Wednesday, January 07, 2004

Language and Iraq Posted here Wednesday, January 07, 2004 at 9:56:38 AM     aside.. The problem of language. Look at the following "U.S. Has Big Plans for Embassy in Iraq By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 2, 2004; Page A14 In preparation for ending its occupation of Iraq, the United States is making plans to create the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world in Baghdad, complete with a staff of over 3,000 personnel, according to U.S. officials. The transition will mark the hand-over of responsibility for dealing with Iraq from the Pentagon to the State Department, which will then help oversee the two definitive steps in creating Iraq's first freely elected democratic government. "The real challenge for the new embassy, so to speak, or the new presence will be helping the Iraqi people get ready for their full elections and full constitution the following year," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in an interview this week. "That's going to be a major effort on our part." One of the first steps will be resuming diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad. Although the United States is the occupying power in Iraq, the two nations have not formally resumed relations, which were severed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. "Saddam broke off relations in 1991, and it requires a fairly complicated agreement to reestablish ties," a senior administration official said. The other major challenge will be sorting out the terms of the U.S. military presence, which is expected to exceed 100,000 troops even after the occupation ends, U.S. officials say." from the washington Post ********

New desire for homes mini essay Posted here Wednesday, January 07, 2004 at 9:33:54 AM     Architecture We need homes that are for lovers and self developers and friends. Homes easier to afford. Go for simple, and add... About clients   Clients today want a house that is home to their media with its multiplicity of sounds and images. At the same time they want a place that is comfortable, and that often means including guests. They want a place that excludes the outside world so the sense of personal retreat is supported. At the same time they want access to neighborhood, parks, and the green and a live outside.   Balancing these needs is hard enough. Most clients have a mind full of images about what a house should look like. Out of this comes some real curiosities, like the modest development where the facades look like fragments from English estates, and one medium large room inside is surrounded on the sides and above by small plain boxes that are more like college dorm rooms or a bad downtown hotel in an anonymous city (you’ve been there too?) than as comfortable places for being on your own in the house.   Our minds are so full of image and anxiety that thinking well about the wonderful expectations of owning a designed home are – well, mucked up. And this makes it difficult for the architect. If the client is in a chaotic and advertisement driven mind, talking about what makes for a real quality of life is not easy. Often the client is mixing up memories of good places with Architectureal Digest images that are too much like mixing desert in with dinner – say ice cream with linguini and pesto.   The client should try to think of where their life is now, and where they would like it to be and how the house can help. But that means being realistic. Forget the once every five years – or never to be realized – cocktail party with the rich and famous – even if you are one. Think about what kind of relationship you would really like to have with her – after the champagne and seduction.   If you were settled in a life, would your mind turn towards creating something, bringing new people into your life, supporting the expanding worlds of your children in a place that keeps feeling like home for you and them? Will the house, as it becomes a home, support your development? You are not now who you will be. You are not now who you want to be.   The hardest decision is going to be how to balance the needs of  digital media and real people. What works for the stereo or movie screen often does not help the relationships. A house where people, strangers to each other, are each immobilized in their own virtual world. Yet making not only room but a home for these is important to most people building a home.   Outside is cheaper than inside, and a good architect can help you expand the idea of the house into the available land so the land feels like a natural extension of the inside.   Paid for is better than mortgaged. Even in good times, it will give you a new sense of security. Extra cash, keep the car another year and pay down the house. If ther is still some left over, take a trip to an interesting place. If a new car cst 30,000, a round trip to Greece for two for a week can be only 3,000. Make sure the house is balanced with other priorities in your life – and that your purpose is to have a life.   Your mind is mucked up. Admit it. We are embedded in a flow of advertising and biased news to the point where we cannot think. We are mostly overweight, too passive, actually not as smart as we think we ought to be. Tired, lonely, anxious, depressed. Thos who are in love, have a new way of earning a living, expect new children, or are animated by a new idea of living – all these make the best clients. We each can see our life as 2/3 empty or 1/3 full. You will find you think better about your house if it is from the perspective of 1/3 full. A person or couple going from an income of  30k to 50k make a much better client than one going from 80k to 50. Rising expectations bring spice to life.   Yet we can each have rising expectations – at the worst “I will make this failure into a bad (or maybe even a good) poem, half a page, but enjoy doing it.” However bad the space, you can dance in it.   What you most need to avoid is the result of  not finding anywhere in the house where “their” TV is not polluting the whole space, where privacy is impossible and thoughts of murder or getting drunk or having an affair become the overwhelming realities.   They say that there are five important things in life. Two you cannot do much about: birth, and death. The third, community, takes participation and hard work. The last two, your mate and home, are the deepest reflection of you and touch the deepest responsibility for yourself. Be wise, be a good client, be a good homeowner, and be a lover to those who are near you –including yourself. And realize that your home is the stage set for this life and these loves.   ********

The path to rationalizing the economy Posted here Wednesday, January 07, 2004 at 9:32:36 AM     On consolidation and competition Gutting Companies On Nov. 17, the national retail chain Toys 'R' Us, announced that it would close 146 of the stores of its Kids 'R' Us subdivision, which sells clothing, as well as 36 of its Imaginarium stores (which sell "educational" toys and games). The shutdowns will be completed by Jan. 31, 2004, eliminating up to 3,800 jobs. Kids 'R' Us was unable to slash the prices of its children's clothing deeply enough to compete with Wal-Mart. Moreover, Wal-Mart has launched an aggressive campaign, through cut-throat pricing, to destroy the parent company, Toys 'R' Us, the second-largest toy seller (after Wal-Mart) in America. As an example of how this strategy operates: The popular Hot Wheels T-Wreck Play Set toy sells for $42 wholesale. However, according to the Nov. 19 Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart is now selling that very toy at $29.74, a loss of more than $10 per unit. Wal-Mart sells 21% of all toys sold in America, and if it knocks out its leading competitor, its share could reach 30%. Hoover has been a leading name in vacuum cleaners for nearly 100 years. During the third quarter of this year, Hoover's vacuum-cleaner sales declined by 20%, which the company blamed on competitors' models priced at $79-made in Asia to meet Wal-Mart's price demands-outselling Hoover's $100-plus vacuums produced in the United States. Hoover cannot withstand such drops in sales volumes. Hoover's parent company, Maytag, is demanding cuts in health insurance and other benefits, plus changes in job-security rules for production workers at its Hoover vacuum manufacturing plant in North Canton, Ohio. If the workers don't cave in, Maytag has stated that it will move Hoover vacuum production to cheap-wage sites in Texas, and to maquiladoras in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. ********