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The Latinamerasian: Pacific Century Watch

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The Cheapskate Perjuring Pervert, The Avenging Ex-Rent Boy and 15 Dead Texans

The most interesting news last week was the downfall of the BP CEO John Browne caused single-handedly by his ex-lover, Canadian Jeff Chevalier. What made it interesting wasn't the news itself but the comments appended at the end of the news articles at most of the online newspapers I scanned, mostly Britain & Canada-based. Personally, I take the line espoused by most of the British newspapers, that Mr. Browne made a stupid error in judgement, committing a crime in court to ruthlessly try to trash the credibility of his lover. One Briton, however, weirdly commented Browne was actually so honorable he had to lie because he was ashamed to admit he picked up his boytoy from a gay escort website (if he was honorable, why must he lie in court? If he didn't lie & the injunction wasn't lifted, all he testified in court won't be divulged anyway. He lied because he wanted to show Chevalier was a liar, praying to the court that they believe him instead because of his awards & achievements). The most surprising comments came from the Canadians themselves, as gleaned from Globeandmail.com appended comments. After the Sunday article from Mail on Sunday appeared, wherein Chevalier recounted his champagne lifestyle with Browne in various European cities, you could almost palpate the hatred for the guy among his fellow Canadians- just as palpable were the envy & schadenfreude. They took turns in denigrating the guy, most even praising Browne for treating a mere rent boy to such a grand lifestyle, while they were trapped in their sad simple lives wondering why they couldn't drink a 1983 Claret with Tony Blair while a mere ex-male prostitute from a poorer area near where they live, did. Lost in the envied accounts of Venice & Salzburg gigs were the panic attacks suffered by Chevalier in the last months of this strange affair. And the fact that he was cut off penniless by the older man. Chevalier was charging $330 per hour as an escort when he met Browne. For four years, he consented to be the plaything of Browne exclusively. If Browne had to pay on a per hour basis for the services of Chevalier for 4 years, the value of his stock options from BP won't even be enough to cover the cost. He's rich but he's not that rich. Did the champagne lifestyle he provided sufficient to cover the damage? Place yourself in the shoes of Chevalier & imagine escorting Browne fulltime for 4 years. Old man, with a revolting face, just as revolting body- I don't wonder anymore why Chevalier got his panic attacks. Those nights must have been scary, worse than any of the torture chambers imagined by Rumsfeld. One-hour encounters may be easier on the nerves, but continuous for 4 years?? Of course, nightmares had to end, but if Browne was really honorable, inasmuch as he once really did love the guy (and he used him for 4 years, may I reiterate), he should've given the younger man his due. Just being fair. What did this honorable man do instead? Why the ruthlessness? Browne was the same man responsible for what the US Baker Commission found as over-zealous cost-cutting in safety improvements that caused the death of 15 workers in a BP facility explosion in Texas. So he has been ruthless & stingy all along. He revealed himself as really just another low-rent pervert after all & Jeff Chevalier must be recognized for pulling him from the BP high horse from which Browne clung longer than necessary, preventing him from causing more damage. If Mr. Browne has any criminal culpability, let the court case run its course & not exculpate him just because somebody's pension fund value increased. Justice has never been served by never honorable selfish sentiments.

Meanwhile at BP, the new CEO Tony Hayward can now begin to undo the damage wrought by the stingy policies left behind by Browne. It was able to push out Browne early because of one man. Jeff Chevalier was a victim here, but fortunately he had the werewithal to turn himself into a hero. To 15 dead Texans, he definitely was.

From The Daily Telegraph:

Why I don't feel sorry for Browne

By Liz Hunt

03/05/200712:01am BST

Never did a master of the universe appear less deserving of the title. From the drooping myopic gaze to the vague half-smile, and with hands seemingly always clasped neatly before him, his demeanour is that of a particularly dapper maître d'.

In the early days, perhaps this lured rivals into underestimating the pint-sized BP executive who lived with his mother and harboured a passion for opera and obscure, ethnic art.

They lived to regret it as he showed the daring, vision, cunning and ruthlessness that had him lauded as the most brilliant businessman of his generation, the saviour of a floundering company on which 97,000 employees and numerous pension funds depended.

Until this week, I was barely aware of Lord Browne of Madingley and this awesome reputation. How sad it is, I thought, on hearing of the resignation of BP's group chief executive after revelations of a gay affair, that in this age of touchy-feely enlightenment, a man like that still feels that he cannot be open about his sexuality.

And what a pity, I mused, that after serving 42 years with the same company, he'll miss out on the £15 million in cash and shares he would have received if he'd retired as planned in July.

Now, having picked my way through a story that has all the elements of a Bonfire of the Vanities for the Noughties - big business meets tabloid kiss-and-tell masquerading as a morality tale - I feel less well disposed towards the so-called Sun King of the oil industry.

Discovering that his lordship leaves with shares and pensions rights worth more than £50 million is one factor. Another is that at a time when BP was facing an ever-more turbulent business environment, the man at the helm was preoccupied with fallout from a disastrous affair and, allegedly, intermingling company affairs with personal business interests.

However, it is the realisation that Lord Browne's fall from grace has little to do with a desperation to keep his sexual preferences secret, and everything to do with arrogance, hubris and an assumption that he could lie with impunity to destroy someone to whom he was once close, that has exhausted my reserves of sympathy.

If, as claimed yesterday, he selected his troubled lover, Jeff Chevalier, from the website of a gay escort agency, he was taking a risk. But what else would you expect from a high roller of the business world?

And, irrespective of how they met, they were an item for four years. Lord Browne introduced Chevalier to friends and colleagues as his partner, and lavished money on him. When his visa expired, he paid for the young Canadian to remain here as a student. He wanted them to be together.

It may have been just about sex, but isn't it more likely that for Browne, an only child whose closest adult relationship had been with his mother, the handsome Chevalier represented everything he felt he had missed out on in those decades of relentless hard work?

When the affair ended, he did the decent thing and gave his lover money for a flat in Toronto. It wasn't enough and Browne snapped, determined to silence him, even if it meant lying in court or trashing Chevalier's reputation - admittedly already tarnished - with false accusations of drug dependency and alcoholism.

Lord Browne is a clever man who should have known better, and if he'd had more experience of personal relationships, perhaps he would have done.

Ruthlessness in a business environment is a virtue; a desire to win, sometimes at all costs, is the driver to success which can bring rewards to an individual, an organisation and the wider community.

