“Amazing what happens when you cast aside the testosterone”, was the first line of Roger Cohen’s Op-Ed column in the NYT on Monday and I couldn’t agree more.
The masters of the testosterone movement over the past eight years – specifically “porcupine, prickly” Cheney and numerous other Republicans perceive “a weak president”, but according to Cohen, the truth is that foes of the United States have been disarmed by Barack Obama’s no-drama diplomacy. He calls it the mellow doctrine – neither idealistic nor classic realpolitik, it involves finding strength through unconventional means, such as the acknowledgment of the limits of American power; frankness about U.S. failings; careful listening; fear reduction; adroit deployment of the wide appeal of brand Barack Obama; and jujitsu engagement.
Even though more time is needed to see its results, the “mellow doctrine has already brought some remarkable shifts.
The Castro brothers in Cuba are squabbling over the meaning of Obama’s overtures. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has gone gooey-eyed over the Yanqui president. Turkey relented on a major NATO dispute, persuaded of the importance of Obama’s conciliatory message to Muslims.
From Damascus to Tehran, new debate rages over possible rapprochement with Washington. In Israel, it appears the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is about to drag his Likud party kicking and screaming to acceptance of the idea of a two-state solution because he knows the cost of an early confrontation with Obama.
Not bad for 105 days.
As Cohen says, the fact is the United States spent most of the eight years before last January making things easy for its enemies. It was in the ammunition-supply business.
Nothing comforted U.S. foes as much as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, axis-of-evil moral certitude and the schoolyard politics of punishment. All you had to do, from Moscow to Caracas, was point a finger toward the White House and domestic woes paled. All you had to do, in the recruitment schools of Waziristan and Ramadi, was show video footage of Americans humiliating Muslims. Even among allies, nobody much wanted to help the former administration.
Of course, Fidel Castro is talking about “definite failure” for Obama and lambasting him for preserving a “blockade” (it’s in fact an outmoded partial trade embargo), while his brother Raul says Cuba’s ready and eager to discuss everything.
Obama and his administration still have a long way to go and it won’t be easy. And the likes of the aging Fidel will try to resist the mellow doctrine. But it will succeed if America’s foes understand that normal relations with Washington do not imply the loss of distinctive cultures and politics or the imposition of U.S. values, but rather the “mutual respect” which Obama has promised Iran.
Sylvia's world in thoughts and pictures
I miss you Sam!!
I miss you Sam!!
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
A Glimmer of Hope
I have always been a real admirer of Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist for the NYT, and I pay attention to what he says in his columns. I don’t always like what I read because it’s not what I want to hear, but I do trust his judgment – he didn't win the Nobel prize in Economics for being dumb. Today though he gave me a real glimmer of hope with the first paragraph in his column in which he said, “Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course.”
He goes on to say that Democrats were starting to feel postpartisan depression. The stimulus bill seems too weak, too focused on tax cuts. The administration’s refusal to get tough on the banks has been disappointing. But fears that President Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished. I don’t know what all this is going to mean in the long run, but I don’t want to believe the nay sayers, I want to believe that we can rebuild this country’s financial structure, it’s infrastructure and take on climate change as well – after years of denial and delay by the Bush administration, the Obama administration is signaling that it’s ready to take on climate change.
Can Obama actually pull off the deficit reduction he promises? Can he actually reduce the red ink from $1.75 trillion this year to less than a third as much in 2013? Yes, he can, according to Krugman.
There are still a lot of “ifs” and we’ve a long way to go. Furthermore, the Obama budget only tells us about the next ten years. That’s an improvement on Bush-era budgets, which looked only five years ahead. But America’s really big fiscal problems lurk over that budget horizon: sooner or later we’re going to have to come to grips with the forces driving up long-run spending – and above all, the ever-rising cost of health care. And even if fundamental health care reform brings cost under control, Krugman finds it hard to see how the federal government can meet its long-term obligations without some tax increases on the middle class. So, whatever the politicians may say now, there’s probably a value-added tax in our future.
