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Sharp swings in attitudes have left America divided in terms of education. A comparable situation exists also in the UK as areas with more education access have separated from areas with less access to higher education. As the WSJ analysis points out at one time social cohesion prevailed in the postwar years till 1970 with educational attainment playing a small part leaving social cohesion intact. Even in the period 1970-1990 when there was a shift for college educated women to prefer Democratic Party and white men without a college degree to prefer Republicans this was not a significant gap. The Democratic Party appealed to less educated union voters in manufacturing industries as well as it did with college educated men and women. This gradually fractured during the Clinton and Obama administrations as the Democratic Party  moved closer to the higher educated and drawing more support from new tech industries than manufacturing. Nowhere is this more evident  than in the way college educated women have shifted to the Democratic Party and white men without a college degree have moved to the Republican Party. Swings of different types are normal in elections and politics. But swings purely based on education are rare in American politics and not healthy for the democratic system of government. As the analysis from WSJ/NBC News shows college educated women favor Democratic Party by 33 percent margin. And the swing is even deeper for white men without a college educated degree who favor Republican by a 42% margin. This is the situation before the 2018 U.S. Congressional elections. The combined group of college educated women and white men without a college degree make up 40% of the U.S. voting public. This makes each group unreachable for the other party, a situation unimaginable for many of America's leaders if they would be living today- from presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. White voters make up 70% of the electorate, and a situation where they would be unreachable for Democrats would be unthinkable or unimaginable for Truman, John Kennedy. And Eisenhower would also find it unimaginable that he would have to writeoff college educated women in his campaign.  By returning the Labour Party to its roots Britain is combatting this tendency for fracturing of social cohesion. In the way the UK's Blair administration moved away from Labour party's roots in manufacturing and the trade unions, the Democratic administrations under Clinton and Obama  moved away from manufacturing industries and the trade unions.   Most of the postwar leaders of the stature of Eisenhower and Kennedy would have seen such a situation as a significant failure in political leadership. ...

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A biography of Steve Jobs that Jobs asked Walter Isaacson to write about his life. Isaacson is the author of biographies of Ben Franklin and Albert Einstein. After being diagnosed with cancer in late 2003, Jobs called Isaacson and asked him whether he would write Jobs's biography. He told Isaacson he wanted his kids to know him as Jobs wasn't always there for them. Jobs told Isaacson to write freely and sought no control over the content. The book delves into the effect on Jobs of his adoption, his search for meaning in life, the women in his life, his extreme behaviour and a sense even among his friends that he could be mean. He fathers a daughter at age 23, and does not have much to do with her till she is 10, and he coud treat his adoptive parent sometimes with callousness. His adoption affects Jobs early on as he describes it- at age 6 a girl living across the street asks Jobs if his adoption really expressed that his "real parents did not want you." His adoptive parents who did not have a college education, were very supportive and caring of Jobs. The effect of his adoption led Jobs on a search for meaning in life, on a seven month visit to India, into Zen Buddhist readings, extreme diets and primal scream therapy. Jobs was not interested in mechanical things and "did not want to get his hands dirty," says his adoptive father. It was the excitement of the surroundings in the early eighties in the area around Palo Alto and San Francisco that affected Jobs. The book describes his relationships with Joan Baez, a folk singer, computer consultant, Tina Redse and former Goldman Sachs trader, Laurene Powell. Right down to his last days Jobs met with Isaacson, reflecting on the meaning of death and what survives after it. Maybe its just an an on-off switch he says....

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Christina Zander provides an exceptionally good report on what holds women back in work and managing positions in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Even in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, with a more enlightened outlook in gender relations, the number of women who are CEO's for 145 Nordic companies is only 3%. For the U.S. Fortune 500 this is about 5%. Good child care benefits and parental leave laws that promote a fair distribution of child raising responsibilities between men and women are part of the enlightened outlook in Nordic countries. Yet the number of women being promoted to senior positions is limited. Interestingly rules requiring quota for women on Boards of Directors have led to a different situation on Boards- in 2013 41% of the boards at Norway's public companies were women compared to 18% at private limited companies. About 5.8% of general managers at publicly listed companies were women in 2013, 15.1% in private companies. Sandvik's Ms. Einarsson was promoted to a senior position recently. She says the opposite is true, one needs to start not at the top but at the entry level to ensure women are fairly represented. Culture is part of the problem as even in companies with equal male and female employees, the managers are mostly men. Men are seen as more eager to take responsibilities and risks, and are more integrated into networks. Even childcare and paid parental leave can be deceptive. One researcher shows that Swedish women still take the major part of responsibility for children, with 75% of the 480 available days. Women managers and researchers point to the difficulties women face with a full time career or working over 60 hours a week in a management position, and combining this with picking up children from daycare. Sofia Falk is the founder of Wiminvest, which helps companies invest in geting talented women. Her suggestions are that companies offer other incentives instead of more money- an assistant, private child care, grocery shopping, shared management positions, technical solutions to be able to work at home. The CEO of Sandvik, Olof Faxander, is persistent in changing company attitudes- he has raised the proportion of women in management positions to 21% from 9% in 3 years, eventually hoping to reach 33%....