Ruthlessness in relationships, a desire to annihilate another whatever it takes, is, as he discovered this week, a far more challenging and unpredictable affair.

From Newsweek:

The Tragic Departure of a Gay CEO

Had Lord John Browne resigned from BP two years ago, he might have been lauded as one of Britain’s greatest industrial leaders. Instead, he went out in disgrace.

Luke MacGregor / Reuters

WEB EXCLUSIVE

By Emily Flynn Vencat

Newsweek

May 3, 2007 - It would be tempting to attribute the fall of Lord John Browne, who resigned this week from British oil firm BP after 41 years, the last 11 as chief executive, to a lack of acceptance of gay men in the European boardroom. Browne had kept his homosexuality under wraps until a 27-year-old former male escort outed him after a four-year-long affair. Browne sought an injunction to quash the story from a British tabloid, but a High Court judge on Tuesday ruled against him and found that Browne had lied to the court about how the men met each other.

The sex-and-lies scandal was merely the final straw, however. Both inside the company and out, concerns have been mounting about Browne’s aptitude as a leader for the last two years, ever since the explosion of BP’s Texas City oil refinery, which killed 15 employees in 2005. The proof is in the stock price. As soon as Browne handed the reigns to Tony Hayward, who has been the de facto leader of BP since the annual general meeting last month, BP shares edged upward from $67 on Tuesday before the announcement to just under $69 on Thursday’s close. Analysts say that Browne’s exit bodes well for BP in the immediate future, even as it struggles with falling oil prices and rising production costs.

Browne's legacy to the company he spent his life building will be a management style against which his successor can clearly define himself. Under Browne, BP had a reputation for having an all-powerful celebrity chief executive. According to company employees quoted in former U.S. secretary of State James Baker’s damning report on the Texas City explosion, BP under Browne habitually put “profit before safety.” Hayward, by contrast, seems to have a more egalitarian management style. “The top of the organization doesn’t listen hard enough to what the bottom of the organization is saying,” wrote Hayward last December on BP’s internal Web site. Many analysts interpret the statement as a direct criticism of Browne. “Hayward wants to make sure all the employees at the company feel free to voice their opinions, and he wants those opinions to be heard [by management],” says one company insider who did not wish to be quoted talking about BP. “Some people might say that this is very different from the atmosphere under Browne.”

Hayward is also adopting a lower profile at BP than his predecessor. He says he’ll only speak publicly on the company’s performance twice a year--half as often as Browne did. Hayward is also expected to avoid the high-profile political circles in which Browne, who was made a life peer (“Lord”) by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2001, was so comfortable. Browne and Blair were so close that political analysts attribute the importance Blair put on improving relations with Russia down to Browne’s influence. BP, goes the joke, actually stands for “Blair Petroleum.”

Of course, Browne has long been considered one of Britain’s most respected business leaders. His role in transforming BP from a relatively small European oil firm into one of the biggest power companies in the world stands as a remarkable achievement. Had Browne retired two years ago, his exit would probably have been accompanied by laudatory talk about his place among the best business leaders of his generation. In recent years, however, Browne made a number of risky decisions--both personally and professionally--that ultimately resulted in his downfall. Within the industry, Browne was known for cutting safety dangerously close to the wire. As BP and other oil companies were driven to look for oil in more dangerous places, Browne was known for keeping a tight rein on safety spending. The results were dire, and included the partial shutdown of one of the company’s Alaskan oil fields due to corrosion on pipes, and the deadly Texas explosion.

Browne took his big personal gamble in 2002, when he went on a gay escort Web site, Suited and Booted, and struck up an affair with a young Canadian student, Jeff Chevalier, which lasted for four years. After an acrimonious break-up early last year, Chevalier asked Browne for $600,000 to help him adjust from the multimillionaire lifestyle to which he’d become accustomed. Browne refused, and Chevalier sold his story to the British tabloid newspaper, The Mail on Sunday. Browne, who has never been public about his sexual orientation, tried to stop the story from going to press by filing an injunction on the basis that Chevalier’s claims were a breach of privacy and confidence.

Browne lost his suit earlier this week. Much more damningly, however, the courts revealed that Browne lied to them. He told the High Court on three separate occasions that he had met Chevalier while exercising in a park rather than on the Web site. Browne asked the court to “prefer his [own] account of what took place” over Chevalier’s (truthful) narrative because his “various honors” showed him to be of very high standing in the community. Even worse, Browne attempted to “trash” Chevalier’s reputation by accusing him in court of being a drug user and an alcoholic. Ultimately, Browne has forced to admit to the court that he had lied about having met in a park.

How many other people are there who, like Browne, work in Europe’s top corporations and are desperate to keep their sexual orientation a secret from the public eye? It’s difficult to know. Secrecy is the rule among gays in high-level businesses. In Britain, there isn’t a single openly gay person running a FTSE 100 company. In a recent survey by Stonewall, a gay lobbying group, of the country’s top 100 most influential gay men and lesbians, only three CEOs were willing to have their names published. And what would have happened had Browne, rather than lie in court about the affair, openly admitted to meeting Chevalier on a Web site? We’ll never know.

The tragedy is that after four decades of exemplary service, Browne’s final gift to his company has turned out to be his own departure.

The Philippines & The Pacific Century Part 1

I think an explanation is in order. I had a conversation with a friend & he shared a concern. Am I unduly becoming a chorus boy for the Red Chinese (as he said it) in my blog? Not necessarily. Though most Filipinos have developed this thing they call nationalism & have criticized arrogant American foreign policy, the Philippines will always be an American bastion in Asia, Pacific Century or not. There, I said it. Some may raise their eyebrows considering the increasingly Anti-American tone of my blog lately. But the Philippines is really a special case. This is a country in Asia with American History in its curriculum, Hollywood in its leisure time, American laws as part of the laws of its land, its educational system based on the American tradition of American authors & critical thinking. Simply put, it was a part of America in its history and though it's nominally independent, the people travel to America as if they're just going to transact a business at the capital city. Its economics have gone badly since the natives have taken over but its consciousness has always been that's a temporary aberration, things will correct itself. So it hasn't shed its Americanized posturing. It's part of Asia, but it's much more. The important thing is it has realized it's future lies with Asia.

The style I assumed here is what Filipinos call kantiyaw- heckling. It's serious, meant to drive a message but it's fun at the same time.

So what do I think of the Pacific Century? Will the Red Chinese dominate the Philippines like America has dominated it?

