He said: " I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father."
So, so improbable he wouldn't eventually fall in line. Whoa. Ted has got some mojo. This is the 2020 game. And he is betting Trump loses BIG in November. A close race and CRUZ will be the spoiler and the vitriol he has currently incited will look like a routine dental checkup, versus the Tijuana Root Canal that he might have in store...
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WSJ Jul 16 2016
But what seems like a fact, i.e. it is "one of 3 non-Arab countries in the Middle East" is really more of an assertion, and one that tells the entire story of the problem.
There are three parts to this "fact:"
Let's break it down.
Read MoreHow much do we care about the distinction between "The/A President" and "The Office of the President?"
It seems every American movie in recent memory where the White House, or some organ of the U.S. government is attacked and the President is injured, held hostage, or otherwise compromised there is one character or another that must use the perfunctory line: “The Office of the President is bigger than any one man.”
“Dimensions” (i.e. the cultural dimensions that I talk about in my book) regarding something as tricky as values or “culture,” are not black and white. But even though these differences are not ironclad and easily identifiable, there is a point where cultural differences do matter. You have been to the movies, and you know what I mean. Chinese screenwriters don’t have the corresponding stock line.
The Western model is institution unambiguously above the individual. Mind you, I don't necessarily think this is how governance is practiced in the West today--I am just talking about abstract ideals.
Maybe we don't immediately think of it that way, but in the American practice it is a default to reflexively point out “The President” and “The Office of The President of The United States of America”. I wonder if that reflex is not as well honed in greater China because institutions can be synonymous with an individual, if not subsumed by an individual.
I asked my domestic helper for chicken for dinner last night.
Forgive the phonetics but I'm trying to create a little mood:
"Sir, wat CHEEK-en?"
"The live chicken," I said.
"Please 'chop chop' and 'fry fry,'" I added.
"Ah, sir," she said. "I know"
"Dee alibe one."
It is amazing what a difference a letter makes.
Read MoreWhen I set out to write my book Beyond Eurasian and Hapa: Bridging a Chinese-Western Identity, I anticipated a conundrum akin to the hotel developer paradox above.
How do you write for an audience that doesn't exist?
Read MoreAs Aaron Koblin, the data artist said, the 21st century is the century of the interface.
And he's right. We have huge amounts of data sloshing around. It is growing geometrically and we know it. We throw around words and phrases like "algorithm," "data mining," "social graph," and the like as if we know what they mean. I don't really know what these terms mean exactly. I have an idea but, with exactitude I'm a little lost. Yes, we can analyze it all this data. Yes, we can make dashboards and build colorful analytic tools and record it and store it and make it watertight and immortal.
Yet, data fundamentally only has value once it can tell a story. what we do with the data is what matters.
Read MoreWhen I think of the Hong Kong I grew up in (till the age of 13), I think of a place with an easy balance between "local" and "cosmopolitan."
To be rigorous about that statement: handcrafted store-specific wonton noodles existed in harmony with the best imported premium lobster and steak. In other words, Hong Kong was a place where maybe even side-by-side in retail terms, you could find the best of "local," and the best of "cosmopolitan." And they were BFF’s, local and cosmopolitan.
There was no inherent conflict between the two. The emblem of Hong Kong was its very salty, distinctive Cantonese dialect, but also the wholesale permission for expats to use English freely. Hong Kong wasn’t like Tokyo where expats had to learn Japanese. It was the a balance of local and cosmopolitan.
Fast forward twenty years and for a number of reasons there are new fissures between local and cosmopolitan.
Indeed, Hong Kong is gradually polarizing in terms of local-vs-cosmopolitan.
Read MoreWhat struck me was that the protagonist in my dream was a composite of the two characters Cate Blanchett had played inthe two movies I’d watched: the badassagency operative deft with pistols from Hanna – only she was wearing the posh clothes and had the tics of the character from Blue Jasmine.
Read MoreHopefully this day never dawns on the West, but Westerners will know they live in a high Power Distance World if there emerges a class distinction between those with the data and those without; and invoking Machiavelli, if those on the wrong side of that distinction abstain from action out of fear, rather than acting out of love. The meta point is that the West’s values of low Power Distance, in a more data-driven world, are actually leading to greater structural power distances in Western society.
The concept of Power Distance is tarnished because it cannot account for changing circumstances. People who might be biased toward lower power distance might encounter a high power distance world around them, or imposed upon them, and they adapt, signaling that Power Distance is junior to other dimensions. If a new breakthrough in theoretical physics occurs it is likely to affect how a marine biologist thinks of the hydrodynamic limits of cetaceans; but that flow is unlikely to go in reverse. For example, a Scandinavian in Abu Dhabi will conform to greater deference to authority. In other words, Power Distance will melt away, while other, deeper dimensions will ensure he is still a Fin or a Swede.
Read MoreI remember my first editor telling me I needed to stick to one metaphor. I didn't understand what he meant. What's wrong with two? But now I get it.
For illustration of this "less is more" concept delivered ever so deftly, see Bucky Fuller's "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth:"
One simple image has so so much "go"
Can't get that floating piano top out of my head