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Section 230 is a law passed in 1996 that makes the Social Media Companies and Media companies such as Meta and Google and others to have no liability for content posted on their sites. This has allowed these companies to grow and develop monopolies on the internet. Here CSPAN covers the hearings in the US Senate today December 9  with the following US Senators speaking at a Senate hearing on Online Safety for Children. Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island describes the biggest problem as being the Section 230 which needs to be removed. The following mothers who are Senators and mothers or grand mothers of children were very vocal on this point- Katie Britt-Alabama, Martha Blackburn-Tennessee, Ashley Woody-Florida (former Attorney General of Florida).  Senators who are fathers or grandfathers of children speaking are-Josh Hawley-Missouri,      Whitehouse-Rhode Island, Bluementhal-Connecticut, Corbyn-Texas, Chuck Grassley-Iowa. Senator Whitehouse says-  "I understand Senator Graham was with respect to getting rid Of Section 230 Um, I strongly believe that Section 230 has long outlived its use, and it is now a real vessel for evil. That needs to come to an end. Um, the laws that Section 230 protects these big platforms from are very often laws that go back to the common law of England. that we inherited when this country was initially founded. I mean, these are long lasting, well tested. Important Legal constraints that have They've met the test of time, not by the year, by the decade, but by the century. And yet because of this crazy Section 230, these Ancient and highly respected doctrines just don't reach these people. And it really makes no sense that if you're a Internet platform you get treated one way. You do the exact same thing. And you're a publisher, you get treated a completely different way. And so I think that the time has come. I think it's pretty widely known that there were a core 4 of us. Ready to proceed with a bipartisan bill 2 and 2. And a A lot of work, important work, good work, valuable work has gone into making sure that other members of the committee and other members of the Senate have a chance to look at that and decide whether they want to join or not. And I'm at the stage right now where I think we just need to go." The Online Safety Act passed overwhelmingly in the US Senate recently still languishes in the House of Representatives. Ostensibly because of free speech but really because of monopolies and campaign contributions, and beyond this because of the idea that rapid internet growth gives the US economic and business leadership in the world. That is not how it has turned out instead by weakening the education of the children of the Nation this has created the idea in China and other nations that the US's period of world leadership has passed. In the overall scheme of things social media has weakened education in America as children of the Nation spend countless hours away from classroom education on their smartphones. Australia and other countries including China regulate the use of the smartphones and internet social media for children under the age of 14. This regulation strengthens education in these countries at the same time that the absence of limits weakens education competitiveness in America, and creates the idea that America's days of leadership in education have passed.The loss of this leadership means the loss of American leadership in the world in a decisive way. ...

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Japan's situation, a strong yen and a stagnant economy, continues in 2010.

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Japan's new LDP prime minister, Shinzo Abe, supports targeting the yen at around 90 yen to the dollar to support Japanese exporters. He sees this happening through monetary easing by Japan's central bank. At a rate of 85 yen to the dollar or above Japanese exporters would be in a position to become profitable and pay taxes. Abe says central banks around the world, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, are printing money to support their economies and increase exports. Switzerland and S. Korea pursued policies to keep their currencies from becoming too strong to support their exporters. China has managed its exchange rate to maintain export competitiveness. Exchange rate intervention has not been effective for Japan, and the focus now is on monetary policy and setting a 2% inflation rate target.

