Social notes: Rachel was very generous about taking toys to donate to her school before we left China. But she displayed almost no emotion on her last day of school, when her principal (and favorite auntie) was teary and her mama was too choked up to say anything. It was only after we got to Hong Kong and started talking about what her life in Honolulu would be like that Rachel protested, “But Rachel likes China.” She also liked travelling, because she had one or the other of us to herself all the time. Unlike us, she loves to spend time in waiting rooms and hotel lobbies.

Especially while travelling, we tend to praise her for being a “big girl.” But she is afraid to leave babyhood completely behind, so she often reminds us, “When Rachel sucks Rachel’s thumb Rachel is a little baby,” and then promptly demonstrates. She has also invented some baby talk expressions, like titidada. At other times, her conversational style is very adult, like when she says, “Mama, mama! Rachel has two questions. The first question is …. The second question is ….” She also likes to give long-winded explanations why she should or shouldn’t do something in a particular way, often word-for-word renditions of what one or the other of us has told her.

We had far better luck finding a preschool for Rachel in Honolulu than in China. Bamboo Shoots was one we just walked into one day. It was just about to convert to Montessori methods. We walked in during naptime, when the administrator was feeling relaxed and talkative, and had a good look around. We were later told that Rachel shows some of the same problems Chinese immigrant kids have when they enter American preschools: they require a lot of adult attention, and they have trouble going off and doing things on their own. She is adjusting well though. Having a year of Chinese school has helped. And she hasn’t had any trouble getting used to sandwiches for lunch, as some of the Asian immigrant kids have. Rachel seems to be only full haole (Caucasian) kid in the school (as in China).

Intellectual notes: Rachel is very, very fond of puzzles now. She is pretty quick to spot where each shape goes. After the first time or two, she has just about memorized how to put the simpler puzzles together. She is also a reading maniac. We usually make a trip to the State library’s children’s book section every week. She can spend hours listening to us read all the way through each week’s stack of books again and again. She is especially interested in transportation, which might have something to do with all the travelling we’ve done recently. She likes looking for contrasts between the “new kind of airplane” (jet) and the “old kind of airplane” (propeller craft), between city buses (with more than one door) and tour buses (with only one door), between fast ferry boats (hovercraft and hydrofoils) and slow ferry boats (like the Star Ferry in Hong Kong). In fact, she always tries to compare and contrast new things she learns about, to establish new categories or better define old ones. Her other most absorbing hobby right now is testing every water fountain she sees. She had an interest in water fountains before we went to China but had to do without them for a year. Her old fascination immediately revived as soon as we got into the Taipei airport.

Language notes: Her pronunciation keeps improving. Right now she’s working on getting her word-initial consonant clusters under control (/fr, sp, st, str, tr/ etc.) She hasn’t got /f/ separate from /s/ yet, so straight sounds like freight. She has just started to work on eliminating the /w/ she used to put on over and out, and the /n/ she used to put on the front of on and in. In other words, she has started to master the glottal stop (the abrupt onset before words starting with vowels in English; the sound in uh-uh ‘no’ that helps distinguish it from uh-huh ‘yes’). She also noticed a good while ago that Daddy pronounces why—her favorite word—with a /hw/ sound while Mama pronounces it with a plain /w/. She claims to use both pronunciations.

Rachel was just beginning to speak a good bit of Chinese by the time we left Zhongshan, but now she has just about quit speaking it. As soon as we hit Honolulu, she ceased hearing it around her so much and apparently decided there was no more use for it. In Hong Kong, we took her out to a nice playground near our hotel where she played with a couple of English-speaking kids her age. She wouldn’t say a word to them. Instead, she remarked to us, “They’re speaking English. Why?” At Bamboo Shoots, she has been slow to speak with the other kids, but it’s probably just her natural shyness. One of the teaching assistants there speaks Chinese but couldn’t extract Chinese responses from Rachel. When we would ask her if she spoke any Chinese at school, she would answer, “But it’s an English-speaking school!”

