Sunday, August 14, 2011

顽固不化的虫子

这几天,专注地研究那个顽固不化的虫子,使出了浑身之解数,还是没办法。是不同软件之间的兼容性。现代科技过于复杂,开源软件无法兼顾方方面面。

现代的软件工程师面临的工作非常挑战,每天都面临的新东西。当年我做Mianframe时工作非常容易,现在则不然。

每天真是很累,下了班倒在床上,连做饭的力气都没有。

Thursday, August 11, 2011

美国的下届总统们如是说

Tim Pawlenty:

On Federal Funding to States:“The federal government is basically a drug dealer trying to give out free samples or give people a taste, get them further addicted.”

On Climate Change:“The weight of the evidence is that most of it, maybe all of it, is because of natural causes.”

On the Debt Ceiling:“I’m opposed to raising the debt limit.”

Mitt Romney:

On Corporations:"Corporations are people, my friend."

Herman Cain:

On the Debt Ceiling:“I don’t believe the debt ceiling has to be raised. Those are scare tactics. Those are simply exaggerated scare tactics.”

Newt Gingrich:

On Voting Rights:"Candidly, it wouldn’t be bad to have an American history test for young Americans before they start voting."

Michele Bachmann:

On Wages:"Literally, if we took away the minimum wage... we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level."

On Medicare & Social Security:“What you have to do is keep faith with the people that are already in the system… But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off.”

On Climate Change:"There isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas."

Monday, August 8, 2011

吉檀迦利

12

  我旅行的时间很长,旅途也是很长的。
  天刚破晓,我就驱车起行,穿遍广漠的世界,在许多星球之上,留下辙痕。
  离你最近的地方,路途最远,最简单的音调,需要最艰苦的练习。
  旅客要在每个生人门口敲叩,才能敲到自己的家门,人要在外面到处漂流,最后才能走到最深的内殿。
  我的眼睛向空阔处四望,最后才合上眼说:“你原来在这里!”
  这句问话和呼唤“呵,在哪儿呢?”融化在千股的泪泉里,和你保证的回答“我在这里!”的洪流,一同泛滥了全世界。


14

  我的欲望很多,我的哭泣也很可怜,但你永远用坚决的拒绝来拯救我,这刚强的慈悲已经紧密地交织在我的生命里。
  你使我一天一天地更配领受你自动的简单伟大的赐予——这天空和光明,这躯体和生命与心灵——把我从极欲的危险中拯救了出来。
  有时候我懈怠地捱延,有时候我急忙警觉寻找我的路向;
  但是你却忍心地躲藏起来。
  你不断地拒绝我,从软弱动摇的欲望的危险中拯救了我,使我一天一天地更配得你完全的接纳。

21

  我必须撑出我的船去。时光都在岸边捱延消磨了——不堪的我呵!
  春天把花开过就告别了。如今落红遍地,我却等待而又留连。
  潮声渐喧,河岸的荫滩上黄叶飘落。
  你凝望着的是何等的空虚!你不觉得有一阵惊喜和对岸遥远的歌声从天空中一同飘来吗?

37

  我以为我的精力已竭,旅程已终——前路已绝,储粮已尽,退隐在静默鸿蒙中的时间已经到来。
  但是我发现你的意志在我身上不知有终点。旧的言语刚在舌尖上死去,新的音乐又从心上迸来;旧辙方迷,新的田野又在面前奇妙地展开。

早晨不起床

那年,在做DSW的项目,那种痛苦仍历历在目。每天早晨,我都不想起床。

Tom当时每日要和客户周旋。我对他说:我要是你,早晨就不起床。他愣住了,大概日子虽然艰辛,却不至于不起床吧。

现在,我看奥巴马,就又有了这种念头。我真不知道他是如何对付这日子的,要是我,就根本不起床。

看Bachmann每天精神抖擞的到处胡说八道,真不知道这女人那里来的这精神头。而且,自我感觉也太好了,是不是。她能当总统?不过,我真佩服她这神采奕奕的高昂斗志,不知从哪来的。

Saturday, August 6, 2011

老罗斯福



Mount Rushmore National Memorial,也就是总统山上,有四座高达60英尺(约合18米)的美国历史上著名的前总统头像,他们分别是华盛顿、杰斐逊、老罗斯福和林肯,这四位总统被认为代表了美国建国150年来的历史。罗斯福是拉什莫尔山上唯一的20世纪总统。学者们普遍认为他是现代美国的塑造者。历史学者评论美国总统时,他总在最出色的五位之中。



