Wednesday January 30, 2008
The Human Price of Divorce
In 1989 I met a woman in Brooklyn, NY. Our first date
was interesting and so was the next. Yearning for companionship, I
wasn't too upset when asked by the woman to wear a yarmolka (a Jewish
skullcap) for the date. I didn't mind picking her up a few blocks away from her
parents' house so we're not spotted. Indeed, there was a mysterious
and intriguing flavor to it. She had a small, really small apartment
in Manhattan where we had spent quality time together. It was growing into a relationship. Again, when my
sister arrived from Israel on a Saturday, I didn't pay too much
attention to the fact that I was asked not to pick her up from the
airport. I let it go, and my sister took a taxi. My sister had never forgotten it, nor had I.
This woman, whom I ended up marrying and divorcing, came from an ultra
orthodox Jewish household. She was observing the Sabbath, eating
kosher food, and to a certain extent, observing the laws of Judaism -
Halacha. When I was introduced to her family, her father didn't even
take his eyes off the New York Times, and her mother suggested that she
finished her Masters, then marched back to the kitchen... To her they said: "he's not one of us", "he's
not religious". They were right of course. But at the time neither of
us wanted to listen or acknowledge. We were determined to make this relationship
succeed. We believed it was possible to bridge across cultures, and to be
happy despite the difficulties. Almost seven years and two lovely girls later, we realized that
we were wrong. We were both not living life the way we wanted to live it.
I had a good job, and so did she. Our older girl was attending a
Jewish-Israeli kindergarten. We kept kosher, we observed the Sabbath,
we were going to her family for the Jewish holidays. It must have hit
me one day, that it was kind of working, but it was kinda working
because I gave it all up. I don't actually believe that God would ask
people to dress a certain way, eat a certain way and restrict
themselves in general. I believe that if God existed, He would be all about love and peace and possibly some fun. Yet I saw that while I was very loud about not
being religious, I was very quietly paying for Jewish education, and
kosher chickens and meat imported from Brooklyn. Not to mention the unannounced
audits of my refrigerator by God's messenger on earth - my
father-in-law. I can still visualize him taking his glasses half
down, reading carefully the tag on whatever unfamiliar food package he found in
the fridge. I realized over time, life was passing me by.
The interesting point is that when two people, one religious one not,
want to make it work, it means one thing, and one thing only. The
non-religious person gives it up. Plain and simple. Why you ask?
Very simple. For a religious person to eat non-kosher food is like for
the Dalai Lama to slain a cow and eat it raw in the middle of a
Buddhist temple. For an observant Jew to drive on the Sabbath is like for a Muslim to have
Pork-Au-Vin... So there's a compromise, in which either both partners
are engaged in religious activities or life, or worse, the religious
one practices his life separately from the non-religious partner. In
the first scenario, there's a possibility for one to be happy, in the
latter - none are. We experienced both. Towards the end, I stopped
attending family holidays (or retreated after meals), stopped attending
family weddings - which were usually gender-separated (the straw was finding myself sitting with the local beggars for a meal).
I thought I found a real compromise one day. My grandmother was on
her death bed, and my mother had cancer, and I realized that going back
to Israel would be a reasonable solution. In Israel one can actually find a community which is as observant as he or she wants it to be. People who practice Judaism to the extent of their own interpretation. It was vetoed. I left. Our
older girl was almost six, our younger was almost six months. I
left a lot behind. A good job, many friends, and my most prized
possession - my two girls. Yet, it's been twelve years since, and I can say
unequivocally, and with absolute certainty, it was the right decision.
If I had to I would do it again, and again, and again. I returned to
life. I found another good job, spent precious time with my late
grandmother, and nursed my mother back to her feet. I also met a new woman,
who shares my background, my ethnic origin, my philosophical views, my
sense of humor and my taste in books, movies, entertainment, food and
recreational activities. I met my soul mate. Some would tell you that opposites attract. If you are in a rough relationship, if you fight a lot, and can't seem to agree on a single thing, let me tell you something. Opposites may attract, not each other though, they attract misery. It is difficult enough to make a relationship work even when people share a background. When they come from different cultures, backgrounds, religious beliefs, it is almost impossible.
