The Chinese in Nigeria: What should I ask them?

Dear all,

I will ask this question in a few forms as I prepare for this job in Nigeria. I will be spending 6 months in the Niger Delta, working on a project. On the side, I figure I have a unique opportunity to befriend and interview the Chinese businessmen, government officials, etc while I'm there (since I speak Chinese).

Everyone wants to know what China is up to on the continent of Africa.

What should I ask them? What does everyone really want to know?

Best,
Alena

How to be a consultant?

Dear readers,

I have to pick up the pace, I know.

However, I've been caught up in figuring out how to be a consultant.

I never realized how much work it is...it seems like everything that involves being 'independent' is for the super talented.

You need to be part lawyer, all businessman, an accountant, figure out insurance, health stuff, make sure no one can sue you, you have a good reputation, they have a good reputation, etc and so on.

You also need to make sure that. you. get. PAID!

I've been spending tons of time, trying to figure out contracts, tax language, legal documentation, figuring layers of relationships and more.

Have you been a consultant? Worked for yourself? Tell me how you pulled it off without losing track of something important!

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Best,
Alena

In Honor of the Nuclear Summit, Part III

Dear all,

Here is the third installment of President Ikeda's Peace Proposal, the part that focuses on nuclear abolition.

2010 Peace Proposal
Toward a New Era of Value Creation
Daisaku Ikeda
President, Soka Gakkai International

Toward a world without nuclear weapons

In a proposal I wrote last year (September 2009), I offered a five-part plan for laying the foundation for a world free from nuclear weapons, including the promotion of various disarmament efforts and making the transition to security arrangements that are not reliant on nuclear weapons. At the same time, I reaffirmed my longstanding conviction that if we are to put the era of nuclear terror behind us, we must struggle against the real “enemy.”

That enemy is not nuclear weapons per se, nor is it the states that possess or develop them.
The real enemy that we must confront is the ways of thinking that justify nuclear weapons; the readiness to annihilate others when they are seen as a threat or as a hindrance to the realization of our objectives. (this is my favorite quote)

My proposals should be considered as a series of steps to overcome and transform the thinking that justifies nuclear weapons and to strengthen the momentum toward their abolition.

The first of these is to work, based on the existing NPT system, to expand the frameworks defining a clear legal obligation not to use nuclear weapons, in this way laying the institutional foundations for reducing their role in national security.

The second is to include the threat or use of nuclear weapons among the war crimes falling under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), further clarifying the norm that nuclear weapons are indeed weapons that must never be used.

The third is to create a system, based on the United Nations Charter, for the General Assembly and the Security Council to work together for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

None of these proposals will be easy to implement, but all of them build on existing
institutional foundations. They are by no means unreachable goals. It is my earnest wish
that the NPT Review Conference to be held in May will initiate movement toward these
goals and that they can be implemented within five years. Such efforts should culminate in
a nuclear abolition summit in 2015—to be held in Hiroshima and Nagasaki seventy years
after the nuclear attacks that devastated these two cities—which would effectively signal
the end of the era of nuclear weapons.

There are many more pages to go--what do you think so far?

Best,
Alena

The 'New Poor'

Dear Readers,

I thought this NYT article was particularly prescient. It applies to my life and the lives of people I know.

It's important to me that people get a sense of what unemployed/marginally employed people are going through and how much need there is right now. Many people, including myself, have been employed at a rate that is lower than full time (and our bills!) for more than six months (I've been actively looking since Dec 2008, and have been out of grad school since June 2009), don't have health insurance (I do! Go here!), and are straining their respective social and financial credit to survive. I've been lucky enough to have a great family that could afford to support me for some of this period, great friends, a part-time job and the education/wherewithal to keep focused on the job hunt.

The article calls them the 'new poor': people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.

We don't have the infrastructure to take care of these people. What's worse, welfare and health insurance are such politically loaded topics. Far from being seen as things that any civilized nation should do for its people (my own view), these topics are being used against people--to the point where our veteran's don't get the care they need, our families don't get the care they need, people are being turned down for insurance based on their preexisting conditions...

So, to keep this post a little bit positive--tell me your job hunt stories! What is the wackiest thing you've done to get a job? What have you learned in this process? What questions would you like to answer?

My other posts about the job market:
Hurry Up and Wait
Searching For Disaster

Thanks for your time! Good luck in your searches!
Best,
Alena

History of Technology gurus--can you help me figure out this puzzle?

Well, this blog post is more of a series of questions than opinions.

I read: Avoiding a Homeland Security Error That Could Leave the U.S. Flying Blind. This article talks about the pre-GPS system that is called Loran that is still used for geographical information by several US and foreign defense institutions and should be maintained/updated to serve as a back up when/if terrorists or other events interfere with our global positioning systems. Does anyone know anything about this?

What other behind-the-scenes systems should be kept? What systems need backups but don't have them? What is just obsolete? I guess this goes out to all my history of technology gurus out there! Can you help me? :)

Best,
Alena