She hardly ever sings much at home now. She hasn’t learned the new school’s repertoire yet. But she is an avid and highly interactive story-telling audience. She nods as you go, asks for meanings of words she hasn’t learned yet, and asks so many questions sometimes that it’s hard to keep the story moving. She never drifts off during a story, but keeps asking for one more. She likes to participate by filling in salient words in the stories she has read many times. She also likes us to spell (“psell”) words, and always assigns us one to spell while brushing her teeth.

Her most remarkable achievement in our eyes is her discovery of what syllables are. On the way home from school one day in China, she asked why “e-le-phant” has three words but “bear” has only one. She was probably carrying over into English what her teachers had told her about Chinese characters, since each character is one syllable. We taught her the word syllable (which comes out Seminole when she says it) and now she can count off the syllables of any word you give her—fairly accurately too. Although she does tend to like to repeat the last syllable enough times to get through all the fingers on one hand.

UPDATE: This child is now a 24-year-old teacher in Boston’s Chinatown.

Social notes: Rachel is experimenting with social graces now. She plays with using please and thank you sometimes, and is working up to saying xiexie (‘thank you’) and zaijian (‘goodbye’) aloud in Chinese. Her strategy seems to be to listen and repeat to herself for a long time while she is mastering something new, then finally perform out loud.

She often gets very upset if we let a guest into the house without her help, or see someone off before she gets to wave goodbye. One day, Daddy came home from school in the afternoon, let himself in, and went in to find Rachel and Mama in the kitchen. Rachel immediately cried that she wanted to meet Daddy at the door. So Daddy went back outside in the stairwell, Rachel sent him down to the landing, then she walked down the steps to greet him on the landing with “Hello, how are you?” She nodded her head in response to “Fine,thank you. And you?” and then turned around and said “Well, let’s go up.” She repeated this ritual about ten times before our downstairs neighbors, Uncle Xu and Auntie Ni, came out to invite Rachel to play with them.

For quite a long time now, she has not gotten tearful when we drop her off at school, and she has a “best friend” there now. When she hears classmates’ names she can point them out, but she won’t say their names out loud to us.

Intellectual notes: In Freudian jargon, she still shows a lot of typically “anal retentive” behavior. She is compulsive about arranging and matching things. If you slip out of your shoes, she is liable to run off with them to arrange them carefully among other shoes. When she gets dressed, she is always concerned that everything should match. After eating, she will often get down and rearrange the magnetic letters and numbers on the refrigerator door. She is more concerned about matching shapes than about sequential order, so she groups 694, 25, 17, 38, VY, KX, MN, IL, CG, FR, BD, OU, and so forth.

Language notes: Rachel is speaking more and more Chinese. Her teachers say she is becoming more verbal at school. She must be saying a lot more Chinese to herself than to anyone else. She is quite aware of the tones in Chinese and experiments with them sometimes. Everyone at school tries to get her to say simple greetings to them, but they are content for now if she simply shows she heard and understood them.

Her pronunciation keeps improving. She has /s/ and /z/, /ch/ and /j/ pretty much under control. When she demonstrated that she could produce a clear /s/ one day on the say home from school, Daddy praised her and asked her when she would be able to say /k/ as well. She said “Soon.”

She still sings school songs at home and also sings a lot of English songs. She sings This Old Man up through number five or six. (On one of our excursions she got to see a beehive up close, so she no longer needs prompting for “hive”.) Her going-to-sleep ritual every night includes the same series of songs: Sleep Baby Sleep, Teddy Bear (“Dayto” Bear), Mockingbird (Hush Little Baby), and then Angels Watching Over Me (“That Guy Is Watching Over Me”). She sings along on all of them and recently recorded them on tape, singing by herself.