他是美国历史上最年轻的总统,42岁就成为第26届总统。1900年当选副总统。1901年总统威廉·麦金莱被无政府主义者刺杀身亡,他继任成为美国总统。

这是一个异常强悍的人。

他在总统任期内,对国内的主要贡献是建立资源保护政策,保护了森林、矿产、石油等资源;建立公平交易法案,推动劳资和解。对外奉行门罗主义,实行扩张政策,建设强大军队,干涉美洲事务。

罗斯福因成功地调停了日俄战争,获得1906年的诺贝尔和平奖,是第一个获得此奖项的美国人。在调停过程中,他敏锐地察觉新崛起的日本对美国构成的潜在威胁,认识到巴拿马运河对美国不仅具有经济价值,而且能够使美国海军舰队在太平洋和大西洋之间的调动更加快捷,具有重要的军事战略意义。因此,他在任内竭力推动巴拿马运河工程,并且视其为自己最伟大的成就。

1880年代,罗斯福作为历史学家成就辉煌。他的著作《1812年战争中的海战》(The Naval War of 1812)成为两代人的教科书。关于西部开发史的四卷大部头著作The Winning of the West也是其代表作,对史学史有重要影响。他为主流杂志撰稿,收入颇丰,也使他作为知识分子而闻名海内。后来,罗斯福当选为美国历史学会(American Historical Association)主席。

总统任内:

调解煤矿罢工
1902年,美国矿工联合会发动煤矿工人大罢工,威胁城市取暖燃料供应,引发了一场举国危机。罗斯福召集矿主和劳工领袖在白宫开会,达成妥协,将工作时间从每天10小时缩短到9小时,并且让工人得到10%的加薪,结束了持续163天的罢工。

公平交易
1901年,在罗斯福的第一个对国会演说中,他要求国会立法,对托拉斯的经营活动给予合理的限制。国会未采取行动,但是罗斯福却发起44个针对大企业的法律诉讼,因此人送外号“托拉斯驯兽师”。

产业规范化
20世纪初,铁路被视为强大的力量。罗斯福认为政府应加强对铁路运输和跨州贸易的监管和规范,使国会于1906年通过了《赫本法案》(Hepburn Act),授权州际贸易委员会(Interstate Commerce Commission)设置铁路运费上限,同时也禁止铁路公司为关系公司免费运输货物。当时无人预料到未来蓬勃的汽车运输业对铁路的挑战,该法案对消费者和商业企业提供了一定程度的保护。同年,他还促使国会通过《食品和药物纯净法案》(Pure Food and Drug Act)和《肉类产品监督法案》(Meat Inspection Act),对养畜和肉类加工企业进行稽查和实施强制卫生标准。国会修正了该法案,以免小型屠宰场的不合卫生标准的产品损害出口和国内市场。

环境保护
罗斯福是第一位对环境保护有长远考量的总统,在猎人和渔民阶层获得了广泛支持。1904年3月14日,他在佛罗里达设立了第一个国家鸟类保护区,也是野生动物庇护系统的雏形。1905年,他敦促国会成立美国林业服务局,管理国有森林和土地。罗斯福设立的国家公园和自然保护区面积比其所有前任所设总和还多,共1亿9千4百万英亩,举世闻名的大峡谷国家公园就是其中之一。他常给《户外生活》(Outdoor life)杂志撰稿,昭示自然保护理念和报告国家公园进展。他在一篇文章中写道:“我们的发展与永久性财富的资源保护有密切的关系。”他并非极端环保主义者,认为自然资源应有效地使用,避免浪费。1906年,罗斯福在白宫召集全国州长会议,讨论对于水、森林和其他自然资源的有效规划、分析和使用问题。

1905年日俄战争开始,日本陆海军以弱胜强。虽然罗斯福对沙俄在远东的野心感到不安,对日军的战斗力极为欣赏,但是他也不愿意让日本在远东独大。罗斯福召集两国代表在新罕布什尔州普兹茅斯港进行和谈。他对调停人的角色非常着迷,连哄带吓,最终使两国签署了《朴次茅斯和约》。罗斯福因此赢得巨大的国际声誉,并且获得1906年度诺贝尔和平奖。后来,他又仲裁了德国与法国在摩洛哥的势力划分。一些历史学家认为,罗斯福的这两个行动从某种程度上避免了世界大战。