The Philippines is really a different potato. The Chinese-Filipinos have become dominant economically since Marcos times but has anybody wondered why they haven't been successful in acquiring the snob appeal to their brands which the Spanish-Filipinos, though outnumbered, have kept lock, stock & barrel? There is a wide swathe of reclaimed land by the bay which has been vacant for too long. Kuala Lumpur would fit there. Imagine if you transfer all the buildings in the competing Spanish-developed Ortigas & Ayala business districts there. You can call that Manila in your postcards & it will not be inferior to other Asian cities. Alas, that land, which are mostly held by Chinese titans, is empty & though the largest shopping mall in Southeast Asia was built there, there's no rush to build at all. To think it's just 30 minutes from Makati. But an Ayala concern, the 250 hectare Fort which was recently developed, is a big construction site, with 100 high-rise buildings at various stages of construction. The bay area is more scenic, it would've been an iconic prestige site for Manila Singapore-style. But alas, it lacked the snob appeal to attract well-heeled patrons.

One of the developments in the reclaimed area is the Asiaworld property of the late developer Tan Yu which was projected to be as successful as his developments in Taipei. Tan Yu was a Chinese-Filipino who bought lands in the outskirts of Taipei & developed it on the Manila Ayala model. It became so successful that he became the richest Southeast Asian (Forbes estimated his worth at $7 billion at one time) during the 90's. He died just developing a couple of condomiums & some homes in his Manila property.

3 out of the 10 biggest malls in the world are in Manila but a Filipino would take his foreign visitor not in any of the three (which belong to the Chinese-Filipino SM group) for bragging rites but to the much-smaller Ayala-owned Greenbelt because the latter is by reflex acknowledged as classier. Shangrila Plaza & Podium are definitely two of the better malls among the countless in Manila, & they deserved being marketed for the upper classes. But are the customers going there belong to the upper classes? The throngs looked more like contract workers on their vacation- middle-middle class at best. The Malaysian & Singaporean developers miscalculated the taste of the Filipino. This is a Filipino quirk unique among Asians: It's not what you're developing but WHO's developing it. & lamentably, when that WHO looks as Asian as you, they will respect it but they won't give their premium patronage. Does that mean Asians should just busy themselves with the low-price,go-by-volume sector, which the Chinese-Filipinos have kept lock-stock & barrel themselves? Well, the successful Chinese-Filipino has become so Filipinized himself he will buy a house in a Spanish-Filipino development to declare to the world he has arrived instead of buying from a Megaworld. Not to worry, the latter can always sell to the contract workers on vacation.

Recently, the Malaysian developer of the Manila-Cavite Coastal Road complained of runarounds by government officials in his dealings. A tactless Filipino official commented in a newspaper article that perhaps because the Malaysian "looks just like us he's not treated seriously." Stupid, but it's revealing an unacknowledged gene in the Filipino psyche that's been planted after many years of foreign colonization. What's unique with the Western Philippine colonizers was they were unlike the Japanese who left wholesale. Here, they stayed and they suffused the landscape. Majority of the well-off middle-class Filipinos are racial hybrids. Be it Malay-Chinese, Chinese-Spanish, Spanish-Malay,Malay-American, Chinese-American-Malay,etc. Unlike other Asian countries, they do mix it up ethnically more here. To outstanding results. Ten years ago, just go to an exclusive elite school in Manila & I doubt if you'll find better specimens of Asians in one place anywhere else. For the last 20 years, after the OFW (Overseas Filipino Workers) phenomenon elevated pure Malays from their isolated provincial towns & made them part of the middle class, the Manila physical face has become not unlike that found in the streets of Jakarta, Bangkok or even Singapore. Curiously I overheard this from a Filipino mestiza on a visit in Singapore:" They can landscape their sorroundings here left & right, but as long as their people look like OFW's, who are they fooling?" There's a double slur there. It managed to insult the Singaporeans while at the same time insulting the new and far more numerous members of the Philippine middle class back home. Marcos has been lambasted so much he wasn't even given credit for this phenomenon The roads, bridges & policies released a large segment of the population isolated from the mainstream of Philippine life to the point they may dominate its culture in the future.

Of course, the prejudices of generations past won't easily go away. The Spanish mestizos from Vigan & Cebu are mostly Chinese-Spanish hybrids but even with the emergence of China, they posture as more Spanish & not even highlight the Chinese part. They know the market value rule .They let the Chinese-Filipino brand appropriated by the mostly Chinese-Malay hybrids (which constitute the majority of Chinese-Filipinos; pure ethnics are lesser here than in Indonesia).

Helpfully, the Philippine sun is oppressive on a population addicted to sunblocks & whitening creams. Hybrids & foreigners alike will all turn tan eventually if they don't watch out. Recently, I started a conversation with a brown almond-eyed group which I mistook for Chinese-Filipinos. One answered in Tagalog but he wasn't Chinese. He was Korean. & he's been in Manila for only 7 months. He's darker than me.

It goes without saying the Spanish-Filipino & American-Filipino & American belong to the same generic cultural vein.

Well, to make the story short, what is my point here? Hypothesis to be precise. I raised a question above. Yeah, the Philippines can withstand a rich China culturally. China will make inroads economically but it won't dominate the Philippines like America did. The Philippines, with its strange quirks which are derisively called colonial mentality, will always have its cultural defense- one foot in Asia but one foot in America.

This is Part 1. I'll expound on that later. I love the café culture of Manila. What's better than sipping your espresso in a lazy afternoon while writing down your stray thoughts? I wonder, who would be the next Philippine President- the Spanish-Filipino Loren Legarda or the American-Filipino Richard Gordon? Only in the Philippines. I have a feeling the Philippine politics has become murky for the last 30 years because the Presidents have all been pure Asians so nobody gave them respect because as the Philippine official commented on the case of the Malaysian businessman- they looked like us. Food for thought.

