The bartender is Gwen Butler...with an outgoing personality that befits her shock of long, red hair.... Sager has drawn up a contract giving Butler a 25% ownership stake, making her very wealthy, at least on paper. Butler has signed the lease for a sprawling space on Stanhope Street in the shadow of Mistral. She's secured a liquor license and quit her bartending job [at the Federalist]. Her friend, Chris Rapczynski, the owner of Sleeping Dog Properties, bought a 15% stake and is about to being construction. Butler will serve contemporary American food with an emphasis on fresh ingredients. She is naming the restaurant Zita, after the patron saint of waiters and waitresses.
   Sager? He just keeps sending money.... Why [did he do] it?... "It's her," he said, "She's the spirit. She's incredible. You trust her immediately, and you start talking with her and you realize she's very bright." For the record, he's happily married with four children....
   Come October, [Butler will] fling the doors open on her wildest dreams - another glimmer of hope in a city [Boston USA] that thrives on it.
   [A "glimmer of hope" indeed! But we can't keep relying on "random acts of kindness" to fix the world. Any system that relies on charity for vital functions is lethally flawed, because charity is capricious and unreliable. We need massive reinvestment in continuous on-the-job training, retraining and cross-training on a systematic, market-oriented basis. And Timesizing offers a first cut on just such a system.]