Category Archives: Places

The land of fake businessmen

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Atlantic’s Mitch Moxley reports on a Chinese business practice: hiring fake businessmen to help craft an image. Part of the job:

As we waited for the ceremony to begin, a foreman standing beside me barked at workers still visible on the construction site. They scurried behind the scaffolding.

“Are you the boss?” I asked him.

He looked at me quizzically. “You’re the boss.”

Actually, Ernie was the boss. After a brief introduction, “Director” Ernie delivered his speech before the hundred or so people in attendance. He boasted about the company’s long list of international clients and emphasized how happy we were to be working on such an important project. When the speech was over, confetti blasted over the stage, fireworks popped above the dusty field beside us, and Ernie posed for a photo with the mayor.

If this is common practice, couldn’t some companies lose face (rather than build their image) when others point out or find out that their businessmen are really fakes?

An odd subtext: the requirements for the job included “a fair complexion and a suit.” The fake businessmen are there to indicate that the Chinese company has connections. A “darker complexion and a suit” doesn’t fit the bill for connections? Perhaps a “darker complexion, a suit, and an American accent”?

And you thought your commute was bad

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Wired writes about a report released by IBM Research regarding traffic in large cities. Using a web-based survey, IBM  included 8,192 drivers in 20 cities. IBM developed a “Commuter Pain Index” that is comprised of ten criteria.

The worst cities, starting with the worst and then declining on the index: Beijing, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Moscow, and New Delhi. The first US city, Los Angeles, shows up at #14 with New York and Houston at #17 and #18, respectively.

If you were curious, IBM recommends as a solution new technologies to “empower transportation officials to better understand and proactively manage the flow of traffic.”

Second Wal-Mart moves forward in Chicago

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Update 9:52 PM 6/30/10: The Chicago City Council voted tonight 50-0 to approve the second Wal-Mart in the city. Read about the voting and the consequences here.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the Chicago City Council Zoning Committee approved Wal-Mart’s proposal for a store in the Pullman Park neighborhood on the South Side. A quick summary of how the deal was made:

The deal struck Thursday has Wal-Mart assenting to pay at least $8.75 an hour — 50 cents more than minimum wage as of July 1. Unions once wanted $11.03 an hour, but settled for less and touted the company’s agreement to give raises of 40 to 60 cents an hour to Chicago workers after a year. A Wal-Mart spokesman, however, said store workers typically get that kind of bump anyway.

In the end, Wal-Mart appears on its way to getting a second store. The unions, which won’t actually represent any of the workers, get to save face. And aldermen looking ahead to re-election in February get to avoid a repeat of 2007, when several of them lost after angry unions put up challengers who opposed Wal-Mart.

As often happens in politics, a deal is finalized when all the interested actors feel they benefit in some way.

Blood gadgets

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Many consumers don’t ask, and presumably often don’t care, how their newly purchased products came to be. Certain products have drawn attention, such as “blood diamonds” (accompanied by a preachy Hollywood film by the same name) or Nike shoes made by sweatshop laborers.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof draws attention to another set of consumer goods: high-tech gadgets including cell phones. These devices often include hard to obtain minerals, such as tantalum which is found in Congo. There are some activists who are planning to bring attention to this by taking their argument to tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Intel:

A humorous new video taunting Apple and PC computers alike goes online this weekend on YouTube, with hopes that it will go viral. Put together by a group of Hollywood actors, it’s a spoof on the famous “I’m a Mac”/”I’m a PC” ad and suggests that both are sometimes built from conflict minerals.

“Guess we have some things in common after all,” Mac admits.

Stay tuned. A strong-enough consumer/activist push will likely lead to these companies pledging to use responsible materials.

Also: one wonders how this decades-long situation in mineral-rich Congo might inform decision-making regarding recent finds of vast amounts of valuable minerals in Afghanistan.