1880年,罗斯福与银行家的女儿爱丽丝·海瑟薇·李(Alice Hathaway Lee)结婚。4年后,爱丽丝生下一个女婴,但不幸于产后两天去世;同日,罗斯福的母亲也去世了。从此他不再提起第一个妻子。他将女儿委托给大姐抚养,自己跑到达科他过起了放牧生活。在北达科他的牧场,罗斯福学会了骑马等牛仔技能。闲暇时他参加拳击赛。有一段时间,他担任了代理警长,追捕盗窃犯。1886到1887严寒的冬季灭绝了牧场的牲口,于是他被迫返回东部。

She was beautiful in face and form, and lovelier still in spirit; As a flower she grew, and as a fair young flower she died. Her life had been always in the sunshine; there had never come to her a single sorrow; and none ever knew her who did not love and revere her for the bright, sunny temper and her saintly unselfishness. Fair, pure, and joyous as a maiden; loving , tender, and happy. As a young wife; when she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be just begun, and when the years seemed so bright before her—then, by a strange and terrible fate, death came to her. And when my heart’s dearest died, the light went from my life forever.

Richard Nixon made reference to these comments upon his resignation for the presidency in 1974. Paying tribute to Roosevelt and his inner courage, he remarked that "only when you have been in the deepest valley can you know how magnificent it is to reach the highest mountain".



The Roosevelts had one daughter:

罗斯福的女儿爱丽丝·罗斯福·隆沃思(Alice Roosevelt Longworth)是一位个性鲜明、颇受非议的人物。朋友们有时劝他管束自己的女儿,他却说:“我可以当美国总统,也可以管好爱丽丝,但实在无法同时做两件事。”有其父必有其女,爱丽丝刻薄地形容她老爹爱出风头,“恨不得在每一场婚礼上作新郎,每一场葬礼上作尸首”。

Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884–1980). According to a number of historians, Roosevelt's need to leave behind or suppress his experiences with his first wife were a source of deep resentment by his daughter. She was unable to get him to talk about her mother in any meaningful way. Her rebellious life finds some explanation in this sad aspect of her relationship with her father.

In the immediate aftermath of his wife's death, Theodore turned the care of their newly-born infant daughter to his elder sister Anna, also known as Bamie, and embarked on a journey of personal discovery to his ranch in the Badlands of North Dakota. From this interlude Roosevelt would emerge a renewed man and would go on to the Presidency of the United States in 1901.

美国梦

国英给我打电话聊天。我们谈谈朋友之间的事:

比如,林从去年底被layoff后,至今还没找到工作。 老大今年大学毕业,找到工作了。老二今年上大学,还上西北,借钱,老三还小,太太从来不上班。据说当时结婚时就说了,结了婚我就不上班,行不行?

Eric也失业了,太太刚生了老三,从不上班。老大7岁,老二四岁。。。

这些男人都是最好的男人,有一技之长,辛苦养家,周末去教会,是长老,在公司都是小主管。。。

可是人生就是这样脆弱。 我们生在一个朝不保夕的国家,一个只有金钱才是万能的社会。上帝真的能给你信心吗?

女人啊,不要依赖男人了。这个社会没有这样的奢华。

人生的意义?

The Jungle


我想,芝加哥现在的确是我的家乡了。

如同当年我对北京胡同,风俗有着无法抑制的热情一样,我现在对芝加哥的历史和政治也异常关注。芝加哥在我的心里不是摩天大厦,不是密执根湖,而是我住了10几年的海德园。

Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968), was an American author who wrote close to 100 books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the 20th century, acquiring particular fame for his 1906 muckraking novel The Jungle. It exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence.“

芝加哥是当年的屠宰业中心。挨着海德园就Back of the Yards:

Back of the Yards is an industrial and residential neighborhood so named because it was near the former Union Stock Yards. Life in this neighborhood, which was famously organized by Saul Alinsky in the 1930s, is profiled in Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle. The area was formerly the town of Lake until it was annexed by Chicago in 1889. The area was once an Eastern European, predominantly Polish, neighborhood.