The girls are seventeen and twelve respectively now. They live with
their mother, who is doing a great job raising them on her own. We live in
different continents. We maintain completely different life styles. The girls live in America and my new family and
I lived in Israel until two years ago, and now in China. I don't pick
them up every other weekend, and we don't split the holidays. I don't
nurse them when they're sick, and I rarely help them with their
homework. I see them once a year, for a few weeks. Occasionally I
stop over in Newark or JFK airports, and their mother, graciously I
must say, drive them to see me. We talk on the phone a lot. But in
all honesty, I can't really say that I'm a very significant part of
their lives.
As my old life did, my new life blessed me with two children.
It's really an unusual pleasure to see the four of them meet, play
together, and defining their own relationships with one another. All
four get very excited when it's time to meet, and all four get upset when
it's time to say good-bye. I just returned from the airport leaving
two UCMs (Unaccompanied Crying Minors...) behind, and taking home two
ACMs (Accompanied Crying Minors) with me.
It's expensive, financially and mentally to be a remote father. It's
painful not to be part of your own children's life. It's painful to
see your kids sad because they have to separate from their brothers and
sisters whom they love very much. Yet, as I said before, if I had to
do it again, I would. In retrospect, I truly believe that the
separation was even good for the children. They were spared the
confusion and anxiety involving having a father that doesn't belong to
the community to which they belong.
Bottom line - if you realize that you are living someone else's life
(not talking about The Life of the Rich and Famous). If you feel
that you compromise to the point that there's nothing left of the
original "you", and that there's nothing for you to give up anymore. If you feel that you are caught between multiple
levels of misery. If you feel that you're damned if you do, and damned
if you don't no matter how hard you try. If you are any or all of the above, the least you owe
yourself is an evaluation. If you decide to stay, being aware of the
price you pay and will pay - God bless you. If you decide to move on -
it's not the end of the world. There's life after divorce. Lots of it.
Posted at 07:55PM Jan 30, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[6]
Sunday January 27, 2008
Bridges and Software Development
In late 1984 I wrote my first computer program in Pascal. Indeed, I
wrote a few programs in Basic prior to that, but they don't count, I
was too young, and I had to feed programs to a card reader (for those
of you who don't know, you would write program statements cards,
punch each on a special machine, then let the computer read it, execute
it, provide the output etc.). I know I'm surrendering my age here, but if you're really interested in understanding how it worked, check it out here. My first Pascal program was to get three
numbers as input and provide a boolean (true or false) stating if the
set of numbers make a triangle or not. Simple program, simple
algorithm. Basically, if the sum of any two of the input numbers is
greater than the third, then the numbers are cool to form a triangle.
If not - they don't.
I wrote it in a matter of a few minutes, ran it on a few sets of
numbers I prepared ahead of time, and was happy with the results, and
with the grade I received. But I missed a lesson. I had no syntax
errors, and no bugs, and all the numbers I ran were designed to either
form a triangle or not. I didn't enter negative numbers, I didn't
enter invalid input (like characters or special symbols).
What's the context? The bridge in Minneapolis-St. Paul. The bridge
collapsed last year, and it was determined that a design flaw caused
the collapse. The bridge was built in the 1960s, as time went by, the bridge gained weight (concrete
blocks to separate lanes, heavy structural additions, and the
inevitable more traffic), and "While the final cause of
the bridge failure still might not be known
until next fall, the NTSB investigation has surmised so
far that it originated with a failure of 16 gusset plates that were
sized a half-inch too thin in the original 1960s design."
(http://www.startribune.com/local/13852836.html).
I immediately remembered my times as a microcode developer for a
real-time storage appliance. As it turns out, writing "good-path" code
(the code that actually achieves the functional requirements of the
program) is only about a third of the work required. If you take into
account the design work and reviews, the test plans and execution, the
"good-path" work becomes the smaller part of the project. Let me explain.