She knows the lowercase as well as uppercase printed letters now. (After trying to think of easy terms other than “big/little” to distinguish the two styles, we just settled on “uppercase/lowercase”—and so has Rachel.) She often utterly loses her chain of thought when her eye catches any letter or Chinese character she can read. She reads off numbers on license plates or hotel-room doors as she walks by. Sometimes she spells words from right to left.

UPDATE: This child is now a 24-year-old teacher in Boston’s Chinatown.

Michael McCaskey, owner of the Chicago Bears, has a lifetime of experience working with Ethiopians… From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: english football team. For a different topic see here. The blog is also related to: english football live.

Lewis Amselem, US Interim Representative to the OAS, no doubt ripping out the heart of a colleague.

The Secretary of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States issued an announcement today of a meeting regarding the situation in Honduras scheduled for December 4 at 3:00PM.

Someone over there at the OAS must be clairvoyant and know what the “situation” of Honduras will be in 11 days.  And isn’t December 4 just 2 days after Micheletti returns to the presidential palace?  By the time the OAS meets, the election will have taken place but its outcome will be widely disputed.  Also, the Honduran state security apparatus will be gearing down a bit from its all out election assault on the people and human rights abuses might be discussed.  God knows, Hillary was mute on this topic.

Since the US is institutionally incapable of doing the right thing about Honduras (yes, and virtually everything else) and Hillary isn’t even throwing crumbs to the masses, I think it would be a good idea to switch the venue for protests from the State Department and plan a protest at the OAS on December 4.  This would be a good opportunity to give the Venezuelan ambassador, Roy Chaderton and the Nicaraguan ambassador, Denis Moncada an “attaboy,” to yell insulting things about the ambassadors from Colombia and Panama, and a priceless opportunity to tell  US’ interim representative, Lewis Amselem, what an ass he is and  hold up signs with choice quotes from his  “I’m a simple guy, I shop at Wal-Mart, I went to public school . . .” speech.

OEA

/Ser.G

CP/INF.5936/09

23 noviembre 2009

Original: español

 Secretario del Consejo Permanente saluda atentamente a los representantes permanentes y cumple en informarles que el Presidente ha convocado a una sesión extraordinaria para el viernes, 4 de diciembre de 2009, a celebrarse a las 3:00 p.m. en el Salón Libertador Simón Bolívar, para considerar la situación de Honduras.

SEATTLE — After a match that couldn’t be decided in regulation time, perhaps it was fitting that the penalty kick shootout would also need a little bit extra. Goalkeeper Nick Rimando made two saves and Robbie Russell buried the winning kick in the seventh round of the penalty kick shootout, and Real Salt Lake won the first trophy in club history, defeating the Los Angeles Galaxy 5-4 after a 1-1 draw.

Penalty kicks became necessary after the two teams finished 120 minutes deadlocked. Galaxy midfielder Mike Magee converted in the first half to put a capstone on a period of Los Angeles dominance, while Robbie Findley did the same for Real Salt Lake in the second half.

The title is the first in Real Salt Lake history, while Los Angeles fell in their sixth MLS Cup appearance.

Los Angeles made two changes from the team that took the field against Houston in the Western Conference Championship. Chris Klein and Dema Kovalenko were dropped from the lineup at the last minute for Chris Birchall and Jovan Kirovski. Real Salt Lake came out with the same lineup that bested Chicago in the other final, with Yura Movsisyan retaining his spot in the starting lineup ahead of Fabian Espindola. Will Johnson, who was suffering from food poisoning, found himself in RSL coach Jason Kreis’ starting XI.

Sorry that the video is in spanish.

<!–

–>

Both teams came out conservatively, with neither team committing players forward in attack. LA’s Birchall sat just in front of the back four in a holding midfield role.

The first half-chance came in the ninth minute, with the Galaxy’s Todd Dunivant crossing from the left in the vicinity of Buddle, but the forward’s headed ball didn’t threaten the goal.