The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the life of the immigrant in the United States, but readers were more concerned with the large portion pertaining to the corruption of the American meatpacking industry during the early-20th century, and the book is now often interpreted and taught as only an exposure of the industry of meatpacking. This was not Sinclair's intention for the book though and not what he would have liked it to be famous for. The novel depicts in harsh tones poverty, absence of social programs, unpleasant living and working conditions, and hopelessness prevalent among the working class, which is contrasted with the deeply-rooted corruption on the part of those in power. Sinclair's observations of the state of turn-of-the-century labor were placed front and center for the American public to see, suggesting that something needed to be changed to get rid of American wage slavery.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

交叉的轨迹


我相信命运。当然,不是宿命。人的命运是由人的性格决定的。

我最感兴趣的是人的命运的交叉轨迹。

1968年,希拉里还在Wellesley College时,认识了一个叫Saul Alinsky的人。

Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing, and has been compared in Playboy magazine to Thomas Paine as being "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left."[1] He is often noted for his book Rules for Radicals.


这是一个有意思的人。芝加哥出生的俄国犹太移民后裔,在芝大念考古学。后来就开始做社会工作,主要是帮助贫民区的人提高生活质量。后来,他把注意力放在帮助黑人贫民窟上。

但是,他又是一个非常独立的人,不参与任何党派,团体。他说:

Not at any time. I've never joined any organization—not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it's Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're right.' If you don't have that, if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.


希拉里大学最后一年,开始对他感兴趣。本来想大学毕业后为他工作,可是,最终决定去耶鲁念法学院。

16年后,奥巴马大学毕业后,从纽约来到芝加哥,成为一个芝加哥南部的community organizer,这恰恰是当年希拉里想做却又没做的工作。

再后来的事,就不用说了。

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

奥巴马最窝囊的一天

今天,大概是奥巴马最窝囊的一天了。很多左翼对他很失望,认为他对共和党屈膝。其实,他是有软肋的,他的后脚踵就是Job。 当共和党要filibuster他的刺激经济的议案时,他用延缓增税来换取,而他内心也惧怕过高的赤字会降低美国的信用。有人说,他不敢像Bill Clinton 一样用14th amendment option, 那是因为最终是民主党送提案(参议院还是民主党的),而不是克林顿时代是共和党的议院,他不能砍杀自己党的议案吧!奥巴马太rational,做不来crazy的事情。不过,像他这种性格,肯定是政治斗争的牺牲品。

Monday, August 1, 2011

奥巴马到底怎么了?

我现在有点糊涂了。他是可怜,共和党和茶党借此机会,狠敲竹杠。他身为总统,不得不牺牲民主党的利益和连任的前景,总不能让老百姓吃亏吧。

可是,他也过于软弱了。而且,他是不是 too nice, too smart, too realistic? 这些共和党简直是在欺负他。

You Are Not One Of Them

这几天,国会国债上限争论的闹剧终于接近收场了。

其实,这次我倒是没有不同意共和党的建议。赤字这么高,必须要解决,也必须立即解决。总不能靠借钱过日子。我对里根的消费经济从来就不相信,也不是基于什么理论,而是常识。国家的经济和家里的应该差不多吧。

美国的经济也根本不会在短时间内有太大好转。以前,是帝国主义,美国的致富是在掠夺其他国家的资源的基础上的。现在,说的难听点,连本国的中产阶级也被华尔街和华盛顿掠夺了。美国的基础经济已经被送到海外了,新兴的生产力又一时半会建立不起来。奥巴马的刺激经济政策是杯水车薪,根本堵不了这个窟窿,反而欠了一屁股债。不让花钱就不花吧,花了也白花,也许美国人就该走下坡路,就该过苦日子。奥巴马以为能阻止一辆巨大的战车往下滑,倒是螳臂挡车呢。

奥巴马竞选时,对手攻击他不是大家中的一个。我现在越来越同意这个结论了。这次的谈判,他一退再退,连底线都守不住。很多时候我看着他都心疼。他太nice,太worry,太想为老百姓做事了。这样的人太格格不入,进不了华盛顿的圈子,搞不了政治。有评论说,他不能和国会的领袖建立亲近的私人关系,无法驾驭国会。共和党这次是绑架他,欺负他,狠狠地敲了一笔竹杠。他身为总统,不得不牺牲民主党的利益和连任的前景,总不能让国家default。

他从哈佛毕业后,在纽约工作了一年。他的第一个老板说,他一直认为奥巴马会成为一个作家,他的身上有一种挥之不去的sense of loneness。 这是他最打动我的地方,我经常能从他的眼睛里看到这种了loneness,尤其是最近。

说实话,我蛮喜欢John Boehner。俄亥俄算是我美国的重生之地,John Boehner是那里的议员,其实他出身非常贫苦,家里很多兄弟,大多数都是蓝领。可以理解为什么他是共和党。这是一个典型的美国中部人,保守,勤劳,相信美国梦。只是,这个梦已经破碎。