When a computer program is written, many things must be taken into
account. The execution environment (desktop, server, grid, single or
multi-threaded, single or multiple processors, shared or dedicated
memory, preemptive vs. non-preemptive execution, interrupt enabled vs.
interrupt disabled environment, kernel vs. user space, timing and more). The performance requirements
(anywhere from batch processing to real-time response expected). The
possible disasters which can occur during execution (power loss,
physical device corruption or failure, bugs, and many others). When you
realize all the factors you must take into account, and then add the
actual requirements plus the performance necessary to accomplish the
goals of the software, you realize that the task is rather overwhelming.
But the real secret is to try and forecast the needs from the the
software in the future. Computer programs written in the nineteen in the sixties were not designed to run forty years later. Nobody
thought that year 2000 would present a problem to COBOL programs
written forty(!) years before the turn of the century. But they did.
Many programs written in the sixties, were still running business
processes around the world forty years later. Some still do. Like
bridges, computer programs must answer to the needs of today, tomorrow,
and possibly many years after the original designer or programmer had
retired.
Bridges must consider future weight, traffic, material fatigue, wind
patterns - present and future, weathering and many other factors (I am
not a civil engineer). Computer programs are very much the same.
Tomorrow they may run on different platforms, answer to different
requirements, different customers. If not considered carefully, like bridges, the excess weight will cause them to collapse.
Posted at 07:57AM Jan 27, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[2]
Tuesday January 22, 2008
Priceless
A few independent facts. We moved to a new apartment
in Beijing three weeks ago. My wife asked, and I explained, what
social networks are in general, and FaceBook in particular. I was
married before. Shiri was less than four when Guy was born. Her two
older sisters live with their mother in New Jersey, but they come to
visit us at least once a year.
Confused? Let me explain.
About three months ago we have decided that flushing toilets is a
pre-requisite for us. Therefore we have decided to move out of the
Upper East Side apartment complex in the northeastern part of Beijing.
The place looks OK, the sales people are doing an excellent job
marketing and selling this place up. And they do it in wonderful
English. The service people can't speak English to save their life
(or yours). They also a little more relaxed about maintenance calls,
fixing things, cleanliness and other areas to my taste. And I'm not
being difficult here. I served in the military, I lived for months in
a tent...
Anyway, once we made up our mind, we went to look (mostly Dorit, my
wife), we found (Landmark Palace), and we started calling the new
apartment - the new house, and the old one - well you guessed it: the
old place.
So we're sitting down for dinner, and my wife asks me to explain what
social networks are, and what is this FaceBook thing that everyone is
talking about. In my explanation I also mentioned the "wall" that a
FaceBook member has, that people can write on comments and messages,
and whatever. And then Guy, the almost five year old, says: "I will
not write on the walls in the new house, because if I do, it will
become an old house, and we'll have to move". Priceless.
While washing the dishes Dorit and I talked about how children explain
their surrounding world to themselves. It's always fascinating, and
only rarely they let us in to their inner world. Not because they want
to keep us out of it, but because once something makes sense to them,
they assume everyone knows it... When they don't get something - they
ask. I have to admit that we didn't correct Guy. If he found a good
reason not to paint on the walls, we are not going to be the ones to
break that reasoning...
Anyway, we remembered a certain "incident" with Shiri, who was about three when Guy
was born in 2003. Summer was near, and her two older sisters were
about to arrive from the US for the summer. Around June, we started to
notice that Shiri started to stutter, to blink furiously on occasion.
She was withdrawing. We asked the pediatrician (a great guy, Dr.
Israel Tchernin, if you're ever in Binyamina...). He calmed us down
and said it was natural when a new baby is born, for the older child to
become anxious, to re-evaluate his or her place in the family. He said
she would grow out of it. And then Shiri dropped the bomb. In a very
straight, direct, almost blunt way, she looked us in the eye and said:
"when am I moving to the US?". We were stunned. We couldn't
understand where it came from. She offered her explanation. When I
was born, you sent my older sisters to the US, now Guy was born, and I have to
leave... She reasoned we can only deal with one child at a time, and
that Guy's presence required her departure.
Lucky for us she accepted our explanation for the discrepancy, and
things calmed down. We were lucky that Shiri was open enough to share
her anxieties with us. I can't imagine what would have happened had
she not. We were either lucky, or, well, we were lucky.