Will Johnson picked up the first yellow card for impeding Landon Donovan’s progress in the 14th minute. Just a few seconds later, RSL’s Argentinean playmaker, Javier Morales, got caught on the business end of an aggressive David Beckham tackle and came up holding his left knee. After coming off the field for treatment, Morales attempted to play through but could not continue.

Kreis was forced to use a valuable substitution early, bringing in Clint Mathis in the 22nd minute. With Morales out, Los Angeles started to assert its will on the game.

Kirovski found some space from an Edson Buddle pass in the 25th minute, lashing a volley towards Nick Rimando’s goal. After blocking the initial shot, Rimando was able to gobble up the rebound to keep the game scoreless.

On the other end, Real Salt Lake created their first real danger through the speedy Robbie Findley. The striker challenged Gregg Berhalter in a one-on-one situation, but the LA’s veteran defender escorted the ball over the end line. However, Findley’s speed caused the Galaxy defense real worry. Los Angeles tried to negate RSL’s speed with a high defensive line, drawing Findley offside three times in the first half alone.

In the 28th minute, a Los Angeles corner kick bounced in the six-yard box before rebounding over the goal, with Omar Gonzalez getting the last touch. The first clear-cut scoring chance came in the 36th minute off a well-executed LA counterattack. Donovan fed a streaking Mike Magee on the left side. As he breached the RSL penalty area, the Galaxy midfielder took a touch and sizzled a low drive past Rimando’s far post.

Los Angeles continued to press with Donovan’s volley from an extremely tight angle going into the stands on the north side of the stadium. Another potentially dangerous situation was diffused by an offside call against Edson Buddle.

By this time RSL was reeling and perhaps unsurprisingly, the first goal final came in the 41st minute. With RSL’s defense scrambling, Beckham played wide to Donovan. Given time to survey the field, Donovan lifted a gentle cross to Magee, who finished neatly at the far post.

RSL attempted to answer back before halftime. Andy Williams served in an enticing free kick to the far post after Beckerman was fouled. Nat Borchers, fighting off Berhalter, headed the ball directly into the hands of Donovan Ricketts, but at least RSL had answered. In the last notable play of first-half stoppage time, Movsisyan controlled and volleyed high as RSL showed a fighting spirit going into halftime.

At the break, Kreis burned another substitution, throwing Ned Grabavoy into the fray for Johnson in an attempt to regain control of the midfield. He almost needed to use a third as Findley and Ricketts collided just minutes in the second stanza.

After a Los Angeles turnover, Movsisyan played Findley through down the right side. After a touch, Findley attempted to pass back to Movsisyan with Ricketts blocked the ball as the two players came together. The striker and goalkeeper stayed on the turf for about three minutes before play resumed, with both able to continue.

As the second half continued, Los Angeles played in a more defensive stance, content to concede possession to their opponents as long as they stayed in their own end.

Beckham got a chance to bend in a free kick in the 58th minute after a foul by Jamison Olave. His attempt from about 25 yards went directly into the defensive wall, which Beckham thought had encroached.

On the other end, Real Salt Lake had a penalty appeal turned down in the 60th minute. Some quick passing between Beckerman and Ian Russell found Movsisyan free in the penalty area. Birchall made some contact with Movsisyan, but not enough for match referee Kevin Stott to award a penalty.

Nevertheless, the play fired up the Claret-and-Cobalt and soon after, the equalizer came. After a Movsisyan shot was blocked in the penalty area, Findley latched onto the loose ball and put it home with his left foot. On the play, Ricketts was injured and had to be replaced by in goal by Josh Saunders. It marked the first time a goalkeeper had been substituted in MLS Cup history.

Real Salt Lake kept the pressure on, with Grabavoy finding Movsisyan streaking, only to have the striker’s shot fly out of play. This stage of the game belonged completely to RSL. In complete contrast to the first half, Beckerman or one of his cohorts seemed to win every loose ball in the midfield. Kreis looked to push the advantage with fresh legs, bringing in Espindola for Movsisyan.

