This was the photo I took from a friend's balcony in Tiburon, California on the last day of 2016. I don't know why the moon never comes out right in the photos I take, but it was a two or three-day old crescent moon, and the planet Venus -- sometimes the Evening Star, sometimes the Morning Star -- was up to its left. Outside the frame of the photo, a little above Venus, is Mars. Soon the two of them will have a close encounter of a very planetary kind!
If you're interested in what goes on above you at night, you might want to check out Sky and Telescope's "Sky at a Glance" blog. THIS WEEK'S covers January 6-14.
If you're interested in what the dance in the night sky has to do with your personal life, you might want to check out Chani Nicholas's Horoscope Blog. THIS WEEK'S starts on January 24.
September 3-9, 2018. National University of Singapore (NUS). USC Marshall's Case Team took second place out of 20 international business schools. Big deal! Plus, team member Caitlyn Huang took home Best Female Presenter! I'm humbled and proud.
Image courtesy of National University of Singapore
Left to right: Alwin Ong Wei Ren (NUS ambassador), Brandon Kay '21, James Yun '19, Jiaxin "Claire" Lin '19, Caitlyn Huang '20, and me, Professor Hansen
Space Alien Calligraphy at Singapore Chinese Cultural Center
This year's competition was broken into three parts:
A five-hour case on the Chinese Cultural Center in Singapore, worth 30% of the final score.
A 24-hour case on the Bank of China's Singapore Branch, worth 70% of the final score
Presentation by five finalists
Each team was placed by a random drawing into one of five brackets consisting of four teams each.
USC's bracket included University of Aukland, UPenn's Wharton School, and Corvinus University Business School in Budapest.
USC's initial goal was to beat Wharton. Corvinus scored #1 in the five-hour case, Wharton 2nd, Aukland 3rd, and USC dead last.
We were all seriously depressed.
The day after the five-hour case was dedicated to "The Amazing Race," a kind of social media scavenger hunt that took teams all over Singapore to complete and post about various tasks. I never did figure out where all this posting was taking place. My students muttered "Instagram, professor. Don't worry, we'll share the photos and videos with you on Google Drive."
Social media challenge: "Take a picture in a Singapore back alley." Note that even the alleys in Singapore are spotless!
Ambassador Alwin kept the team on the Amazing Race track, but then, as we all commiserated and bonded, we decided to stick together late into the evening and Alwin shared some of his favorite Singapore Spots with us, including Jumbo Seafood and the light show at Gardens by the Bay.
Alwin kept Team USC on track with a visit to a Hawker Center in "Olde Towne" Singapore
I was the only one who had seen all four case presentations, so I shared some observations with my team and they ran with them, not only beating Wharton in the 24-hour case, but scoring first (this time Aukland was second, Wharton third, and Corvinus last), thus securing a berth in the finals.
USC Marshall as "YRN Consulting" in the Finals. Judges are introduced, and USC starts its presentation at 4:21:30.
The judges for the finals are extremely tough, and include this notorious NUS faculty member Andrew Delios (right), who starts contradicting you and questioning you after you say, "Well, I --"...
USC were not rattled and ultimately placed second of the five finalist teams.
One last thing: while the teams have many opportunities to get to know one another (ours became particular friends with the Berkeley and New South Wales teams), the advisors end up having a lot of fun together.
Here's a last photo from the gala final dinner featuring just some of advisors and my new pals:
Clockwise around the table, starting on the left: Marielle Nilsen from BI Norwegian Business School, Jen Laurette from Queen's University, Smith School of Business, Keith Niedermeier from Wharton, Brian Burfitt from New South Wales, Chua Lily (doyenne of the NUS Case Competition and hostess with the mostest), Geok Teng Lau (case writer, retiring force behind the NUS competition and husband of Lily), me, Pieter Verhallen from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, Rene Gendreau from HEC Montreal, Miklos Kozma from Corvinus in Budapest, Ingrid Larkin from Queensland University, and Erika Walker from Berkeley.
Most of the advisors joined their students at mega international dance club Zouk afterwards, but what happens at Zouk stays at Zouk, so I'm not at liberty to divulge any details, except to say that one of the challenges of being an advisor involves students, stress, alcohol, and catching early plane flights....
Libby was already seated by the time Carl arrived at the table. He was escorted by a waiter, dressed in black pants and white shirt, who had appeared, literally, out of nowhere. The waiter pulled out the chair opposite Libby and waited for Carl to sit down before offering him something to drink. Having been in Heaven only a year, Carl wasn’t used to the “no caffeine” rule and asked for a cup of coffee. He was politely denied. The waiter suggested that Carl try Heaven’s Special Drink, the ingredients of which were kept secret, but made everyone happier. “It’s marvelous,” Libby said enthusiastically, noticing Carl’s hesitation. “He’ll have one and I’ll take a refill,” she said to the waiter who glided away, his feet barely touching the ground.