Posted at 07:29PM Jan 22, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[1]
Monday January 21, 2008
Beijing Open Solaris User Group Meeting - January 2008
How often do you get to be in one room with almost 200
open source enthusiasts? How often do you get to talk to them about
the most exciting OS transformation that's taking place right now,
right here? Well, I just had that opportunity and it was quite an
experience. We had our first 2008 Beijing Open Solaris User Group meeting on January 10, 2008. And what a great year opener it was. I
started the meeting with a warm welcome, and a strong commitment from
Sun Microsystems to open source. I delivered a short (30 minute)
speech titled "Solaris, Past, Present and Future", portraying the
journey Solaris has started just a couple of years ago. From an
enterprise, fully featured, robust, fail-safe, best performance and
durability operating system to the user-oriented, friendly, full
featured operating system that it is today. I stressed that the
journey isn't over yet, and that it will only be completed with the
help and participation of the community. The community, this abstract body of people,
who usually have day jobs that are completely different than the role
they play in the development of open source, contributing to world wide
development of operating systems, packages, applications that are
readily available to each and every person on the planet. Available for use and for contribution.
I surveyed Solaris' most interesting and unique features, yes the ones
that won awards on being so special that they are simply not available
anywhere else. ZFS - the best most comprehensive file system on the
planet, DTrace - the absolute best way to debug and increase
performance in a fraction of the time previously necessary, and the
incredible variety of virtualization options Solaris provides. I then
continued and presented the new features of Solaris Indiana -
enterprise-class operating system on a single CD, with easy
installation, easy development, easy maintenance. In short, the
absolute best bang for the buck. Did I say buck? I had to remind
myself and the audience that it's all freely available for download
right here.
Alex Peng spoke about xVM. Robin Guo spoke about ZFS.
Interesting, informative, enticing. Not only to try, but to join, to
contribute, to participate.
The evening was great, I got to meet Fred Muller, Beijing Linux User Group president.
In addition, while talking to different people in the audience while
having some pizza, I saw people from different walks of life, working
for different companies in different market sectors, all sharing a
passion for open source. It was interesting, and heartwarming.
I want to use this platform to thank all the organizers for a superb
job, and to our audience for their attendance, and continued support
and enthusiasm for open source in general, and Open Solaris in
particular. You can also check out Rob Sohigian's blog for more.
Posted at 08:41AM Jan 21, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[1]
Sunday January 20, 2008
A Plea
Let me describe a situation which unfolded at the Third Ring Road
branch of Carrefour supermarket in Beijing just a few days ago. I was
standing at the checkout line at this gigantic European supermarket preceded by
a large cart loaded with foods and other goods. My weekly
shopping for the family. Living in Beijing, we have found Carrefour to
be the closest to what we were used to at home. With some exceptions,
of course, but still, the wide variety of products, the relatively easy
access, and even English speaking employees. As the
person at the cashier was checking out the items, I noticed that a
conversation had developed between the guy checking out my stuff, and the next one. At first I thought it was rude, and
unprofessional, not giving his entire attention to me, the customer,
but I thought nothing of it. Until I started to get some words, half
sentences, and the general attitude of that conversation.
The two young checkout cashiers were bluntly and loudly,
making fun of me, my shopping habits, the amounts of stuff that I had
in my cart (we are entertaining a large family this weekend). I
couldn't believe it. It was beyond rude. It was taking rudeness to
the point where it could potentially affect the business for which
these guys were working for. It is unacceptable by all means, and everywhere. China is not exception, nor should it be.
I have to say that this wasn't an isolated incident. It's actually quite
common. People would comment on size, looks, appearance, my child rearing skills. They will do
it to my face and they would do it loud, and laugh in the process.
So here's the deal: some foreigners DO speak Chinese, and the ones who
have been here for years, even if they can't speak the language
fluently, they certainly can make the topic of conversation, and the body language. It's rude
and inconsiderate. It hurts people and it hurts business. It's not in your
best interest, your employer's best interest or your country's best
interest. But first and foremost, just put yourself instead. How
would you feel if someone commented about you in a public place?