Part 2 will tackle how this Filipino quirk has stymied the sensitive Japanese & how the Koreans overrode it

PPP vs. GDP

PPP vs. GDP: Suddenly Crucial

I won't discuss the fundamentals behind PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) & GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the web is abound with those. In 2005, the CIA estimated that China had a $7.8 trillion economy (in GDP terms, that's only $2 trillion) compared to the US' $11 trillion economy in PPP terms. Japan had $3 trillion in PPP terms ($5 trillion in GDP). For a greater part of the 2000's, economists have come to rely more in PPP as the more accurate measure of a nation's wealth (a dollar spent in New York will have greater purchasing power in Shanghai after all) thus even the CIA has been using it in its regular reports. Lately, as it was becoming obvious that if you use the PPP valuation, the Chinese economy is going to swamp the American economy in PPP terms in the next half decade, the use of GDP estimates in Western publications (especially those coming from American thinktanks) has been very insistent lately... suddenly. One thinktank, the US Council of Foreign Relations even had the temerity to remind the world that Japan, with a $5 billion GDP, is bigger than the GDP economies of China & India (the PPP of China & India combined is 2.5 times bigger than the PPP of Japan). Japan after all is still part of East Asia, it's not an issue against the coming Pacific Century (it's a plus, actually), but Richard Hass of Council of Foreign Relations' reminder was an argument to change the parameters of the discourse to their liking. As always. If you use the GDP valuations, Germany is after all supposed to be the 3rd biggest economy in the world ahead of China- did even anybody noticed that Germany has an effect on the world economy greater than China's (Germany has only a $1 trillion PPP)? Well, some realities won't be lost in the forests of words that's bound to ensue, just to salve wounded national pride. A test is in the offing. The house sales in the US has just dropped its lowest quarter since 1989 and economists are wary. The US economy may or may not slide in the coming quarters. Meanwhile China rose 11% in the first quarter, the rest of East Asia is growing 5-9%. If the US economy continues to slide in the coming quarters and East Asia continues with its growth trajectory, we know what the decoupling means. And no amount of stacking the discourse will confuse the issue.

When No Longer Number 1

For the first quarter of 2007, Toyota sold 2.35 million units over General Motors' 2.26 million units, overthrowing the latter as the Number 1 car company in the world. Now, if there's anything more associated with America than cars, I don't know what is. Thanks to the mess created by Bush in the Middle East which sent oil prices skyrocketing and the GM gas-guzzlers shunned in the marketplace as a result. Who said the conservative rightists are bent on their hegemony dreams to preserve American market dominance? The funny thing is they are actually hastening their exit. If you're looking for a sign of the impending Pacific Century, here it is. When Prime Minister Abe arrives in Washington DC for a visit this week, I can see the American President digesting the fact that Japan's biggest external trade (at more than $200 billion annually) is with China, not with the US anymore. With his famous penchant for denial, I'm not sure he'll even realize the gravity of the ramifications of that.

It's not over til it's over, as the American saying goes. Well, for GM, it's over.

Question Mark

Question Mark

He was 8 when he left South Korea so he practically grew up in America. Like most South Korean migrants, his family settled in an area with a large concentration of their own ethnic group. That's why you find Koreatowns anywhere there's a significant number of overseas South Koreans, be it in the US or even in Manila. Among the Asians in the US, only the Filipinos shy away from forming concentrated communities of their own kind. Filipinos in the US tend to merge with the communities they migrate to. Perhaps because Filipinos are a diversified lot- the Spanish-Filipinos would tend to identify themselves as Latinos, the American-Filipinos identify more with their grandparents, the Malay/Chinese-Filipinos tend to find support from the nearest Asian, not necessarily Filipino. Reflection of the heterogenous society from which they come from.

When the Filipino serial killer Andrew Cunanan killed Gianni Versace in Miami, the Filipinos in the US didn't feel compelled to issue apologies for their own kind. They understood Cunanan was on his own and the US society is as heterogenous as the Philippine society- in fact, even more so-, so they expected the Americans not to project Cunanan's brutal crimes to a particular group.

After the identity of the gunman at the Virginia Tech massacre was revealed, various Korean-American associations voiced their concerns on a possible backlash against Koreans in the US. Even the South Korean President stepped in and issued apologies. Many South Koreans interviewed on TV said they were embarassed of being Korean because a countryman was responsible for the massacre. One even went to the extent of saying the gunman stayed longer in America so he was already American, no longer Korean.

Remarkable, this pride in their relatively homogenous group. The guilt of one is a burden to all. This singularity of purpose served them well in their resolve to improve the economy of their country.

Apparently, Cho Seung-hui didn't have this pride in him. To him, it was a burden. After the contents of the package he sent to NBC were revealed, it appears now that to Cho Seung-hui, living in America as a South Korean was what did him. It fact, he seemed to hate what he was.

His South Korean name Cho Seung-hui was formalized to a more handy Seung Cho. That didn't serve well. Later, he thrashed that altogether with an abstract name, Question Mark. Until it finally found power with Ishmael Ax.

When he was growing up, he found solace in his tight ethnic community. Whatever nascent mental derangement he had then was probably held at bay by the ready support of a group bent on supporting its own. It's when he got out of that support system that he started breaking up fast. Virginia Tech was the real America and he found it wasn't familiar. His roommates were probably not as benign as they made themselves appear to be when they were interviewed on CNN. I have a feeling that by the way they acted and talked, they probably were a part of the bullies that Cho later mentioned in his letter. He probably felt different, inferior even, cowed ultimately. He believed he didn't have what it took to win the racially different girls so he resorted to stalking. He felt he needed some other bearable reality so he invented an imaginary supermodel girl called Jelly. His professor Nikki Giovanni said he had a mean streak. A reaction formation to a deepening inferiority complex? Lucinda Roy, the English professor who conducted one-on-one tutoring with him, said talking with him was like talking with a dark hole, as if he wasn't there. That's probably how he saw himself, being sucked to a less noticeable existence so he won't feel the extreme self-loathe. He was different, this wasn't his country, not his kind, they were cruel, they don't stop mocking him, why was he here? He had to make them pay.

Adjustments by migrants to new environments vary. Sometime last year, a South Korean youth murdered his own mother in Manila. He loved the nightlife more than school and he killed his own mother when she tried to control him. There are 50 big American-style malls in the Metro Manila area but almost in every one of them, you see clumps of South Korean youths loitering. They are well-behaved. But slowly, the liberal (at least, to Asian standards) Westernised Filipino lifestyle is slowly making its mark on them. Unlike other Asians, Filipinos kiss lips to lips and hug tightly in public, even in crowded places, scenes you usually don't see even in Asian cities with Western pretensions like Singapore. There was a time when I saw a South Korean mother virtually turning her teenage daughter around so she won't be looking at a pair of teenage Filipinos kissing non-chalantly in the middle of a crowded elevator. The mother actually closed her eyes herself.