But Krugman doesn’t blame Mr. Obama for leaving some big questions unanswered in this budget. There’s only so much long-run thinking the political system can handle in the midst of a severe crisis; he has probably taken on all he can, for now. And in Krugtman's words "this budget looks very, very good".
Krugman doesn’t pass out compliments that easily, he’s quick to question, but if he says that Obama’s budget looks not just good, but very, very good, then I’m ready to let out a big sigh of relief and then take a deep breath while we wait to see what happens next.
He goes on to say that Democrats were starting to feel postpartisan depression. The stimulus bill seems too weak, too focused on tax cuts. The administration’s refusal to get tough on the banks has been disappointing. But fears that President Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished. I don’t know what all this is going to mean in the long run, but I don’t want to believe the nay sayers, I want to believe that we can rebuild this country’s financial structure, it’s infrastructure and take on climate change as well – after years of denial and delay by the Bush administration, the Obama administration is signaling that it’s ready to take on climate change.
Can Obama actually pull off the deficit reduction he promises? Can he actually reduce the red ink from $1.75 trillion this year to less than a third as much in 2013? Yes, he can, according to Krugman.
There are still a lot of “ifs” and we’ve a long way to go. Furthermore, the Obama budget only tells us about the next ten years. That’s an improvement on Bush-era budgets, which looked only five years ahead. But America’s really big fiscal problems lurk over that budget horizon: sooner or later we’re going to have to come to grips with the forces driving up long-run spending – and above all, the ever-rising cost of health care. And even if fundamental health care reform brings cost under control, Krugman finds it hard to see how the federal government can meet its long-term obligations without some tax increases on the middle class. So, whatever the politicians may say now, there’s probably a value-added tax in our future.
But Krugman doesn’t blame Mr. Obama for leaving some big questions unanswered in this budget. There’s only so much long-run thinking the political system can handle in the midst of a severe crisis; he has probably taken on all he can, for now. And in Krugtman's words "this budget looks very, very good".
Krugman doesn’t pass out compliments that easily, he’s quick to question, but if he says that Obama’s budget looks not just good, but very, very good, then I’m ready to let out a big sigh of relief and then take a deep breath while we wait to see what happens next.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
A New Age, A New Way
In his Op-Ed column this morning, Nicholas Kristof, took a look at the remaking of America. He started out with a memory of the Web site The Onion, that deals in satire and in January of 2001 at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency, it declared “Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over. But what was designed as satire actually proved to be a very shrewd analysis. One measure of the bleak picture of the past eight years is that today The Onion looks equally astute when it says of the latest transition: “Black man given nation’s worst job.”
That man is making an excellent start, and news Web sites all over the world reflect the globe’s eagerness – even desperation – for American leadership.
The Guardian in Britain declared, “Let the remaking of America begin today.” The Independent called Inauguration Day “a day for hope.” In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke of “a truly great hour for America” that offered “a multitude of opportunities.” The Times of India welcomed “a new beginning.” And in Northern Ireland, The Belfast Telegraph asked: “Can Obama save us all?” A BBC poll in 17 nations found that on average 67 percent believed that President Obama would improve America’s relations with the rest of the world; only 5 percent thought the opposite (or maybe feared that if they seemed critical of George W. Bush, they would be waterboarded).
Kristof says that two themes were particularly reassuring in Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Address. One was his inclusiveness, his effort to tug people into his big tent, a huge contrast from Mr. Bush’s years of governing from and ideological pup tent.
His inclusiveness started with his celebration of America as a patchwork of “Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.” As far as Mr. Kristof knows, no other sitting president has dared to embrace atheists. (Thomas Jefferson did, but not while in office). President Obama was also the first president to use the word “Muslim” in an Inaugural Address. One of the important statements which was taken to be directed toward Iran and Syria, was “We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
The Bush/Cheney years put all the emphasis on “hard power” according to Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor, and they relied on “military hard power” and the result was set backs around the world.