In a few months time, thousands of foreigners will converge on Beijing
for the 2008 Olympic Games. They will undoubtedly appreciate the
Chinese sportsmanship, the amazing accomplishments in building and
rebuilding China. They will be awed at the site of the Bird's Next
National Stadium. They will expect to be respected. Making fun of
foreigners who can't speak the language is not an acceptable behavior.
It's offensive and rude.
Posted at 04:02PM Jan 20, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[2]
Wednesday January 16, 2008
The Power of Detachment
Detachment is convenient. I discovered it when I saw little Shiri's
face when she found out that chicken fingers (or nuggets) and the barn
animal called chicken are one and the same, and that hamburgers were
made of cows. Yes, that big stupid-looking animals that moos. Indeed,
it took her a whole thirty minutes
to let the tragedy go, and take the next bite. Some kids find out
later in life and turn vegetarians, not our carnivore kids. Except
Karen, the oldest, who claims to be a vegetarian until she lands a nice
piece of chicken. But that's not the point.
If you are able to separate chickens from kebab, pigs from pork, cattle
from hot dogs, you become numb. It's different altogether when you
realize what you're doing, and you do it still. I see nothing wrong in
eating chicken, or beef, or pork. I see human beings as the ultimate
predators, and predators consume meat. I don't believe any other
predator in nature is experiencing second thought before, during, or
after having consumed some unfortunate animal that found its way into
its jaws. As long, of course, as the killing is done in a humane
way, and that survival of species is considered.
In this day and age, detachment plays a big role in our lives and our
children's lives. Everything is processed, it's original shape and
form gone, consequences ignored. Chickens and cows are part of it, but
there are much more interesting examples.
Outsourcing is a good example of detachment. Let me explain. An
American (or European, or Israeli for that matter) consumer purchases something at the local store. The
store buys that item in bulk from some distributor who buys
it from the manufacturer who is usually in a different country. Most
likely in
Asia. It's relatively easy to track down the store, the distributor
and the even the manufacturer. But the manufacturer may have subcontractors,
and tracking them down is a whole different story. In
other words, the manufacturer doesn't actually manufacture the thing on
his own, he
actually outsources it. The other subcontractor outsources it as
well. And so on and so forth. So much so, that audit teams coming to
check manufacturing processes, materials, labor practices find no data
whatsoever. In many cases, they can't even find the factory that
actually makes the damn thing, they can't track down the raw materials and
the workers. It's like a black hole, spewing manufactured items once
in a while.
But this is where the trouble is. Well at least some trouble. The
last one on the list, the people who actually sweat to make this item. They may be children, they may be abused, overworked,
underpaid, mistreated. Materials may be substandard even poisonous. Manufacturing
processes may
be unsafe, even illegal. But here comes the convenience of
detachment.
What you don't know doesn't bother you. Well, it should.
When you go to the store and buy something that seems unbelievably
cheap, or "too cheap to be true" you
should employ your brain. You should know, if it's too cheap to be
absolutely clean, it probably isn't. Clean of child abuse and child
labor, of lead based paint and other substandard materials, of unsafe
processes or illegal labor practices. If it's not clean,
don't buy it. Buy the other one, the more expensive one that has some
kind of guarantee that it's kosher. And hold the store and the
distributor responsible. And yourself too.
Yes, indeed, it's your local store's responsibility to do it for you.
But they're too busy raking it in. Big money, over your detachment,
and someone else's broken fingers, backs and lives.
Another type of detachment I realized recently is the stock market.
Take CMOs for example. You don't know what it is? You're not alone.
Many people have no idea what CMO stands for, and even less people know
how to evaluate it. Collateralized Mortgage Obligations (CMOs) are
a type of mortgage-backed security that creates separate pools of
pass-through rates for different classes of bondholders with varying
maturities, called tranches. The repayments from the pool of
pass-through securities are used to retire the bonds in the order
specified by the bonds' prospectus.
(http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cmo.asp). Complicated?
Definitely. But in short it means that if scores of people are
defaulting on their mortgage payments, owners of CMOs lose money. A
lot of money. Many now say that either they had no idea what this
security was when they invested in it, and that the bank that sold it
to them rated the security low-risk or risk-free, while in reality (as
we now know) this was far from being true. The point is, when you
invest money in a security, the "homeowner" who can't pay the monthly
payments is as far from your investment as pork is far from breakfast sausage.