The café society of Manila is a witness to the transformation of the South Korean youths in this city. Once, in a café in Cubao, there was this group of 4 South Koreans, one boy and three girls, in one corner. In the table beside them was a pair of Filipino lovers who were busy pecking each other. When two of the Koreans got out perhaps to buy something, the remaining two quickly sat beside each other and promptly kissed too, as ardent as the next-table Filipinos. The girl however was eyeing the door every now and then. She must have been overwhelmed she didn't notice the other two girls returning. The returnees quickly became red and pulled the girl roughly to one corner of the sofa. They were whispering harshly. Suddenly the three girls were crying then they all left. Another incident was more surprising. At that same café, one time, I took the next to the last table in a corner. From the last table, which couldn't be seen from the other parts of the café because I was blocking the view, emanated some giggles. I glanced back and I saw a pair of South Korean youths, a boy and a girl kissing. My movement probably surprised them a bag on the boy's lap slid down the floor and voila- exposed was his erect phallus in the grips of his girl friend. Almost immediately, the girl reddened and looked wanting to cry. I immediately quipped: "I didn't see anything." So I straightened my shoulders and faced a broadsheet newspaper to read while I sipped my coffee. Behind me, the giggle returned. When they finished, they were smiling profusely at me as they passed to catch their classes perhaps. Last year, a Guinnes record-breaking event for the largest number of kissing couples in public was held in Manila. A South Korean friend mentioned to me that's the unmentionable main attraction of Manila, that kind of public event won't happen in any other city in Asia. He added every city in Asia wants to look like any Western city physically but only one city feels like it after three days (3 days perhaps after you discounted the sight of the shanty enclaves & fully appreciated its culture; or in the case of Singapore, after you adjusted to the sight of the clean cityscape & you have to face up it's still old Asia after all?). He admitted South Koreans like to say publicly that they love to stay in Manila because it was cheaper here. But no one wants to admit publicly they love it more for the personal freedom they found. And they didn't have to leave Asia. It's his opinion. Like most Filipinos, I have mine but that's for other stories.

Perhaps, a South Korean pastor, or even any pastor at that, or even the South Korean President, would say something about my cavalier attitude. When I remember the look on that girl's eyes when the bag fell, I remember the eyes of Seung Cho. Sometimes a person just only needed to be human, warts and all, not South Korean, Filipino, American. Perhaps, if somebody just gave him space and not shackled him with national presumptions, physical superiority pretensions, morality mumbo-jumbo and religious fairy tales. People love to burden themselves with gender, cultural,nationalism, religious, psychological baggages I wonder sometimes why they bother to live at all.

From the Associated Press:

Virginia Tech shooter did not talk much as a child--uncle
April 20, 2007 SEOUL, South Korea -- Cho Seung-Hui was a worry to his family because he didn't speak much as a child, his uncle said, and there were even concerns he might be mute. But there were no early indications that the South Korean student who killed 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech University in the United States had serious problems, said the uncle, who requested to be identified only by his last name, Kim. Cho "didn't talk much when he was young. He was very quiet, but he didn't display any peculiarities to suggest he may have problems," Kim told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday. "We were concerned about him being too quiet and encouraged him to talk more." Cho left South Korea with his family in 1992 to seek a better life in the United States, Kim said. The family never visited their homeland, and Kim said he did not recognize his nephew when his picture appeared on television as the culprit in the deadliest shooting rampage in US history. "I am devastated," Kim said between heavy sighs. "I don't know what I can tell the victims' families and the US citizens. I sincerely apologize ... as a family member." In South Korea, Cho's parents ran a small book store in Seoul, Kim said. The family lived in a two-room apartment no larger than 40 square meters (430 square feet). "They had trouble making ends meet in Korea. The book store they had didn't turn much profit," Kim said. He said his sister -- Cho's mother -- occasionally called around holidays, but never mentioned having any problems with her son. "She said the children were studying well. She didn't seem worried about her children at all," Kim said. "She just talked about how hard she had to work to make a living, to support the children." He said he has been unable to reach Cho's mother since Monday's massacre. She and her husband now work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington. As a schoolboy in the United States, Cho's speech problems and shyness made him a target for bullying and ridicule, former classmates said. The South Korean immigrant almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation, said Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior who graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Virginia, with Cho in 2003. When Cho read out loud in class, other students laughed at his strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said. In a video Cho mailed to NBC in the middle of his rampage at Virginia Tech, the 23-year-old portrays himself as persecuted and rants about rich kids. Cho's maternal grandfather also told South Korean newspapers that relatives were concerned about Cho not talking much as a child. Cho "troubled his parents a lot when he was young because he couldn't speak well, but was well-behaved," the grandfather, who was identified by only his last name Kim, told the Dong-a Ilbo daily. The family was worried that Cho might even be mute, the 81-year-old grandfather said in a separate interview with Hankyoreh newspaper. In an editorial Thursday, the Hankyoreh said Cho's case reflected problems faced by many South Korean immigrants in the United States. "It is the reality of our immigrants that parents are so busy making a living that it's not easy for them to have dialogue with young children," the newspaper wrote. "We should think about whether our society or our community abroad has been negligent in preventing conditions that could lead to such an aberration," it said. In Seoul, more than 1,000 people sang hymns and prayed for Cho's victims at a special service at Myeongdong Cathedral, some fighting back tears. White flowers, candles and a US flag adorned a small table in the center of the chapel. "As a mother myself, my heart really aches as if it happened to my own children," said Bang Myung-lan, a 48-year-old housewife, holding back tears. "As a Korean, I am deeply sorry for the deceased." Cardinal Nicolas Cheong Jin-suk urged parishioners to work together to prevent a recurrence of "such an unfortunate event." "Among the 32 killed were bright students who could have contributed greatly to society, and it's a big loss for all of us," the cardinal said. "As a South Korean, I can't help feeling apologetic about how a Korean man caused such a shocking incident." "It is beyond my understanding how such a thing can occur -- especially to think a Korean is responsible for this," said 68-year-old Lee Chun-ja after the service. "It really tears my heart. Something like this should never happen again." .

When Bullies can't be Bullies Anymore

Somehow it's still in slow motion but the picture is getting focused. They were supposed to be world powers but they seemed to be reacting to events and were unable to influence things their way. At first, it seemed their dubious situation were just a temporary aberration which arose out of the stupid misadventures of Bush & Blair in Iraq. But it's obvious things won't return the same even when these two jokers were gone. If anything, these two were catalysts in a historical imperative. The changing of the guard, it's near. More and more, it's becoming obvious the two Western bullies are the being ushered off their platforms.