According to David Sanger in his new book “The Inheritance”: “We pursued a path that has left us less admired by our allies, less feared by our enemies, and less capable of convincing the rest of the world that our economic and political model is worthy of emulation.”
The first attempt at soft power is the new White House Web site, complete with a White House blog. And in his speech he focused on soft power alongside hard power: “Our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.” I don’t know about you but, I don’t ever remember hearing any of the leaders of the Bush administration talk about “humility and restraint”. And tempering qualities? Cheney never wanted to temper anything, including his temper!
Professor Nye said that Mr. Obama’s inaugural was a perfect example of smart power. “That’s not going to make our adversaries roll over, but it’ll help in terms of mainstream Muslims and it’ll help in terms of allies. And it’ll give a very different tone to foreign policy.”
Roger Cohen, also of the New York Times, sat 30 feet from the podium and said that while Obama was not at his most uplifting, nor inspiring as he called in sober tones for a new “spirit of service” that will renew America and, through it, the world. And that was not a put down, Obama was making a point, there’s too much work to do for high rhetorical flourish. It was a spare inaugural speech, but there were still powerful phrases and signals that together amounted to an attempt to re-imagine a nation in crisis.
Responsibility, restraint, humility, peace: this is not the hatitual vocabulary of America’s heroic narrative. It constitutes a new lexicon of American power. Are Americans ready to die for responsibility? Perhaps not, but they may well seek dialogue in its name. “The world has changed – and we must change with it,” Obama said. Even change has changed now: no longer a clarion call, it is a responsibility.
Nicholas Kristof and Roger Cohen’s columns are so worth reading today, I would urge you to read them in them in their entirety.
That man is making an excellent start, and news Web sites all over the world reflect the globe’s eagerness – even desperation – for American leadership.
The Guardian in Britain declared, “Let the remaking of America begin today.” The Independent called Inauguration Day “a day for hope.” In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke of “a truly great hour for America” that offered “a multitude of opportunities.” The Times of India welcomed “a new beginning.” And in Northern Ireland, The Belfast Telegraph asked: “Can Obama save us all?” A BBC poll in 17 nations found that on average 67 percent believed that President Obama would improve America’s relations with the rest of the world; only 5 percent thought the opposite (or maybe feared that if they seemed critical of George W. Bush, they would be waterboarded).
Kristof says that two themes were particularly reassuring in Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Address. One was his inclusiveness, his effort to tug people into his big tent, a huge contrast from Mr. Bush’s years of governing from and ideological pup tent.
His inclusiveness started with his celebration of America as a patchwork of “Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.” As far as Mr. Kristof knows, no other sitting president has dared to embrace atheists. (Thomas Jefferson did, but not while in office). President Obama was also the first president to use the word “Muslim” in an Inaugural Address. One of the important statements which was taken to be directed toward Iran and Syria, was “We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
The Bush/Cheney years put all the emphasis on “hard power” according to Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor, and they relied on “military hard power” and the result was set backs around the world.
According to David Sanger in his new book “The Inheritance”: “We pursued a path that has left us less admired by our allies, less feared by our enemies, and less capable of convincing the rest of the world that our economic and political model is worthy of emulation.”
The first attempt at soft power is the new White House Web site, complete with a White House blog. And in his speech he focused on soft power alongside hard power: “Our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.” I don’t know about you but, I don’t ever remember hearing any of the leaders of the Bush administration talk about “humility and restraint”. And tempering qualities? Cheney never wanted to temper anything, including his temper!
Professor Nye said that Mr. Obama’s inaugural was a perfect example of smart power. “That’s not going to make our adversaries roll over, but it’ll help in terms of mainstream Muslims and it’ll help in terms of allies. And it’ll give a very different tone to foreign policy.”