What are relationships for? Most people might say that relationships are for having a companion to share interests and activities, a partner to raise a family, a mate for sharing expenses, etc. While those are certainly legitimate reasons for forming relationships, there is another level that goes on concurrently and most often unconsciously. A deeper reason we are drawn into relationships is to expand our sense of self and become more whole, integrated human beings. (Austen)
WORKS CITED
Austin, Stephanie. “Synastry: The Mirror of Relationship” from www.ecoastrology.com
Isackson, Peter. "The Daily Devil's Dictionary: Donald Trump and Respect." February 6, 2018 https://www.fairobserver.com/region/north_america/donald-trump-african-union-letter-us-politics-news-34958/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=February+7%2C+2018
Hovanetz, Michelle. "Employment and Recruiting Agencies in California." October 2017
This post combines the kind of inspiration we got from GROWING A FARMER with the harder to understand information we touched on in THE GENIUS OF MONEY. One of many innovative "new economy" ventures I've run across is the Slow Money Institute, whose mission (according to their website) is, "To catalyze the flow of capital to local food systems, connecting investors to the places where they live and promoting new principles of fiduciary responsibility that 'bring money back down to earth.' "
Maybe some of you business majors would know what "fiduciary responsibility" means, but it sounds good, solid, and conservative to me.
Anyway, picking up on the BOTANY OF DESIRE (the Tulip/Beauty section we didn't watch—here are two representative clips: Antique Roses and the Wall Street of Flowers) and FIXING THE FUTURE videos we watched in class, I found this recent post on the Slow Money Blog, "How A Zero-Percent Loan Is Helping this Colorado Farm," to be particularly fun as well as enlightening. Here's a quote from the article by Don Lareau that made me think: "Oh, not only is a flower farmer really good at writing this blog post, but he's got the intelligence to know when something makes good business sense—duh! Advanced Writing for Business!
After local banks scoffed at us and loans for a new truck seemed way too expensive, we heard about the 2Forks Club, a local Slow Money investment club.... They gave us a $23,500 zero-percent loan, which we are paying back over a few-year period. The part that amazes me to this day is the degree to which the members of 2Forks worked with us to customize the loan for our benefit. For example, they said, “You are not asking for enough to get a good truck,” so they gave us more than we were originally asking for. “This is not how a bank works!” we thought. If that wasn’t enough, they also looked at our cash flow and structured a bit more time to pay the loan back, with some discretion built in. They understood that we are not selling widgets, that we are dealing with Mother Nature and biology and many variables not in our control, such as late frosts, early heat, hot winds, and the like.
Zephyos Farm owners Daphne Yannakakis (left) and Don Lareau
Courtesy of the Slow Money Blog
If you asked a fish, "How's the water?" most fish would respond, "What's water?" I think in "The Poetics of Money," John Bloom may be asking us to contemplate the "water" of our current economic reality.
What's the difference between handing a couple of dollars to a strawberry farmer at a Farmer's Market and programming your computer to electronically move millions from one currency or equity (Wells Fargo, for instance) to another in the blink of an eye?
You look the strawberry farmer in the eye, compliment her on the sweetness of the berries, ask how the recent torrential rain affected the current crop, inquire after her son, who just enlisted in the Navy, etc.
On the other hand, your computer dutifully adds virtual "value" on paper at the end of one day, only to subtract that "value" on another, completely unaware that one of the digital blips indicates Wells Fargo stock. And what you prefer to remain in the dark about is that Wells Fargo is a major source of funding for the Dakota Access Pipeline, which violates the sovereignty of the Sioux people across whose land the pipeline is scheduled to cross, threatening the safety and health of people who not only have been living on the land it passes through for thousands of years, not only have experienced aggression and violation from non-native interests for hundreds of years, but who have not given their permission for it to be built.
Is it "just money"? How is a willfully unconscious digital blip from the magnetic strip on the back of a piece of plastic in my wallet—or from the processor on my laptop or smart phone—moving to another digital receiver 10,000 miles away in a nanosecond different from a lump of rock with the chemical symbol "Au," which much be consciously verified for authenticity by another lump of rock, a touchstone —with the chemical signature SiO2—to determine its relative value....
What have we gained? What have we lost? What is the cost—financially, spiritually, culturally, personally?
Compare Nicholas Kristof's New York Times article, "Husbands are Deadlier Than Terrorists" to the discussion of voter fraud reproduced below. Questions:
What do we know about Kristof?*
What do we know about Miller?**
What evidence does each present?
Who or what does each represent?
Source: Media Matters for America, a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.