And there's another similarity. The famous joke suggests that when it comes to a bacon and egg breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.
Investors, as well as homeowners, are in this case, committed...
Posted at 08:30PM Jan 16, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[1]
Sunday January 13, 2008
Trip to India II - Passports and Visas
A short one.
The ultimate sweet and sour. My daughter mixed some M&Ms and Skittles. Surprisingly, it's a good combination. Try it...
Warning: this will get slightly complicated, frustrating, even exhausting. Bear with me, it's all true.
My children's American passports would have expired in March, and as
any traveler knows, six months of passport validity is a pre-requisite
for any international travel. We went to the American embassy to get
the children new passports. The forms can be easily downloaded from
here. If you
apply for a child's passport, the child, and both parents must be
present. To make things somewhat smoother, don't forget to print some
photos of yourself and the child at different times. The purpose of
the photos is to establish the appearance changes of the child, as well
as your relationship with him. They promised that the passports will
be ready within seven working days. They were ready earlier, and they
even called me to tell me that they are ready. Great service, thanks a
lot!
While we were waiting at the embassy, we overheard this American
describing to the clerk an interesting situation. He said that once
one receives a new passport, his Chinese visa is automatically invalid
for travel. Worse, if one does not apply for a new visa (or a visa
transfer to the new passport), he or she may have to pay a fine (not so
bad), and go through the process of obtaining a new visa (very bad). I
must say that the new passports contained a short note describing
exactly that. We were prepared.
So, with the newly acquired passports, we ran to the Public Safety
Bureau to get the children's visa transfered to their new passports.
Ten working days. Then we had to go to the local police to register
(standard procedure). Only then we were ready to go for visas to India.
Again, forms are available here.
There are also some phone numbers. Don't bother. Obtaining a visa
from the Indian embassy in Beijing is no walk in the park. We waited
on line (not a simple queue. More of a stack, where elements get added
in the front, LIFO if you get my drift). For an hour, in subzero
temperatures, until we finally got to the clerk. The clerk was
obviously depressed, tired of his life and the surrounding visa
applicants. Very few of the applicants had a single passport. Many
had dozens. In any case, I was happy to see that the proper respect
was given to us, the US passport carriers, charging us significantly
more for the visas than any other passport carriers on the planet. We
paid almost RMB 2,000.00 for the four visas. We were told to be back
on January 4 at 16:00. The nice visa clerk promised that we shall no
longer have to stand in line (simple or other).
I came back on January 4. As sick as a dog. With my four year old
son. My wife was at the hospital with my daughter. We were
experiencing a nasty flu. The line was there. Even longer. People
with bags of receipts were standing in front of me. And what's worse
is that every so often, a taxi would stop, a person would come out and
survey the line, and walk straight to the line's front, as if to say: I
can't possibly be waiting for the same thing you guys are waiting for.
And the interesting part was the absence of protest from the rest of
the waiters... Finally, shivering, I made it to the clerk who took the
receipt, looked up in some brown large envelope, and without ever
raising his eyes from the desk said: "not ready, come Monday". At this
point, I lost my good, British-like, even tempered, kind natured
attitude (I have none of the above), and said, in as many words:
"Aren't you embarrassed? You let me wait here in the cold for an hour
to submit the forms, you tell me to come back today, you let me wait
for another hour in the freezing cold, and without even apologizing you
tell me to come back Monday? What is wrong with you?".
The guy took his eyes off whatever he was looking at, and apparently
one look at me was sufficient for him to try a different strategy. One
that eventually worked. He said: "please wait here for a minute". He
stepped into the embassy building, and a minute later showed up with a
brown envelope, containing our passports and the visas, which were yet
to be pasted onto the passports. He did that and within one minute I
was on my way to the warm car.
We're all ready for the trip. We can't wait.
Posted at 07:54AM Jan 13, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[5]
Thursday January 10, 2008
Accountability
I would have loved to be able to start this post saying: "The American
economy crisis is over, the greenback is up, unemployment is down, real
estate prices crawling back to where they were last year, the
foreclosed houses have been returned to their owners, ridiculous
mortgages have been removed from the market, Wall Street write-downs
concluded, late payments forgiven, stock market is up, consumer
spending up". Unfortunately I can't. There's a simple reason to it.