Roger Cohen, also of the New York Times, sat 30 feet from the podium and said that while Obama was not at his most uplifting, nor inspiring as he called in sober tones for a new “spirit of service” that will renew America and, through it, the world. And that was not a put down, Obama was making a point, there’s too much work to do for high rhetorical flourish. It was a spare inaugural speech, but there were still powerful phrases and signals that together amounted to an attempt to re-imagine a nation in crisis.
Responsibility, restraint, humility, peace: this is not the hatitual vocabulary of America’s heroic narrative. It constitutes a new lexicon of American power. Are Americans ready to die for responsibility? Perhaps not, but they may well seek dialogue in its name. “The world has changed – and we must change with it,” Obama said. Even change has changed now: no longer a clarion call, it is a responsibility.
Nicholas Kristof and Roger Cohen’s columns are so worth reading today, I would urge you to read them in them in their entirety.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Memorable Lines from Memorable Speeches
The inaugural address that Obama delivered today was just the latest in a long line of big speeches he's made. The first, of course, was at the 2004 Democratic convention ("There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there is the United States of America"). Then came his presidential announcement in Springfield, IL ("I know I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington, but I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change"). There was his speech on race in Philadelphia ("I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible"). There was his speech at the Democratic convention ("I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me; it's been about you"). And there was his victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park ("If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible."). As Chuck Todd said, Obama will likely use speeches to help him govern more than any other modern American president. And speeches will likely create many of the defining moments of his presidency.
Friday, January 2, 2009
The Party of Whiners
From Alberto Gonzales to Rush Limbaugh and everyone in between, the Republican Party is whining as Obama prepares to move into the White House. So, Bush just had bad luck with bad things happening on his watch? Or maybe the GOP’s bad luck just happened to send Bush to the White House in the first place???
But according to Paul Krugman, click here to read his entire column; and I agree, the fault lies with the Republican party itself. Forty years ago the GOP decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as their champion, to the pervasive incompetence of his administration, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision. The conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation specifically urged the new 2000 team to make appointments based on loyalty first and expertise second.
There was contempt for expertise and it in turn rested on contempt for government in general. Ronald Reagan declared that “Government is not the solution to our problem, Government IS the problem. So why worry about governing well?
The Republicans back in the 80s began to take advantage of the situation in the south which originally focused on opposition to the Voting Rights Act but eventually took a more coded form: “You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.” Or, government is the problem because it takes your money and gives it to Those People.
Krugman says the racial element isn’t all that abstract, even now: Chip Saltsman, currently a candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, sent committee members a CD including a song titled “Barack the Magic Negro” and according to some reports, the controversy over his action has actually helped his chances! Is that outrageous or what!
Still there are some commentators warning President-elect Obama against bold action and have held up Clinton’s political failures in his first two years as a cautionary tale.
But America today is very different country from what it was in 1993 – not just a country that had yet to see what happens when conservatives control all three branches of government, but also a country in which Democratic control of Congress depended on the votes of Southern conservatives. Today, Republicans have taken away almost all those Southern votes – and lost the rest of the country. It was, indeed, a grand ride for a while, but in the end the Southern strategy led the GOP into a cul-de-sac.
Krugman believes that Obama has room to be bold. If Republicans try a 1992-style strategy of attacking him for promoting big government, they’ll learn two things: not only has the financial crisis discredited their economic theories, the racial subtext of anti-government rhetoric doesn’t play the way it used to.
Of course Republicans will make a comeback, that’s a given. But barring some huge missteps by Obama, that's not likely to happen until they stop whining and look at what really went wrong. When and if they do that they will discover that they need to get in touch with the real “real America,” a country that is more diverse, more tolerant, and more demanding of effective government than is dreamt of in their political philosophy.
Obama has an enormous task ahead of him and while I surely wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, I do have total confidence that he has the wisdom, the courage, the foresight and the determination to lead this country out of the incredible mess we find ourselves in today due to the contempt that the Republicans have had for government in general.