Los Angeles pressed forward in its own right. During one possession, six white shirts laid in wait in the RSL penalty area for a series of Beckham crosses. Another injury used the last substitution. In the 89th minute, Los Angeles coach Bruce Arena was forced to bring in A.J. DeLaGarza for a cramping Omar Gonzalez.

Real Salt Lake had more chances to win the match in the latter stages of regulation, with a Mathis free kick from distance being plucked from the goal’s top corner by Saunders. Williams crossed in to the back post, with DeLaGarza just barely heading the ball away. After a long period of stoppage time, the match entered the 30-minute extra time period.

Real Salt Lake continued to control the match, with the midfield ably keeping possession. Grabavoy took a first-time shot from Espindola, which was knocked down by an LA defender. Findley’s quickness got him to the knockdown first, but a sliding DeLaGarza probably saved a goal with his legs. Findley nearly scored again in the eighth minute of overtime, skimming the net on the near side with a powerful effort.

Mathis touched that same side netting with a free kick, narrowly missing after Beckham awkwardly brought down Beckerman.

As the second overtime period got underway, Los Angeles took more initiative to get forward. But again it was the midfield quartet of Mathis, Grabavoy, Beckerman, and Williams who controlled the game as Beckham’s injured ankle seemed to hamper him. The English midfielder did have a chance in the 24th minute of overtime, swinging in another free kick that was punched away by Rimando.

In the end, neither team scored and the match went to penalty kicks. While six championship games have gone to overtime, only one other MLS Cup was decided on penalty kicks, when Houston bested New England in 2006. Neither side looked willing to bend early.

Beckham and Mathis converted the first round of penalties, followed by Berhalter and Findley. Rimando, who had made three saves in the Eastern Conference final, made the first big play, diving to his right to deny Kirovski. Saunders answered by saving Beckerman in a near carbon copy of the previous kick.

Donovan stepped up. Normally deadly in these situations, the LA captain’s shot went over the bar. Grabavoy seized the momentum with a coolly taken goal. Magee’s successful effort kept Los Angeles alive. RSL’s Williams calmly strode to the spot to seal the win, but Saunders dove left to make the save.

Now into the sixth round, Klein and Chris Wingert both tallied. Rimando came up with another big save on Buddle, leaving Philip F. Anschutz Trophy in defender Russell’s hands. This time the shot went in, going low to the left with Saunders diving the other way. Russell immediately dropped to his knees as Rimando and the rest of the squad raced in to create the celebratory dogpile.

Biofuel startup ZeaChem has begun building a biofuel pilot plant that will turn cellulosic feedstocks into ethanol via a novel approach that uses microbes found in the guts of termites. The company says the ethanol yields from the sugars of its cellulosic feedstocks are significantly higher than the yields from other biofuel production processes. ZeaChem says its process also has the potential to produce a plastic feedstock.

ZeaChem employs a hybrid approach that uses a combination of thermochemical and biological processes. It first uses acid to break the cellulose into sugars. Then, instead of fermenting the sugars into ethanol with yeast, as is typically done, the company feeds the sugars to an acetogen bacteria found in the guts of termites and other insects. The bacteria converts the sugar into acetic acid, which is then combined with hydrogen to form ethanol.

“It’s a little more complicated than a conventional process. It’s not the obvious, direct route, but there is a high yield potential,” says Jim McMillan of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO.

Read full article: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23989/

As equity traders, we normally don’t need to be extremely aware of the US $ and it’s relationship with other currency; however, for the last couple of weeks we have seen an increase in the correlation between the $ and the equity markets. A great part of this is the result of the strength and weight of the commodity stocks, which have always had a correlation with the currency markets.

This morning’s large move up in the markets was caused by the sudden weakness in the US$, when the US$ started to strengthen during the late morning, we saw the markets start coming off its highs. We also saw once again a sell divergence develop intra day today as only the Dow Jones made a 52week high.