This blog aims to catalogue the events leading to the end of the American Century and the onset of the Pacific Century. Scholars see it as just around the corner. In 2004 the CIA records showed the US economy was already smaller than the economy of East Asia; China, growing at 10% yearly, alone will have a bigger economy than the US in half a decade. The swagger of Bush throwing his weight around initially got snickers not from the battlefield of Iraq but from boardrooms who tracked the movements of capital in the world. Even before the debacle that was Iraq became very clear for all to see, things were already falling into place such that the economic influence of America was steadily slipping away from its previously dominant grip. The fact that its military proved useless in Iraq just confirmed the perception so to speak. Just over the horizon are the new barbarians who will take over. The two pretenders for the last two centuries are on their way out.

Blair pinned his hopes on reliving part of the glories of the British Empire by latching his fortunes with the folly of Bush. He played the poodle to Bush in bullying around the world. Just after their Batman-Robin act preparing the UN sanction resolutions against Iran's nuclear plans, the case of the 15 British sailors caught violating Iranian sovereignty came to light. It revealed a Britain as weak as never before. The convenient façade of the UN couldn't be manhandled this time to create their illusion that they could impose their whims like they always did. It was there for all to see- Britain, when deprived of the handy facilities of the bullly, was helpless and- yes, weak. If anything, this incident was the final affirmation of Britain dropping down there with the mere mortals.

The supposed to be victim of their bullying which should be cowering by now, showed stronger teeth. The fact that Iran's Prime Minister Ahmadinejad pardoned the sailors later on showed he was made of more civilized stuff than the pretensions of his Western tormentors would allow him. He kept his nose up and off the bully's game.

Meanwhile, the Americans were revving up their aircraft carriers and playing games in the Persian Gulf. Rattling who, I'm not sure, probably Bush himself. They may be whistling in the dark they may still have the same bluffing effect. Today, if you look at the map of the Middle East, they could only count on Israel, Siniora of Lebanon (even this one, they're not sure) and Iraq (naturally) remaining among their ready and willing sychopants. Jordan's Abdullah may fencesit if they throw him crumbs but most of the Middle East has finally found its pride and refused being played around by the stupid games of bully wannnabes. The unintended hint to the bully was- look, bully, there are other rich guys with whom we can trade around here so don't act as if you're the only one. Not anymore. Soon, you're not even the biggest one. We don't need the aggravation putting up with your antics.

The Americans are smarting from the Saudi King's declaration that their occupation of Iraq was illegal. Probably they're spinning pressure maneuvers to force the King to toe the line. With the meager time left to America to claim they're the biggest economy, they may have less time left to win back sychopantic friends so that when the Pacific Century has finally arrived, they won't be treated shabbily like other has-beens. Like Britain.

No Longer the Face Towel of the Americans

You can feel the wind has shifted. British soldiers kidnapped in Iran. Bush trying to inject his usual bluster in support. American warships conducting exercises in the Persian Gulf. Apparently they're pumping up the tension to rattle the Iranians. The Western press, after yeras of reporting sanctions and bullying from the Western powers, seemed dumbfounded about the lack of tension among the intended target of the bullies. The only tension felt was in Washington & London. They must be wondering why they don't seem to scare anybody anymore.

Who would be? After the Iraq debacle, why should the Persian Gulf exercises of the American warships scare anybody? The UAE government sent its emissaries to Tehran to tell the Iranians they won't let the Americans launch their attacks from their territory. Just recently, Prince Saud of Saudi Arabia criticized the errors made by the White House strategists in attacking Iraq. If anybody doubted the significance of that, the King of Saudi Arabia later declared as much and more in front of the delegates that gathered for the just-concluded Arab Summit in Riyadh. That really rattled the Americans. If the Saudis were not amused pandering to their folly, who else would they collar who is credible enough to do the rah-rah for them? It was amusing watching one of the talking heads on American TV theorising that perhaps the Saudi declaration was for general consumption but they're expressing their support to the US in the back channels.

I think the Saudis made the right move in distancing itself from the US. Seemingly only on the matter of Iraq, but it's a beginning. The US needs Saudi Arabia more than Saudi Arabia needs the US. The impending shift of the economic supremacy to the East is just around the corner- why should the Saudis gamble the goodwill of its fervently Anti-American population by becoming the face towel of the Americans when the American Century is already on its way out in less than a decade ? Al-Qaeda fed on the revulsion by the Saudi people on the staunchly pro-American posture of the Saudi monarchy. If ever King Abdullah saw the light, he just listened to the Arab people. More importantly, he finally realized the international system is no longer under the grips by the Americans. He doesn't have to wait for the matter to be internalized by the latter.

Actually, the Americans can't do anything with Saudi Arabia. Can it really retaliate against the King as babbled by talking heads from the American Enterprise Institute? It has destroyed Baghdad, trying to destroy Tehran, what- would it have the temerity to destroy Riyadh? What about the UAE, would it try to destroy Dubai? Simply, the US has lost its synchopants from the Middle East. In a previous article, I mentioned, with the impending shift of the control of the international system to the East, the Arabs will regain their pride. They just did.

From the Agence France Presse:

Saudi king's outburst reflects US Mideast policy failures
Agence France-Presse April 01, 2007 WASHINGTON -- Saudi Arabia's unexpectedly harsh criticism of the US occupation of Iraq marked a turning point in the complex relations between Washington and its key Sunni ally that raises serious questions about the Bush administration's Middle East policy, analysts say. Speaking to a summit meeting of Arab leaders last week in Riyadh, Saudi King Abdullah referred to the US troop presence in Iraq as an "illegitimate foreign occupation." US officials were dumbfounded by the portrayal of the costly US military operation that President George W. Bush defends as an effort being carried out at the request of the Iraq government to help stabilize a fledgling democracy. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, to seek an explanation of the king's remarks. But she refrained from taking the matter up directly with her Saudi counterpart, Prince Saud al-Faisal, in an apparent bid to avoid aggravating the rift. Analysts saw Abdullah's tough public stance as part of a move by the Saudi monarch to take the lead of a new pan-Arab movement to counter the rising influence of Shiite Iran. Implicit in the king's criticism is an assumption that Bush's strategy in Iraq is destined to fail and a desire to draw Syria -- spurned by Washington as an ally of Iran -- away from Tehran and back into the Arab fold, said Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma's Center for Peace Studies. "By calling the US occupation of Iraq illegal, King Abdullah announced that he is seeking a new policy toward Iraq, one designed for the post-American phase in Iraq and one that must be coordinated with Syria," Landis said. Abdullah also met twice with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the sidelines of the Riyadh summit, Landis added. Juan Cole, an expert at Michigan University, said Abdullah "thinks Bush is pursuing irrational policies, the effect of which is to destabilize the Middle East." The Saudi king is also frustrated that Bush has rejected a Saudi-brokered power-sharing deal between US-backed Palestinian moderates and the radical Islamic group Hamas aimed at ending Palestinian factional violence and drawing Hamas away from its Iranian backers, he said. "Abdullah is angry that Bush is letting the Palestine issue fester and that he pushed for open Palestinian elections but then cut off the Hamas government once it was elected," Cole said. In an interview with Newsweek magazine, Foreign Minister Saud confirmed that one of the kingdom's goals is to restore a sense of "Arab identity" in the Middle East and to take a leading role tackling the region's problems rather than follow US policy. There is a feeling "that in the Arab world things are happening as if there are no people in the region who have their own separate will, that there are no people in the region who can protect their own interests, or even their own territory," Saud said. He described the recent Arab League summit as "an effort to make Arab decisions that are worked out -- not just to meet and take decisions and go out and forget about them -- to show that when we promise to do something in the Arab world, we do it." Saud's remarks amounted to a clear rebuke of Rice for the very public pressure she put on Saudi Arabia during her latest visit to the region to step up efforts at reconciliation with Israel. Rice, who met Saud and other counterparts from moderate Arab states ahead of the Riyadh summit, said the Arabs should reach out to Israel by re-launching a dormant five-year-old Saudi plan for peace with the Jewish state. She argued that such Arab-Israeli reconciliation would provide Israel with the security and incentives needed to make peace with the Palestinians. But the Saudis countered that it was up to Israel to first make the territorial and other concessions needed to negotiate deals with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon. "The people who have to help in getting us from here to there are the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Israelis and the Syrians, and the Israelis and the Lebanese," Saud said. "Once they solve their problems, then you can have peace between all the Arab countries and Israel," he said. "This is what seems to escape everybody's attention in talking about the [Arab peace] proposal."

Decontaminating the Post-Bush World

This blog has come a long way. The original intention was local & cultural focus, but it turned out I was more fascinated with world geopolitics, especially the impending dominance of the Asia-Pacific region over the international system currently (but increasingly sputteringly) controlled by the Americans. So this blog has become a vigil, watching the changes, deciphering the signs, for the coming Pacific Century. I'm not necessarily anti-American but documenting the collapse of Pax Americana may look that way any which way I may try to soften the impact.

Bashing Bush has become boring. The growl has become a whine. He tried to wade in today in the Iran-British standoff with some forceful words but the self-delusion didn't fool anybody. In his recent visit to Guatemala, the natives purified the sites visited by El Demonio to decontaminate it from the bad luck left in his wake. The world is in for lot of major decontamination chores in the next few years before Bush finally leave the scene.

Tom Clancy Presumptions

A big part of the myth shrouding the US military should be attributed to the Jack Ryan saga created by Tom Clancy. The techno-thrillers were a non-relenting propaganda on the US military & technological superiority. However, he might as well have been projecting World War II presumptions presented wistfully dazzling this time around with contemporary high-tech wizardry. The fact is the US military has laid a big fat egg since the last World War. Now that the Americans are finally coming around to the folly of Bush, they better start asking questions where the trillions of dollars spent on the US military went and whether it was worth it. If it couldn’t stop ragtag combatants in Vietnam & Iraq, why should the funds for building dikes in New Orleans be hard to find when trillions were wasted on a military that couldn’t win its wars?

All that the trillions of dollars bought were a convenient facade- perception of power, deterrent, bluff. When it got to the real thing, reality intervenes & eggs are laid for all to see.

The US can easily defend its territory because of its relative isolation, bounded on both sides by big oceans. It really doesn’t need that big a military except for the ambitions of American empires by military-defense industrialists & right-wing nuts. In the Pacific Century, the US military may no longer be facing ragtag combatants. The economies of East Asia will shortly match its military budget. The problem is, as the US economy is undercut, its trillions may no longer be as handy as before to prop up non-performing assets.

The world is very interesting in the coming decades. Or very dangerous if delusions don't come down to earth in time.

Russia and the Pacific Century

Lest we forget, Russia is a part of East Asia. The Russian Far East is rich in natural resources and it’s not hard to see that it will play a big role in the Pacific Century. As the dominance of the East becomes more and more real to their eyes, the previously hegemonist segments of the West is not expected to accept reality readily. There will be a realignment of forces, and the bullies of today created an opening for the East to consolidate their forces. After the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, the hawks of the US and its allies didn’t waste time coopting the previous allies of Soviet Russia, virtually isolating Russia. However, some believe Russia needn’t worry, the world is in a flux and the realignment of the wealth of the East and the Russian technological might (where else would it go?) will spell the tipping point in the Pacific Century.

