Sunday Morning Musings

Opening the Sunday morning AnnArbor.com newspaper, there is Governor Snyder's 2011 Spring commencement speech at the University of Michigan. Right underneath, there a 5th grader protesting against his budget policy for its cuts in education funding. A reflection of our time.

I am against the governor's cuts on top of cuts already made to the K-12 education system. Maybe I am biased because my kids are in the system. However, that is not the main reason I am against his cuts. There was a story in the front page of last Thursday's story, in which a little girl whispered in the governor's ears, "Stop taking money from my school" -- according to the girl's father. That may not be entirely correct. The governor's proponents would say that he is not taking money from the school, he just doesn't have enough money to give the schools, although the governor probably has proven his proponents wrong in that regard: He is also taking the the K-12 school funds and shifting them to fund community colleges.

I agree with the guest opinion by Donald Salberg on page A6 that lowering business taxes will not create more jobs. But he may have missed a point: The business tax cutters may not be aiming to create new jobs, they may pin their hope on attracting businesses elsewhere that may be considering expansion to expand here in Michigan. I do suspect that business tax cuts would fail at that, too. The tax cutters seem to be competing against some imaginary other places as if those other places exist in an imaginary bubble. If tax cuts work magic on businesses, would those other places not be smart enough to follow suite? That seems to be a perfect scenario of race to the bottom -- where big business owners can profit comfortably on the backs of others.

According to one of the business school legends: Henry Ford gave his factory workers the highest wages in the industry, which created a demand on his cars, which in turn partly fueled his success. I don't know what today's Republicans would say to that. Call Henry Ford a fool, perhaps? Who could guarantee that those workers would necessarily buy Ford's products? Maybe they should do some research on the business taxes back then to prove that it was Michigan's low tax rate that put Henry Ford in Detroit, rather than Windsor across the Detroit river, or across the lake somewhere in Ohio.

The lessons of Silicon Valley on the Business Review page seems to provide some interesting ideas what a government could do: intentional innovation, economic gardening. Hope the whole Ann Arbor area grows into a better entrepreneurial garden. But I believe education, including K-12, has to be part of that garden.

Listening to the Dalai Lama

I went to the Peter Wege lecture today at the University of Michigan Crisler Arena today. The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was the guest speaker. At first, I was underwhelmed. In the end, he came across to me as a decent human being judging from what he said in the two hours.

It got me thinking, how has this old Tibetan monk, with his incoherent English with no "grammar rules" as he admitted, become such a spiritual figure to so many people? The mystery of Tibetan Buddhism is part of it. His simplified messages about Buddhism and human nature are the other and larger part. His talks present him as a human that a lay person can easily accept, more so than any propaganda from the Chinese leaders or the lies and media spins from the American leaders. At the very least, he obviously has learned the happenings in the modern world. Today, He talked about global warming, overpopulation, over consumption, Christianity, even the poor in Washington D.C.

There were a large number of Chinese protesting outside the arena. I admit being on that side, agreeing the Beijing Olympics should not be taken hostage by any political group, and Tibet should remain an integral part of China. So my thoughts may be considered biased.

Thought one: Media in the west just don't get it. Not to mention the right wing extremists, even NPR does not quite get it. It may be hard to understand how a nation can get so emotional when others threaten to take the moment away from its people. But it is not impossible. One just need to go to the country and observe with an open mind how much effort ordinary people have put into the preparation for the games. Many may disagree with the government about hosting the Olympics. Many would rant and express their strong disagreement because the hardship of hosting the games bring to the people. But all that changes when others try to take the Olympics away from them. That is different. Call it nationalism or whatever, taking something away from a people that they believe (rightfully) is theirs can only meet with resentment. The gentleman in blue shirt was telling someone, "Most of these people (the protesters) don't even know why there are here." He didn't know how wrong he was. Most of the passers-by probably don't care much about right or wrong either in this matter.