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WSJ was effective in calling to the attention of the US president that tactics of one Border Patrol officer were against the American tradition and appeared to be not what police, ICE and Border Patrol, DHS itself was doing in the past. Greg Bovino of Border Patrol led sweeps in LA, Chicago and other cities in what people inside ICE and DHS including Border Head Homan  considered  "unnecessarily aggressive"  and less effective tactics. By being provocative in tactics this attracted more protestors on streets, made law enforcement look worse than when it was using the normal approach of ICE, and by reducing the local authorites cooperation required more and more Border patrol and ICE agents till it became unworkable and attracted critics from within the government and Republicans in Congress. Even DJT said that the this agent was an "out there kind of guy." In Congress many Republicans including Kennedy of Louisiana went on the floor of the Senate asserting the right of peaceful protest enshrined in the US Constitution and called for soul searching to get effective but the right kind of law enforcement that was the tradition in America. Anotehr aspect of what happened in Minneapolis is the troubled history of the city as this is where George Floyd and unarmed man during Covid lost his life in a situation with Minneapolis police, which had already created a sense of unease in that city, compared to Chicago, and Los Angeles BP and ICE sweeps which did not end up like this. In Nashville, and Washington DC National Guard not ICE operated which has different training.  ...

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View from Le Monde in France on the visions of Macron, Merz,, and Rubio for rebuilding the transatlantic alliance.  France under Macron sees less hope for the rebuild of the transatlantic friendship. The Germans under Merz and Soder of Bavaria see it differently. As shown in Nina Haase's interveiw with Johann Wadephul Germany's Foreign Minister, he sees Marco Rubio's speech very positively and like Merz wants to rebuild the relationship. It is not fully understood in Europe that Vance was also. partly reflecting his own views and his own tendency to sound and act like DJT. RUbio was once a candidate for the presidency in 2014 whom DJT had to defeat in the primaries. Rubio's recent book on how the elites have failed US and Europe shows a man of his own convictions. He and DJT agree because he brings out the best that is in the Republican party today to look back at its heroes from the past, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln with a profound belief in western civilization and America's role in it. When seen in this context it changes everything- all that talk of Vance means little because Vance is a much less experienced politician from the midwestern state of Ohio compared to Rubio with his long years in the Florida legislature and in the Senate in Foreign Affairs. Rubio speaks for the United States so much more so than an inexperienced and very young politician from Ohio who has emerged only in the last 5 years, compared to Rubio's 20 years in public service. ...

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The $1.8 trillion Biden Families Plan for workers, students and families takes on the unfinished work for the New Deal, says Binyamin Applebaum in the NYT. Women were not out in the workforce in the way they are today under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930's and US president Biden is making them and childcare a big part of his Families Plan. Women have been hit harder than men during the pandemic shouldering a greater burden of the home and childcare. Healthcare and education are essential for quality of living- never has there been a greater realization of this than today after years of underinvestment in infrastructure and the foundations of democratic society.

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Arwa Mahdawi writes in The Guardian about issues facing the Democratic party in the US, and Labour in the UK, of turning their backs on the working class. And to the roots of their parties in the working class and rising middle class under FDR, Truman and Clement Attlee in the 1930's 40's and 50's. Woman's issues are about men's issues and issues of the people as a whole, of fairness in the economy, about correcting grossly poor misallocation of capital away from education, health, infrastructure and children, when seen in this larger and very real context.

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Prostate cancer is becoming the most common cancer. Here are some useful tips for tackling this health problem men face today. 

Diet should include fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables. Reduce dairy to three portions (cheese, milk), limit calcium intake to daily requirement, and cut down on animal based protein and fat. 

Fat building up in the thighs and other parts of the body including waistline increases risk. This makes it essential to limit BMI to 30 and waist inches around 37 or close to this. Regular exercize lifts the mood and helps cut fatty tissue reducing the risk of prostate as well as other cancers.

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A Smithsonian Museum exhibit on the slave trade and 36,000 voyages, 12 million people on the ships to Brazil and the US. It tries to tell the story in a way that will be constructive to bring people together, and also tells stories of free black men and whites who did not enslave or opposed it.

It tells a transnational story instead of a regional one- how it affected the whole world. The exhibits will travel to the Iziko Museums in Cape Town, South Africa and to the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar, Senegal.

Of the 12 million it is less well known that 500,000 made it to the US, 5 million made it to Brazil.

Individual stories of a woman Diarra in Mali walking hundreds of miles to a free colony in Senagal where slavery was abolished. Of a man Tahro in the Kongo kingdom brought in 1858 to the US in the Carolinas even though slave trade was banned by the US Congress in 1808.