From the Guardian:
Wednesday February 21 2007
Simon Jenkins:
The west may yet come to regret its bullying of Russia Countries too have feelings. So I am told by a Russian explaining the recent collapse in relations between Vladimir Putin and his one-time western admirers. "We have done well in the past 15 years, yet we get nothing but rebuffs and insults. Russia's rulers have their pride, you know." The truth is that Putin, like George Bush and Tony Blair, has an urgent date with history. He can plead two terms as president in which he has stabilised, if not deepened, Russian democracy, forced the pace of economic modernisation, suppressed Chechen separatism and yet been remarkably popular. But leaders who dismiss domestic critics crave international opinion, and are unaccustomed to brickbats. Hence Putin's outburst at the Munich security conference this month, when he announced he would "avoid extra politesse" and speak his mind. Putin's apologists ask that he be viewed as victim of an epic miscalculation by the west. Here is a hard man avidly courted at first by Bush, Blair and other western leaders. After 9/11 he tolerated US intervention along his southern border with bases north of Afghanistan. Yet when he had similar trouble in Chechnya, he was roundly abused. When he induced Milosevic to leave Kosovo (which he and not "the bombing" did), he got no thanks. When Putin sought to join Nato in the 1990s he was rebuffed. Then Nato broke its post-cold-war promise and advanced its frontier through the Baltics and Poland to the Black Sea. It is now planning missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic and is flirting with Ukraine and Georgia. Against whom is this directed, asks Putin. The west grovels before Opec, but when Putin proposes a gas Opec it cries foul. America seizes Iraq's oil, but when Putin nationalises Russia's oil that, too, is a foul. Meanwhile, every crook, every murdered Russian, every army scandal is blazoned across the western press. True, Russia is still a klepto-oligarchy that steps back as often as forward, but what of America's pet Asian democracies, Afghanistan and Iraq? In his Munich speech Putin asked why America constantly goes on about its "unipolar world". Does Washington really seek a second cold war? Russia is withdrawing from Georgia and Moldova. Why is Nato advancing bases in Bulgaria and Romania? The west is handling Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran with the arrogance and ineptitude of 19th-century imperialists. Is it surprising Russia is seeking allies where it can, in China, India, Iran and the Gulf? At an Anglo-Russian conference in Moscow last weekend I was bemused by the talk of a return to "east-west" confrontation. Diplomats have a habit of listing complaints like marriage counsellors inviting couples to catalogue what most irritates them about each other. The list seems endless, but it surely points to a proper talk rather than a divorce. Don't they really need each other after all? Having visited Russia three times since the demise of the Soviet Union, I remain impressed by its progress. Debate and comment are open. Russia is not squandering its energy wealth but setting $100bn aside in an infrastructure fund. The links between Russia and western business are worth $30bn in inward investment. Cultural and educational contacts are strengthening. Moscow and St Petersburg are booming world cities, their skylines thick with cranes. The west views pluralist democracy as so superior that any state coming to it fresh must surely welcome it with open arms. When there is backsliding, as in former Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Russia and parts of Africa, let alone the Arab world, the west behaves like a peevish car salesman whose client has not obeyed the repair manual. If the west can do fair elections, market capitalism, press freedom and regional secession - after a mere two centuries of trial and error - why can newly free states not do them overnight? The tough response to Putin is easy. It is the one he has from Washington and Nato. We won the cold war. You lost. Shut up. If, as Russia's top general said last week, you want to withdraw from the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty, then withdraw. If you think gas and oil enables you to play the superpower again, see what happens. Bush and Blair may be screwing up "Islamistan", but their successors will be more canny. Our defence budget is bigger than yours and we have you surrounded. All this makes for good realpolitik. But what Putin actually said in Munich reflected not belligerence but puzzlement at the aggressive course of western diplomacy. In the old days, he said, "there was an equilibrium and a fear of mutual destruction. In those days one party was afraid to make an extra step without consulting the others. This was certainly a fragile peace and a frightening one, but seen from today it was reliable enough. Today it seems that peace is not so reliable." Putin is hardly seeking a return to the certainties of the cold war. He has no more interest than the west in stirring the hornet's nest of Islamic nationalism, stretching as it does deep into Russian territory. His desire for "ever closer union" with Europe and Nato after 1997 was sincere and was surely welcome. While Putin appears to have been conducting his diplomacy over the past decade from weakness and the west from strength, the reverse has been nearer the truth. Britain and America have been led by essentially reactive politicians with no grasp of history. A terrorist outrage or a bombastic speech and they change policy on the hop. When Bush and Blair go, they will leave a world less secure and more divided in its leadership than when they arrived. Their dismissive treatment of Russia's recovery from cold war defeat has been the rhetoric of natural bullies. Russia and the west have everything to gain from good relations. Putin has struggled to modernise his economy while holding together a traumatised and shrunken Russian federation. The west may feel he errs towards authoritarianism, but second-guessing Russian leaders is seldom a profitable exercise. This is a huge country, rich in natural and human resources. It is hard to think of somewhere the west would be better advised to "hug close". Instead, Putin will hand his successor an isolated and bruised nation. Under a less confident president, it could retreat into protectionism and alliances the west will hate. To have encouraged that retreat is truly stupid. simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006 Guardian Unlimited on AvantGo Send us your comments Terms and conditions www.guardian.co.uk Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007 Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396. Registered office: 164 Deansgate, Manchester M60 2RR

The Suckers

Pity how they never got the drift until it was too late. Colin Powell was basking in an almost Presidential aura before he innocently faced the UN & blurted the script prepared by his puppetmasters which was used to justify Bush's unilateral war in Iraq. Condoleeza Rice was a high born achiever who at some point was so popular she was being pitted against Hillary Clinton as the potential first American woman President. It was obvious she was frontlining for ideas not natural to her but the fact she went for the ride just the same ultimately dragged her to the same ignominable pits where Powell found himself at the end. After staying silent while Israel continued pummeling Lebanon & the innocent trapped Lebanese, one would wonder how she would have rationalized to herself her involvement in an alien scheme of morality & calculation currently disgusting the world, even the otherwise decent majority of the American people. Powell now feels being duped; Rice, sticking with the game, is best described as masochistically being toyed. And it seems okay with her.

There are so many players in the dark game of the neo-conservatives that are obviously uncomfortable with the roles imposed on them. Otherwise decent people dancing to the tune of delutional puppetmasters. Mostly you see them in the US Department of State, the lieutenants of Rice. Christopher Hill looks almost pitiful as he unnaturally put some Bush edge to his speech as he tries to bluster North Korea. It's not like him, & it's almost pitiful that he has no better option in his career than to mimic the antics of his failed President. Nicholas Burns looks almost professorial and it was uncomfortable watching him talk the Bush bluff talk against Iran in an interview with a BBC reporter in the program Middle East Business Report. He has a harder task (maligning Iran, the current thrust of Bush delusions) & the fact that he almost looks like a pastor made his posturings more surreal. These decent-looking State functionaries looked miscast for their roles which should have been more natural for the pugnacious likes of Richard Armitage. Of course, they're just doing their jobs, & I could just imagine the hell of building a career under such constraints. Two of the immediate lieutenants of Rice resigned just recently.

After World War II, the US military has no big military victory to speak off except for the ousting of the tinpot dictator of Panama Manuel Noriega. Two big military defeats stare it at the face since then- Vietnam & Iraq. It's curious to watch the State functionaries, who did a tremendous job selling the United States & the American Dream to the world through the years, fed to the dogs just to acquire a posture more natural with a far-right ideologue dreaming of American Empires.

It goes without saying a high tolerance for violated amor propio (self-respect) is a requirement for a high job in the State Department under Bush. Some just have a higher nausea score than others.