But according to Paul Krugman, click here to read his entire column; and I agree, the fault lies with the Republican party itself. Forty years ago the GOP decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as their champion, to the pervasive incompetence of his administration, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision. The conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation specifically urged the new 2000 team to make appointments based on loyalty first and expertise second.
There was contempt for expertise and it in turn rested on contempt for government in general. Ronald Reagan declared that “Government is not the solution to our problem, Government IS the problem. So why worry about governing well?
The Republicans back in the 80s began to take advantage of the situation in the south which originally focused on opposition to the Voting Rights Act but eventually took a more coded form: “You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.” Or, government is the problem because it takes your money and gives it to Those People.
Krugman says the racial element isn’t all that abstract, even now: Chip Saltsman, currently a candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, sent committee members a CD including a song titled “Barack the Magic Negro” and according to some reports, the controversy over his action has actually helped his chances! Is that outrageous or what!
Still there are some commentators warning President-elect Obama against bold action and have held up Clinton’s political failures in his first two years as a cautionary tale.
But America today is very different country from what it was in 1993 – not just a country that had yet to see what happens when conservatives control all three branches of government, but also a country in which Democratic control of Congress depended on the votes of Southern conservatives. Today, Republicans have taken away almost all those Southern votes – and lost the rest of the country. It was, indeed, a grand ride for a while, but in the end the Southern strategy led the GOP into a cul-de-sac.
Krugman believes that Obama has room to be bold. If Republicans try a 1992-style strategy of attacking him for promoting big government, they’ll learn two things: not only has the financial crisis discredited their economic theories, the racial subtext of anti-government rhetoric doesn’t play the way it used to.
Of course Republicans will make a comeback, that’s a given. But barring some huge missteps by Obama, that's not likely to happen until they stop whining and look at what really went wrong. When and if they do that they will discover that they need to get in touch with the real “real America,” a country that is more diverse, more tolerant, and more demanding of effective government than is dreamt of in their political philosophy.
Obama has an enormous task ahead of him and while I surely wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, I do have total confidence that he has the wisdom, the courage, the foresight and the determination to lead this country out of the incredible mess we find ourselves in today due to the contempt that the Republicans have had for government in general.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
A "Goo-Goo" ???
I learned that term this morning from Paul Krugman's excellent OpEd column and is a century-old term for "good government" types, reformers opposed to corruption and patronage. And according to Krugman, Franklin Roosevelt was a goo-goo extraordinaire. He simultaneously made government much bigger and much cleaner. I think we all have hopes the Obama will do the same thing.
Krugman also points out that the Bush Administration offers a spectacular example of non-goo-gooism, because the Bushies didn't have to worry about governing well and honestly. Even when they failed on the job (as they did and continue to do so often), they could claim that very failure as vindication of their anti-government ideology, a demonstration that the public sector can't do anything right.
Obama and his administration, on the other hand, will find itself in a position very much like that facing the New Deal in the 1930s.
Like the New Deal, the incoming administration must greatly expand the role of government to rescue an ailing economy. But also like the New Deal, Obama team faces political opponents who will seize on any signs of corruption or abuse -- or invent them, if necessary, in an attempt to discredit the administration's program.
Roosevelt managed to navigate these treacherous political waters safely, greatly improving government's reputation even as he vastly expanded it. As a recently published study by the National Bureau of Economic Research puts it "Before 1932, the administration of public relief was widely regarded as politically corrupt," and the New Deal's huge relief programs "offered and opportunity for corruption unique in the nation's history." Yet "by 1940, charges of corruption and political manipulation had diminished considerably."
So, how did Roosevelt manage to make big government so clean?
A large part of it is that oversight was built into New Deal programs from the beginning. The WPA, in particular, had a powerful, independent "division of progress investigation" devoted to investigating complaints of fraud. This division was so diligent that in 1940, when a Congressional subcommittee investigated the WPA, it couldn't find a single serious irregularity that the division had missed.