Winning vs. a country’s culture

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Brazilian coach Carlos Caetano Bledorn “Dunga” Verri has had a successful World Cup run thus far: four matches and four pretty easy wins. For many national coaches, this would lead to general praise from the media and fans.

But not in Brazil. Dunga has been playing with a more defensive-minded system, particularly compared to the attacking-with-flair Brazilian teams of past decades. A quick description of the battle Dunga has been fighting:

Then there were the fans, who almost always favor the spectacular and revel in the nation’s tradition of breathtaking open-field play.

Brazil has always been about offense, offense, offense. It has the deepest pool of talent in which to select a team. Its players pride themselves on creativity.

Even some of the  country’s former stars, such as Carlos Alberto, captain of Brazil’s 1970 team, have blasted Dunga:

“I am not confident in this group because our national team do not play Brazilian football…I’m talking about movement and use of the ball. We have good defenders, but the midfielders: if you ask Brazilian kids, who are our midfielders, they shrug their shoulders.”

So if Brazil wins a sixth World Cup title, what then? Will the country celebrate in the same way or will it be considered a less-than-great title? Sports fans can be an interesting lot, particularly when they are used to winning.

Supreme Court decides on Chicago guns

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In a long-awaited decision, the Supreme Court has decided 5-4 against Chicago’s gun ban in McDonald v. Chicago. The Chicago Tribune notes that Chicago will soon consider new gun laws and that the decision seems to be motivated in part by current conditions in the city:

In the majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court noted a recent call by two state legislators to deploy National Guard troops to quell the violence on Chicago’s streets.

“The legislators noted that the number of Chicago homicide victims during the current year equaled the number of American soldiers killed during that same period in Afghanistan and Iraq,” the opinion stated.

“If (the) safety of . . . law abiding members of the community would be enhanced by the possession of handguns in the home for self-defense, then the Second Amendment right protects the rights of minorities and other residents of high-crime areas whose needs are not being met by elected public officials.”…

Read the full decision here.

Alito’s argument (summed up briefly in the article above) is interesting: Chicago may have lost this case because the crime rate, particularly murder rate, remains high even with a gun ban. Chicago’s ban has not limited the number of guns in the hands of violent actors. If violent actors can get guns even with a ban, Alitio suggests local citizens should have the tools to be able to fight back, particularly citizens “whose needs are not being met by elected public officials.” This is a case about a law but this statement in particular is a Supreme opinion regarding the abilities of Chicago government.

UPDATE 11:13 PM 6/28/10: Some Chicago officials also read some of the decision as an attack on the performance of Chicago’s police and government. Read here.

UPDATE 7:08 AM 6/29/10:  Links to more coverage:  Chicago Sun-Times, National Law Journal, ABA Journal, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NRA press release…

The strange world of Google Streetview includes “Horseboy”

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The Daily Mail of London reports on another strange find on Google Streetview: “Horseboy,” with the body of a man and head of a horse. The article highlights some of the other strange finds over the years including Samurai warriors, Sherlock Holmes, and others.

There are websites devoted to seeing odd things on Streetview – a quick Google search will lead you to a number of websites.

Stories for Afghanistan

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Wired writes of a new Department of Defense program to develop “interactive stories” to find common ground with Afghan residents.

The “Negotiate Across Cultures” project will kick off with a two-day workshop… “participants will use a ‘Wizard of Oz’ approach to illustrate how each approach, if implemented, would operate on selected negotiation problems within specific socio-cultural environments. In the ‘Wizard of Oz’ approach, one or two human representatives of each participant team will listen to a problem description and manually act out the operation and structure of the tool using props they bring to the event.”

Using stories in this way is not uncommon. In recent decades, governments, activists, and social scientists have successfully used media, such as radio and television shows, to teach certain messages in areas like public health.

Graphing flight delays by airport and airline

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The Infrastructurist displays a great graphic that summarizes flight delays at major US airports. A quick interpretation: be prepared to be behind when traveling to New York, San Francisco, and Philadelphia or when flying on Northwest, JetBlue, AirTran, and American.