Thought two: China needs to open up more. Be tolerant of political dissent. There is really no benefit for the government to shut people up. There is no shame in letting the world know about the problems in the country. When the outside world learn about China, they don't just see the dark side, they will learn the bright side, too. I think that is also part of why China is hosting the Olympics this year.

Thought three: The western media really need to clean up their act. I guess it may be difficult for them to get to Tibet. But has any media outlet made a serious effort to get there? Why would they rather rely on what the Tibetans outside the country told them what happened there? It is obvious to me that Tibet is not important enough for most of them to get the facts right. The person in this picture repeatedly screamed, "Open the door!" There were foreigners in Lhasa at the time of the riots, including jornalists, just not enough of those who can stand on their own to tell what truly happened.

Thought four: The 14th Dalai Lama is a capable and smart politician, maybe even more so than he is a spiritual person. I admire him for that. I think I can understand his frustrations: He is getting old, old enough for him to see death coming. He has been in exile for almost half a century. As a human being, he wants to go home. I believe he also sees reality. I am guessing it's probably those surrounding him that can not let go of the past and dream to go back to Tibet one day to rule over the people like they did in the past. The Dalai Lama talked much about "sustainability" -- although he admitted he could not pronounce that word, -- I don't believe the Tibetan society can sustain the monastery ruling structure. Tibetans may have changed enough that the monks will no longer be able to put much of the population under serfdom/slavery. On one hand, if the Dalai Lama dies in exile, the whole Tibetan exile community will face a huge dilemma. On the other hand, it is in the interest of China to find a political solution to the Tibet Question given the fact that many Tibetans do take the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader.

Last thought: Tibetans are humans. They should be treated as humans with all their good, bad and ugly qualities. I don't buy the claim that any particular ethnicity is born peaceful, cruel, honest or untrustworthy. This person in Tibetan clothing in the center of this picture told me, in fluent English, that he was born in Tibet to a very poor peasant family, that he had been in exile for five years and he learned English in India and here in the US. I don't want to judge him in anyway. But I must say he is a lot smarter than I am. He must be super lucky to have such radiant skin tone after at least 15 years of harsh life in Tibet.

Ann Arbor Orchestra Night

Last night saw orchestras from all Ann Arbor middle schools and high schools in the Hill Auditorium. It was quite a night of pretty good performance, especially the high schoolers.

Next year, we'll probably see yet another orchestra from Skyline, the new high school that's going to open in the Fall.

Nothing to blog about, really.

This is my first blog online. But I haven't really done much with it at all.

The past year has been pretty much event-less for me. But it has been a bad year all around. Michigan's economy has been going down the drain for a while, with the down fall of the Big-Three auto industry giants. Their bad luck may have been made inevitable pretty much by themselves, IMHO. But their incompetencies will leave the state and the people in the ditch for a long time to come.

The latest bad news in Ann Arbor is that of Pfizer closing its research facility in town, laying off some of its 2000+ employees and moving a large portion of them elsewhere. That is just one latest example of big business carelessly trumping over the lives of people. The real estate market in Ann Arbor is already down with a large inventory. Now the housing price will stay down and flat for even longer.

One good news is that Google is coming to Ann Arbor. The word "coming" is still accurate at this point although it has been announced by Governor Jennifer Granholm for a while with a little bit of local media fanfare. It is indeed very easy to put too much hope into this Google move. Michigan's economy rides heavily on automobiles. It will take no less than that industry's revival to lift up the state. There are a lot of science, technology and research can be done around that industry. High-tech doesn't have to be life science if the Republican controlled state legislature simply does not have the vision to invest money in that. It is amazing to see that California invest huge sums into stem cell research and renewable energy while Michigan can't seem to get out of survival mode.

I am also contemplating moving to a different state. Leaving this town where the kids are born and grow up won't be easy. However, what have kept us here for years are the small college town life and the good public schools. Now the Republicans are cutting fundings to education because of the state's budget crisis, I fear that they will sink the state further.

Well, I'll see if I am really back to blog more.