From ABC's This Week, February 12, 2017
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (HOST): Let me move on, though, to the question of voter fraud as well. President Trump again this week suggested in a meeting with senators that thousands of illegal voters were bused from Massachusetts to New Hampshire and that’s what caused his defeat in the state of New Hampshire, also the defeat of Senator Kelly Ayotte. That has provoked a response from a member of the Federal Election Commission, Ellen Weintraub, who says, “I call upon the president to immediately share New Hampshire voter fraud evidence so that his allegations may be investigated promptly.” Do have that evidence?
STEPHEN MILLER: I have actually having worked before on a campaign in New Hampshire. I can tell you that this issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire politics. It's very real. It’s very serious. This morning, on this show, is not the venue for me to lay out all the evidence. But I can tell you this: Voter fraud is a serious problem in this country. You have millions of people who are registered in two states or who are dead who are registered to vote. And you have 14 percent of noncitizens, according to academic research, at a minimum, are registered to vote, which is an astonishing statistic.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You can't make a -- hold on a second. You just claimed again that there was illegal voting in New Hampshire, people bused in from the state of Massachusetts. Do you have any evidence to back that up?
MILLER: I’m saying anybody -- George, go to New Hampshire. Talk to anybody who has worked in politics there for a long time. Everybody is aware of the problem in New Hampshire with respect to --
STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m asking you, as the White House senior -- hold on a second. I’m asking you as the White House senior policy adviser. The president made a statement, saying he was the victim of voter fraud, people are being bused from --
MILLER: And the president -- the president -- the president was.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you have any evidence?
MILLER: If this is an issue that interests you, then we can talk about it more in the future. And we now have our government is beginning to get stood up. But we have a Department of Justice and we have more officials. An issue of voter fraud is something we're going to be looking at very seriously and very hard. But the reality is, is that we know for a fact, you have massive numbers of noncitizens registered to vote in this country. Nobody disputes that. And many, many highly qualified people, like Kris Kobach*, the Kansas secretary of state, have looked deeply into this issue and have confirmed it to be true and have put together evidence. And I suggest you invite Kris Kobach onto your show and he can walk you through some of the evidence of voter fraud in greater detail.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Just for the record, you have provided absolutely no evidence. The president’s made a statement.
MILLER: The White House has provided enormous evidence with respect to voter fraud, with respect to people being registered in more than one state, dead people voting, noncitizens being registered to vote. George, it is a fact and you will not deny it, that there are massive numbers of noncitizens in this country who are registered to vote. That is a scandal. We should stop the presses. And, as a country, we should be aghast about the fact that you have people who have no right to vote in this country registered to vote, canceling out the franchise of lawful citizens of this country. That’s the story we should be talking about. And I’m prepared to go on any show, anywhere, anytime, and repeat it and say the president of the United States is correct 100 percent. [ABC, This Week With George Stephanopoulos, 2/12/17; ABC News, 2/12/17]
Stephanopoulos is right. The White House continues to provide zero evidence to back up its claims of voter fraud. Officials instead retreat to the same bogus talking points that have been repeatedly shown to be false.It’s pretty ridiculous to cite research in a way that even the researcher says is inappropriate, and yet Miller keeps saying 14 percent of noncitizens are registered to vote. The Republican governor of New Hampshire has admitted that he was wrong to say buses of illegal voters voted in the election, and yet Miller shamelessly suggests that is the case. Miller cites a supposed expert on voter fraud, Kobach, who has been mocked for failing to prove his own claims of voter fraud. Miller also repeats a claim about people being registered to vote in two states, even though that is not an example of voter fraud.
Miller earns Four Pinocchios — over and over again. [The Washington Post, 2/12/17]
_________________________________________________ *Nicholas Kristof has been a columnist for The New York Times since 2001. He grew up on a farm in Oregon, graduated from Harvard, studied law at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and then studied Arabic in Cairo. He was a longtime foreign correspondent for The New York Times and speaks Chinese, Japanese and other languages.
Mr. Kristof has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his coverage of Tiananmen Square and the genocide in Darfur, along with many humanitarian awards such as the Anne Frank Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
With his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, he has written several books, most recently “A Path Appears” (September 2014) about how to make a difference. Their last book, “Half the Sky,” was a No. 1 best seller.
Mr. Kristof, who has lived on four continents and traveled to more than 150 countries, was The New York Times’s first blogger and has 1.4 million followers on Twitter, 1.3 million followers on Google+ and 600,000 followers on Facebook.
Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn are the parents of Gregory, Geoffrey and Caroline. Mr. Kristof enjoys running, backpacking and having his Chinese corrected by his children. Read his blog, On the Ground. Follow him on Google+, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. His column appears every Sunday and Thursday. _________________________________________________ ** http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/31/politics/stephen-miller-immigration-trump-administration/