It ain't true.
Analysts are arguing how many billions of dollars Citigroup may be
forced to write-down for the fourth quarter of 2007. Anywhere between
$8B and $16B, and how many employees will be included in the
downsizing. KB Homes (KBH) is reporting a huge loss, and Countrywide
(CFC), America's largest mortgage lender is fighting off bankruptcy
rumors, while seeing its stock dropping 25% on January 8, completing a
drop of over 85% in six months. The NASDAQ Composite is pretty much
the same as it was one year ago. But it lost a lot of ground in the
last three months (over 10%). Unemployment at 5%, oil at $100 a
barrel. Not a lot of good news.
But this is not my topic. My topic is one that stems from confusion.
By watching the news media and the government officials, you might be
lead to think that everything is absolutely great! President Bush
claims that the "economy is still on a solid foundation". And there's
a parade of "experts" lined up every day on practically all the
financial news channels showing charts with green arrows going up,
trying to explain why things aren't as bad as they seem.
And I'm confused. A wide variety of financial instruments suggest big
trouble, recession, downsizing, while an as wide variety of experts are
trying to deny it. Who's right?
I had a crazy idea. Is it possible that those who pump us all with
good news have something to gain here? Is it possible that if enough
good news is channeled into people's hearts, then their mood will get
better, their spending patterns improve, and the so-called recession
will go away? So far, from what I'm seeing, most people aren't buying
it. They seem to believe the numbers.
There's another problem I see here, and it manifests itself in the
business news and analysis, but also in the well covered and analyzed
election primaries. The news media and the analysts come up with all
kinds of assumptions, which to at least to a certain extent, shape
public opinion and sometimes action. When it turns out that they were
completely off, they just look you straight in the eye and come up with
some lame explanation in preparation for the next faux pas. Hillary
Clinton was to lose the primaries in New Hampshire. It was final, all
the polls, surveys, and analysts declared Barack Obama as the clear
winner. But they were wrong. And guess what, they are already working
on the next prediction. The reason is: there's no accountability
whatsoever. Where no accountability exists, one does not hesitate to
craft interpretation and analysis daily.
Posted at 04:50PM Jan 10, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[1]
Tuesday January 08, 2008
Zeida
Quite a while ago I started a family tree at Geni.com. To be
honest, my enthusiasm survived no more than a couple of days. I added
my immediate family, the uncles and cousins and my parents immediate
ancestors. And Zeida.
Zeida, in Yiddish (the language of Eastern European Jews), means grandfather, but I only
found that out when I was already a twenty year old Lieutenant. Years
after he died, I still thought that Zeida was his name. He was my great
grandfather, and he died when I
was about fifteen. Not too many kids had great grandfathers when I was
growing up. That generation of Eastern European Jews had a relatively
short life expectancy, courtesy of Nazi Germany and World War II.
Geni is a relatively sophisticated Social Network. Once you start your
family tree, and put in some email addresses of some of your relatives, they
can pick up where you left off, and put in their own relatives. In a
few months, our family tree grew to well over 1400 people. Of whom I
know about one hundred. But Geni provides an interesting service. You
get an email reminder for birthdays, anniversaries and other family
events. I like it. To make a long story short, I received a message
that my aunt and uncle will celebrate their Golden Anniversary this
January. 50 years of marriage. My parents will get there in four
years. I opened the link in the message and I almost lost my breath. On the
front page was a picture of Zeida. My late great grandfather, added by my cousin Hilla.
In a brown, old picture, wearing an old brown suite, shaved and wearing
a
mustache. No smile. There was a physical reaction on my part. It was
like getting punched in the gut. My eyes immediately filled with
tears, and a gush of memories flooded me at once. The most unusual
part was the memory of his smell. The smell of cleanliness and tobacco
combined with some stuffiness and the warmth of someone you know loves
you very much. That last ingredient I could always smell in my late
grandmother, but also in my parents and my children. Perhaps if I ever
have to define the smell of unconditional love and infinite trust, this
would be it.