But the Obama administration and Democrats in general, according to Mr. Krugman, need to do everything they can to build an FDR-like bond with the public. Obama has a high standing in polls based on public hopes that he'll succeed. He will need that even more when things aren't going well.
The Democrats need to pay attention, the push for Caroline Kennedy as senator is just more fuel for the 40 years of conservative propaganda denouncing "liberal elites". And you can be sure that those same critics will be making a really big thing out of Obama's rented Christmas vacation beach home in Hawaii. Isn't it a little strange for those same conservatives who have supported Bush and all the other big spenders and who are responsible for the mess we find ourselves in now are so quick to point these things out?
Fixing the economy is going to take time and, yes, these are the early days, but as Krugman points out, that's precisely the point. The Obama team needs to be thinking now, when hopes are high, about how to accumulate and preserve enough political capital to see the job through.
Krugman also points out that the Bush Administration offers a spectacular example of non-goo-gooism, because the Bushies didn't have to worry about governing well and honestly. Even when they failed on the job (as they did and continue to do so often), they could claim that very failure as vindication of their anti-government ideology, a demonstration that the public sector can't do anything right.
Obama and his administration, on the other hand, will find itself in a position very much like that facing the New Deal in the 1930s.
Like the New Deal, the incoming administration must greatly expand the role of government to rescue an ailing economy. But also like the New Deal, Obama team faces political opponents who will seize on any signs of corruption or abuse -- or invent them, if necessary, in an attempt to discredit the administration's program.
Roosevelt managed to navigate these treacherous political waters safely, greatly improving government's reputation even as he vastly expanded it. As a recently published study by the National Bureau of Economic Research puts it "Before 1932, the administration of public relief was widely regarded as politically corrupt," and the New Deal's huge relief programs "offered and opportunity for corruption unique in the nation's history." Yet "by 1940, charges of corruption and political manipulation had diminished considerably."
So, how did Roosevelt manage to make big government so clean?
A large part of it is that oversight was built into New Deal programs from the beginning. The WPA, in particular, had a powerful, independent "division of progress investigation" devoted to investigating complaints of fraud. This division was so diligent that in 1940, when a Congressional subcommittee investigated the WPA, it couldn't find a single serious irregularity that the division had missed.
But the Obama administration and Democrats in general, according to Mr. Krugman, need to do everything they can to build an FDR-like bond with the public. Obama has a high standing in polls based on public hopes that he'll succeed. He will need that even more when things aren't going well.
The Democrats need to pay attention, the push for Caroline Kennedy as senator is just more fuel for the 40 years of conservative propaganda denouncing "liberal elites". And you can be sure that those same critics will be making a really big thing out of Obama's rented Christmas vacation beach home in Hawaii. Isn't it a little strange for those same conservatives who have supported Bush and all the other big spenders and who are responsible for the mess we find ourselves in now are so quick to point these things out?
Fixing the economy is going to take time and, yes, these are the early days, but as Krugman points out, that's precisely the point. The Obama team needs to be thinking now, when hopes are high, about how to accumulate and preserve enough political capital to see the job through.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Worth Reading
We heard so much BS regarding Obama and Bill Ayers during the campaign, but little or nothing from Bill Ayers himself. He has spoken out today in an Op-Ed piece in the NYT today and it is worth the read.
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What Can I Say?
I'm interested in almost everything. Use to like to travel, but it's too expensive now. I take Tai Chi classes, swim, volunteer in a Jump-start program for pre-schoolers. I'm an avid reader and like nearly everyone these days I follow politics avidly. I'm a former teacher and Special Projects Coordinator for a Telecommunications company, Assistant to the President of a Japanese silicon wafer manufacturing company. Am now enjoying retirement -- most of the time. I have two daughters, one son-in-law and two sons scattered all over the country. No grandchildren.