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Gen. Matttis, the U.S. Defense Secretary has completed a strategy review on U.S. presence in Afghanistan. The U.S. policy is now set to put in more troops to support the additional 3900 American troops to advise the Afghan Army authorized in June 2017, as it fights both the Taliban and the Islamic State affiliate in Khorasan, Afghanistan. Two differences from the policy of the Obama administration are the increased focus on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, the Haqqani network, and other related matters which are coming under increased review so that sanctuaries are shut down. Lt. Gen. McMaster, the national security advisor, headed the governance, anti corruption review in Afghanistan during the Obama administration. This is now the focus of the Trump administration- to ask the Afghan government for improvement in these areas in return for aid. Other changes are to secure the support levels of NATO countries in the effort, so that the U.S. is not shouldering the burden alone. Gordon, Schmitt and Haberman cite the report of Gen. Nicholson, head of the American forces in Afghanistan to the U.S. Congress. This report shows deterioration in the fight against the Taliban and Islamic State. As of Nov. 2016 the areas under Afghan government control dropped 15% to 57% since 2015. About 8,400 American troops are part of the 13,000 troop international force in Aghanistan, supporting the Afghan military. An addition 2,000 troops are in counterterrorism missions.   ...

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U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, wins by 84% to his challenger's 16% of the vote in the Republican primary for his House seat of Janesville, Wisconsin. The challenger Nehlen, an executive at a water filtration company, adopted many of Trump's positions including building a wall and had the support of the group Tea Party Patriots. Trump lost to Ted Cruz in Wisconsin and lost in the 1st congressional district covering Janesville by 19 percentage points. Janesville, is a former industrial working class town that has lost many factory jobs over the years, and this election shows the trade issue is not the only issue on people's minds when they vote. That it is easy for a candidate to use it as wedge even when they do not mean what they say by outsourcing themselves, or have few real solutions- especially as public opinion in both parties is opposed to a shift of jobs overseas for the last decade. Ryan said about his win- "I'm a local guy, people know who I am, they know what I believe in and they know I mean what I say and I say what I mean and I don't do it in a mean way." Some Republican experts say Ryan's job of winning his seat very easily, protecting the congressional majority of Republicans, and dealing with Trump as the nominee, is the hardest job in politics. ...

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Takeda Pharmaceutical is negotiating the acquisition of Swiss drugmaker Nycomed for about $14 billion. Takeda has cash reserves of $10.8 billion and will be using this to fund the acquisition, as well as loans from banks. The strong yen has made acquisitions easier for Japanese companies. Takeda's Prevacid ulcer treatment and the Actos diabetes treatment have both expired. A generic launch of Actos is expected in August 2011. Takeda bought the U.S. unit of Millenium Pharmaceutical in 2008 for $8.9 billion for a significant presence in the oncology field. Takeda projects a drop in net profit by April 2013 by 35%, and sales by 11%, for the fiscal year 2013. Takeda's president says it will make investments in China of about 20-30 billon yen and target a ten fold increase in sales in China to 30 billion yen by 2015.

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Rohit Prasad and Amazon AI that built Alexa to later fall behind, are back at work on the catchup effort.

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NHK World- Japan's Zero Waste Life video series shows practice of responsible consumption and production for zero waste lifestyle. Since ancient times the Japanese have believed a life force exists in all creation. It is an essential component of climate change action today. This one shows Li Riu's sewing school teaching students how to remake adult clothes into kids wear. Items that could end up in that disposal heap in the Atacama desert in Chile are transformed into clothes for their own children. Her place is full of laughter for mothers and children alike says the author. Click on Original Article for the NHK video.

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The Indian Express looks at the migration to European Union countries from Asian countries. Entry points include Serbia in Eastern Europe with tourist history built for entry. Routes that are long and hazardous. The lack of rapid industrialization and development in Asian countries leads to a flow of migrants to the EU and the US. Better management of this flow requires stable and good governance in Asian states and willingness of the EU and the US to share technology and invest in South Asian and South east Asian nations. Reports of Vietnamese or Indian immigrants in cramped spaces hidden in trucks or lorries, shows how the welfarism or handing out of government benefits is not the answer to the need for rapid industrial development and investment in infrastructure needed in South Asia and South East Asia. With accelerated development made possible with business in the EU and the US investing in manufacturing  in this part of the world. This is also part of what is seen as diversification of American and EU investment so that manufacturing is not simply concentrated in one Asian country. ...

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A sanitary health expert Arne Panesar of the German Corporation for International Cooperation says for about six of ten persons in the world there are no sustainable sanitary systems for the waste. It is not enough he says to build toilets, equally important  is how the waste is treated and disposed. Prime minister Modi of India has stated that toilets are more important than temples in India and the goal is set for all Indians to have secure sustainable toilets in 2019.  Panesar says of Dacca, Bangladesh, that for its 16 million only 2% have securely managed sustainable sanitary provisions. Waste that is not treated and correctly disposed off ends up in streams and neighborhoods creating health hazards- diseases like cholera, typhus and polio thriving in such conditions. It is not clear says this report that sanitation needs can be met by even 2030. In India the focus is now not just toilet building but on on safe sanitary provisions to make health a priority, as well as women's education which suffers without adequate toilets. ...