As intraday traders you need to be aware of what factors/sectors/or markets are moving stocks, so you can be ready and anticipate the next move.

Now that we are done with the earning season, maybe the macro economic numbers will be the only indicators that move this equity market one way or another.

U.S. home sales rose just over 10 percent in October to an annual rate of 6.1 million units, the highest level in more than two years…. From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: shopping places. For a different topic see dumpling recipe. The blog is also related to: cyber shopping.

The clash of the ideological duality in US politics used to be a fairly timid turf war over the middle ground. That has change. Now, the puerile bluster is no longer about political thought in any formal sense. Now, politics is about cultures — two of them: the left and the right and each is tethered less to ideas and principles then it is to raw emotions.

That’s the big take-away from Matt Taibbi’s interesting piece, Sarah Palin, WWE Star.

The really beautiful thing about the culture war, from an entertainment standpoint, is that it is fundamentally irresolvable. There isn’t a concrete set of issues involved, where in theory both sides could give in a little and find middle ground, reach some sort of compromise.

That’s because there are no issues at all. At the end of this decade what we call “politics” has devolved into a kind of ongoing, brainless soap opera about dueling cultural resentments and the really cool thing about it, if you’re a TV news producer or a talk radio host, is that you can build the next day’s news cycle meme around pretty much anything at all, no matter how irrelevant — like who’s wearing a flag lapel pin and who isn’t, who spent $150K worth of campaign funds on clothes and who didn’t, who wore a t-shirt calling someone a cunt and who didn’t, and who put a picture of a former Vice Presidential candidate in jogging shorts on his magazine cover (and who didn’t).

It doesn’t matter what the argument is about. What’s important is that once the argument starts, the two sides will automatically coalesce around the various instant-cocoa talking points and scream at each other until they’re blue in the face, or until the next argument starts.

He’s right. Somewhere along the way political conviction morphed into cultural emotions, usually cheered on by fat white guys but, as we know all too well, more recently by a comely hockey mom.

What is missing today is discipline.

Now that we’ve all been empowered, we don’t need discipline any more: there is no need to read, to think, to inquire. Now, and Ms Palin is the new archetype here, if you’ve got the right look or voice or bias you can just perform and people will flock to you like the unthinking sheep we have become.

So we gather around our shepherds: Rush and Glen and Barrack and Sarah and all the others, not to learn but to feel safe with all the other sheep who are just like us. And, to coin a phrase, those who aren’t with us are against us.

EXCEPT, it isn’t just about the left and the right any more. The biggest class in US politics is the Independent and they are growing by the day.

They are the wolves and the sheep should feel threatened. And so should Sarah.

How do you run a war if you don’t even know what it costs?

(Or does that matter when all the money is borrowed.)

The difference between what the White House thinks it costs to send a soldier to Afghanistan for a year and what the Pentagon estimates is a mere $500,000 — a million vs half a million.

Are either accurate?

It is hard to find out if either figure includes the cost of the private military forces (the Blackwaters et al) in Afghanistan and Iraq which might tend to double the the guesswork, it certain does the crimes.

Curator says ticket sales set a record for the National Geographic Museum… From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: bargain shopping. The blog is also related to: shopping outlets.

Curator says ticket sales set a record for the National Geographic Museum… From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: china website. The blog is also related to: weather in china.

Lady Gaga performs at the American Music Awards 2009

Whitney Houston performs at the American Music Awards 2009

Jay – Z feat Alicia Keys perform at the American Music Awards 2009

Janet Jackson performs at the American Music Awards 2009

Shakira performs at the American Music Awards 2009

Rihanna Performs at the American Music Awards 2009

A thing that I totally missed this year and don’t know how: TV on the Radio’s Guitarist Kyp Malone has a solo project. I discovered his song Give Blood which was released in July. It’s a wonderfully crazy song… so really something you would expect if you know TV on the Radio. I uploaded it for you but you should also check his myspace for more information.

mp3: Rain Machine – Give Blood

Enjoy