There were two sides to Zeida. The stories part and the part that was
based on my own personal experience as a little boy and then a teenager.
The stories begin with Zeida being a Russian war hero who fought in the
Russo-Japanese War which took place in the early twentieth century.
Zeida was described as so strong, that he could swim across the river
Volga using "dogstroke". Later on, when the Nazis and their Romanian
helpers drove the family from their home in a small village in
Transylvania Romania, Zeida was resourceful enough to get most of the
family out intact. In 1950 they moved to Israel, where he spent the
rest of his life. During the war, two of his sons were lost. Max and
Boom. Max was located in Germany thirty years after the war, and made
it to Israel to see his father again. Boom was located in Russia many years later and Zeida died not knowing whatever happened to him.
The stories continue when my parents were dating. My mother introduced
my father to her grandfather. Zeida had a small vineyard in his back
yard, and every year he would prepare his own wine. Red, strong, sweet
wine. My father, who apparently wanted to show off his drinking skills
to the elderly man, drank too much and fell asleep on Zeida's couch.
The legend says he hadn't moved a muscle for a full day. My parents
used to laugh about it for years. As a child, I remember this back
yard very well. It had an amazing variety of trees. Oranges, apples,
grapefruit, guavas, grapes. There were always ducks and chickens
running around. When I was a little boy, we used to come visit him.
It was a big deal, as we didn't own a car, and we had to hire a car
service to drive up to Hadera, about 40 kilometers outside Tel Aviv,
and then another taxi to the village where he used to live. But when
we got there, it was always fun. A very clear childhood memory is the
"big swing on top of the hill". Zeida would take my hand in his big
hand, and walk me to the top of the hill, where a single swing was
standing with what I remember as the longest ropes I've ever seen. He would
push the swing until I could almost touch the sky. And he would never
stop until I said that I had enough. And then he would walk me to the
local general store, and buy me anything I wanted. To which my parents
would say: "you're spoiling the kid", and to which he would respond:
"that's my job". Then we would go hand in hand back to the house,
where lunch was served. Huge, thick, pieces of fried chicken and
potatoes. Visiting Zeida was always a happy occasion.
Zeida has been dead for thirty years. I can still hear his loud voice,
feel his big hand wrapping mine. I can smell his smell, and
overwhelmed with longing I can say: both him and my late grandmother
had shared a very powerful thing. Their presence was so strong, so
confident, that a hug from them, with a promise that everything would
be fine, simply made every pain, every worry, just dissipate and
disappear. At times of uncertainty and hardship, I wish I could find
that hug again. What's even more important, I wish I am able to give
my children the same kind of hugs...
Posted at 12:52PM Jan 08, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[1]
Friday January 04, 2008
Cosmopolitan Person - The Three Home Town Person Syndrome
My family and I have been living in Beijing
for almost two years. There's good and bad in every place, and Beijing
is no different. Having said that I can state loud and clear: we love
living here. The country is rich in culture, the people are generally
nice and warm, the food is outstanding and the variety of it is mind boggling.
Having been blessed with the privilege of living in three different
continents, I can make observations on life in the three countries I
spent all my life in: Israel (over thirty years), the USA (about twelve
years) and China (about two years) for a total of forty five years.
Let me make a disclaimer first: I was born and raised in Israel,
educated in the US, worked in China for two years. I love Israel, it
will always be my homeland. I admire the US, for the freedom of
choice, and the freedom of speech, the innovation and creativity. And
I think that the past and the future belong to China. Thousands of
years of glorious history, amazing capabilities and perseverance,
understanding hardship and the ways to overcome it. And of course, the
constant renewal and change, an inseparable part of the Chinese culture.
Israel is a Western country, but Israelis and Chinese have so much in
common, that it truly feels like home. The importance of education,
camaraderie, food, family, are all common values in both Israeli and
Chinese cultures. The interesting part is that both China and Israel
are seeing the US as a role model, and both are slowly moving towards
capitalism, fast food, credit cards and obesity...
Having said that, I put together a few observations about my three
favorite countries of the world: Israel, the US, and China.
Posted at 10:23AM Jan 04, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[6]
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