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The Japanese yen surged in value following the 2008 financial crisis as it was seen as a safe haven. As a result the Korean won declined by 42% against the Japanese yen. This continued till 2012. Japanese companies had to compete overseas at 80 yen to the dollar and shifted operations overseas. Now with the policy of monetary expansion of the Japanese central bank the situation is reversed in December 2014. The Korean won is up 40% against the Japanese yen since 2012. The Japanese yen is now down to 118 to the dollar in Dec. 2014. Abenomics gets a new mandate with the snap election in Dec. 2014. Aaron Back says Samsung may have gained ground in televisions and smartphones but other areas in electronics such as chips, displays and image sensors remain competitive and responsive to price. In autos Hyundai market share has declined to 4.4% by Dec. 2014 from 5.1% in 2011, according to MotorIntelligence.com. So far Japanese companies have used the currency advantage to improve profits and come up with better products. By using profits to invest in new technology and productivity Japanese companies can provide more features at the same price points to gain market share without having to cut price. After years of declining margins in electronics, autos and other markets this appears to be the current strategy. Another reason for this is that Japanese companies have already shifted production overseas, the shift being higher for Honda than for Toyota. Technological improvements from investments in R&D in Japan can be transferred to manufacturing operations overseas just as Apple is doing with smartphones manufacturing in China. The currency shift also improves Japan's position relative to American and European competitors in international markets....

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Mikaela Shiffrin of Edwards, Colorado, and her original coach her mother Eileen, her candor, and her fighting spirit- at the Milan Olympics 2026. It shows the struggles of an American athlete before the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in 2026. Her dads death in an accident, her fiance's accident in Wengen, and her accident at Killington, left this ski racer in turmoil and wondering with her therapist about the nuances in PTSD- everything she would wrestle with in those dark days when she even wondered whether she wanted to continue. This is told by Shiffrin with complete candor- something that endears her to her fans and to all the people around her- her ability to tell it all and tell it straight, about everything that is going on inside her, a remarkable gift. "For me, when I’m able to dig in and really understand something, for whatever reason, that allows me to be less scared of it. Less afraid.  And, thankfully, after a while, my body … it has started to remember what to do again." She runs through the race at Killington again and again trying to tell herself that it was ok hundreds of times, nothing happened, she was OK, she would be OK.  After the 100th win in Alpine ski racing downhill in Cortina in Italy in slalom racing- which requires a sharp precision of body and mind in perfect unified composure to turn within the slalom poles in fractions of a second- Mikaela feels "she can breathe again." ...

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This is what Vice President Harris said from the South Lawn of the White House today about president Biden for an event of the NAACP- "In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who have served two terms in office. And I first came to know president Biden through his son Beau. We worked together as attorneys general in our states, and back then, Beau would often tell me stories about his dad. He would talk about the kind of father and the kind of man that Joe Biden is.

The qualities that Beau revered in his father are the same qualities that I have seen every day in our president, his honesty, his integrity, his commitment to his faith and his family, his big heart and his love, deep love of our country. And I am first-hand witness that every day our president, Joe Biden, fights for the American people, and we are deeply, deeply grateful for his service to our nation."

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The doubts among the unvaccinated and America's pandemic of the unvaccinated in the south and west of the country, difficulty reaching a consensus on things as basic as spending $45 billion or 2% of the $2 trillion Biden plan for workers and families on 2 years of community college, or finding a way to stem what is an alarming decline in enrollment in college of young men in America, all go back to a standoff between Republicans and Democrats. Tennessee in the South is Republican yet passed a bill supporting state paid community college with a supermajority, yet at the national level it is lacks support of Republicans and centrist Democrats. To see how this happens this NYT report presents the picture from the Democrats side of how Montana residents blocked a National Heritage area in the state. Other stories relate to distortions from the other side from the Republican point of view. One man, one vote is not entirely the way Democracy was designed by Jefferson, Madison and other founders. The Senate of the US is based on one state one vote, giving Montana an equal vote as California or New York. At one time Mike Mansfield, Democrat of Montana was the Senate majority leader. The intent was to design a system that looks not just for democracy but checks on majorities of the moment.  This means unity is the way to renewal of America, for building its infrastructure, education and health care. If Tennessee feels that way about community college it should express it, so should other states in supporting president Biden's plan to Build Back Better. ...